The academy was in chaos.
Alarms screamed in shrill harmony, echoing through every stone corridor and hidden chamber. Students huddled together, panic radiating in waves of unstable mana and trembling aura. Instructors barked orders, attempting to stabilize barriers and contain the disaster—but no containment array was designed for what had just happened.
Cael Ardyn lay on the cold stone floor, blood dripping from his mouth, nose, and palms. Every vein burned as if tiny hammers struck them in rhythm with his heartbeat. Yet the pain was tolerable. Survival instinct, honed over centuries, allowed him to endure—just enough to appear fragile, to let the world underestimate him.
"Ardyn!" The instructor in charge of Bronze initiates arrived, her robes scorched with mana residue. "Explain yourself! That was a prohibited technique!"
Cael slowly lifted his head. "Prohibited or not, the monster was going to kill them." His voice was weak, almost broken, but the sharpness beneath it betrayed every ounce of his consciousness.
"Monster…?" she asked, incredulous. "A Bloodscale Ravager? Here? Impossible!"
Cael coughed, tasting the metallic tang of his own blood. "Nothing is impossible when the world refuses to remember."
By nightfall, the academy elders convened an emergency council. Crystal panels projected the battlefield, replaying every second of the fight. The blood spear, though invisible to ordinary mana perception, had been captured faintly by residual arrays. Only one set of eyes saw what it truly was.
"Tell me you're lying," Elder Marron muttered, his hand gripping the armrest tightly. "A Bronze initiate… manipulating blood? We haven't recorded a living practitioner of such techniques for centuries!"
Elder Tirsis, calmer but no less concerned, leaned forward. "He killed a Silver-ranked student. Internal rupture. Yet no mana exertion was visible. Aura readings were nonexistent. This… this is not just skill. It is—"
"Forbidden," another elder finished.
"Yes," Tirsis said. "Forbidden. Lost. Suppressed. And yet… here it manifests."
Far below, in the endless blackness where the world's shadows pooled, the Demon King stirred.
Something had shifted. A ripple, subtle but undeniable, raced through the abyss like lightning through water.
A name echoed…
The ancient throne creaked under the Sovereign of the Abyss as he rose, towering over endless darkness. Crimson sparks danced across his shadowed form, eyes glowing like molten rubies.
"Blood awakens," he whispered, voice low and resonant. "After a thousand years… he has returned."
The name—Blood Immortal—tasted like prophecy on his tongue.
He had been called many titles, many names, over countless millennia. But only one carried true weight, one that made the abyss itself tremble.
Crimson Sovereign. Lord of Endless Blood. The Immortal who devoured the ages.
The Demon King's grin widened.
"Finally… the game resumes."
Back in the academy, Cael's survival sparked immediate rumors among students and faculty. Bronze initiates whispered in fear. Silver students avoided him, unsure whether they should respect him or fear him. Even Lyra Noctis, who had observed him quietly for days, stepped closer now, her expression unreadable.
"You're different," she said quietly, lowering her voice. "What you do… it isn't mana. It isn't aura. It's… something else."
Cael wiped the blood from his lips. "Old."
Lyra's eyes narrowed. "Old… how?"
He smiled faintly, a shadow crossing his pale face. "A thousand years, and counting. A world that forgot me, and yet I remember it all."
The words seemed to freeze her blood. Not literally—Lyra had her own mastery over shadow—but the weight of them carried authority the world had not known for centuries.
The academy elders debated for hours, eventually deciding to contain Cael under observation rather than expel or punish him. The incident with the Ravager could not be ignored, but the boy's unique talents made him a dangerous anomaly—both threat and potential weapon.
Cael returned to his dormitory that night, weak but smiling. Every pain, every suppression, every backlash he endured had been worth it. He had survived. He had proven his existence.
And far away, the Demon King's words reached him, not in sound, but in something deeper—an instinctual tremor in the ether.
He is awake.
A name had awakened.
And with a name comes recognition.
With recognition comes conflict.
With conflict comes blood.
Cael's fingers trembled slightly, not from weakness, but from anticipation.
A thousand years… and yet… blood still obeys.
He closed his eyes, centering himself. Each pulse, each heartbeat, was a reminder: he had survived death once. He could survive a thousand years of change. And now, in a world of mana, aura, monsters, and noble families, he would do more than survive.
He would dominate.
Because history remembered his first life.
And the future would remember his second.