Chapter 5 – Bloodbound Pact

The boy with the mask was smiling.

But his eyes were cold. Dead.

A fake rictus carved onto a face that had once belonged to someone else.

— "A word of advice, Kael."

He took off his gloves. His fingers were covered in stitches.

"Our entities don't crave peace. They feed on what we break. So, for me to accept you… I need to see you shatter something."

Kael didn't understand. Not completely.

But Seraphine… she did.

"Fight. Or be devoured. They smell weakness like hyenas. Let me. Let me show you how a god-born of Shadows bites."

— "I don't want this."

But his voice trembled.

Not from fear. But from anticipation.

— "No one does, at first."

And the boy raised his palm toward him.

Then the sky darkened.

As if someone had torn a chunk out of the sun and spat it across the world.

Shadows fell. Trees groaned.

And from the ground… rose twisted faces, made of charred flesh and screams.

— "Meet My Firstborn."

The boy's voice was no longer his own.

It was like a choir of dead children speaking through a single mouth.

Kael took a step back. His Thrall trembled.

But Seraphine… laughed.

"Let me, Kael. Just for a moment. Let me show him what's being born inside you."

And Kael… gave in. Not completely.

But enough.

From his chest came a dense, black smoke.

And from that smoke… a slender feminine hand, with long nails, grasped the air and tore it open.

The opponent's shadows screamed.

As if a divine sound had seared their nerves.

And Kael — or whatever Kael had become — stepped toward the boy.

Not like a man.

But like a creature born of contempt.

— "Do you like playing with dolls?"

His voice was hoarse, like a child who had cried for years.

"Then watch how a marionette made of memories breaks."

Behind him rose a new Thrall.

Not a corpse. Not a shadow.

But an inverted image of Kael as a child.

Skin flayed. Eyes gouged out.

And laughing with every tooth.

— "I made you. From me. From what I was when they burned me."

Kael smiled.

Then let the creature attack.