"You can't forcibly evolve a bloodline, Gin," Barbra said flatly, rolling her eyes. "More than anything, monster-bloods have to choose to evolve. It's not something you can jam into them like a cube."

"I'm confused," I muttered, glancing between them.

Barbra sighed, rubbing her temple. "You really should've been told this by your mother."

"My mother wanted me to be a merchant," I said, half-joking. "In many ways, she's getting her wish."

Barbra gave a tired nod. "Right… well. That explains a lot. Okay. So. Every monster-blooded individual has a core element tied to their lineage. It's not the same as your mana aspect, but it's similar—more instinctual, more primal. For example, your mother's bloodline is that of an Almiraj—a mythical horned hare. Her element is Nature and Life. Given what little we've seen of yours, you're probably aligned with the same. For now."

I blinked, processing. "Okay… makes sense, I think."

Gin clapped his hands together, grinning like he'd been waiting for the chance to interrupt.

"What the Queen of Beasts means, my dear Alex, is that just because you were born as one thing, doesn't mean you're trapped as that thing! Why, I was born with a rather boring little spider bloodline—webs, venom, too many eyes—and look at me now!"

He struck a dramatic pose. "A Void Panther. Elegant. Lethal. Stylish."

Barbra scowled. "Yes, you and I both ended up Panthera-based, but I highly recommend against that for Alexander. It doesn't suit his nature."

"I disagree," Gin said, immediately. "But fine, if not Panthera… then full-throttle unicorn. Your horn, Alex—it's magnificent. It would be a crime not to lean into it."

"…Do I have a say in any of this?"

"No," they both answered in unison, nodding at each other like it was obvious.

"You do get a choice in the elemental alignment of your evolved bloodline," Barbra added, mercifully. "That's still up to you. Personally, I'd recommend something in the triad of Smoke, Darkness, or Blood."

"…Why unicorn, though?" I found myself asking, reluctant but curious.

"Because, my darling charge," Gin said, his voice slipping into a purr, "you are not the front-line type. You are brains, not brawn. Precision, not brutality. A Blood Unicorn would be perfect. Your tears alone would be…" His grin turned carnivorous. "Delicious."

Barbra groaned. "What he means is that your tears would have alchemical properties. Medicinal. If you chose Blood, they'd be high-grade ingredients. If you went with Smoke, your tears could create wide-area obfuscation fields. And if you selected Darkness, your lineage would eventually branch into either the Dream or Nightmare families."

I frowned. "Wouldn't choosing Darkness make me more like… Morres?"

"Yes. And no," Barbra said, tone careful. "You wouldn't share his mana aspects—you wouldn't start eating light or pulling in shadows—but your bloodline would tie into that same thematic family. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing. Again—your mother really should have gone over this. Please tell me she at least explained this to your older siblings?"

"Uhhh…" I scratched my head. "Maybe?"

Barbra looked like she wanted to scream into a pillow.

"Of course," she muttered. "Of course Juliet didn't. Just sent you all into the world with half-baked instincts and a merchant's ledger."

Gin tilted his head, amused. "Honestly, it's part of the charm. Watching you stumble your way through hidden inheritance is better than most plays I've seen in centuries."

Barbra gave him a withering glare. "You're not helping."

"I never said I was," Gin said, his grin far too wide to be sincere. "But I'm supposed to be helping, so fine—I'll tone it down. A little."

"Can we rewind a bit?" I asked, holding back a sigh. "Why does everyone keep saying a unicorn bloodline suits me?"

Barbra exhaled slowly, her expression unusually serious. "Because you're not using your Almiraj blood. Not really. Your Shell did—used it up, actually. Drew so much potency from it that there's nowhere left for it to go. No path forward. The only way to evolve now is by externally refining your bloodline into something new."

She looked at me then, soft but firm. "And I won't lie to you. It's going to hurt—more than anything you've endured so far."

My stomach twisted. "So Gin's suggesting unicorn first?"

Barbra nodded. "Yes. But there are other options. One: Arachne. Thread manipulation, high mobility, excellent for complex battlefield control. Two: Sellivont."

"Sellivont?" I echoed, unfamiliar with the name.

"A rare, advanced rabbit bloodline," she explained. "Razor-sharp horn. Compresses ambient mana and miasma around its body. Agile. Sharp-eyed. Unlike most rabbits, they're obligate carnivores. Predators."

She smiled faintly. "They hunt."

"No. Absolutely not!" Gin snapped, his voice suddenly high-pitched, like a child being denied dessert. "He can't stay a rabbit! Rabbits are prey! And who hunts prey, hmm? Cats. We don't want that, do we, Barbatos?!"

Barbra didn't even blink. Her tone turned icy. "Archon of Calamity, stop pretending. A Unicorn bloodline would sharpen his presence. Amplify his ability to lead. That's what you're afraid of. We both know the real reason you're here."

Her eyes—slitted, golden—narrowed with pantherine fury, boring straight into him.

Gin didn't flinch. If anything, he seemed amused.

"Oh, come now," he said, waving her off like a fly. "You know. I know. But he?" He pointed directly at me. "He doesn't. Not yet. But he will. A few more months, tops."

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

Barbra stiffened. "You think you can tell him that soon?"

"Think?" Gin repeated, his grin growing jagged.

In a blink, he conjured a dagger—simple, dull-looking, but saturated with something ancient. He pressed it lightly to my throat, not hard enough to break skin, but firm. His free hand gripped my wrists, just enough to keep me still.

"I know."

Everything froze.

Not from fear—though that was there too—but because I could feel it.

The weight behind those words. A thread of inevitability, coiled like a fuse already burning.

And though I didn't understand what they were talking about—

—Barbra did. And it scared her more than it scared me.

***

I was left alone in my room.

Or what used to be my room. The stone walls no longer wore the rot of abandonment or the brittle touch of decay. Instead, it now looked more like a room forgotten by purpose rather than time—a place half-tidied and then left mid-task. Old furniture had been restored just enough to stand tall again. The shattered mirror was replaced with a polished silver pane. The bed still creaked, but the sheets were new. It was lived-in, but by someone else. Not me.

"They really did take care of a lot, huh…" I muttered.

"Indeed, Sire," Lumivis answered from the shadows. His voice was as indifferent as always, that smooth, glassy tone never wavering.

"You can't tell me what Gin meant either, I take it."

"No, Sire," he said, and then, after a pause, "I shall not."

I turned toward where he shimmered half-seen near the edge of the bedpost. "Shall not?" My brow lifted. "Meaning you can, but choose not to?"

"Correct, Sire."

I threw my head back onto the pillows and let out a slow, bitter exhale. "I'm so damn tired of secrets…"

"Good," came a voice from outside. Female. Stern.

Ranah.

Before I could even sit up, the door clicked open. Then came the others—Morres, wide-eyed and awake for once, his presence too sharp to be dreaming; Temptation, his smile faint and unreadable; and Barbra, always poised, always circling with that quiet gravity of hers. They all followed Ranah, who entered like she owned the place.

"You're tired of secrets," Ranah said, arms folded. "We're tired of keeping them. But let's be honest: we still can't break the sanctions placed on us for even being here."

"So instead," Morres picked up smoothly, "we'll teach you things you shouldn't know but will… and things you should know but don't."

My eyes narrowed. "Great. So more torture? More throwing me into hordes of insects that scream like gods in their death throes? At least with Barbra I was assigned a proper hunt, not a fever dream."

"A hunt you've yet to complete," Barbra said, her voice like a blade dulled not from age, but from being too frequently used.

My mouth opened to respond—but Morres cut in.

"We've pieced together the meaning of that vision. Barbatos told us about Yore. And frankly, it's time you stopped depending solely on your bow. You need versatility. Range and reach. Tools for both precision and impact."

As if on cue, Temptation shifted. His body blurred, shedding its silk suit and feminine air in favor of a tall, older gentleman draped in dark reds, with seven rapiers hanging neatly from his left hip.

"I won't take no for an answer," he said, voice now lower, weathered like wood. "You need a hammer. A blade. And something between the two."

Barbra raised a brow and gave a lopsided grin. "Actually, just the mixture will do. You'll learn to wield your horn, no matter the weapon you choose. Even if you try to ignore it, we'll teach you how to make it sing."

My hand instinctively moved to my forehead. The horn. Still strange. Still foreign. Sometimes I could feel it hum under my skin like it wasn't just bone, but something watching.

"Then it's decided," I said quietly. "I may be a rabbit. I may be prey. But the first lesson you all taught me was that every creature is both predator and prey. Was that supposed to push me toward a Sellivont?"

"No." Barbra shook her head, smile deepening. "That would be convenient, but not accurate. That was to remind you of balance. Besides, if we did push you toward a Sellivont, we'd need to refine your elemental ties first."

"Wait—hold on," Ranah interrupted, brows knitted. "What do you mean by elemental ties? Aren't those just… mana types?"

Morres and Temptation both turned toward her, similarly confused.

"You—" Barbra stared at the three of them like they'd just confessed they thought fire was cold. "You don't know either?"

She muttered a curse under her breath, storming toward the far wall with the sudden tension of someone whose world just tilted sideways. Her hand flicked outward, slicing the air like she was pulling open a curtain. Except… nothing moved. Still, she swiped again, fingers ghosting over some kind of invisible interface.

A shimmer sparked in the air for a moment—something metallic and blue—but then it faded.

Barbra's face twisted. Not confusion. Fury.

"That. Damned. Demeterra," she spat. "No wonder her monster-bloods are so powerful."

"Because they're not diffusing miasma into their elemental lines," she continued, pacing now. "Which is what we've been doing—what everyone has been doing—for generations. It weans the monster blood out. Dilutes it. Every time we try to refine a bloodline across generations, it fades. Demeterra cut that out. She found a way to separate the elemental flow from the monster lineage."

She stopped, her eyes darkening. "I'm starting to hate this damned witch more and more. I don't care if she's the Dominus of Laws. I'm going to break a few."

Ranah raised her hand like a nervous student. "I'm sorry… what exactly does that mean for Alex?"

Barbra turned to me, her voice quieter now. "It means that if we don't restructure your elemental bond, anything we do to evolve your bloodline will just… fade away. Over time. No permanence. No legacy."

I blinked. "And if we do restructure it?"

"Then you're not just a monster-blood, Alexander. You're a pillar. A point of continuity. A foundation that others can build on. That's what she's been doing all this time. Creating keystones in the blood."

"Dominus of Laws," I muttered. "How fitting. She changed the rules."

"No," said Morres quietly. "She rewrote them."

For a moment, silence took hold of the room. The weight of what had been said settled like dust. Heavy. I didn't move. Not out of fear, but because the sheer magnitude of it was starting to pull the pieces together.

Bloodlines. Elemental ties. Monster heritage. Shells.

Everything I was, everything I'd been forced to endure—there was a pattern forming. And someone, somewhere, was terrified of what I might become if I ever saw the whole picture.

I stood slowly, facing Barbra.

"Then what's the next step?"

Barbra's gaze sharpened. "We start with elemental correction. You'll pick your tie—Smoke, Darkness, Blood, Whatever it may become. We'll separate it from your existing Shell and set it into the lattice of your bloodline. Once that's stable…"

"We evolve," I said, finishing her thought.

"No," said Temptation, smiling again as he stepped forward. "Then we reforge."

Barbra's smile returned.

And I could feel it, then.

The path forward wasn't clean. It wasn't safe. But it was mine.

Finally.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.