The River of Blood flowed like molten velvet—thick, slow, yet unnaturally buoyant. Every ripple shimmered with hues of deep crimson and ancestral gold, threading beneath the surface like veins through ancient flesh. Despite the name passed in whispers, there was no curse here, nor was there any rot.
Only power. Buried. Hidden. Denied.
And into this forgotten artery of the continent drifted Ash. His body floated face-up, unconscious, clothes tattered and stained with soot and burnt earth.
A dark, cauterized wound pulsed at his chest—its edges glowing faintly from the soul-burn sustained by the war engine brute's final detonation. Considering this alone, the following explosion should have killed him. Thankfully he had consolidated his animus into high grade vestigium force, incredibly resilient to the lower spiritual expression of qi called animus.
But the river had other plans for him. As it carried him gently along its blood-warm current, motes of sacred blood essence seeped into his skin.
His limbs twitched faintly. Muscles that had been ripped and torn began to knit themselves back together, in overdrive. Internal organs, damaged by the animus backlash, began to pulse with fresh strength. Golden filaments of blood-light ran across his flesh like threads being re-stitched by ancient hands. The deep wound across his chest shimmered with a faint violet corona, no longer leaking—but mending.
And still, Ash did not wake. One week came and went and still Ash did not wake.
Inside the Coma Realm — The Mind of Ash.
Endless twilight.
I stood in a void, suspended between starlight and shadow.
Around me swirled ropes of vestigium force, frayed and flickering.
Some were violet, still healthy and guided by free floating intent. Others had gone dull and bled it's essence like a ruptured cell.
One large braid hung loosely in front of me—the scarred core-thread, burned from the soul fire detonation.
I reached out—but my hand passed through it. "You pushed too far," a voice whispered—not external, but my own, fractured and distant. "Qi cannot be wielded endlessly without cost. You knew this." But even as the dream-voice scolded, the ropes thickened.
The blood from the river wasn't just healing my body—it was beginning to bind my vestigium qi more tightly, fortifying the very spiritual lattice that allowed me to wield power beyond mortal means.
And deeper still—beneath the vestiigum qi...There was a pulse.
Something ancient.
Buried in the depths of the river—and now brushing against his drifting soul.
A call.
A question.
Back in the river of blood his fingers began to twitch. His breath stirred.
Then his eyes fluttered—only faintly—but did not yet open. But the light at the core of his chest brightened, just a little.
He was healing.
And something in the river…was watching. Suspended in the vast dreamscape of my broken consciousness, I floated within spirals of fractured qi, drifting in and out of lucidity. I could feel the pain—it echoed like a dull storm behind my closed third eye—but more than that…I could feel approaching presences.
Blood-rich. Primal. Predatory.
Hungry.
They swam just beyond the veil of the coma realm. Auras of titanic creatures rippling through the Cursed Blood River!
My Intent sensed them. Beasts not of land, nor sky, but born within the blood-slick trenches of this cursed river. Their power resonated on the Lord Tier, maybe beyond.
Heavy, slow-moving shadows—one shaped like a barbed centipede coiled in venomous spines, another an eyeless wyrm with double pairs of extendable jaws. Each of them circled my body as it floated helplessly downstream.
"My...body...unguarded..."
One of the monsters—the barbed centipede—grew bold. Its spiritual pressure surged like a collapsing cavern as it slid toward my drifting form, limbs spread wide to snatch the prey in a single coil—
And then it stopped.
Everything stopped.
From the deepest trench of the river, something small moved.
Fast.
Too fast to be seen.
I didn't perceive it by sight—my coma realm had no eyes—but I felt the displacement. A spike of precise, surgical will darting up from below like a threaded needle through silk. A sudden wave of primordial dread washed over the entire river basin. The centipede recoiled with a hiss that didn't reach the surface. The wyrm uncoiled and dove away. Dozens of lesser predators melted into the sediment, as if hiding from a sovereign whose name they dared not whisper.
And there—hovering just beneath my drifting form—was a presence.
Tiny.
Still.
Unreadable.
Like a drop of ink on ancient parchment. It gave off no aura, or qi signature. But I could feel its intent, then words rang out that reached me all the way in the coma realm!
"He is claimed."
And that was all.
"Claimed?" I said from my coma realm. The predators scattered completely. The water settled, no longer churned by predatory current. The river resumed its sacred silence, the slow holy tide once again cradling my body as it floated onward. I strained to comprehend at what had just happened, but my soul was too wounded.
Still... even in my coma, something burned faintly at the edges of my mind: Not all monsters are enemies, and not all guardian angels wore wings.
And from deep within the coma realm, the vestigium rope threaded just a bit tighter around my core. Time passed like vapor in my coma realm. I could not open my eyes, but I could feel my body knitting itself back together. The cursed river, rich with sacred blood essence, flowed around and through me, soaking into every shattered inch of my being.
My bones re-forged, stronger than before.
Tendons ensheathed.
My organs—scorched by the explosion—were fortified, denser now, tougher.
My heartbeat grew stronger with every passing day.
But even more distinct than my healing...
Was ''it''.
That tiny lifeform.
That scared away much, much bigger ones.
Always near.
A silent watcher.
A still shadow beneath and around me.
Guarding...and also feeding.
Not in violence, not in greed—but in inevitability.
I could feel it drawing the wrecked vestigium qi ropes from me. Not enough to harm, but enough to notice.
Each time the blood-rich currents surged through my veins, a fraction of that sacred energy was siphoned into the thing that hovered beneath me. It wasn't hunger—it was something older. A pact, unspoken. A deal sealed without consent...for now.
I tried to project my intent—just a flicker—to understand it.
To test it.
But the soul wound still ached across my core, and the threads of my vestiigum were coiled too tight with strain. All I could manage was a faint pulse of my spiritual awareness.
The creature responded.
For the first time, it moved closer—brushing the edge of my aura.
And then, I felt it:
The creature was young in it's life span, yet ancient in human years.
It was not born in this world, but shaped by it.
And most chilling of all…
It had no name.
I tried to speak to the creature—
To reach out—
But I was still too deep, drifting in the liminal sea between life and death, body and soul.
Just then as if sensing my struggle and desire to communicate, a single thought pulsed from the unknown entity…
Carried on the blood stream itself, like a whisper between heartbeats:
"I feed. I guard. I remember. I evolve."
Another week Passed.
As I worked on soul repair from the coma realm day by day, the threads of free floating vestigium qi began to reweave. Slowly. Firmly.
And as they did, I could feel the strange lifeform integrating with my presence—not fusing, not bonding, but nesting.
Like a parasite, waiting for something.
Or preparing.