Chapter 1 - Red Sky, Black Cloud

"Leader! Kiran and Osias escaped the net. They left the range of my Blood Hunt… they made it safely and unnoticed."

"Good, good. I'll finish the inheritance ritual now." A solemn old voice sounded.

It was difficult. Difficult, but necessary, he thought. At the very least, the Band won't be completely wiped out.

Garm was the leader of the Red Sky, a band of blood-born. He found himself addressing the band in its entirety, barring the strongest of his Blood Warriors — they manned the walls outside of their Great Mountain.

Such an unfamiliar feeling it was… he felt weak. Once proud and unyielding, he was now wearied by the duties of leadership and the relentless onslaught of their foes upon his rise. But he could not allow himself to appear as so — those born of blood did not feel weakness so easily.

Every eye in the grand open hall was fixed on him, waiting. Old seniors, shrunken and wrinkled, too weak to climb stairs, with only a few wisps of white hair left. Frail mothers clutched and embraced their young children, some infants, tightly against the safety of their bosoms. Everyone, all collected and rounded from the outer reaches of their lands together into their Great Mountain.

Slowly, Garm struggled to his feet, pushing himself up from his seat with the remaining strength left in his arms. He did his best to ignore the pain and agony; it was no moment to let them see his weakness. He couldn't allow it as the leader of these people in their final moments.

"You all know of it — our choice. The Three Factions, the lot of them banded together. We tried, but we faced a dead end, front and back." He addressed them all, his voice tinged with regret.

"... I'll get on with it." He added and the air suddenly shifted.

An ominous wind howled and resonated throughout the grand hall, reaching as far as the ends of the walls that enclosed the Great Mountain.

"I'm sorry, everyone. I was conceited… impatient." Garm continued.

The bulk of the Red Sky were the families of the Blood Warriors, the same people before him. It was a choice born of desperation, a final gambit to stave off complete annihilation – they chose to save their successors.

The choice of their successors led to a pair of brothers. The older brother was already named the heir to inherit Garm's mantle long before the band's anticipated demise — a young man who was knowledgeable, strong, and indomitable beyond his years. The younger one… Garm and the other elders were against saving him, but the true heir was adamant about his younger kin's survival.

'They don't know if the band will live but…' Garm thought as his eyes scoured the tens of thousands before him and his council of elders, eventually landing his eyes on the extensive and vast crimson-red array that lined the hall.

It was a ritual, an inheritance that he developed. It bespoke of cruelty, made to forcibly obtain blood essence from all these people.

…It was grueling to prepare and form. Upon being informed of the approaching armies headed for the band's Great Mountain, Garm abandoned all pretenses of the band's survival, throwing all his efforts into this grand inheritance. An unfathomable amount of resources were poured into this endeavor.

The Blood Warriors of the Band sacrificed vast amounts of their blood essence to create the necessary components for the great ritual. Using this, Garm along with fitting elders, engraved upon the walls that surrounded their Great Mountain.

Red sigils and markings…

The band will be sacrificed to these red markings. He refused for their lives to be wasted, to be trampled upon by an army too strong to fight.

His people's strength, wills, dreams, desires, and their very lives will be wrested.

The elders, women, children, and infants were all included. None was to be spared in this inheritance.

It was a cruel ritual, a slaughter in a different light.

But if they were to either die or live a life worse than death, then the choice to sacrifice themselves was clear. He will not allow his people to be slaughtered by steel, or enslaved by the masses.

Every little bit of blood essence they can scrape from the band will be collected, Garm himself included.

"I'll begin now," Garm rasped out, the markings activated and primed… they pulsed with hunger. He gestured to a trusted elder to his right, and without warning, the land beneath their feet quaked.

The entirety of the Red Sky was amassed within this array. But he wasn't satisfied, his seething spite for the Three Factions cannot end even with this.

The trusted elder sent a message to the Blood Warriors who mounted the wall, fighting as they delayed the armies from approaching their Great Mountain — to open the gates, and let the cowardly rabble flood into their walls.

As Garm looked over the tens of thousands before him, he accepted the finality of everything, as he too was on the cusp of his long life.

He took notice of it. The Three Faction army was flooding in. His Blood Warriors fell one by one, slaughtered as the army slowly advanced toward the grand hall in the center of the Great Mountain.

'It'll be a painful end. Blood essence will be forcefully extracted from their vessels while they're still alive — essence that has seeped into their very skin, muscles, and bones... Perhaps it is fitting for us. For all we've done.' Garm thought to himself.

Begrudgingly, he salvaged his remaining vigor as his wispy grey hair blew in the winds of their demise:

"Life? Death? We will live through the two brothers! Kiran and Osias will carry our will!" Garm bellowed out dauntlessly with a proud cadence as if he too was swayed by his own words.

With each labored breath, tendrils of exhaustion wrapped taut around his heart, squeezing out the fragments of peace he desperately sought. His shoulders slumped under the crushing pressure of the mass ritual. His fierce will was etched into every line on his aged face.

A pool of lamentation swirled in his eyes, along with madness.

And in one final breath, Garm loudly bellowed out his last words:

"Death is not the end for us! Your lives are not wasted! Kiran! Osias! Live and prove our Path!" The coarse words escaped his lips like a whispered confession to the unforgiving heavens.

At once, the wails of tens of thousands of his people amassed within the great array sounded. Beyond the grand hall's reach, the remaining Blood Warriors and even the enemies who have breached their gates joined them in agony and death.

The wretched cries of the Red Sky and their enemies alike filled the Great Mountain in a cacophony of anguish…

What was remembered as a great victory for the Three Factions ending the Century of Blood was prologued by a tragedy.

—

"Quiet," A hoarse voice said.

In the black of night, a pair swiftly traversed through the pool of shadow cast by the wet crowns of trees. Steep rains sounded, softly broken by light strides.

They made an unusual pairing. A hulking stalwart figure, twice the size of any other man, roughly carried the smaller of the pair.

Fashioned in loose black garments, a weathered cloak that draped from shoulders to feet. The stars dimly lit their surroundings, revealing a rugged face that might have been chipped from flint and was adorned with two deeply set eyes. His eyes could be said the same as well, both black and sharp as it painfully edged into a harsh scowl.

He was armed with a massive spear in one hand and a boy in another as they arrived at an obscure location, hidden within the stony embraces of the foothills below an unnamed mountain.

It was the few mountains on the outer reaches of the land conquered by the Red Sky — one that held little to no use in their hapless conquest.

Kiran, the elder brother, the Band of the Red Sky's blood-born heir routed and made it to this hidden outpost after wearily scouting out for possible pursuers.

Resting against a low fire, a narrow and high chute directed the short smokes outside this small cavernous outpost. Osias, his younger brother, joined him. Asleep, perhaps languished by the fall of the band.

Kiran sighed wistfully as he knelt beside the small flickering fire. The relief, fury, and sorrow lingered in the air as he loosely clutched his wet cloak and spear — his last remembrances of the Red Sky.

The flames danced before him, warming his sleeping brother as he gazed into it.

Kiran had escaped relentlessly on foot under the clouded skies. He followed an arranged trail as instructed by both Garm and the elders. He understood well… it was futile for them to fight against such an army. It'll be nothing more than an unavailing final stand as their families were slaughtered, perhaps even enslaved by the Three Factions.

Tailed Brothers.

The Band of the Crest.

And the Northern Wind Union.

'Hegemons of the Wailing Chain.' He thought to himself…

His gaze was pulled into the small sleeping figure of his brother, Osias, and pondered silently.

'He must want nothing so much as to go back the way they had come, to get revenge.'

His brother was quite green after all, he probably couldn't see past what was important — to survive.

He grumbled and sighed lowly as he stoked the fire, but suddenly, a deafening voice thundered in his mind:

"Kiran! Osias! Live and prove our path!"

"Band leader?" Kiran uttered as he raised his eyebrows in surprise.

It was abrupt and booming… even Osias exploded out of his sleep onto his feet, nearly tumbling on the fire. With his mouth agape and trembling with shock Osias asked:

"Brothe-"

But Kiran cut him off immediately with dire haste as he realized why he heard Garm in his head:

"Osias! Brace yourself!"

He knew… Garm's final message will come along with something else. Garm's — no, the entire Red Sky's final 'gift' to the brothers.

The collected blood essence of tens of thousands of both the Red Sky and their enemies alike flooded into the bodies of Kiran and Osias.

He braced himself immediately and cursed, steeling himself as he basked in the violent surge.

He bit down hard, gritted teeth seemingly cracked under pressure.

But his brother wailed and screamed in pain as he gasped for air.

It was as though he was watching his brother get stabbed and tortured with steel before his eyes, unable to do anything to help.

Thankfully the cavern contained his brother's pained screeches… He pitied him, the boy couldn't have braced himself as he was just asleep.

The violent torrent continued.

The forceful nature of Garm's ritual was cruel but effective, he could feel it. Releasing blood essence into the body was a chaotic, yet common ability to those of the Path of Blood.

It was never a steady process. While most of the blood essence was usually wasted, Garm achieved a miracle with the time he had to explore his late acquisition of power.

After all, how can Garm waste his people's and even his own blood essence?

Garm's final gift to them was an immense source of essence that continued to feed into their bodies until they took in every last drop.

…As the blood essence poured into the pair's bodies, it eventually reached their limits. Their body's essence reservoirs were too small and couldn't contain anymore. Osias especially due to his age and status as a mere Ordinary.

Then disgusting red blemishes rapidly appeared throughout their bodies. Bubbled up and ruptured them bloody.

These pockets of essence arose from this instinctive rejection, their bodies desperately redirecting the excess essence elsewhere.

However, right before their bodies would violently burst and rupture to death, the essence collected elsewhere, saving both brothers from a dreadful death.

Underneath Kiran's tattered cloak, the sinewy canvas of his flesh bore tattoos that whispered of malevolence.

Dark, intricate symbols and markings coiled around his limbs and stretched to his backside, neck, and torso, each etched with an ominous precision.

Thin lines, sharp as blades, hinted at a history steeped in battle. Each inked marking seemed to resonate with the echoes of cruel depictions, a tapestry of their people's story woven into his very skin.

The tattoos crawled across his chest, invoking Garm's talents as one of the Blood Path — a leader, no less.

The tattoos were initially a dull black lacking any luster, but now?

The ink shone with a brilliant, but dark crimson hue.

But Kiran wasn't alone.

Osias, too, had similar tattoos.

Even more ink etched onto his skin than Kiran.

But heedless of the new housing for the essence, the tortuous process of assimilation continued, blood essence seeping into their tattoos…

—

Within the outpost, the brothers were in perpetual agony.

Instantaneously flooding their bodies with essence was deadly, an amount that vastly overwhelmed them — it was unnatural. Even though it was brief, quickly directed into the tattoos, they had to endure the tormenting wave's brunt.

But even so, they too had to endure the tattoo's true assimilation with their bodies.

The body rejected the tattoos, something so unnatural.

Kiran lay sprawled on the ground, unable to bear the pain.

His large frame squirmed on the earthen floor.

It had only been a few dozen seconds since the assimilation began, yet Osias was already a half-dead husk.

And the tattoo still needed more time to assimilate together with both the essence and body.

He and Osias only needed to persevere until it balanced itself.

But until then, the process cannot be stopped, Garm made sure of it. It was cruel but necessary — there was to be no waste of something so precious.

Kiran well understood why, but Osias was just a boy. He could die from this agony!

They can only push through it and hope they won't die. Yet Kiran still felt a heavy knot in his throat of the guilt of living, the feeling only surpassed by the pain being inflicted on him. Kiran gritted his teeth, unable to do a thing.

'Band Leader... That man used dozens of talented youth throughout generations to filter through who could withstand just the etching of the tattoo. In the end, it's just me and Osias left other than the few established warriors of the Band who got it as well… but they met the same end in the inheritance.'

'It was tolerable for me but Osias... I thought that if he can withstand the etching he can also withstand the assimilation, but even I can barely hold.'

Suddenly once a minute passed, and Osias couldn't take it anymore. His mind froze and he fainted.

Five minutes then passed. Kiran held, barely tolerable. But Osias had begun to shake violently.

'No!' Kiran's eyes widened.

Osias's limbs and torso flailed wildly. His small body flailed and sounds echoed as he thrashed around.

"Osais!" Kiran called out grudgingly.

But Kiran couldn't move, the essence was already running rampant and needed to settle with time.

Time that neither the brothers had the luxury of.

Besides, the only way to finish the assimilation process was to wait it out.

To let the essence-seeped tattoos properly quell the body embraces it.

"Osias! Hold on! It'll be over soon, you just have to hold on!" Kiran shouted out to no avail.

About thirty minutes through, the tattoo continued to be assimilated with their bodies.

Osias stopped convulsing, but he was a bloody unmoving mess.

Bloodied orifices coupled with bursts of ruptured flesh. The only movements his body made were the pulses of essence from the tattoo, yet each of these pulses only risked creating more ruptures.

At the very least, Osias is still unconscious, unable to feel the torture anymore.

'Osias... Garm said it'll be a slight risk for myself, but as for Osias, it'll be a gamble if he'll live.' Kiran darkly recalled.

'There wasn't enough time. If Osias had just a few more years to grow. If Garm had enough time to perfect his skill then this wouldn't happen…'

But then, Kiran felt his essence and the tattoo finally settled. Accepted into his being — something beyond simply needling ink onto flesh, something more. Something deeper…

The inheritance ritual came to an end. And Kiran's abilities returned along with being able to use his essence.

And in a final show, the tattoos on Kiran's body flared brilliantly. With it, shadowy pulses traveled throughout, and with each pulse, Kiran was visibly healing. His burst vessels, his bloodied orifices, and the many ruptured pockets of flesh and blood all regenerated rapidly.

Kiran used his First Ordeal's ability, Blood Mend.

…Just seconds later, Kiran stood up, his body supported by his spear as he used it to weakly wobble towards Osias.

As he made his way towards Osias, Kiran's wounds were almost entirely healed.

Walking closer, he whispered, a hint of solemness in his usually cold voice:

"No..."

Osias was alive.

But that was it, he was just alive.

And Kiran's Blood Mend only heals his own wounds...