Chapter 7 Hollow Blood
They walked in silence for the first two hours.
Not the comfortable kind — not the silence between people who knew each other well enough to leave the quiet unfilled. This was the silence of three strangers, each with their own reasons not to trust the other two.
Aela walked at the rear. Always at the rear — a position that gave her full view of Ren and Kael without exposing her back. Her eyes never stopped moving, and every time Ren glanced over his shoulder, he caught her stare — not fear, but the cold calculation of an Enchanter dissecting a puzzle.
"You keep staring at my back," Ren said without turning.
"Your mana is wrong." Aela made no effort to hide her observation. "Everyone has a mana signature — stable, consistent, readable. Yours is like a hole. Like something's… missing where it should be."
Kael, walking in the middle like a demilitarized buffer zone, let out a sigh. "Can we hold off on the mutual suspicion until at least lunch?"
Aela ignored him. "You're a Grade-E who fights like a C. You've picked up two Classes in a week. Who are you, really?"
Ren thought about his answer for a full ten steps.
"Someone who shouldn't have lived this long."
Aela said nothing. But her stride shifted one meter closer. Not trust — a decision that the answer was honest enough for now.
Kael led them southwest — toward the Ruin of Ashveil, a dead city mentioned by an old Scavenger back at Camp 7. A stable Grade-C Dungeon, he'd said. Good place for leveling, if you were crazy enough to go in.
They were crazy enough.
Ashveil shouldn't have existed.
Not like this, at least. Historical records described Ashveil as a small pre-Collapse settlement — a mining village destroyed when The Collapse tore through the Fractured Lands. But what stood before them was no ruined village.
It was a city.
White stone towers rose from cracked earth — half-collapsed, eaten by time, but the architecture was unmistakable. Geometric arches of surgical precision. Windows framed in runes that still pulsed faintly after thousands of years. Stone roads arranged in perfect radial patterns, all converging on a single point at the city's heart.
This wasn't primitive. This was advanced.
Aela stopped at the main gate. Her fingers touched the wall — and her expression changed. "These runes…" She traced the patterns carved into the stone surface. "This is Enchantment. But… more complex than anything taught at the Academy. Layer upon layer, all interconnected, like—"
"Like what?"
"Like a language that's already dead."
「This city isn't from after The Collapse,」 Lyra said. Her voice was quiet — quieter than usual, like someone walking through a graveyard. 「It's from before. The civilization that fell… was far more advanced than any of you realize.」
Ren barely heard Lyra. His eyes were locked on something above the gate.
The Void symbol. He recognized it now — a circle with emptiness at its center. The same one on the floor of his grandfather's house.
But this time there was something more.
A second symbol — entwined with the Void like two serpents coiled around one another. Its light was different: where the Void glowed blackish-purple, this one pulsed a pale gold. Opposing each other. Completing each other.
Aela stepped back. Her face went white. "That's… impossible."
"What is it?"
"The Genesis Core symbol." Her voice was barely a whisper. "An Enchanter legend. Said to be the first Core that ever existed — the source of all Cores. It's supposed to be nothing more than a myth."
But myths weren't carved into city gates alongside the Void with this kind of precision.
「Void and Genesis,」 Lyra said. 「Not separate. They're a pair. Two halves of the original Core system — before The Collapse shattered it into the fragments you call Awakening.」
Ren stared at both symbols. Creation and erasure. Beginning and end. Woven into a single design.
And his Void was one half of the key.
The Ashveil Dungeon opened at the city's center — a stone gate with runes that flared to life as Ren approached.
Grade-C. Stable. Inside: Phantom Knights — humanoid monsters clad in spectral armor, cold blue eyes, swords forged from pure mana. They moved in military formation — coordinated, disciplined, like soldiers who had never stopped fighting a war that ended thousands of years ago.
The trio found their rhythm.
Aela conjured a labyrinth of barriers — golden walls that carved the Phantom Knights' formation into smaller groups. Kael held the rear, Heal flowing constant, keeping them both on their feet. And Ren slipped through the gaps between barriers, Silent Step active, Shadow Claw tearing through them one by one from their blind spots.
The Phantom Captain came last — larger, its armor thicker, its blade burning brighter. A full Grade-C.
The fight was short but brutal. Ren took a slash across the arm before Shadow Claw punched through a gap in the Captain's helm. The monster fell — and Ren felt the pull.
Devour.
「Devour Complete.」 「Acquired: Guardian Core (Basic) — Grade C.」 「New Skill: Null Shield (Active) — creates a void barrier for 10 seconds that absorbs all mana-based attacks.」 「Class Count: 3 — Beast Warrior + Assassin + Guardian.」
Then the warning.
「WARNING: Host body strain at 67%. Exceeding 80% may cause permanent vessel damage.」
Lyra didn't offer a sarcastic remark this time. Her voice was serious: 「Three Classes in a Grade-E body. You're playing at limits no one has ever tested. A fourth Class could kill you before you ever get the chance to use it.」
Ren flexed his fingers. New strength flowed through him — different from Beast Warrior and Assassin. This one felt like a wall. Like standing between something and nothing.
"Ren."
Aela's voice. She stood three meters behind him, her eyes wide — not with fear. Something worse than fear. Recognition.
"That was Core absorption." Her voice trembled, barely audible. "That's what my father tried to do in Project Rebirth."
Ren froze. The air between them turned to ice.
"The difference…" Aela swallowed. "…is that you succeeded."
The walls in the dungeon's innermost chamber reacted as Ren drew near — stone shifted, Void runes ignited in a vertical line, and a gap opened like a yawning mouth.
Ren picked it up. His fingers recognized the texture of that leather before his eyes recognized the handwriting — because his grandfather had used the same hide to bind every book in their home.
Gareth's handwriting. No mistaking it.
First page. Ink faded but still legible:
"If you've found this, then my blood reached where it was meant to go. Forgive me, Ren.
Everything you know about who you are — is wrong."
Ren's hands stopped trembling.
Not because he was calm. Because every muscle in his body had locked solid.
Behind him, Kael and Aela stood in silence. Neither dared say a word. The Void runes along the walls pulsed slow — like the heartbeat of a dead city, waiting for the right person to come and read the truth left buried inside it.
Ren turned to the second page.