The grave somber mood was broken by an unmerciful reprimand from Faral.
"Just shut up and keep pretending to be dead."
Blood escaped through her mouth but Zhu was not panicked; their banter was the only thing keeping her sane and awake. "Wow is this how you treat someone on their death bed"
"Negative thoughts take too much energy." If Faral could he would flick her on her forehead. "We have to get through this."
If Zhu could salute she would. "Yes sir"
In the camp Grant was finally getting some attention so Zhu could get a brief reprieve. Her pride increased as she watched her tormentor howl in pain as healers tried to repair the damage she caused.
Serves him right! if she could spite she would. All her life, people had hurt her. Used her. Broke her down piece by piece. This time, this once she had taken something back. She had gotten revenge on at least one of them before she left this unfair world.
As Zhu lay on the cold ground, she truly believed this was the end. Warm blood flowed down her chin and soaked into her throat. Her blood. His blood. She swallowed the blood while she tried to breath then choked coughing up a lung full of blood.
The blood. The pain. The imminent threat of death, all of this for some reason, comforted her.
All her life, people had hurt her. Used her. Broke her down piece by piece.
This time, this once, she had taken something back. She had gotten revenge on at least one of them before she died.
Her vision blurred, the edges of the world smearing into darkness, and with it came memories she hadn't invited.
Memories of her foster family were most prominent. The Wangs.
She remembered kneeling on a stone floor, scrubbing until her fingers cracked and bled, the smell of iron mixing with soap. You missed a spot, Mrs. Wang had said calmly, tapping the floor with her shoe while Zhu's stomach growled so loudly it echoed. Dinner had already been served. There was never any left for her.
She remembered being fourteen and sick with fever, shaking beneath a thin blanket in the storage room they called her bed. Mr. Wang had stood in the doorway, arms crossed, annoyance sharp in his eyes. If you can breathe, you can work, he'd said before turning off the light.
She remembered the laughter, sharp, and careless, when she asked for medicine. When she asked why her head spun whenever she stood. When she asked why she always felt so cold.
You're just weak, they'd told her.
Stop pretending.
Be grateful we took you in.
Grateful. She thought cynically.
Her lips twitched weakly as blood slid past them.
She had learned early not to cry. Crying made things worse. Crying made them creative. So she learned to stay quiet, to fold herself smaller, to survive on scraps and silence. She learned how to disappear in plain sight.
They never noticed how thin she got.
Never noticed the bruises that came from "accidents." Never noticed when she stopped asking altogether.
And now—
Now she lay bleeding out on a cold ground wet with her blood, eyes burning, body failing, Faral doing his best so she didn't die but she realized something strange.
She didn't regret biting him.
She didn't regret the fear in his eyes.
If anything, she wished she had done more. Her fingers twitched weakly against the ground.
"If this is it…" she thought dimly, breath hitching, "then at least…at least I di-did something to retaliate. Faral Try to save my Babies" Darkness pressed in closer, heavy and thick.
But somewhere beneath it deep, unfamiliar, and stirring, something answered back. No one noticed her eyes glowing red in the darkness of the camp under the massive oppressive trees where the sunlight was fighting to gain entrance.
All eyes were on Grant, who was struggling to push himself up from the ground, his movements clumsy and panicked.
"Grant got bitten by some nasty animal," Guild Master Brian sneered. "Ha. ha. ha. What if you catch a disease?"
Laughter rippled faintly through the group. Brian, in particular, looked highly entertained. Inside Zhu's mind, text flared into existence: Special conditions met.
Blood system connecting…
The host is in critical condition. Initiating emergency protocol.
"Oh," the voice murmured with sudden clarity, feeling its power drain sharply. "I see."
The last traces of the healing paste finally burned out of Zhu's system and in that instant, the connection locked.
Forced awakening of Twin Blood System confirmed. Duration calculating…
Maximum output in 2 minutes.
Darkness swallowed Zhu whole.
Not the suffocating dark of unconsciousness, but something vast and weightless, like sinking into deep water without the pressure. Her pain vanished first. Then sound. Then even the sense of having a body at all.
When awareness returned, she was standing.
Beneath her feet stretched an endless plane of black glass, smooth and reflective, rippling faintly as though it were alive. Above her, there was no sky, only an infinite void threaded with slow-moving currents of light, like blood vessels carrying stars.
"…Where am I?" Zhu asked, her voice echoing softly.
"Your mindscape."
The voice did not come from any direction. It came from everywhere. Then the lights appeared.
One drifted forward first, cool and steady, a pale blue-white glow that pulsed like a calm heartbeat. Zhu knew without being told.
"Faral," she breathed.
The light brightened slightly, as if acknowledging her. Beside it, something far more intense ignited into existence. Red.
Not a gentle red, but a deep, saturated crimson like fresh blood under torchlight. It throbbed violently, sharp and alive, its edges unstable, crackling with arcs of darker energy. Where Faral's presence felt grounding, this one felt hungry. Aware.
The Host consciousness detected. Synchronization complete.
Zhu flinched. "That one's… not you."
Correct. Faral's light shifted subtly. That is your system.
The red light pulsed again, and words burned directly into her awareness not spoken, but imprinted.
Designation: Twin Blood System. Status: Active (Forced Awakening).
"What does that mean?" Zhu demanded. "Why now? Why not before?" The red light rotated slowly, as if examining her.
Your existence contains an anomaly.
Images flooded her mind too fast to stop.
A womb.
Two heartbeats.
One body absorbing another.
You were not born singular.
An asymmetrical conjoined twin failed to fully separate. Residual biological and spiritual structures remained dormant.
Zhu staggered, the glass beneath her feet rippling.
"…I absorbed my twin?" Her voice was barely a whisper.
Yes. Faral confirmed gently. Their bloodline did not vanish. It fused with yours.
The system continued, relentlessly.
The Twin Blood System requires sufficient blood density to awaken. The host remained chronically blood-deficient.
Activation conditions unmet.
Zhu laughed weakly. "So because I was starving for half my life… I couldn't awaken?"
Correct.
Mana circulation remained unstable. Blood acted as a limiting reagent.
Her fists clenched. All those years. The weakness. The sickness. Being labeled a null. "And now?" she asked. "Why now?"
The red light flared brighter.
Recent conditions met:
—Massive blood ingestion
—High emotional stress
—Imminent host death
A pause.
Forced activation executed to preserve host life.
Faral's glow dimmed slightly. Your body finally reached the threshold it needed.
Zhu swallowed her thoughts all over the place. "Wait so I wasn't imagining things my teeth did lengthen an-and a mana system?"
For the first time, the red light seemed almost… pleased.
Mutation confirmed.
Blood and mana systems have merged. Result: Rare hybrid circulation type.
Blood no longer merely sustains life. It generates mana.
Mana now responds to blood. The implications hit her all at once. "…Faral That's not normal, is it?"
No. Faral said simply. It is exceedingly rare. And extremely dangerous if mismanaged.
The red light pulsed, settling into a slower rhythm.
But it makes you viable. It makes you powerful.
Zhu looked down at her hands now faintly outlined in red light. "So I wasn't broken," she said softly. "I was… incomplete."
You were unfinished. Faral corrected. Now you are not.
The void trembled.
Far away, something tugged at her awareness, voices, fear, movement. The real world is calling her back.
The time limit approaching, the system warned. The host will regain bodily control shortly.
Zhu lifted her head, eyes hardening. "Alright," she said. "Then let's go back." The red light burned brighter.
Faral's glow steadied beside it.
And the mindscape shattered like glass,
as Zhu returned to a world that no longer had the luxury of underestimating her.
System launching in… 5…
4…
3…
2…
1…
The blood spilling from Zhu's body stopped. Then it moved.
It pooled unnaturally around her prone form, thick and dark, rising instead of spreading lifting from the ground as though pulled by an unseen force.
One of the women attending Guild Master Brian noticed first. She screamed and pointed.
In the next heartbeat, every instinct in the clearing screamed danger. Whatever had been prey only moments ago—
was no longer helpless.