It was dark.
Pitch dark—but by now, the darkness had become all too familiar to him.
He felt only one thing. The ability to move just one thing. And he did—as he felt light return once more.
One eye opened, colored blue and crimson red.
When Ryuk opened his eyes fully, he found himself in a throne room that seemed all too familiar.
Except this time, his gaze landed where he would normally be seated—crumpled helplessly to the ground.
Right now, though, he was the one sitting on the throne. And without even looking, he could already feel the familiar presences behind him.
This throne room was none other than his Soul Place.
"Anytime I come here, it’s always because something has gone wrong..." Ryuk said, sitting upright on the throne.
"What has gone wrong this time?" he asked aloud.
And then, they appeared before him.
Both the red-scaled Knull, representing his Knullic bloodline, and the blue-scaled Knull, representing his Draconic bloodline.
They eyed him—part of their gaze filled with suspicion, but most of all, with confusion.
That alone was enough to alert Ryuk. He knew these two were never clueless. They always knew everything. Yet this time, they looked lost.
"What’s wrong?" Ryuk asked again.
The crimson-scaled Ryuk answered first.
"We have no idea..."
"All we know is—" The blue-scaled one took over, drawing back his sleeve to reveal his scaly arm.
Ryuk’s eyes narrowed.
The blue-scaled Ryuk should, by default, have blue-colored scales. But now, from his right wrist to the elbow, the color of his scales had changed—becoming milky white.
Ryuk’s gaze sharpened.
"The color of your scales changed?"
In response, the blue-scaled Ryuk slashed the white-scaled part. Immediately, milky white notes of light rained down.
Then, he moved his hand higher, above the elbow where the scales remained blue, and slashed again. This time, blue notes of light descended.
Ryuk understood instantly.
"The color didn’t just change... the bloodline essence within the scales itself has changed."
"It’s what happens when a bloodline undergoes a mutation," the blue-scaled Ryuk explained. "But it doesn’t make sense—for your bloodline to be mutating."
Ryuk frowned, brows knitting. "Why?"
"Let me explain better," he said, as a second throne appeared in the room and he sat down.
"When a child is born, they inherit a bloodline.
"In your case, your mother was a Dragon, and your father was a Knull."
"In most cases, the purer bloodline usually dominates."
"That means you were supposed to either have a Draconic bloodline... or a Knullic one."
"Even in rare instances where both awaken, one is almost always overwhelmingly dominant while the other is weak." He paused as Ryuk nodded in understanding.
"But your case is special. You awakened both—like any other dual bloodline holder—but instead of one overpowering the other to near-uselessness..."
"Both of your bloodlines maintained the same level of power."
"And why is that?" Ryuk asked.
"It’s due to the nature of the original bloodlines," the crimson-scaled Ryuk explained.
"You see, the Knull bloodline and the Draconic bloodline both belong to a rare category—Overpowering Bloodlines."
"In short, if either of these bloodlines merges with any other... they always dominate—erasing the weaker bloodline entirely and allowing only one to exist."
"But what happens when you cross two overpowering bloodlines together?"
"They don’t mix. So no childbirth. In all cases." He paused, letting it sink in.
Ryuk’s expression tightened. "Except in my case..."
"Exactly. For some reason, they didn’t try to cancel each other out. They chose to coexist." The blue-scaled Ryuk nodded.
"But then... when you activated that technique... a third bloodline appeared."
Ryuk’s entire body froze on the throne. "A third bloodline!?"
"Yes," the blue-scaled Ryuk confirmed, turning toward the crimson one.
"For a moment, Draco underwent a change. His consciousness was overtaken by something else... and his eyes turned frigid white," he explained.
Ryuk turned to the red-scaled Ryuk, who suddenly grabbed his shirt and tore it open.
There, slashed diagonally from his right shoulder down to his waist, was a deep scar running across his well-defined chest.
"He... he did this?" Ryuk asked, shocked.
The blue-scaled Ryuk shook his head.
"No—it wasn’t Draco. It was the one who took over his consciousness."
"The second it gained control of Draco’s body, it instantly tried to erase me."
"A bloodline trying to erase another only happens in the womb.
"That’s when the stronger bloodline fights the weaker one—either wiping it out completely, so the child inherits only one... or weakening it just enough, so the child becomes a dual-bloodline holder, but with an imbalance."
"For this new being to attack Draco—it means it’s trying to eliminate him and take his place."
"That’s why it makes no sense for your bloodline to be mutating now," the blue-scaled Ryuk finished, concern darkening his voice.
Ryuk’s mind spun.
But it didn’t take long before realization struck.
He vividly remembered the system notification:
---
[Does Host wish to see the skill panel of the new skill? The host must know there are...]
---
’It probably tried to warn me... but I didn’t care to read the rest before activating it,’ Ryuk thought.
He turned to the blue-scaled Ryuk, who looked at him gravely.
"I don’t know how you got your hands on a technique that tries to erase your original bloodlines—since all techniques you should inherit come from us."
"But whatever that technique is—it carries an Overpowering Bloodline stronger than either of us."
"It left a mark on Knullic in seconds... and overthrew my consciousness without a fight."
"If you activate it again, you won’t just lose your Knullic bloodline..."
"You’ll most likely lose your Jade Dragon bloodline too—and have everything replaced by whatever that new bloodline is."
A frown settled on Ryuk’s face when he heard of the report.
He knew well the only reason he could obtain a skill that could overpower even his original bloodline or not needing them to exist was because of the system and the special Skill Upgrade Card.
It was something he had kept secret and only him knew.
But then, it occurred it to him:
A dark realisation...