Chapter 274: The Ashen Bloodline Powers

The system notification still hung in the air, glowing faintly and cold against the chaos of the ruined warehouse in front of Raiden.

{Ding!! Congratulations, Host, For Awakening The Dormant Ashen One Bloodline!!}

Raiden didn’t read it.

He didn’t need to.

Something had already woken inside him, and it was not him.

The pressure that had thrown everyone across the warehouse hadn’t faded. If anything, it had grown, thickening the air until every breath felt like swallowing water. The cracked concrete beneath Raiden’s feet continued to spread in thin, jagged lines, and the dust falling from the ceiling hung suspended in mid-air, caught in the invisible field radiating off his body.

Bai Zheng pressed himself harder against the wall, his broken glasses hanging crooked on his face, his breath coming in short, panicked bursts. He had seen this before. Years ago. A glimpse of something he had spent the rest of his life trying to forget.

And now it was standing in front of him again.

Wearing the body of a boy.

Raiden slowly turned his head.

His eyes were wrong.

The purple that had always been there, the colour Isadora once said reminded her of twilight, had deepened into something darker, something that didn’t belong in a human face. They glowed now, faintly, with a light that seemed to come from somewhere behind them, somewhere far older than the boy they belonged to.

"You..." Raiden’s voice came out, but it wasn’t his alone.

There was an echo beneath it, layered and ancient, like two people speaking through the same throat. One was Raiden, hoarse and broken from blood loss and pain. The other was something else, low and resonant, carrying a weight that made the air tremble.

"Thou hast laid hands upon what is MINE."

The words settled over the warehouse like a shroud.

Lola’s hands were shaking so badly she couldn’t even move a single muscle. Trevor was frozen against the support beam, his flaming eagle whimpering somewhere behind him, its wings folded tight against its body. The blurry man and the laptop guy were pressed so flat against the far wall that they might as well have been part of it.

And Bai Zheng, for the first time since Raiden had walked into this warehouse, looked genuinely afraid.

"Raiden," he said, his voice careful, controlled, the way one might speak to a wild animal. "Listen to me. This isn’t you. Whatever this is, whatever’s happening inside you, you can fight it. You’ve fought worse. You’ve—"

"Silence."

The single word hit like a physical blow.

Bai Zheng’s mouth snapped shut, and the pressure in the room spiked so suddenly that the remaining Terra Beasts, all of them, even the Diamond-Tier ones, dropped flat against the floor, whimpering, their bodies pressed down by a weight they couldn’t see.

Raiden took a step forward.

Bang!!

The ground cracked.

Then another.

Bang!!

Bang!!

Bang!!

Bang!!

And with each step, the air around him warped, bending inward, pulling loose debris and dust toward him in slow, spiralling streams before flinging them outward again in sharp, violent bursts. It wasn’t telekinesis. No, it was something much more powerful. Raiden was controlling a fundamental force of nature:

Gravity.

"Thou art all guilty," Raiden said, his dual voice echoing off the walls. "And the price of guilt... is blood."

He raised one hand.

Bai Zheng’s eyes widened.

"Wait—"

The air in front of Raiden compressed.

BANG!!

The invisible force slammed into the four Battle Masters all at once, crushing them against the walls with a force that made the concrete crack and splinter behind them.

Bai Zheng hit first, his back slamming into the wall so hard that the breath was driven from his lungs. Trevor followed, his body folding around the support beam with a sickening crunch. Lola and the other two hit the far wall in a tangle of limbs and dust, their Terra Beasts scattered around them like broken toys.

The pressure didn’t let up.

It increased.

"Damn it, you madman, stop!!" Trevor gasped, blood bubbling at the corner of his mouth. "You’re going to kill us—"

"Good."

The word came out flat. Empty. Completely devoid of the hesitation, the guilt, the humanity that had always been there, even in Raiden’s worst moments.

Trevor’s eyes went wide.

That wasn’t Raiden.

It felt like all of the humanity was stripped away from him, and it was a force. It was much older and darker.

That was something else wearing his face.

Raiden’s hand tightened.

The pressure doubled.

Trevor coughed, hard, and blood sprayed across the cracked concrete. Lola made a strangled sound as the air was crushed out of her lungs, her body folding in on itself against the wall. The blurry man and the laptop guy weren’t even screaming anymore—they were just gasping, their faces turning purple, their eyes rolling back.

Bai Zheng was the only one still conscious enough to speak.

"Raiden," he rasped, blood dripping from his lip, "if you kill us... you’ll never find who was after her!!"

Something flickered in Raiden’s eyes.

For half a second, the purple dimmed.

Then it flared brighter than before.

"Then," the dual voice said, and the echo in it was sharper now, angrier. "Thou wilt speak. Or thou wilt break."

He took another step forward.

{Ding!! Warning: Corrosion of Host Humanity Detected.}

The notification flashed across Raiden’s vision, red and urgent, but he barely registered it. It felt distant, unimportant, like a fly buzzing somewhere far away.

{Ding!! Corrosion of Host Humanity: 12%.}

Raiden’s hand twitched.

{Ding!! Corrosion of Host Humanity: 18%.}

His expression didn’t change. It couldn’t. The muscles in his face felt stiff, unfamiliar, like they belonged to someone else. He looked down at his own hand, at the blood dripping from his wounds, and for a moment, he didn’t recognise it as his.

The next second, his expression reverted back to the less emotional one as he started moving again.

{Ding!! Corrosion of Host Humanity: 25%.}

"Sha Sha!!"

RAI RAI!!

The voice cut through the haze.

Neva.

Raiden’s head turned, slow and mechanical, toward the warehouse entrance.

Woolie stood there, fur bristling, lightning crackling along his spine; the suppression of Raiden’s powers, causing them to be affected and in pain, but he didn’t care.

Behind him, Rose and Neva were already moving, their faces pale with a fear that had nothing to do with the enemies in the room.

They were afraid for Raiden, for they felt something crucial was slipping away from their grasps.

"Woolie Woo!!" Woolie’s voice cracked.

Human, stop!! It’s us!! It’s me, Emperor Woolie!!

Raiden stared at him.

For a moment, nothing happened.

Then the dual voice spoke again, colder this time.

"Thou art... familiar."

Woolie’s ears flattened.

"Rai Rai, it’s me. It’s Neva. Your Neva. You promised, remember? You said we’d always be together. You said—"

"Silence."

The pressure spiked.

Neva was thrown backwards, crashing into Rose and Woolie, and the three of them tumbled across the concrete in a heap.

{Ding!! Corrosion of Host Humanity: 31%.}

Raiden turned back to Bai Zheng.

The old fear in Bai Zheng’s eyes had changed. It wasn’t just fear anymore.

It was recognition.

"You’re losing yourself," Bai Zheng whispered, and there was something almost like pity in his voice, which was somehow worse than the fear. "The Ashen bloodline doesn’t just give power, boy. It takes. And the more you use it, the less of you there is left to take."

Raiden’s hand rose again.

{Ding!! Corrosion of Host Humanity: 38%.}

"Then let it take," the dual voice said.

And the warehouse began to collapse.

The ceiling groaned, a long, low sound like something massive shifting in its sleep, and the first chunks of concrete began to fall.

They didn’t hit the ground.

They hung there, suspended in the air around Raiden, caught in the invisible field that radiated off his body, trembling before they were flung outward in sharp, violent bursts that shattered against the far walls.

Dust filled the air, thick and choking, but it didn’t touch him. The pressure around his body had become a barrier, a boundary between him and everything else, and anything that crossed it was either crushed or thrown.

{Ding!! Corrosion of Host Humanity: 41%.}

"Thou thinkest you won’t speak," the dual voice said, and the echo in it was sharper now, layered with something that sounded almost like amusement. "Nothing stops Thast from taking what’s mine. Speak."

He took a step toward them.

Then another.

Each one sent a fresh tremor through the warehouse, and the pressure in the air thickened until the remaining Terra Beasts, even the Diamond-Tier ones, were pressed flat against the floor, whimpering, their bodies trembling with a fear they couldn’t control.

Bai Zheng watched from against the wall, his breath shallow, his hands clenched into fists at his sides, and for the first time since Raiden had walked into this warehouse, he looked like he wasn’t sure he’d made the right call.

"You’re going to kill yourself doing this," Bai Zheng rasped, blood dripping from his lip. "The bloodline doesn’t care about you, boy. It cares about feeding. And right now, you’re giving it everything it wants. I might die today, but at least I’ll take you down with me!!"

Raiden didn’t answer.

He just kept walking.

{Ding!! Corrosion of Host Humanity: 45%.}