Beastkind and Bloodcodes

The egg was silent again.

But not dormant.

It no longer pulsed randomly or shifted in response to Raen's touch. It was… listening. Not with ears or awareness—but like a tuning fork catching the right frequency.

Raen sat beside it on the cold floor of the data chamber, knees folded, his hands relaxed on his thighs. He hadn't moved for almost an hour.

The Codex hovered quietly in his vision.

> [Codex Meditation Mode Active]

Beast Affinity Drift: +0.2% per 10 minutes

Mutation Stability: Holding

Core Sync: Partial (Tier 1)

Voidbeast Behavior: Passive Observance

Passive Benefits Gained:

[Thread Reflex]: heightened combat instinct

[Flicker Step]: short-range spatial evasion

Active Codex Tier: 1 – Mid Level

Core XP: 28 / 200

Mutation Factor: 11.6%

The numbers felt distant now. He'd spent the last two days recovering, not from injury—but from the shift.

Killing something that shouldn't exist had rewired more than his body.

It had reshaped how he saw the world.

---

"You're stabilizing faster than I expected."

Raen opened his eyes.

The girl leaned against the steel frame of the entrance, arms crossed, her scarf gone for once. She looked younger like this. Less like a shadow and more like a survivor.

Raen stood.

"I thought you didn't monitor unless you had to."

She shrugged. "I didn't. But I got reports."

Raen tilted his head. "From who?"

She smiled faintly.

"I never said we were alone down here."

---

She led him to a chamber deeper beneath the safe zone—accessible only through a narrow ramp that descended in zigzag patterns between core vent pillars.

The room smelled like preserved leather and old ozone.

Charts lined the walls.

Not digital—but etched. On bone.

Each slab carried jagged glyphs, beast shapes, and thin vein-like lines connecting them to humanoid silhouettes.

A record.

Of blood and bond.

---

"This," the girl said, "is what they don't teach in your schools. Because it scares them."

She tapped a slab with her knuckle. "The Beastkind System. Not the official registry nonsense. The real thing. The ancient framework before the Grid simplified everything."

Raen stepped forward.

"What's the difference?"

"Everything," she said.

---

She explained:

> In the current empire, awakened individuals are sorted by Codex Tier, Beast Rank, and Bloodline Score.

Codex Tier determines your system's evolution potential

Beast Rank reflects the grade of your bonded entity

Bloodline Score determines how well you sync with your core

But those were simplifications.

The truth?

There were Three Paths:

1. Bonded Ascendants – Form a stable relationship with a beast. Standard path. Safe. Limited by compatibility.

2. Merged Ascendants – Fuse partially with a beast's core. Rare. Mutagenic. High instability.

3. Corebound Ascendants – The beast lives inside the host—no summoning. No externalization. Total integration. Illegal. Forgotten. Dangerous.

Raen listened, silent.

She pointed at a glyph that looked vaguely like a wolf with six legs and eyes on its shoulders.

"Corebound users weren't always hated. They were once called Soul Walkers. They used to balance the others. But they couldn't be catalogued. Couldn't be scored. So…"

"They were erased," Raen finished.

She nodded.

"And now you carry a Voidbeast."

---

Raen looked at the glyph again.

His Codex shimmered, overlaying a glowing interface over the ancient bone:

> Detected Match: Primordial Class (Pre-System Epoch)

Designation: [Voidbeast – Unclassified Variant]

Risk Factor: Black-level

Threat Category: Core Disruptor

Current Host Compatibility: 36%

Codex Warning: You are walking a path that was sealed.

Raen exhaled.

"Why show me this?"

The girl finally gave her name.

"My name is Nysera. And because if you're going to survive what's coming… you need to know what you really are."

---

A silence settled between them.

Raen finally asked, "Then what am I?"

She didn't hesitate.

"You're not just Corebound."

"You're something worse."

"You're a Null Ascendant."

Raen's breath caught.

That word—Null—it was supposed to mean empty.

Unawakened. Unwanted. Unworthy.

But Nysera continued:

"Null doesn't mean nothing. It means not accounted for. You weren't on the scale. Not because you failed… but because you weren't supposed to exist at all."

She stepped back, eyes cold.

"Null Ascendants can't be predicted. Can't be templated. Every step you take rewrites the rules."

---

Raen stood in silence, his hands clenched.

Not from fear.

From clarity.

Because now, he finally understood the stares, the system's silence, the way the Crystal Array had failed during his awakening.

He hadn't been rejected.

He had broken it.

---

> Codex Entry Logged

[Truth Unveiled: Null Ascendant]

Classification Updated: Rogue Corebound Host

Trait Limits: None

Stat Growth: Unpredictable

Mutation Ceiling: Undefined

System Tracking Status: Flagged by Central Watchtower AI

Next Evolution Threshold:

Mutation Factor ≥ 15%

Core Sync ≥ 40%

Traits in Evolution Queue:

Flicker Step [Instability Reducing]

Thread Reflex [Basic]

---

Back in the surface tunnel, Raen stood beneath a crumbling vent hatch, eyes closed.

He felt the breath of the egg now even when it was far from him.

He wasn't growing alone.

And if the system wanted him gone…

It would have to kill him first.

---

The main hall of the Forgotten's lower base was quiet, save for the hum of ancient generators and the occasional rattle of air cycling through broken ducts. Raen stood beside the central projection core, where a blue-hued hologram slowly flickered to life at Nysera's touch.

A rotating sphere appeared—divided into territories, zones, and vertical strata.

"This," Nysera said, "is the True Realm Map—not the public-access one, not the tiered simulation taught in academy cores. This is how the world actually works."

Raen narrowed his eyes.

There were names etched across the map. Towering sectors, beast territories, no-man zones. And atop all of it, a glowing triangle.

> Throne Apex | Grid Lord Authority

"Recognize that?" Nysera asked.

Raen nodded. "The Empire. The Grid."

She shook her head.

"No. That's just the interface. The real power sits behind it. Hidden in blood, cores, and beasts."

She rotated the display, expanding three names.

> 1. The Gene Crucible

Pureblood supremacy

Controlled Tier testing and beast design

All Tier-9 Bloodlines originate here

> 2. The Tower Spire

Arena dominance, Ascendant duels

Beast taming, Core-forging sects

Highest kill-to-awaken ratio in the world

> 3. The Black Registry

Codex experimentation, unapproved strains

Hosts rogue scientists and former Grid Lords

Home to exiled Nulls, unstable Mergers

Raen's jaw clenched.

"And you're telling me these places exist and no one knows?"

"Oh, people know," Nysera said quietly. "They just stop asking once they realize asking gets you hunted."

---

She pointed to a smaller blinking region between zones.

A jagged line of fractured sectors.

> Wastes of Tierfall

– Beasts roam unbonded

– Forbidden experiments buried

– Tracking systems fail

– Energy storms distort mutation traces

Raen studied it.

The Codex hummed softly.

> Warning: Mutation Energy Surges Detected

Potential Thread Source: Class-S Behemoth Variant

Estimated Tier: 5+

Risk Level: Omega

"Something lives there?" he asked.

Nysera nodded. "More than one. Most are asleep. Or broken. But when they wake…"

She didn't finish the sentence.

She didn't need to.

---

Nysera shifted the map again—zooming out to show the entire beast classification tree.

Raen had never seen anything so complex.

It wasn't linear. It spiraled.

> Common Beasts

– Tier 1 to 3

– Domesticated, stable, safe for public contracts

Noble Beasts

– Tier 4 to 6

– Intelligent, semi-sapient, legacy-tied

Legacy Beasts

– Tier 7 to 9

– Myth-class, partially divine-threaded

– Only bondable by bloodline holders or core mutants

Primordial Beasts

– ???

– Pre-date system design

– Require Null-level Codex compatibility or a Soul Binder Key

– Believed extinct

Raen's breath caught as the last tier pulsed.

His Codex reacted instantly.

> [Codex Alert – Lineage Match Detected]

Thread Resonance: 12%

Class: Primordial Type

Beast Status: Sealed (Stage 1)

Host-Sync: Corebound – Irregular

Threat Designation: Black-Level

He stared at the symbol beside the tier name.

It wasn't a beast.

It was an eye, split vertically down the center.

The same eye that had appeared on the egg's surface the first time it pulsed.

---

Nysera powered the projection down.

The chamber dimmed again, but not before her final words cut through the air like blade through skin.

"There are less than ten beings alive today who've touched a Primordial."

Raen said nothing.

"Five of them rule continents."

Still, he didn't speak.

"One of them… vanished after trying to fuse with it. The others have been hunting for the next for decades."

She turned to face him.

"And now you're carrying one."

---

The next few hours passed in silence.

Raen didn't eat. Didn't train. Didn't speak.

He sat in the corner of his chamber, the katana resting at his side, the egg nestled near his legs. He didn't sleep either.

The Codex remained quiet.

But the mutation factor climbed slowly.

> Mutation Factor: 12.3%

Core Affinity: 37.4%

Trait Threshold Approaching: 40% (Passive Sync)

Something inside the egg stirred.

Raen placed his palm on its side again.

And this time, the Codex didn't just give data.

It spoke.

> "You are not my master."

"You are my carrier."

"But we may yet become… one."

---

Far above Sector 9, in a city carved into the side of a living cliff, a man in red-and-silver armor stood before a pulsing mirror.

He had no face—only a porcelain mask.

The mirror reflected no light.

Only threads—lines of force stretching from city to city, beast to beast.

One thread blinked.

Irregular.

Unmarked.

Breaking all known patterns.

The man turned to his aide.

"Find him."

The aide bowed. "Name?"

The man's mask tilted.

"There is no name. Only the code."

He raised a hand.

A single glyph appeared—formed of void and blood.

> [Null Ascendant – Status: Awakened]

---

The egg was warm again.

Not fevered. Not pulsing with energy like before a fight.

It was… comfortable.

That was the unsettling part.

Raen sat in silence in his chamber, back pressed to the wall, staring at the thing that had upended his life. The beast within had started to change—not physically, but in presence. It wasn't just observing anymore.

It was waiting.

For him.

He reached out mentally, the way he'd learned to activate the Codex's interface—but this time, the barrier wasn't there.

There was no resistance.

His thoughts passed into the shell.

And something inside answered.

---

> "Name yourself."

The voice wasn't his. Wasn't even fully separate. It echoed in fragments—like a thought looped across layers of memory he didn't own.

Raen's breathing slowed.

I'm Raen.

> "Name… carried. Title… unformed. Will… fractured."

The presence shifted, like air caught in lungs before a scream.

> "Do you intend to grow?"

Raen clenched his fists.

"Yes."

> "Do you intend to break others to do so?"

"…Only if I have to."

A pause.

Then—

> "Then we shall walk the first path."

"Thread begins. Teeth wait."

---

Raen gasped and pulled back.

The shell cooled instantly.

His Codex flared:

> Voidbeast Mental Interface: Level 1 Initiated

Core Affinity: 41.2%

Passive Sync Trait Gained:

— [Shared Instinct – Basic]

Description: Temporary sensory extension from beast core to host.

– Increases reaction speed by +6%

– Enables brief foresight during combat (0.3s burst)

Trait Rank: Organic – Evolves with Beast Sync

Mutation Factor: 13.2%

Raen stared at the egg.

For the first time since he'd found it…

He didn't feel like it was a burden.

It was a mirror.

A waiting half.

---

That sense of quiet didn't last.

Three hours later, alarms screamed through the deep corridors of the Forgotten's outpost.

Not loud sirens—those would've drawn attention from scavenger networks.

But lights.

Red bands flashed across the corners of the hall.

And a single word blinked across every active terminal:

> [UNAUTHORIZED ASCENDANT SIGNAL DETECTED – APPROACHING SECTOR 9B]

— Thread Classification: Tier 4 – Inner Ascendant

— Affiliation: The Tower Spire

— Name: ALARIN STRONE

Purpose: Unknown

Nysera stormed into the chamber, already suited in light armor.

"Get up," she said to Raen.

He was already moving.

"Tower Spire?" he asked, sliding his katana across his back.

Nysera's eyes were steel.

"Enforcers. Not Grid. Worse. They're thrill-killers. Elite duels, sanctioned beast hunts, regional dominance battles. They collect kill counts like trophies."

"And why's one coming here?"

Nysera didn't answer.

The silence said enough.

---

They met in the upper access corridor—a long, cracked catwalk beneath the skeleton of an old tram line.

A single figure stood at the far end.

Clad in gray-gold armor with crimson threadwork, his cape billowed in a wind that didn't exist. His hair was silver-white, spiked, and his face bore a calm smile that chilled Raen more than any beast.

Behind him floated a mechanical cage—sleek, curved like a crescent moon.

Inside it… was a beast.

No.

A fragment of one.

A flayed torso bound in suppressor coils. Limbs barely healed, its mind twitching.

Its eyes locked on Raen's instantly.

> [Codex Warning – Trauma Bond Detected]

Beast Class: Noble | Tier 3

Current Status: Core Fractured

Response: Fear. Recognition. Memory Match = Voidbeast Signature

The man—Alarin Strone—spoke.

His voice was smooth, polished.

"I felt something… old rise from this place. And I had to see it for myself."

Nysera stepped in front of Raen.

"We don't house any Ascendants. You've been lied to."

Alarin smiled wider.

"Lied to?" he said. "No. But perhaps misinformed."

He tilted his head.

"There's a pulse here. Something that doesn't fit. Something deliciously wrong."

He turned his eyes to Raen.

"You smell like death born fresh."

Raen's hand gripped his blade.

Nysera raised a hand slightly, stopping him.

"This is protected territory."

Alarin walked forward slowly.

The beast fragment screamed in its cage.

He didn't stop.

He didn't draw a weapon.

He just smiled.

"I'm not here for war," he said. "Yet. I'm here to make a request."

He stopped a dozen meters away.

Raen felt the pressure roll off him—Tier 4. Inner Ascendant.

The distance between them was a chasm.

"I want to duel you," Alarin said casually. "Not now. Not here. But soon."

Raen's breath caught.

"A duel?"

Alarin nodded. "I've fought hundreds. Won most. Killed many. But I've never killed a Null."

He pointed at Raen's chest.

"You're the kind of chaos the Spire likes to watch burn."

---

He turned.

"Don't disappoint me."

He walked into the mist.

The cage vanished with him.

And for a long time, neither Nysera nor Raen moved.

---

Back in the chamber, Raen sat in silence again.

Not from fear.

From resolve.

The Codex shimmered once more.

> [New Objective: Challenge of the Tower Spire – Pending]

Duel Countdown: 9 Days

Duel Format: Ascendant-Level – Witnessed by Beacon Net

Suggested Tier Goal: Ascendant Tier 2 – Low

Current Tier: Tier 1 – Mid

XP: 28 / 200

Mutation Factor: 13.9%

Core Sync: 41.8%

---

The Voidbeast stirred again.

Not in words.

But in laughter.

Not mocking.

Just hungry.

---