Chapter 10: The Blood Concord
Chapter 10: The Blood Concord
The morning air carried the scent of rain as Ramon made his way back to the library three days later. He had spent the intervening time wrestling with the assigned reading, finding himself drawn deeper into the historical accounts than he had expected. The carefully documented rise and fall of the Blood-Crown Unity read less like ancient history and more like a warning written in blood and fire.
More disturbing still were the moments during his reading when the text seemed to resonate with something inside him—passages about bloodline awakening that made his spine tingle with that familiar heat, descriptions of imperial cultivation techniques that felt less like academic study and more like half-remembered dreams.
The library was already occupied when he arrived. Several other recruits sat at the marble tables, their copies of Imperial Foundations open before them, but their expressions suggested they were struggling with concepts that came to Ramon with unsettling clarity. He took a seat near the back, hoping to avoid drawing attention to his growing understanding of material that should have been foreign to someone of his background.
Instructor Ador entered precisely on time, carrying not just the tome from their previous session but an additional scroll case that looked ancient enough to have survived from the imperial era itself. His scarred face bore the grim expression of a man preparing to deliver news that would change how his audience saw the world.
"I trust you've all completed the reading," he began, setting his materials on the lectern. "Today, we move from the empire's height to its destruction. From unity to fragmentation. From the Blood-Crown to the Blood Concord."
He opened the scroll case with careful reverence, withdrawing a document that seemed to shimmer with its own inner light. The parchment was covered in script that hurt to look at directly, as if the very words contained power that resisted casual observation.
"This," Ador announced, "is a certified copy of the Blood Concord Treaty, signed one hundred and forty-eight years ago in the ruins of the Ashwrought Monastery. It is the document that ended the Caldrevian Empire and established the political reality you live in today."
Ramon found himself leaning forward, drawn by something about the document that he couldn't identify. The script seemed to pulse in rhythm with his heartbeat, and for a moment he could have sworn he heard distant voices whispering in a language that bypassed his ears and spoke directly to his blood.
"But before we examine how the empire ended," Ador continued, "you must understand how it destroyed itself. The reading covered the early centuries—the unification, the standardization, the expansion. What it could not fully convey was the horror of what came next."
The instructor moved to the wall maps, pointing to regions marked with symbols that seemed to shift and change when viewed directly.
"The Crimson Succession Wars were not mere political conflicts. They were bloodline catastrophes that warped the very nature of power within the empire. As the imperial line grew ancient, its purity became an obsession that consumed reason itself."
He traced patterns on the map that formed disturbing geometries, paths of conquest and retreat that seemed to follow some deeper logic than mere military strategy.
"Powerful houses began to challenge the Blood-Crown's supremacy, claiming their lineages had evolved beyond the Imperial Vein. But challenge alone was not enough. They needed proof—measurable, undeniable evidence of bloodline superiority."
Ador's voice dropped to a whisper that somehow carried to every corner of the room.
"Bloodline forgeries. Illegal awakenings. Secret refinement cults. The very foundations of the standardized system began to crack as ambition drove innovation beyond all safe boundaries."
Ramon felt his pulse quicken. The instructor's words seemed to describe not just historical events but possibilities that existed in the present moment, paths that someone with the right knowledge might still walk.
"Three separate civil conflicts ravaged the heartlands," Ador continued. "Each war bloodier than the last, each one pushing the boundaries of what bloodline cultivation could achieve. By the end of the third war, three imperial heirs were dead, and the techniques used to kill them had fundamentally altered the nature of power itself."
The instructor returned to his lectern, opening the ancient tome to a page covered with illustrations that seemed to move in the flickering light.
"At the core of the Empire's strength was its greatest weakness: the unchecked refinement of bloodlines. When blood purity became the only path to rank or favor, soldiers submitted to ever more extreme rituals. Forbidden techniques emerged like plague spores after rain."
The images in the book showed warriors whose bloodlines had manifested in ways that defied natural law—flames that burned without heat, shadows that moved independent of their casters, weapons that existed in multiple dimensions simultaneously.
"Some attempted forced synchronization with ancestral blood, consuming the preserved essence of their forebears. Others devoured the marrow of captured foes, believing they could steal power through consumption. Still others delved into techniques so dangerous that merely describing them was considered an act of treason."
Ador closed the book with a sound like breaking glass.
"It worked—until it didn't. Entire battalions were lost to blood-maddening, their cultivated power turning inward to consume them from within. Infants were born warped, their bloodlines unable to stabilize under the weight of inherited mutation. One disaster—the Veinfall Bastion Collapse—saw an entire fortress of elite warriors erupt into a week-long blood rage, killing themselves, each other, and every civilian within fifty miles."
The temperature in the room seemed to drop several degrees. Ramon could see his breath misting in the suddenly cold air, and the ancient document on the lectern began to glow more brightly, as if responding to the weight of the history being recounted.
"The people no longer trusted the blood. And the empire no longer trusted itself. In desperation, the final emperors granted ever greater authority to the six satraps—military governors who had become rulers in all but name. Each maintained their own bloodline registries, controlled regional cultivation development, and trained unique military doctrines."
Ador moved away from the lectern, pacing among the tables where the recruits sat transfixed by his narrative.
"The empire became a shell of coordination. Each satrapy functioned as an independent kingdom. Tribute slowed, then stopped. Orders were ignored with impunity. Armies moved without imperial sanction, pursuing goals that served regional interests rather than imperial unity."
He stopped directly in front of Ramon's table, his scarred face grave with the weight of memory.
"The throne sat occupied, but powerless. And when the last emperor attempted to recall the armies for one final unification campaign, only one banner answered his call—his own. The Blood-Crown had become an empire of one."
The instructor returned to the front of the room, where the Blood Concord Treaty continued to pulse with its inner light.
"Facing total collapse, the satraps met in secret within the Ashwrought Monastery—neutral ground known for its bloodless rites and binding oaths. There, they signed what would become the Blood Concord Treaty, a pact to dissolve the empire peacefully rather than watch it tear itself apart in one final, apocalyptic war."