While the townspeople scuttled away in fear, the Komodo stood facing the manic Pygmy Tarsier. “This time, your head will roll.”

“That’s what you said the last thirty times.”

The Komodo scanned the commotion, identifying one injured Dormant and a Bloodliner companion. Neither of them appeared to be in collusion with Yuda.

Blood dribbled out of the arrow wounds. Seeing how he was already at a disadvantage, Yuda jumped onto a building’s roof, knowing that the Komodo wouldn’t be able to catch him quickly in a vertical escape.

“Well, foreign traveller, looks like I hafta run now.” Yuda’s grin turned his eyes into half moons, “I hope the next time we meet, it’ll be even more fun than this!”

Yuda hopped away and the Komodo made haste after him.

Once the scene was cleared, Fuxiao jogged over to Baja. The wound wasn’t deep but blood continued to gush out uncontrollably. If left untreated, he wouldn’t make it to the hospital. He would die on the spot.

As a Dormant, Baja was on the verge of crossing the bridge, not to his hometown, but to a place covered in black soil, drenched in blood.

Like the many humans who fell under his dagger.

He had no reason to save this man, let alone expose his Bloodline’s ability but curiosity was tickling in the back of his mind. What was the extent of his abilities? What exactly could he do with his Bloodline? What was his Bloodline?

Where did he originate from?

“Do you want to live?” Fuxiao whispered.

“What kinda question is that?” Baja breathed out, “Are all Bloodliners crazy?”

“If you do, tell me where the prisoner is kept.”

Shock and disbelief flashed in Baja’s eyes but the stoic face in front of him showed no signs of lying.

“Your time’s ticking. Don’t you have a fiance waiting for you? Will you die a dog’s death here because of the lunatic who hates all Dormants? I guess it would make your death very plausible.”

Baja was a Dormant, a Pure Dormant with no Bloodlines to sense another. He never understood what they meant by submitting to a stronger Bloodline but now, for the first time, he felt it.

Fear.

Dread.

The air left his chest. Tightened. His mind screamed at him to survive. To live. To run away. But there was nothing his body could do.

This was a moment where his life was in the palm of someone else and all he could do was obey.

“Behind the equipment storage… an underground dungeon.”

Fuxiao squared his shoulders and allowed his Bloodline to activate gently. White threads snaked out from his back, down his arms and reached for the wound, sewing it shut with precise movements. The threads dissolved and disappeared into the flesh, leaving no evidence that they existed.

“I've only closed the wounds. You’ll need to get proper help from the hospital.”

Baja stared at Fuxiao for a moment before saying through gritted teeth, “You’re all really fucked up crazy.”

“Wait here, I’ll get a wagon.”

Fuxiao strode off. Then he stopped, glancing up at the roofs. One of the arrows that hit Yuda came from above. Even though the sky was clear, the shallow breaths of a hunter hiding in the shadows didn’t go unnoticed.

He wasn’t sure how long the hunter had been on his tail. Since they arrived at town? Since the hospital? Way before then?

But there was no killing intent directed at him which meant that the hunter was only assigned to scout him.

If he wanted to, he could confront the hunter and make them reveal themself but he already knew that it must be Lord Senjahari who was behind this. The hunter now knew that he wasn’t a Dormant like the Lord believed, so it wouldn’t be long before the information was relayed. In that short amount of time, Fuxiao needed to find Topan and escape.

When the horse wagon arrived, Fuxiao propped Baja against his shoulder and guided them to the back seat. He ignored the driver’s anxious questions as they headed off to the barracks.

“Fuck, you could’ve killed me there.”

Fuxiao didn’t bother looking at Baja. “It would be a hassle to clean up after your body. I don’t know how things are done over here.”

After all, this was a foreign land to him. He didn’t know the people, the customs, the best place to hide a body.

Lanterns.

Crimson red eyes.

“You will be alone, without the safety of the pack. If you mess up, you have to do everything to survive.”

The images disappeared as soon as they crossed his mind. He turned dark eyes to the sun slowly setting behind the buildings of Mataharisma. The lively chatters faded away in the horizon but the dark shadows of Suar continued to beckon him because a bright peaceful life wasn’t where he belonged.

-

The snap of leather on a battered body echoed in the dim light of the dungeon. Blood splattered on the stone walls. A crimson pool seeped into the cracks on the dirty floor.

Topan could barely breathe through the burning pain and no matter how much he struggled against the metal handcuffs, his Bloodline refused to awaken for fear of excessive blood loss. Sometimes, he wished his survival instincts would be as irrational as his mind.

He lost count of how many times the whip had flickered in the musty air but by the time Doctor Melati entered the dungeon, his body was a canvas of red.

“Oh my, Setia, you may have gone too far.”

The Lord’s secretary glanced over at the doctor. “This much is nothing for a monster.”

“Fuck you,” Topan glared.

“So you can still mouth off, huh?” Setia grimaced at the sight. “Doctor, you’re free to start. He won’t be able to lift a finger.”

“For someone so elegant, you can be quite frightening.” Doctor Melati chuckled as she laid out her medical equipment on a table. Alcohol bottles, syringes, and scalpels.

Seeing the familiar knives made Topan flinch.

“I have to admit that I’m impressed with my discovery. Traces of black matter in the blood… How is that possible? Very intriguing.” Doctor Melati smiled. The same warm smile she had while treating patients. “I am ever grateful to Lord Senjahari for giving me this research opportunity.”

As she stepped closer, Topan tensed up at the memories of the multiple cuts the scalpel had made on his body. The syringes that drew gallons of blood from him. The cold comments made about his inside as though he was an animal, not a person.

He used to put up a fight to the point where Setia and Captain Taring had to subdue him with physical force. They couldn’t drug him to keep his blood pure as it was. Everything that happened in the dungeon was pain and torture in the name of research.

But this time, he couldn’t even put up a struggle. Barely escaping the first time, multiple fights against hudoqs, and finally being beaten up by Captain Taring. He only had a few days of painful freedom and now he was chained down again. His body wasn’t allowed a moment to heal with the severe lashes from the whips. Blood flowed out of his open wounds like a leaking tap, preventing him from entering a state of Bloodrush, to bring out his inner beast and murder everyone in front of him.

All he could do was barely hang onto his life.

As the needle pierced his skin, he wondered if his life would continue as a rat in the darkness until the day he died.

Doctor Melati drew several vials of blood with a content look on her face. When the two of them left, only the echoing silence accompanied Topan in the darkness. He leaned against the stone wall, weakened by the excessive blood loss.

Where is Fuxiao?

Is he safe?

The dungeon was the same as he remembered. Dark, dingy, and damp.

The same horrendous cycle of pain and blood as the years he lost his rationality to the Bloodrush and roamed his homeland as a monster, driven by the desire to protect his people. Before he was a war prisoner, before he was a monster, he was a knight. Sworn to protect King Aranjaya of Lekasi.

I have to get out of here.

I have to return to His Majesty.

Maybe he could take Fuxiao with him to Lekasi. He was sure King Aranjaya would allow Fuxiao to stay regardless of his unknown history.

Thinking about it now, Topan wasn’t entirely sure why he had become so attached to Fuxiao but his instincts drove him forward. It was as though his Bloodline connected with Fuxiao like a long lost partner.

A feeling rooted deep within his core.

An attraction that had assimilated into his blood cells, his genetic materials.

He couldn’t let go of Fuxiao even if he wanted to.

His body, his being, knew that no matter how much he was cut up, he would still drag himself to Fuxiao’s feet.

-

In the research laboratory, Doctor Melati presented her findings to Lord Senjahari.

“The black matter in the blood is harmless because the components have locked and combined with the red blood cells. It is intriguing how the black matter appeared inside him in the first place. After all, black matter destroys everything organic, especially Bloodline cells. And over here…” 

Doctor Melati ushered Lord Senjahari to a more spacious work table. 

“In this specimen, I have successfully separated the blood cells, but the red blood cell loses its Bloodline properties and becomes a Dormant blood cell. Whereas, the black matter cell has absorbed the Bloodline. It reverted to being a destructive cell but with the Bloodline properties.”

Lord Senjahari’s eyes twitched. “Both the black matter and Bloodline?”