Kiara snapped her eyes open in the pitch black of her elite dorm room.

Her blood was heating up to a literal boiling point.

’The fuck?’ she thought to herself, her pale hands gripping the bedsheets tight.

A blue window flashed urgently in her blurry vision.

[System Alert!]

[Blood Sensory Overload]

She has no idea what is actually happening to her body, but her sharp instincts scream the true answer.

The simple act of feeding on Shane earlier tonight had bound their life forces together in a way she never anticipated.

It is a harsh backlash from her new connection to him.

She jumped right off her soft mattress and sprinted out the door.

Her muscles tightened in panic as she ran up the winding stone path of the hill at an incredible pace.

She snuck past the sleepy senior guards with ease, moving like a frantic ghost in the cold night air.

When she opened the door to his room, the space was empty.

The cold wind blew through an open window, rustling the curtains.

Mia, sensing a strange psychic disturbance echoing from the hallway, stepped out of her own room.

She found the Kiara shaking hard on the floor, clutching her own throat in agony, her eyes bleeding.

Down in the dark cave, Anasthesia finished tying rough ropes around my chest and wrists.

I tried breaking out, but the moment my body entered the drawings, all my mana drained.

’Shit. This is bad.’ 𝚏𝕣𝕖𝚎𝚠𝚎𝚋𝚗𝐨𝐯𝕖𝕝.𝕔𝐨𝕞

She lashed me tightly to a chair situated right in the centre of the painted symbols.

I went through the motions, just letting my head hang limp and acting as if the darkness still had a firm hold on my brain.

"Begiiiinnnnnnn," she whispered, her raspy voice echoed off the cold stone walls.

Six robed cultist mages stepped out from the shadows.

They stood in a perfect circle around my chair and raised their scarred hands, forming red magic circles in the air as they began their ceremony.

"I have carved your true name into the air and set it aflame," the first mage chanted loudly.

"You are no longer a whisper in the dark. You are my tool. Shatter the silence, tear the veil, and crawl into the light of my command."

Before I could process the chants, my eyes suddenly rolled back into my skull.

My vision went blind, physical body started shaking hard against the ropes without my permission.

It felt like an electric shock running straight through my spine, seizing every muscle I had.

"The circle is closed, the blood is dry, the contract is signed in the language of the dead," Anasthesia chanted, raising her arms high.

"By the Third Law of the Abyss, I command the Void to take shape. You are the blade, I am the hand. Manifest."

Blood started pouring from my mouth, spilling down my chin and staining my shirt.

My body felt like a thousand sharp thorns were pushing their way out through every single inch of my skin.

The pain was blinding and unrelenting.

It also damages the connection I just formed with the new Blood Manipulation skill, which was being hijacked by their ancient magic.

When they forced my blood to react to the ritual, Kiara felt the same torture miles away.

"The angels are wrong, and the stars are hungry," the mages screamed together.

"I tear the silk of the sky to show you the way. Creep through the needle’s eye, Great Weaver, and stitch your nightmare into my world."

The wooden chair creaked loudly.

The ropes groaned under the sudden pressure.

My body, still tied down, actually started levitating a few feet off the stone floor.

The magic in the room swirled around me like a furious hurricane, picking up loose dirt and throwing it against the walls.

"Let the sky bleed, and the earth tremble, for the King does not walk. He arrives," Anasthesia screamed, her voice cracking with devotion.

"By the seven seals of the underworld and the blood of a thousand sins, I summon the Architect of Ruin. Azrael, dawn upon us."

A sharp gasp left my lips.

All the oxygen was sucked right out of the cavern.

My consciousness detached from my physical form.

I plunged, falling into the dark.

For a few minutes, there was nothing.

Then,

I opened my eyes, standing perfectly still inside a small bedroom.

The faded wallpaper, the old desk in the corner, the smell of laundry detergent.

This room looked way too familiar.

It was a perfect replica of my past.

Not Shane’s room in the academy.

It was my real room from Earth, back before everything happened.

"Chris, where are you?"

That worried voice drifting through the wall.

My heart stopped beating for a second.

Mom?

It was her.

It was my real mom from Earth, calling out for me from the hallway just like she did before she passed away.

The weight of grief I buried so long ago hit my chest like a falling boulder.

Hearing her voice again after all these years of fighting monsters broke my emotional defences instantly.

’I need to see her,’ I thought, my eyes slowly forming tears.

My feet moved fast across the carpet.

I tried to run out the bedroom door, but the brass handle would not turn.

It was locked tight from the outside.

I pulled and pulled, rattling the wood with all my strength.

I opened my mouth, trying to scream my heart out and tell her I was right here.

I wanted to tell her I missed her so much.

But no sound came out.

My throat was totally paralysed.

The sweet voice echoed again, sounding a little further away this time.

She was leaving the hallway.

’Please god, open up, just open,’ I begged internally, slamming my bare fists against the door frame.

Suddenly, the temperature in the small bedroom dropped to freezing.

I felt a shadow sliding right up my back.

The presence was suffocating, freezing the tears on my face.

A tall figure materialised right behind me in the room.

It had no face.

There were just thin red lines where its eyes should be, staring right through my soul.

The demon leaned its head down, right next to my ear.

"I will let you go if you let me in," the shadow whispered, offering a deal in the dark.