The air in the square was filled with fear and the sweet smell of blood. Leng Wei stood pressed against the stranger's back, and did not take his eyes off the center of the square. There, on a rise of black stone, a Blood Sphere hovered. Its surface shimmered like dried blood, and an ominous, magnetic energy emanated from it, from which the blood froze in the veins.
Vampire guards in elegant but formidable armor watched the crowd with cold indifference. Their eyes—scarlet, gold, and emerald—glided over people as if they were cattle at the slaughter.
"Hey, Leng Wei!"
A nudge in his side made him flinch. It was Wang Jie. His face was pale, but he was trying to smile.
"So, bro, how do you like the show? I told you that our seventeenth birthday would be remembered!" he giggled nervously.
Leng Wei just shook his head silently. His gaze involuntarily fell on the other side of the square, where Lin Mei was standing surrounded by family guards. Her rich clothes and calm expression indicated that her family had already found a way to come to terms with the new masters of the world.
Their eyes met for a moment. Leng Wei did not read fear in her eyes, but something complicated-anxiety? A warning? He was the first to look away, burning with shame.
The rite has begun.
One by one, the seventeen-year-old boys approached the Sphere and touched it... and their fate was decided in the blink of an eye.
A flash of bright green light. "Class C. Next!"
A faint orange glow. "Class D. To the left."
And finally, a short scream and ashes scattered by the wind. "Class F. It's been disposed of."
...Leng Wei swallowed the lump in his throat as he watched Wang Jie, who was already heading towards the Sphere.
"No, not him..." flashed through Leng Wei's mind. "It would be better if it was me, let them condemn me and grind me to powder, as long as everything was okay with him. He has younger sisters, his parents are alive... They need him. And I..."
He looked at his hand, which was clenched into a fist. "And I'm just a burden to my mother. If I disappear, maybe her curse will weaken? Could it be that I'm the cause of her illness? This... the blood..."
He could feel it, a strange, dormant warmth that had begun to manifest itself since the sky turned purple. It pulsed in time with his fear, responding to the cries of despair around him. It was a part of him, but it felt alien and dangerous.
"What's happening to me?" he thought, turning his gaze back to the Sphere and the cold faces of the vampires. "They are... I can feel their presence. It's like a thousand needles are piercing my skin. Their views... They hate us. They despise me. And the one in the center..." His gaze landed on the oldest of the judges, a vampire in dark robes, whose eyes were the color of liquid gold. «...He looks at us like we're insects. And I... I feel something for him too. Not just fear. Something... dark. Evil. As if I should..."
He couldn't finish that thought, it was too terrible.
A girl stood in front of the Sphere. She touched it, and a blinding flash of white light lit up the hall, so bright that many blinked.
"Class A! Heavenly!" the judge's voice rang out, and for the first time there were notes of surprise and respect in it.
The crowd gasped. Leng Wei noticed the vampire judge nodding respectfully at the girl. Her fate was sealed—luxury, power, position.
And then the guy who had been standing next to Leng Wei crying in fear just five minutes ago came up.
He touched the Sphere.
Silence.
Suddenly, there was a short, sharp squeal, and a puff of ash was blown away by the wind.
"Class F. It's been disposed of."
Leng Wei almost threw up, his knees buckled. "So that's what it looks like... End. There will be nothing left. There won't even be a body. Mom... Mom, I'm sorry..." he whispered, but his friend couldn't hear him anymore. Wang Jie stepped forward to meet his fate.
"No way! No, no, no..." Leng Wei dug his nails into his palms until blood came out. "If something happens to him... If he... I..."
Something trembled in his chest. That dormant volcano was bubbling, demanding an exit. The warm current was replaced by a chilling heat that coursed through his veins, filling him with a power he had never known existed. His eyes naturally found the gaze of the vampire judge with golden eyes.
"Touch him..." flashed through his mind with frightening clarity. "Touch him, and I'll... I'll..."
He didn't know what he was going to do. But at that moment, he didn't feel fear, but a rising rage. The fury of a cornered beast with the blood of kings in its veins.
Wang Jie extended a trembling hand, and the entire square seemed to freeze in anticipation.
"Take your hand away!" the thought screamed in Leng Wei's head. "Run away! Scream! Do something!" But his own body seemed to be frozen in ice. He could only watch as his best friend's palm slowly, as if in a nightmare, approached the iridescent surface of the Sphere.
Time has slowed down. Leng Wei saw every detail: the beads of sweat on Wang Jie's temple, the nervous tic in the corner of his eye, and the frantic pulse in his neck.
"I can't let that happen. I can't just stand by and watch..."
The warm current in his veins flared up with renewed vigor, turning into a searing wave. It rose from the very depths of his being, burning away fear and leaving only a primal, raw rage. He suddenly wanted to scream. Not from fear, but from a sense of power. To shout so that these cold, perfect creatures tremble. To let them know...
"Found out what?" A terrified thought flashed through my mind. "What am I? Who am I?"
His father's face from the photograph popped up in his mind. Sharp fangs. "It's not a defect..." he realized with horror.
The gaze of the vampire judge with golden eyes swept over him, and a slight surprise flashed on his impassive face for a moment, as if he sensed something strange, alien. His brows drew together slightly.
This look, full of curiosity and superiority, overwhelmed Leng Wei. Rage surged through him.
"NO!" his whole being screamed.
He made a sudden movement forward to rush to his friend, to push him away, to change something. But it was too late.
Wang Jie's fingertips touched the surface of the Blood Sphere.
Everything happened instantly. The sphere flashed with a dull, dirty orange light, like a dying coal.
The judge's voice sounded loud and indifferent, cutting through the tense silence.:
"Class D. Dust. Next one!"
Leng Wei exhaled. The air hissed out of his lungs. Tears welled up in his eyes, not from joy, but from a wild, overwhelming relief. "Alive... He's alive..."
Wang Jie, pale as a sheet, with trembling hands, staggered away from the Sphere. He was taken aside to other "lucky people" who had received the right to live in humiliation.
Their eyes met for a moment. Wang Jie tried to smile, but it was only a pitiful grimace. Leng Wei nodded, unable to say a word. His body suddenly went limp, the rage receded, leaving behind only emptiness and trembling knees. He almost fell to the ground.
However, the respite was short-lived.
"Next! Leng Wei!" the guard shouted, consulting the scroll.
His name sounded like a sentence.
A cold wave swept down his spine. The inner voice that had screamed with rage a moment ago now shrank and whispered something incoherent. He looked at the Sphere. Just a few steps. Just one touch.
"Mom..." was his last clear thought.
He took a step forward. My legs felt wobbly. Step. One more step. He could feel hundreds of eyes on him—vampires, humans, Lin Mei...
He froze in front of the Sphere, and his reflection distorted in its bloody surface. Slowly, as if on a scaffold, he raised his hand.
"No matter what happens... I'll come back to you..." he whispered.
His fingertips touched the icy surface. And the world exploded.
Not by light. Not a deafening roar. And the absolute, silent darkness that swallowed him whole. The last thing he had time to feel before consciousness left him was an all—consuming, ancient VOICE that broke through the thickness of years and blood directly into his soul.:
"WAKE UP... THE KING..."