Chapter 9: A chaotic awakening
Damon had expected some surprises to pop out because he was using a superior awakening resource, but he did not expect this. He had a bloodline? Two affinities, blood and darkness? What was the third one with the question mark?
In his last life, he only had blood affinity and no bloodline. All of this was new. Before he could make sense of the system prompt, something even more shocking happened. Water exploded from the small puddle he was standing on.
Without giving him a chance to react, the water completely surrounded him on all sides, fully encasing him in a sphere of liquid that shimmered like mercury laced with blood. It moved like it had a mind of its own, swirling and tightening around him. He was now submerged in it.
[Ding! Fragmented Ancestral Bloodline Detected. Attempting Awakening]
The runes on the floor ignited, their glow no longer steady but wild and erratic. Tiny vortices started forming on Damn's body, millions and millions of them. These vortices started sucking the liquid inside.
Pain rippled across his body. Whatever was happening, this was not heading anywhere good. "This is not good. There is not a lot of water. I am going to suffer a backlash." Damon screamed and shouted in pain. The runes glowed brighter, and water kept coming and coming.
The puddle beneath him, once shallow enough to barely wet his ankles, now seemed endless. The chamber trembled. The stone tiles cracked. From beneath the cathedral, from some water surged upward, as if summoned by the awakening ritual. Everything was spiraling out of control.
More liquid, more blood-tinged mercury flooded the chamber, yet none of it spilled outward. Everything obeyed the same silent command, drawn into the sphere that wrapped tighter around Damon. His body hung weightless inside it, but his mind was far from calm.
[Ding! Awakening Initiated]
"What the hell is this?" Damon gritted his teeth. He had never heard of anything like this happening during a first awakening. Most people sat in the pool for thirty seconds, watched a few runes flicker, and boom, class selection.
He had researched a lot about the awakening process in the city's library, and not one book mentioned anything like this. This was something else entirely.
Suddenly, pain shot through his spine, pure, white-hot agony that lanced into his skull like a branding iron. Damon bit his tongue and tasted blood. The water reacted instantly, glowing brighter as if excited by the presence of his blood.
[Ding! Bloodline Awakening in Progress...]
[5%... 9%... 12%...]
His arms convulsed. His fingers curled inward. His eyes rolled back, and visions assaulted his mind. Fangs tearing through empires. Crimson thrones carved from bone. A king who drank the blood of stars. And then... a name.
Vael'Tharan.
The name echoed like a scream across eternity. He knew that name. Or rather, something inside him did.
[Ding! You are undergoing a Primordial Awakening.]
[Ding! You are no longer eligible for the standard class path.]
More and more system prompts kept flashing in front of Damon, each one more ridiculous than the last. But his brain was still stuck on that single name he had heard.
Vael'Tharan... wasn't that a name that appeared in the bloodreign's quest?
Damon tried his best to remember and he just couldn't place it. Then it came to him. Vael'Tharan was the name of the blacksmith's son, the blood blacksmith who had forged Bloodreign. But how was that guy's son related to his awakening? What was happening?
[Ding! Bloodline Awakening Paused]
[Ding! Soul Fragment Required to Proceed]
[Ding! Soul Scan in process]
[Ding! Soul Fragment Obtained]
[Ding! Soul Fragment contaminated by soul weapon BloodReign's essence]
[Ding! Error]
[Ding! Error]
[Ding! Partial Awakening Initiated]
[Ding! Partial Awakening in Progress...]
[11%... 29%...34%...]
Damon was going crazy. What the hell was happening? How could BloodReign's soul be present inside him? He did not understand anything that was happening.
During this chaos and confusion, a loud explosion sounded. Bang! Something hit the awakening pool water that had enclosed him. The barrier weakened a little, temporarily revealing what was outside.
It was only for a moment. The barrier quickly patched up once again, fully encasing Damon. But that one second was enough for Damon to see that he was surrounded now.
The entire chamber was flooded with a dozen figures cloaked in white and gold, the sacred vestments of Cathedral enforcers. Magic circles hovered around their palms, crackling with divine energy. At their center stood a stern-looking priest with eyes like molten silver and a staff shaped like a crucifix speared through a serpent.
"Shit," Damon muttered under his breath, his voice muffled within the liquid sphere. He could feel the pressure of their spells pounding against the water's surface now, each one probing, pushing, trying to break in. This wasn't just a routine awakening anymore. This was a holy fucking crisis.
On the other side, the system wasn't done with him yet. The percentages were slowly ticking by and stopped completely when it came to 53.
[Ding! Partial Awakening Successful]
[Ding! 53% Bloodline Assimilated]
[Ding! Warning. Bloodline Extremely Unstable]
[Ding! Warning. 10 days before Bloodline collapses permanently. Seek stabilization immediately.]
Damon's heart skipped a beat. What the hell was this? A death sentence? He did not have time to think because the next second, the sphere of blood-mercury exploded under the combined assault of the Cathedral enforcers. Chaos erupted.
All the enforcers tried to block the backlash from the bloodsphere, and in the center of it all, stood Damon.
He was fully drenched, panting, and shirtless, with glowing red runes spiraling up his arms and chest like tattoos. His eyes glowed bright crimson, and his fangs were visible for everyone to see.
The priest took a step forward, staff raised. "You... whatever you are... are in violation of divine ordinance. Submit now, or be purged."
"How about no?" Damon didn't have to think twice before activating the teleportation talisman he had swindled from Ellora. This was exactly why he had asked for one, and now that same situation was playing out in front of him, though for an entirely different reason.
The teleportation talisman activated, and with that, Damon vanished in a blink, leaving all of the Cathedral enforcers staring wide-eyed and powerless as the crimson flare of teleportation shimmered and died.