The cold of the ruins pierced like needles against the skin.
Baco, lungs burning from the chase, slipped into the broken remains of a forgotten vault beneath the Infernal City.
His crimson eyes—like dying embers—locked onto something that should not exist.
There, between rusted steel and layers of dust, rested a black bottle, etched with ancient runes.
It pulsed faintly, like a forgotten heart.
The bottle felt alive.
On its obsidian surface, strange symbols twisted together:
A six-petal flower inside a broken circle.Chains crossing it.And at the center… an open eye, weeping blood.
The Seal of Exile.
Something stirred inside Baco.Something ancient.Something that had been asleep… until now.
Drawn by an unseen force, he knelt.His fingers brushed the dusty glass—A hidden shard cut through his skin.A single drop of blood fell on the seal.
Then—Silence.Thicker than death.Deeper than memory.
And from the stillness,a voice came.
"Baco..."It slithered through his mind like a serpent, a cold hand inside his soul.
"Don't fear me. I am like you.Rejected. Forgotten. Betrayed."
He staggered back—But the voice wasn't coming from outside.It spoke within.
"I never drank human blood," the voice said sweetly, darkly."They forbade it. Just like they did to you.But there are always… options.""Drink from the vampires. Just one drop…and you'll feel true power burn down your throat."
Images flooded his mind.Highborn vampires.Their blood—red as rubies—warm, brutal, intoxicating.
Baco clenched his fists.His throat burned like the memory had left actual scars.
"You want the truth about your father," the voice continued."About what you are.Why your blood sings beneath your skin."
One part of him trembled.Another burned.His veins pulsed to an ancient rhythm he did not understand.
"I can show you where he lies…But you must free me."
The bottle began to throb—A heartbeat of stone.
"You'll need something rare to break the seal.Not vampire blood.Not human.The blood of a White Nevri."
The words cracked through his mind like lightning.And then—a vision.
Blinding light.A figure standing in it.A girl—hair like sunlight streaked through ash,Eyes impossible to describe.
She burned.She glowed.She called something in him that he did not know had a name.
And before the light disappeared,he heard it—A name:
"Arisha…"
It hit him like iron and fire.
He didn't know her.He couldn't.And yet his chest tightened—As if he'd already lost her once.
"Who is she?" he whispered, his voice raw.
The voice didn't answer.It laughed.
Ancient.Cruel.Hungry.
Another vision crashed into him:A battlefield.A child standing among the corpses.A bloodied hand reaching toward her.
"Promise me…" a male voice pleaded.
Baco didn't know if it was his memory—or someone else's.
He only knew it hurt.Deep.Old.Like a scar his soul still bled from.
The bottle vibrated harder now.The runes flared a feverish red.
Instinct took over.
He smashed the bottle against the ground.
A burst of dark energy rippled outward, like a rotting heartbeat.The air soured.Wilted flowers at the vault's entrance withered to ash.
The scent of death saturated the vault.
Far above, in the Golden City,magic detectors flickered awake.
A silent alarm.An unregistered anomaly.
Fate had moved.
Baco barely had time to breathe—Before he heard them.
Boots.Metal.Marching.Coming.
It wasn't a rescue.
It was the hunt.
And he…was the prey.