Chapter 38: The First Anchor of Blood

(sorry I mixed up the Chapters, please read the next Chapter before reading this one 🙇🏾)

The scythes of the Blood-Spine Beast severed the air with a high-pitched screech, dropping toward Valerian’s bare neck.

He didn’t duck.

He didn’t shift his weight.

Trapped inside the suffocating phantom of his past execution, his body refused to process the physical reality of the beast above him. His mind was locked six years in the past, suffocating on the iron smell of his own execution block and the bitter, rotting weight of his former powerlessness.

’MOVE!’ Wren screamed from deep within his soul, her voice shattering the boundary between their minds.

She didn’t just call out—she ignited her soul-bond.

A shockwave of pure dragon-marrow energy erupted from his core, forcibly hijacking his motor nerves.

Valerian’s body twitched violently to the left.

CLANG!

The beast’s serrated blade missed his neck by a hair’s breadth, driving deep into the calcified bone carpet beside his ear. The impact sent a spray of jagged bone shards slicing across Valerian’s cheek, drawing a line of dark dragon-blood that mixed with the red mud.

The kinetic force slammed Valerian onto his side, dragging his torn silk robes through the crimson slime.

He lay there, gasping, his chest heaving as if he were drowning in liquid lead.

His eyes—hidden behind the blood-soaked silk blindfold—grew dull, the glowing golden hue of the Sovereign’s Guilt Eyes flickering like a dying candle.

’You see?’

The phantom voice of his past self echoed from the red mist, stepping closer until its shadowy, rag-clad boots stood inches from Valerian’s face.

’Even with a dragon bound to your soul, you’re still taking orders. Still relying on someone else to save your pathetic skin. You haven’t changed at all, Valerian. You’re still the little trash boy who waited in the cold dungeon for someone to come.’

"Shut up..." Valerian rasped, his voice barely a breath.

He reached out with a trembling, blood-stained hand, searching blindly for his black chitin staff in the dark mud.

"I am... executing a strategy..."

’A strategy?!’

The phantom barked a dry, hideous laugh that sounded like bone grinding against bone.

’You call running away from your own hatred a strategy?! Look at what you’re doing! You’re trying to build a clean life! You’re acting like a gentle young master, negotiating with Icarus, playing nice with the family that let us bleed on the execution block!’

The phantom dropped to its knees, leaning down until its cold, phantom breath touched Valerian’s ear.

’Where is the wrath, Valerian? Where is the vow we made when the iron blade hit our neck?’

WE SWORE TO BURN THE WORLD!

’We swore we would drag everyone who looked down on us into the dirt! But you... you woke up, got a little power, and decided you wanted to play house with the monsters who watched us die!’

"They... they didn’t watch..." Valerian choked out, the physical pain in his shredded shoulder fading behind the suffocating, crushing weight of his guilt.

The vision flared again in his mind: his eldest sister Vespera, her face covered in blood, screaming his name as she charged through an army of imperial knights just seconds too late.

"They fought... they died for me..."

’AND YOU STILL LET THEM DIE!’

The ghost shrieked into his skull, the sound so loud it caused a fresh trickle of blood to leak from Valerian’s ears.

’They died because YOU WERE WEAK! Because you were a useless, aura-less piece of trash! Their blood is on YOUR hands! Every single drop of it!’

The Blood-Spine Beast hissed above them, re-aligning its heavy, serrated limbs.

Drawn by the scent of Valerian’s collapsing soul, two more beasts emerged from the blood-red fog lingering at the edge of the pit.

Their chitinous joints clicked in a terrifying, rhythmic drumbeat.

Three apex predators circled a broken, bleeding boy.

’Valerian, listen to me!’

Wren’s voice sounded ragged, strained to its absolute limit as she burned through her own soul essence to hold his core together.

’The atmosphere is using your own cognitive debt to poison your mana pathways! It’s taking the guilt you locked away and turning it into a physical curse! If you don’t fight it, your core will implode!’

"Wren..." Valerian muttered, his fingers finally brushing the cold, smooth surface of his chitin staff.

But he couldn’t lift it.

His arm felt as heavy as a mountain.

"He’s right... I built all of this... all these calculations... just so I would never have to feel that cold iron again. I’m just a coward... hiding behind non-aura logic..."

’YOU ARE NOT A COWARD, YOU FOOL!’

Wren roared, her soul-form lashing out inside his inner sea, slamming her ethereal dragon wings against the walls of his core to force a surge of heat through his frozen limbs.

’Look at what you’ve built! Look at what you’ve done since you came back! You think you’re weak because you feel guilty?! Guilt is the proof that you aren’t the cold, empty husk you pretend to be!’

SLASH!

The second Blood-Spine Beast struck.

Its razor-sharp claw gouged a deep trench into Valerian’s thigh.

Valerian screamed—a raw, unrefined sound of pure agony that tore through his throat.

The physical pain was blinding, but the phantom’s psychological weight was worse.

’Bleed, Valerian,’ the past self whispered, watching the blood soak into the dirt with cold, hateful eyes.

’Bleed out in this ditch. It’s what we deserve. We were trash in the first life, and we’re just a fake sovereign in this one.’

The beast raised its leg for a decapitating blow.

Valerian lay in the crimson mud, his breath shallow, his body soaked in his own dark dragon-blood.

His northern blindfold was completely ruined, hanging by a thread, exposing the left side of his face.

His exposed crimson-gold eye stared blankly at the dark sky of the Ancestral Plain.

’Is this where it ends?’ he thought, feeling the absolute darkness of the pit swallowing his consciousness.

’Is this the real price of my second chance...?’

’NO!’

Wren’s scream vibrated through his very bones, her soul-bond burning with a bright, terrifying golden fire.

’GRAB THE STAFF, VALERIAN! GRAB IT AND SHOW ME THE MAN WHO UNSHACKLED MY SOUL!’

The sheer force of her soul-bond slammed into his heart like a strike from a siege hammer.

Valerian’s exposed crimson-gold eye snapped into focus, the slitted iris dilating violently as his hand slammed down around the black chitin staff.

The raw contact of his skin against the S-Rank weapon didn’t send a rush of familiar, comforting power through his frame. Instead, the dark chitin burned. The black wood, forged from deep-abyssal minerals, rejected the corrupted, poisoned mana surging erratically from his Blood Dragon Core. It felt as if he were gripping a white-hot bar of iron. Sparks of rejected spatial static hissed against his palm, burning away skin and flesh until the raw bone of his fingers was exposed to the air.

Yet, he did not let go.

"You speak of vengeance..." Valerian whispered, his voice dry, cracking like dry parchment as blood bubbled at the corners of his lips.

The phantom of his past self hovered directly above him, its hollow, dark eyes reflecting the dying light of the crimson sky.

’It is not just vengeance, boy! It is justice! You carry the curses of every single Sanguis ancestor who died in shame! You carry the bitter tears of our sister, who ripped her own skin open trying to break through the imperial line to save your pathetic neck! You owe us your life! You owe us your pain!’

’Valerian, don’t listen to its resonance!’ Wren’s voice was fading now, becoming a muffled echo behind the roaring storm inside his own head. The soul-bond between them flickered wildly, threatening to snap under the weight of the Ancestral Plain’s domain.

’It’s pulling from the Valley’s ancient marrow! It’s giving form to your own self-loathing! If you let it anchor into your core, you will become a mind-broken thrall of the blood-mist!’

Valerian ignored her. He ignored everything except the cold, suffocating truth hanging over his heart.

Slowly, painfully, he dragged his leg forward. The gouged flesh on his thigh tore open further, leaving a thick trail of dark, rich dragon-blood across the pale, calcified bones carpeted beneath him.

He didn’t use a clean martial stance. He didn’t use non-aura spatial leverage. He hauled his body up using raw, ugly, unrefined physical desperation, leaning his entire weight against the staff just to keep his knees from buckling.

The three Blood-Spine Beasts circled higher, their chitinous plates clicking together in a horrific symphony of hunger.

The lead beast—its forward scythe still dripped with Valerian’s dark blood—lowered its head, its crimson eyes glowing with mindless predatory instinct.

It didn’t care about the boy’s tragic past. It didn’t care about his regressor soul.

To the beasts of the Ancestral Plain, he was merely a wounded, delicious piece of sovereign meat.

It lunged.

SWOOSH!

The serrated blade cut through the air, targeting his exposed throat.

Valerian didn’t execute a counter-strike. His mind was too slow, his neural pathways paralyzed by the ghost’s relentless psychological assault.

Instead, he simply raised his left arm—the arm carrying his chitin staff—and blocked the strike with raw bone and wood.

CRACK!

The impact shattered the chitin armor on his forearm. Bone splintered inside his limb, a sickening crunch echoing through the narrow trench.

Valerian collapsed back onto one knee, a choked groan escaping his throat as his left arm hung limply at his side, entirely broken.

’Look at you!’ the past self shrieked, dancing around him in the dark red fog like a manic nightmare.

’Broken! Utterly broken! A single low-tier beast of the plain can break your bones! You think you’re a sovereign?! You’re an insect! A blind, crippled insect!’

"I know..." Valerian rasped into the mud.

’What did you say?!’ the ghost snarled, pausing its chaotic dance.

"I said... I know," Valerian repeated, his single exposed crimson-gold eye staring straight into the shadow of his past self.

The pleasant, calculated smile he had worn for months was completely gone. His face was a raw canvas of blood, dirt, sweat, and absolute, crushing exhaustion.

"I know I was weak. I know I sat in that dark dungeon, shivering in my rags, wishing someone would come and save me..."

He forced his broken body to push upward again, using his right hand to drag the staff along the dirt.

"I know I let Vespera die," he continued, his voice trembling violently, each word dropping like a heavy iron anvil into the canyon.

"I know I let Morrigan bleed. I know Marvos and Maelis were torn to pieces right beside my execution block while I did nothing... because I had no power."

’Then die!’ the past self screamed, its face contorting into a grotesque visage of rage and sorrow.

’Die and give your core to someone who will actually burn the empire to the ground! Give it to ME!’

The ghost lunged forward, merging with the crimson fog to form a giant, shadowy hand that slammed directly into Valerian’s chest.

THUMMMMM!

Valerian was lifted off his feet, his body slammed violently against the jagged stone wall of the canyon.

The impact cracked his ribs, knocking the remaining air out of his lungs.

The blood-fog didn’t just strike his physical body; it flooded his Blood Dragon Core, turning the golden dragon-mana within his veins into cold, sluggish poison.

His vision darkened. The edges of his world began to fray into static silence.

Within his inner sea, Wren was on her knees, her ethereal golden form covered in black, spider-web fractures.

The soul-bond was crumbling.

She looked up at the sky of his consciousness, watching as dark red rain poured into his core, drowning the flame of his soul.

’Valerian...’ she whispered, her voice filled with a rare, devastating helplessness.

’Is this... really where you break?’

Valerian hung against the stone wall, his feet dangling inches above the ground, held in place by the suffocating pressure of his own past guilt.

He looked down at the ghost standing before him.

He looked at the three Blood-Spine Beasts creeping closer, waiting to tear his flesh apart.

He looked at his own bloody, ruined hands.

He had believed that by coming back—by calculating every step, by keeping everyone at a distance, by hiding his emotions behind a pleasant smile and a silk blindfold—he could outrun the horror of his first life.

He had believed that strength was merely a matter of geometry, leverage, and cold strategy.

He was wrong.

The ghosts of his past life were not something he could out-calculate.

They were not an enemy he could defeat with an S-Rank staff or a spatial technique.

They were the very foundation of his soul.

They were the blood that fed his dragon core.

"Wren..." Valerian whispered into the vast, silent void of his mind.

’Valerian...?’

"I’m sorry..." he murmured, his breath fluttering out in a ragged sigh.

"I made you bear... the weight of a broken boy."

’Don’t say that!’ Wren shouted, tears of pure golden light spilling from her ethereal eyes as she pressed her hands against his core wall.

’Don’t you dare surrender now! You dragged me out of the dark! You gave me a reason to breathe again! If you fall here, I fall with you!’

Valerian’s exposed crimson-gold eye slowly closed.

The past self laughed, a victorious, hideous sound that filled the entire valley.

The Blood-Spine Beasts leaped forward, their scythes whistling through the red air, ready to claim their prize.

The darkness swallowed him whole.

For three terrifying seconds, there was no sound in the Valley of Whispering Bone.

No wind.

No clicking of chitin.

No echoing screams of ghosts.

Then... a heart beat.

THUMP.

It wasn’t the fast, panicked pulse of a terrified child.

It wasn’t the calculated rhythm of a strategist.

It was a heavy, ancient, terrifying thud that reverberated through the ancient ley lines of the Ancestral Plain itself.

THUMP.

The dark fog invading Valerian’s core didn’t burn away.

It didn’t disperse.

It froze.

Inside the pitch-black void of his mind, Valerian didn’t try to push the past self away.

He didn’t raise a weapon.

He didn’t shout a vow of revenge.

He walked forward, step by bloody step, through the memory of his own execution block.

He walked past the screaming imperial knights.

He walked past the pooling blood of his siblings.

He walked until he stood directly in front of the ten-year-old boy sitting in rags, crying in the cold dark.

Valerian knelt down in the mental void.

He reached out his pale, trembling hands, and wrapped his arms around the ghost of his past self.

’What... what are you doing?’ the past self gasped, its dark, hateful form stiffening in shock.

’Let go of me! Curse them! Curse the world! Suffer!’

"I won’t let go," Valerian whispered into the boy’s neck, tears finally breaking through his closed eyes, washing dark lines through the blood on his face.

"I spent six years hating you. I spent six years running away from your weakness... hating you for being trash... hating you for letting them die."

He tightened his grip, pulling the cold, sharp phantom closer, letting the dark spikes of hatred dig into his own chest.

"You were just a child," Valerian wept softly, his voice echoing through the silent abyss of his inner sea.

"You were just a terrified child who knew nothing about the world. It wasn’t your fault... that we were weak. But I am not going to run from you anymore."

The phantom froze.

The violent, poisonous hatred radiating from its shadowy frame began to tremble, shifting from venomous rage into raw, unadulterated sorrow.

’They... they died for us, Valerian...’ the ghost sobbed, its voice shrinking back into the voice of a real ten-year-old boy.

’Vespera... her eyes were so scared... she was reaching for us...’

"I know," Valerian said gently, his heart tearing apart in his chest as he absorbed the full, unedited weight of the pain he had locked away for years.

"I know. And we will never forget it. But we won’t hide behind a mask anymore."

CRACK!

The dark red rain inside his core shattered.

Outside in the physical world, the scythes of the three Blood-Spine Beasts were inches from Valerian’s flesh.

Valerian’s eyes snapped open.

His northern blindfold tore completely away, fluttering into the wind like a useless rag.

Both of his eyes—no longer hidden, no longer suppressed—flared with an unholy, blinding radiance.

The Sovereign’s Guilt Eyes didn’t just glow crimson-gold; they burned with a deep, suffocating, primordial black-scarlet flame.

The domain of his soul expanded outward in a violent, non-aura shockwave.

BOOOOOOM!

The spatial pressure inside the pit inverted.

The three S-Rank Blood-Spine Beasts froze mid-air, their massive chitinous bodies locking up as the sheer, absolute weight of Valerian’s unleashed cognitive debt slammed directly into their primitive minds.

They didn’t just feel fear.

They felt the crushing, suffocating weight of a regressor’s guilt—six years of buried trauma, execution iron, and unyielding dragon blood released all at once.

CRACK! CRACK! CRACK!

The beasts didn’t even scream.

Their eyes exploded in their sockets. Their chitinous armors ruptured from the inside out as their own nervous systems collapsed under the sheer lethality of the Sovereign’s Guilt Eyes.

They crashed onto the bone carpet like heavy sacks of wet meat, completely dead before they hit the ground.

Valerian stood in the center of the pit.

His broken left arm hung limply at his side, blood dripped from his torn clothes, and his face was smeared with dark red mud and tears.

He was bleeding, broken, and physically exhausted beyond measure.

He looked at the black chitin staff resting in his right hand.

He looked up at the bruised, crimson sky of the Ancestral Plain.

’Valerian...’ Wren whispered, her soul-form standing inside his core, looking at him in absolute awe.

The dark fractures on her dragon wings were healing, replaced by a deep, resonant black-gold thread that bound her soul to his with terrifying, unbreakable density.

’You... you integrated it.’

"I didn’t conquer it," Valerian said softly, his voice still raspy, but carrying a quiet, unshakeable depth that had never been there before.

"I just... stopped pretending it wasn’t there."

He took a slow step forward, dragging his broken body out of the pit, stepping over the corpses of the beasts he had slain with a single glance.

The Valley of Whispering Bone still stretched endlessly before him, shrouded in dark red fog and echoing with the screams of ancient ghosts.

This was only the first step of his journey through the Ancestral Plain.

There were more memories waiting in the dark.

More pain.

More broken pieces of his past life that he would have to face and bleed for.

He wasn’t healed.

He wasn’t whole.

But as Valerian Prim Sanguis walked out of the ditch into the crimson wind, his bare, unblindfolded eyes staring straight into the nightmare ahead, he was no longer running.