Chapter 212: Stripped Of Her Bloodline

"They wanted to conduct a Taboo Ritual that would strip her of her Bloodline."

The words hung heavy in the air, and Raiden felt a chill crawl up his spine. He had heard many terrifying things since coming to this world, but nothing sounded as vile as what he had just heard.

"But if it’s considered such a big taboo, how did nobody find out? How did they even manage to pull this off?" Raiden asked, his voice tight with anger.

"Because I wasn’t there." Tobias’s hands trembled slightly around his teacup, the porcelain rattling against the saucer.

"On the day my Aria was supposed to turn sixteen, the family sent me away on an urgent mission to the border regions. They told me a rebellion had broken out among the local Terra Beast tribes, and that only someone of my rank could handle it." Tobias let out a bitter laugh; there was no humour in it at all.

"I should have known something was wrong. That mission could have been handled by any mid-level officer. But I was foolish enough to think nothing of it. I thought my family, my own blood, wouldn’t dare hurt an innocent child."

Raiden’s fists clenched under the table. He already had a bad feeling about where this story was heading, but he forced himself to stay quiet and listen.

"You must understand something first, Raiden. In this world, no one can awaken their bloodline before their sixteenth birthday. It doesn’t matter how strong you are, how talented you are, or how much you cultivate. It is a law woven into the very fabric of this world, unbreakable even by the Archon himself." Tobias explained, his tone turning into that of a teacher despite the heaviness of the topic.

"So they waited until she turned sixteen?" Raiden asked, already knowing the answer but needing to hear it confirmed.

"Yes. They waited patiently, like vultures circling a dying animal." Tobias’s grip on the teacup tightened until his knuckles turned white.

"The moment her powers awakened, before she even had a chance to understand what was happening to her own body, my son—no, that bastard, ordered his men to seize her."

Aria’s hand tightened around her grandfather’s arm. She wasn’t looking at either of them; her eyes were fixed on some distant point, as though she was somewhere else entirely, back in that moment.

"They dragged her into the family’s private ritual chamber, a place normally reserved for ancestral worship and blessing ceremonies. A sacred place, turned into a slaughterhouse for greed." Tobias spat the words out like poison.

Raiden opened his mouth to ask something, but the old man raised a hand, silencing him.

"Let me finish, child. I need to say this all at once, or I won’t be able to say it at all."

Raiden closed his mouth, feeling something cold settle in his stomach.

"The Taboo Ritual to strip someone of their bloodline is not gentle. It is not clean. It requires the extraction to happen while the bloodline is still raw and freshly awakened, before it settles fully into the bloodstream." Tobias’s voice grew quieter, heavier, as if each word cost him something.

"Which means they have to tear it out while the body is still resisting, still trying to bond with its own power for the first time. It is, without exaggeration, one of the most excruciating experiences a human body can endure."

Raiden felt sick. He glanced over at Aria, who still hadn’t moved, her expression carefully blank in a way that told him she had learned, out of necessity, how to survive hearing this story told over and over.

"For six hours," Tobias said, his voice cracking slightly. "For six hours, they tortured my granddaughter in that chamber, ripping her bloodline out of her body piece by piece, sealing it away into a vessel meant for someone else. Someone more ’worthy’. Someone willing to fight."

"Who—" Raiden started, but Tobias shook his head.

"That is a story for another day. Let me finish this one first."

Raiden swallowed his questions and nodded.

"By the time I returned from that fake mission, the sun had already set. I remember walking into the estate, expecting to see her running toward me like she always did, ready to tell me about her big day."

Tobias’s eyes glistened, though he refused to let the tears fall.

"Instead, I found her lying in the courtyard, thrown outside like garbage. Her body was covered in blood, more than a person could lose and still live. Her breathing was so faint I had to place my ear against her chest just to confirm she was still alive."

The old man’s voice broke completely now, the mask of composure crumbling away.

"My own son did this. My own blood did this to his daughter, because she was too soft, too kind, too unwilling to become a weapon for this family’s glory."

Raiden didn’t say anything. There was nothing he could say that would make this better. Some wounds ran too deep for words to reach.

"I carried her to the healers myself. I didn’t trust anyone else to touch her. For three months, she hovered between life and death, her body trying to adjust to the sudden, violent loss of something that had only just become a part of her."

Tobias finally looked up, meeting Raiden’s eyes directly.

"When she finally woke up, the first thing she asked me was, Where was I? Why didn’t I protect her?? What crime did she commit?"

Raiden’s chest tightened painfully at those words. He glanced at Aria again, and this time she looked back at him, her usual bright smile nowhere to be found.

"That’s when I decided that no matter what, I would never let this family hurt her again. I moved her out of the main estate, gave her a normal job at the Alliance, away from their politics and their ambitions. I thought if she stayed far enough away, they would forget about her."

"But they didn’t," Raiden said, already understanding where this was heading.

"No. They didn’t." Tobias confirmed grimly. "Because now, after all these years, there is a Grand Elder Selection Trial happening within the family, one that requires every direct descendant of the family to participate, regardless of their bloodline status. It is a selection to see who is worthy of her bloodline." Tobias spat out those words like they were poison, his voice full of hatred.

"And since Aria is still, on paper, a daughter of the main branch..."

"She has no choice but to attend." Tobias finished for him, his expression turning colder than Raiden had ever seen it.

"And that bastard will be there too. And this time she will win her powers back, and I will make sure that no one can take them away from her as long as I am alive..."