Bloodbound Tyrant: The System Made Me Unstoppable-Chapter 33: The Sovereign Fragment

The night in Blackmoor was not silent—it breathed.

Winds slithered through the trees like ghosts, brushing cold fingers against stone and steel. The moon above was blood-red again, a sure sign that something ancient stirred beneath the surface. Lucien Mason stood at the edge of the grave-choked hills just outside the city walls, his eyes glowing faintly—silver irises ringed in scarlet, pulsing with each heartbeat like dying stars.

Behind him, Elira stepped closer, her black heels crunching over brittle bone fragments half-buried in the dirt. She wore a dark velvet cloak over near-translucent silks that clung to her curves like liquid shadow, her every movement effortless, lethal, and teasing. The way she moved was predatory grace personified—a dance of seduction and death that made even the dead seem to stir in their graves.

"You feel it too, don’t you?" she whispered, her voice carrying on the wind like a lover’s promise. "The pull."

Lucien said nothing. His left hand was clenched at his side, the veins pulsing unnaturally—thicker, darker than normal, as if something alien coursed through his bloodstream. The Bloodbound System within him was evolving again, pushing him toward something that terrified and thrilled him in equal measure. The scent of death called to him like incense to a god, and he could taste copper on his tongue with every breath.

"I had a vision," he muttered, his voice rough with barely contained power. "Of a throne made of ribs. And something... inside me wanted to sit on it. Wanted to rule from it. Wanted to make the world kneel before it."

"You are the Blood Tyrant," Elira purred, stepping close enough that her breath grazed his neck, sending shivers down his spine. "What did you expect? That you’d inherit power and stay human? That you could touch divinity and remain unchanged?"

He turned to face her—quick, dominant, wild. His hand gripped her wrist suddenly, the strength inhuman, his fingers leaving white marks on her pale skin.

"And what are you expecting from me, Elira?" he asked, voice low, primal, dangerous. "Loyalty? Mercy? Or are you just waiting to see if I’ll devour everything in my path, including you?"

Her smirk didn’t falter. She leaned in, pressing her chest against his arm, her heartbeat steady despite the obvious threat.

"Devour me first," she whispered, her lips barely an inch from his ear. "Let’s see if your hunger can be sated."

Their lips nearly met—heat surged between them, sharp as lightning, electric as the moment before a storm breaks—but before they touched, a tremor split the ground beneath their feet.

Lucien spun around. From the cracked earth, a dark mist erupted, spiraling like a vortex of condensed nightmares. The scent was familiar: blood, sulfur, ash, and something else—something that reminded him of burning flesh and screaming souls.

"System Notification," a hollow voice echoed in his mind, but this time it sounded different. Older. More... aware.

> [The Crimson Seal has been disturbed.]

> [Hidden Dungeon: Throne of the Forsaken is awakening.]

> [Warning: A Sovereign Fragment is attempting to awaken.]

> [CRITICAL: This Fragment contains memories of the First Tyrant.]

Lucien’s pupils narrowed to pinpricks. "Sovereign Fragment...? First Tyrant?"

Elira backed away, her face paling to the color of moonlight. "No... not here. Not now. That dungeon—it’s not just forbidden. It’s sealed by the gods themselves. The last person who entered never came out, and reality itself broke around the entrance for three days."

Before Lucien could reply, a monstrous roar tore through the earth, a sound that seemed to come from the very foundations of the world. The cracked hill exploded in a shower of bone dust and grave dirt, revealing a staircase descending into glowing crimson mist. A crown of thorns hovered midair just above the entrance, rotating slowly, dripping what looked like liquid starlight.

And beside it—stood a man.

He looked exactly like Lucien.

But older. Taller. More complete.

Colder.

With twin black wings unfurled behind his back, each feather edged in silver fire.

"No..." Lucien muttered, his blood running cold. "That’s—"

The doppelganger grinned, and the expression was beautiful and terrible. "You finally caught up. Took you long enough, future me."

Elira gasped, stumbling backward. "A time fragment?"

"No," Lucien said, eyes wide with dawning horror. "It’s worse. That’s the part of me I tore away... the one the System couldn’t control. The one I buried."

The clone stepped forward, wings folding in with a sound like silk being torn.

"I am the original will of the Bloodbound Tyrant," he said calmly, his voice carrying the weight of absolute certainty. "You? You’re just the vessel the System rebuilt. The sanitized version. The one they thought they could control."

Lucien clenched his fists, feeling power surge through him like molten metal. "Then let’s see who deserves to wear the crown."

The clone’s smile widened. "Oh, we will. But first, you need to understand what you’re truly fighting for."

—

Meanwhile, within the Royal Spire

Back in the capital, two figures watched the scene unfold through a shifting pool of blood-mirror magic that rippled like liquid fire.

Lady Mirella, the Queen of Spires, leaned against her throne of crystallized screams. Dressed in crimson chains and a slit gown woven with soulthread that seemed to move of its own accord, she watched Lucien’s confrontation with interest, one leg folded over the other. Her fingers traced patterns in the air, and where they passed, reality bent slightly.

Beside her stood Ardyn, the Executioner of the Pale Court, silent and hooded. His massive blade, forged from the bones of extinct gods, hummed with barely contained power.

"This child grows faster than any vessel before him," Mirella whispered, her voice like honey over broken glass. "But even he... can he survive his own corrupted soul? Can he face what he truly is?"

Ardyn didn’t answer immediately. He simply lifted his massive blade and pressed it into the mirror’s edge. The image warped, showing glimpses of possible futures—Lucien crowned in blood, Lucien destroyed by his own power, Lucien becoming something that made gods tremble.

"The Sovereign Fragment... wants to merge," Ardyn said finally, his voice the sound of tombstones grinding together. "If he fails, he’ll become a new god. If he accepts it..."

"And if he wins?" Mirella asked, though her tone suggested she already knew the answer.

"Then he becomes something worse. Something that makes the old gods look like children playing with toys."

Mirella’s lips curved in a smile that held no warmth. "How delicious."

—

Back in the Dungeon Entrance

Lucien stood face-to-face with his doppelganger, who looked so real—so complete—that even Elira had taken several steps back, her hand moving instinctively to the blade at her hip.

"Let me guess," Lucien muttered, his voice dripping with sarcasm. "You’re the part of me that enjoyed the killing."

"No," the clone said, stepping closer, and Lucien could smell the scent of old blood and ancient power radiating from him. "I’m the part you denied. The true Blood Tyrant. You tried to restrain yourself, seduce women, gather allies, play king. I am the reason they all come to you—because I know how to take what’s mine. I know how to rule."

Lucien’s veins bulged, black lines spreading across his skin like a living tattoo. "I’m not you."

"You are me," the clone whispered, reaching out as if to touch Lucien’s face. "But only one of us gets to survive this trial. Only one of us gets to become what we were meant to be."

Suddenly, the dungeon flared alive. Crimson light surged up the stairs as if welcoming both of them into its gaping maw, and the temperature dropped twenty degrees in an instant.

> [Dungeon Initiated: Throne of the Forsaken]

> [Survive the Sovereign Fragment]

> [Reward: Sovereign Crown – Bloodpath Ascension Unlocked]

> [WARNING: Death in this dungeon may result in permanent soul fragmentation]

Elira tried to step between them, her cloak billowing dramatically. "Lucien, wait—if you go in there—!" 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝒆𝔀𝒆𝙗𝓷𝒐𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝓶

"I have to," he growled, his voice becoming less human with each word. "This isn’t just power. It’s the part of me that could destroy everyone I care about. Everyone I’ve sworn to protect."

She grabbed his hand, her touch surprisingly warm against his cold skin. "Then take someone who cares with you."

Lucien hesitated, looking into her eyes and seeing something he’d never noticed before—genuine fear. Not of him, but for him.

Her eyes softened. "I’ve given you everything. Let me fight beside you. Let me prove that I’m more than just another conquest."

The ground behind them cracked again. More tendrils of blood mist slithered into the air, and the sound of something massive moving in the depths echoed up from below. The copy of Lucien walked into the dungeon first, laughing, the sound echoing off invisible walls.

Lucien looked at her once, nodded—and stepped into the crimson stairway.

Together.

—

Far Above, in the Sky

A new star ignited in the heavens. It was no star—it was an eye.

Watching.

Smiling.

Waiting.

And around it, other stars began to dim, as if something vast and hungry was feeding on their light.

> [WARNING: Path Divergence Imminent]

> [Your fate is no longer bound by the system.]

> [The Final Branch Begins.]

> [NOTICE: Other Tyrants are awakening across the realm.]

—

The Descent

As Lucien and Elira descended deeper into the dungeon, the air grew thick with the scent of old blood and forgotten prayers. The stairs were carved from what looked like black marble, but closer inspection revealed they were made from compressed bone, polished to a mirror sheen by countless feet over millennia.

"How many have walked these steps?" Elira whispered, her voice barely audible.

"All of them," Lucien replied, though he wasn’t sure how he knew. "Every Blood Tyrant who ever lived. This is where they came to die. Or to be reborn."

The walls began to pulse with a heartbeat that wasn’t quite human—too slow, too deep, like the breathing of something vast and ancient. Scenes flickered in the bone-white surface: armies kneeling before thrones of blood, cities burning under crimson skies, and always, always, the same face—Lucien’s face—wearing different crowns across different ages.

"The Tyrants," Elira breathed. "They’re all the same person. All... you."

"Reincarnations," Lucien confirmed, his voice hollow. "The System doesn’t just choose vessels. It recreates the same soul, over and over, hoping to perfect it."

"But you’re different," she said, gripping his arm. "You fight it. You choose your path."

"Do I?" he asked, and his doubt was like acid in his voice. "Or do I just think I do?"

The stairs suddenly vanished behind them. Trapped.

Ahead, the crimson corridor split into two paths, and from the walls, thousands of hands began reaching out—grabbing, clawing, begging. The voices were a symphony of the damned, all calling his name, all pleading for salvation or revenge.

But it was the soft voice that echoed from the depths that made Lucien’s blood freeze.

"Lucien... do you remember me?"

He stopped dead, his entire body going rigid.

That voice—he hadn’t heard it in years. Hadn’t dared to remember it.

It was her.

His first love.

The girl he sacrificed when the System chose him.

The girl whose death had given him his first taste of real power.

"Lyanna?" he whispered, the name torn from his lips like a prayer.

"She’s calling from inside the dungeon," Elira said, her voice tight with something that might have been jealousy or fear. "But that’s impossible. She’s been dead for—"

"Three years, two months, sixteen days," Lucien finished, his voice hollow. "I remember exactly."

The voice came again, closer now, more real: "Come to me, Lucien. Come and see what your power cost. Come and see what you could have had."

From the left path, a figure emerged—translucent, beautiful, heartbreaking. Lyanna, exactly as she had been in life, but her eyes held the weight of eternity and her smile was edged with something that might have been madness.

"You let me die," she said simply, her voice carrying no accusation, only fact. "You chose power over love. You chose the crown over my heart."

"I had to," Lucien said, but the words felt hollow even to him. "The System required—"

"The System required nothing," his doppelganger said, stepping out from the right path. "You wanted the power. You wanted it more than you wanted her. And that’s when you became truly mine."

Lyanna’s ghost smiled, and the expression was beautiful and terrible. "But now you can choose again. Give up the power, reject the crown, and you can join me. We can be together forever, free from the System’s control."

"Or," the doppelganger added, his wings spreading wide, "embrace what you truly are. Take the crown, become the Sovereign, and rule over life and death itself. Including hers."

Lucien stood frozen between them, between love and power, between his past and his future. The hands from the walls reached for him, and he could feel their desperation, their hunger, their need.

"Choose," both voices said in unison. "But know that this choice will echo through eternity."

And then, from the depths of the dungeon, came a sound that made them all freeze—a slow, steady clapping, as if someone else was watching, waiting, applauding the performance.

"Very good," a new voice said, ancient and amused. "But you’ve forgotten something important."

A third figure stepped from the shadows—identical to Lucien, but wreathed in golden light instead of crimson shadow.

"I am the Lucien who chose neither power nor love," he said calmly. "I am the one who walked away from it all. And I’ve been waiting here for you to realize the truth."

"What truth?" Lucien demanded, feeling reality shift around him like quicksand.

The golden figure smiled. "That none of this is real. That you’re not in a dungeon at all. You’re dying, Lucien. Right now, in the real world, the System is consuming your soul. This is all a distraction, a final test, a way to keep you occupied while it completes the process."

Elira gasped, her form flickering like a candle in the wind. "That’s... that’s not possible."

"Isn’t it?" the golden figure asked. "Look around you. Really look."

Lucien did, and for a moment, the illusion wavered. He saw himself lying in a circle of blood and bone, his body convulsing as dark energy poured from his wounds. He saw the real Elira kneeling beside him, tears streaming down her face as she tried to channel healing magic into his dying form.

"The choice was never between power and love," the golden figure continued. "It was between accepting the System’s control or fighting for your own soul. And you’re running out of time."

The dungeon began to crumble around them, reality bleeding through the cracks. Lucien could feel his life force ebbing away, could feel the System’s tendrils wrapping around his consciousness like chains.

"Choose quickly," all three figures said in unison. "Because this time, there won’t be another chance."

And as the world dissolved into chaos around him, Lucien heard one final voice—his own, speaking from somewhere beyond the veil of reality:

"The real question isn’t who you are, Lucien. It’s who you choose to become when everything you thought you knew turns out to be a lie."

The last thing he saw before the darkness claimed him was the blood-red moon above, and the eye that watched from among the stars, still smiling, still waiting, still hungry for his soul.