Vhar opened his eyes on the altar and knew that he had already died once.
Rain struck glass somewhere beyond his reach. Pale light burned behind it without flame, turning every drop silver before it slid into darkness. The memory held no face, voice, or name, yet Vhar knew it belonged to another world where blood possessed no supernatural authority and his life had ended.
His age, home, work, family, manner of death, and arrival were gone. No frightened youth waited behind his thoughts; only one consciousness remained beneath the pain.
"Vhar Blackvein, the ninth branch elders entered your name as this year's offering. The founder will receive your blood and living body tonight, and once the rite records acceptance, your branch will receive three full measures of grain while its place in House Talvern's family register remains secure for another year."
The speaker stood behind thick glass with a ritual sheet open before him. House Talvern's black-vein crest marked his shoulder, while a square witness seal hung from his belt.
"Did everyone in the ninth branch agree to trade me for grain?" Vhar asked.
The witness looked up. "The branch elders signed because they control its register, while the other households were never asked even though they lose the payment if the founder refuses you."
The branch had not offered Vhar. Its elders had traded him, while hungry households who had never been asked would eat only if he died.
Stone ribs crossed the ceiling above him, and old lineage inscriptions survived beneath incense smoke. Brass buckles pinned his wrists, ankles, and waist to a metal altar. The raw skin underneath showed that the body had fought before Vhar awakened inside it.
The word founder stirred a residue in the body's living brain: a chipped ration bowl, a red robe, binding hands, and fear battering against these ribs. It supplied local speech and recent sensation without offering a name or explanation.
Fresh blood, preserved-tissue oil, heated brass, and cleaning ash filled the chamber. Two attendants remained beside the altar, while the witness, a measurer, and an armed warden occupied the protected lane beyond the glass.
"Tarev," the older attendant called from a brass wheel. "His pulse changed when he woke."
Tarev Talvern watched a red needle tremble. "Keep the draw below the final mark; if his heart fails too early, none of us will have a reading to show the elders."
Vhar turned his head and saw the founder hanging inside a silver frame. Blackened ribs enclosed preserved flesh, while three tubes ran from its exposed vessels to his arm and restraints. A separate lateral vessel curled through the trunk's preserved circulation.
Four instruments watched his pulse, the altar tubes, and the founder's lateral vessel.
Two brass pulse teeth struck in sequence.
TICK! TICK!
The attendant eased the wheel.
Warm blood left Vhar's arm and climbed the central tube.
SLURP!
Cold pressure entered through the other two tubes. It cinched the straps at Vhar's ankles and waist, then pressed around his heart and spine. Tarev could now sign the sacrifice as consumed.
The pressure closed around Vhar's soul, but no ancestor's memory, blood claim, or second consciousness answered it.
Three buried organs opened inside him at once. Each struck beneath his heartbeat, so Vhar turned his attention inward.
[SSS PRIMEVAL BLOODFORGE: Awakening]
[ HOST: Vhar Blackvein ]
[ SOUL STATE: One Present Consciousness ]
[ FOREIGN ORIGIN: Confirmed / Source Unknown ]
[ PRIOR BODY CONSCIOUSNESS: Absent / Cause Unknown ]
[ FORMER-LIFE MEMORY: Fragmented / Personal Record Inaccessible ]
[ WORLD READING: Karnathar / Among Lowest Confirmed Mega-Cosms / Greater Worlds And Realities Innumerable ]
[ ANCESTRAL OWNERSHIP RECORD: None ]
[ VERDICT: SSS / Three Organs Awakened Together ]
[ ORGANS: Primeval Ancestral Devouring; Primeval Slaughter Scripture; Primeval Forbidden Physique Forge ]
[ HOST EXISTENTIAL GRADE: Primeval ]
[End Awakening]
The panel named Karnathar and placed it beneath innumerable greater worlds, but Vhar's origin still read Source Unknown and the missing consciousness still read Cause Unknown.
Survival came first. The pressure clamped around his heart ran through the founder's lateral vessel, and Vhar seized it with his will.
[SSS PRIMEVAL BLOODFORGE: Devouring Record]
[ HOST: Vhar Blackvein ]
[ SOURCE: House Talvern founder body ]
[ ORIGIN: Forced ancestral control reached through the active rite ]
[ ANCHOR: Blood, heart, spine, and soul ]
[ DEVOURING: Forced Ancestral Control / Partial ]
[ ABILITIES: Bloodline Ruin / Level I ]
[ CAPABILITY EXPRESSION GRADE: Primeval ]
[ ABILITY ACTIVATION: Deliberate contact with an inherited blood vessel, restraint fitting, cord, or inscription ]
[ ABILITY EFFECT: Pull one active inherited blood vessel, restraint fitting, cord, or inscription back through its same unbroken physical connection and tear the controller, its marked limb, or its marked living body ]
[ ABILITY MANIFESTATION: The reached fitting, restraint, blood vessel, or controlling limb breaks, tears, or bursts ]
[ ABILITY BOUNDARY: Direct contact and the same unbroken physical connection are required ]
[ UVAR USE: 2 per present reversal ]
[ LOW UVAR: Narrows the force Vhar can send through the contact; his pulse, muscle strength, and current wounds remain unchanged ]
[ EVOLUTION: Higher levels seize thicker blood vessels, stronger restraints, and harder inscriptions without removing physical contact ]
[ FORGING: Unknown ]
[End Devouring Record]
Vhar caught the pressure trying to close around his heart and dragged it backward through the lateral vessel. The founder's separate vessel blackened, collapsed, and shed brittle flakes into the silver cradle. Its dedicated instrument struck the bottom of the glass, then stayed still.
"The inner vessel collapsed," the measurer said. "Its gauge stopped."
Tarev kept his eyes on the other three readings. "Leave the tubes, straps, and instruments where they are."
Vhar felt blood in the central tube and pressure in both restraints. The left fitting lay closest to his hand.
He closed his fingers against the strap and whispered the name.
| BLOODLINE RUIN |
Uvar surged down his arm into the fitting, faster and hotter than blood should move.
WHIRR!
The brass wheel spun backward and struck the attendant's knuckles. Blood stopped climbing toward the founder before dark fluid returned through the central tube. The left restraint pulled violently against its metal pin.
"Get your hand off it!" the woman beside the altar shouted.
The attendant released the wheel and staggered away. "It turned by itself."
"Move back from him," Tarev ordered. "Nobody touches the altar while the blood is returning."
Vhar pulled his forearm toward his chest.
SNAP!
The treated strap split at the pin, and its loose end whipped across the altar before the brass fitting tore sideways against his bleeding wrist, leaving his left hand free.
The founder trunk contracted hard enough to bend a silver brace. Dark fluid climbed the wrong branch of the measuring assembly and flooded its glass housing in full view of everyone present.
Vhar caught the altar edge before weakness dragged him sideways. His heart hammered, but the returned warmth stayed in his chest instead of bleeding toward the founder.
For the first time since waking, he could feel his pulse, breath, and raw wrists without the rite pulling at them. He pressed his attention toward the three organs and asked what each could presently do.
[SSS PRIMEVAL BLOODFORGE: Host Access]
[ FEATURES ]
[ MATRIX MANIFEST: Confirmed host state, owned powers, sources, and known evolution ]
[ SLAUGHTER SCRIPTURE: Every direct kill leaves a Slaughter Imprint; coherent killing identities form or evolve permanent Codices ]
[ FORBIDDEN PHYSIQUE FORGE: Forges devoured flesh, bone, blood, organs, Codices, and metal into permanent Physiques ]
[ PRESENT ACCESS: Devouring active ]
[ PROTECTED UNKNOWNS: SSS Primeval Bloodforge origin; foreign-origin source; prior-consciousness absence ]
[End Host Access]
His free hand still shook from blood loss, while both ankle straps and the waist buckle remained tight.
Vhar willed his matrix manifest into view.
[SSS PRIMEVAL BLOODFORGE: Matrix Manifest]
[ HOST: Vhar Blackvein ]
[ AGE: 16 ]
[ REALM: Bloodless Husk ]
[ BLOODMARK: 1st ]
[ UVAR RESERVE: 7 / 18 ]
[ METRICS ]
[ STRENGTH: 22 ]
[ SPEED: 24 ]
[ IMPACT: 20 ]
[ VITALITY: 28 ]
[ CONSTITUTION: 26 ]
[ ENDURANCE: 23 ]
[ REFLEX: 25 ]
[ PERCEPTION: 27 ]
[ SOULHOLD: 42 / Identity And Command Integrity ]
[ DEVOURING: Forced Ancestral Control / Partial ]
[ ABILITIES: Bloodline Ruin / Level I ]
[ STATUS: Starved; Blood Loss; Wrists, Ankles, And Waist Injured; Partially Restrained ]
[End Matrix Manifest]
The reversal had not stopped the blood leaking around the fitting or the hunger hollowing his stomach. It had stopped the rite from pulling either toward the founder.
He lacked any local comparison for the metrics, but his pulse held and his free hand could strain the altar's stone mounting despite the body's condition.
Beyond the glass, the warden drew his baton without opening the staff gate. Tarev watched Vhar's hand, the stopped founder gauge, and the completion sheet without giving an order.
"Clear the wash passage and bring restraints that do not share the altar fittings," Tarev said. "Keep the staff gate closed until the blood stops moving."
The woman reached the service door but looked back at Vhar. "I'll get the workers out, though I am not coming near that altar again."
"You don't need to. Lock the passage once they are clear."
Dead workers would add nothing except bodies and questions. Once she left, Tarev pressed his square seal into the sheet and folded it around the fresh mark.
The record declared the founder had consumed Vhar and released the ninth branch grain, yet the supposed dead man remained on the altar.
Tarev laid the sheet beside the instruments. The pulse needle still moved, founder fluid filled the blood tube, pressure sat below its lowest mark, and the collapsed-vessel gauge stayed still. Together, they showed the rite had failed.
The grain depended on that accepted result, while Tarev's seal made him responsible. Destroying the sheet would threaten the payment and leave the missing record under his name.
"No one burns this sheet or cleans those instruments," Tarev said. "My seal is on this sheet. The elders will see the room before anyone changes it."
Vhar wrapped his free hand around the broken brass fitting.
One wrist, both ankles, and his waist remained bound. A death record and paired execution blades lay behind the glass.
Tarev had sealed the evidence, closed the staff gate, and ordered new restraints for the sacrifice House Talvern had recorded as dead.
Vhar's first question had been whether the branch chose his death. His next concern was simpler: which restraint would open the way to Tarev's sheet and the service door?
He intended to break the next restraint, take Tarev's sheet, and leave the chamber.