Orobas stood tall at the center of the raised platform, the stadium silent around him. One thousand demons sat cross-legged in perfect stillness, their breathing slow, their auras restrained. Above them, the sky was clear, the air heavy with anticipation.
Orobas lifted the red wooden staff slightly and let its runes catch the light.
"I will not waste your time with stories or promises," he said, his voice carrying easily across the vast stadium. "This ritual will do two things.
First, it will greatly increase the Fire Laws within the zone covered by the dome. Second, blood ripples will be released from the world core itself. Whether you benefit or not depends entirely on your body, your blood, comprehension and your will."
"This ritual will not favor weakness," Orobas continued. "And it will not wait for hesitation. Prepare yourselves."
He turned toward the center of the platform.
At its heart lay the circular opening carved directly into the stone. The runes around it pulsed faintly, as if sensing what was about to happen.
Orobas stepped forward and lowered the staff.
The moment its tip slid into the opening, the process began.
*****
Inside the hidden pocket space, I felt it instantly.
The entire space trembled deeply, as if something ancient had been disturbed. A ripple spread outward from the world core, distorting the air itself. Space folded and unfolded in layers, and from those distortions, runes began to emerge.
They were imposed.
Silver-white symbols peeled out of space itself and flowed like streams of light toward the world core. I recognized them immediately.
System runes.
My eyes narrowed.
The runes struck the core one after another, sinking into its surface and then converging inward, straight toward the blood drop suspended at its center.
The moment they made contact, the blood drop pulsed.
Once.
The reaction was immediate.
A violent fluctuation erupted from the world core, and through my connection, I felt it race outward into Armus. From the stadium below, a red dome burst into existence, expanding in an instant and sealing the entire ritual ground beneath it.
The dome shimmered faintly, transparent and fluctuating with runes. Space inside it thickened, isolating everything within.
Before the echo of that reaction faded, a second wave followed.
This one was massive.
It spread like a tsunami of law power, rolling across the interior of the dome and crushing everything in its path. I watched closely as the structure of laws inside the zone shifted.
Lightning weakened, its sharpness dulled.
Earth lost its weight and stability.
Wind thinned, becoming sluggish and faint.
Every law except one was pushed down to the bare minimum required for survival.
Fire surged.
Fire replaced lightning. Fire replaced earth. Fire seeped into every gap left behind. The intensity climbed rapidly, not in temperature, but in authority. Within the dome, fire became the dominant truth.
Then the ground trembled.
Cracks spread across the stadium floor tracing patterns like veins. They glowed deep red, pulsing slowly, and from them rose a thick, crimson smoke.
It did not rise like normal vapor.
It flowed.
The smoke moved with purpose, curling and drifting toward the seated demons, seeping into their bodies through skin, breath, and blood.
Their eyes remained closed, but their bodies reacted.
Some clenched their fists. Others trembled. A few hunched forward as if struck by sudden pressure.
I followed the source.
Inside the world core, the blood drop had changed again.
A minuscule portion separated from it, not even a true drop, more like a fragment and vanished. I tracked it instantly as it traveled through the core, through space, and into the ground beneath the stadium.
The moment it merged with the stone, the blood veins brightened.
So that was it.
The blood drop was not being consumed. It was lending itself. A percentage so small it would go unnoticed unless one was watching as closely as I was.
The farther the smoke traveled from the platform, the weaker it became. The demons closest to the center were engulfed almost completely, their bodies bathed in thick crimson haze. Those farther out received thinner streams, diluted but still effective.
Distance mattered.
Position mattered.
I shifted my focus and searched inside North.
Her body sat perfectly still, posture straight, breath slow. The blood smoke wrapped around her like a second skin.
I watched her blood respond.
It stirred, circulating faster, reinforcing pathways that had already been refined through relentless training. The smoke did not try to force change. Instead, it amplified what was already there, pushing her physical evolution forward in subtle but meaningful ways.
Elsewhere, the reactions varied.
Some demons strained visibly, their bodies resisting the process. A few coughed up dark residue as impurities burned away. Others glowed faintly, their bloodlines responding eagerly.
Yet after the initial surge, something became clear.
The System stopped.
No further runes emerged.
No new commands were imposed.
The world core continued to release the fire law fluctuation steadily, maintaining the domain, but the blood drop remained still, its role complete for now.
’Interesting.’
Either the System could not interfere further... or it was actually done.
I closed my eyes.
Through my link with the world core, I reached outward.
Carefully, subtly, I began pulling the blood smoke upward, separating a thin stream from the mass circulating within the stadium. It resisted for a moment, then yielded.
The smoke flowed toward me, slipping through space, entering the pocket realm.
I inhaled slowly.
The blood smoke touched me, and my senses flooded with information.
It did not shake my body. Not even a ripple passed through my blood. My flesh had already been refined far beyond what this ritual was meant to influence. The smoke found no weakness to exploit, no instability to press against.
Instead, it became knowledge.
As the crimson haze flowed through me, patterns unfolded. I understood blood not as a single substance, but as a system, its formation, its composition, the way it carried intent as much as life. I felt how it responded to water, how it resisted space, how it anchored the soul to the body.
Drawn deeper, I pulled in more of the blood smoke.
I let it surround me completely.
Time lost meaning as I sank into comprehension, allowing understanding to stack upon understanding, and so I began pulling more and more of the blood smoke toward me.