Bloodline Evolution: I Can Choose Opposing Paths-Chapter 39: The Iron Seraph

GASP!

Air slammed into his lungs. Aren jerked upright, at least...he thought he did. Yet underneath him, there was no ground.

There was only white.

Fog stretched endlessly in every direction, swallowing almost everything around him. It moved, even without wind, drifting in currents that seemed to breathe with him, or perhaps because of him.

Where am I?

"Luna?" he muttered. His voice echoed throughout the place before disappearing off into the distance.

Aren began to stand up, placing a hand onto his chest where he was supposedly shot. Yet, there was no wound.

"What’s going on...?" he whispered.

But before any of his questions were answered, shapes started to emerge from the fog.

Mountains, or at least, the idea of mountains.

Their outlines were there, but their slopes were flat, lacking lighting and shadow. A lake shimmered somewhere ahead, but its surface reflected no sky.

It was like...he was in an unfinished painting. Undoubtedly beautiful...but unfinished.

Aren took a cautious step forward.

The ground beneath his feet felt solid, yet when he looked down, it seemed less like earth and more of a concept of one.

Something about this place felt incomplete, and somehow—

So did he.

Aren moved forward slowly, each step felt uncertain, mostly because everything didn’t quite feel real. The surface held his weight but there was no sound when his foot came down.

As he approached, he noticed the water was perfectly still. When he leaned slightly to peer at its surface, it reflected nothing.

He straightened, just to see something else across the lake.

A darker smear began to form, like ink bleeding into wet paper. It spread unevenly, spreading outward before gathering itself into something vaguely human-like.

It started walking towards him.

Aren froze, not knowing whether he should be running away or coming closer.

It finally stopped at the middle of the lake, hands crossed as if it was patiently waiting. The inked silhouette did not move again, because it knew he’d come closer.

He took another step, then another, crossing the lake as his legs seemed to move on their own.

The unfinished mountains seemed to blur the closer he came to the center. The ink-dark figure remained still, arms folded, its shape wavering slightly at the edges.

Aren stopped a few paces away. He swallowed and forced the question out.

"Where is this?"

"Am I...in the afterlife?"

Then the air shifted faintly. The voice didn’t come from the figure, but from the world itself.

"You are not dead."

The voice echoed throughout, rippling like a drop on the water’s surface.

"In fact, you’re very alive," the figure added. "More alive than any other living being, actually."

"More alive...?" Aren frowned, the words sitting strangely in his chest. "What does that even mean?"

But even before he finished the sentence, Aren remembered his last memories. The shattered Core dissolving into light, Luna’s voice breaking before the silence.

"...I absorbed it."

The words left him quieter than he expected.

"My heart..." he murmured, staring at his own hand as though it belonged to someone else.

"What you did was a big risk," the figure added. "You would’ve died with any other Bloodline."

Aren’s gaze snapped back up.

"How does that—?"

He swallowed, his thoughts racing to catch up with what his body already knew.

"Are you saying it only worked because of mine?"

The ink-dark silhouette did not nod or move, yet the fog seemed to clear up.

"Compatibility is not coincidence."

The words settled heavily between them, but before Aren could press the figure any further, the world began to tremble beneath his feet.

The unfinished mountains flickered violently, sky above fractured like paint peeling away.

"Wait—" Aren stepped forward instinctively. "You said—"

He felt a sudden pull in his chest, dragging him backward. The last words he’d ever hear from this figure was one he’d never forget:

"Good luck, Descendant."

***

Aren’s eyes opened to the open highway once again. For a heartbeat, he raised a hand to shield his eyes from the blinding sunlight.

His eyes adjusted as he inhaled once. Everything felt...different. Every movement he made felt effortless.

Luna was in front of him.

Her hands were on his shoulders, her eyes wide with disbelief.

"Aren?" Her voice shook. "Aren, is that—are you—?"

He examined the panic in her eyes, how red they were from how she’d been crying. Aren looked down once more at the medical bag, hoping to find the Core but finding nothing there.

So it was true...Is it really—inside me?

After a moment, he replied softly.

"It’s me," he said. "I’m alive."

Behind Luna, the remaining Defilers had stepped back several paces. Their formation had broken and some were on their backs.

The woman with the gun stood further back than before, her arm trembling slightly despite the weapon still aimed in his direction.

"He’s unstable!" she shouted, the composure from earlier gone. "Don’t just stand there! We can still kill him and retrieve the relic!"

The hesitation in the Defilers broke.

Two of them moved first.

One flanked to his left, ether condensing into his blade as it burst into flames. The other lunged forward, accelerating right toward Aren’s chest.

He didn’t think, didn’t even realize what their Bloodlines were. He focused on himself, how fluidly he was able to move.

With just a single twist of his body, the forward attacker’s arm passed through empty space.

Aren’s hand closed gently around the man’s wrist. Using the momentum, he threw the man right into a nearby car, his body slumped as his eyes went pure white.

The second Defiler’s blade of ether carved toward Aren’s ribs and met nothing. Aren was simply elsewhere.

With a single palm to the Defiler’s chest, the man flew backward as though struck by a train, before slamming into a broken divider.

But that was when a surge of ether erupted.

The sky above the highway darkened faintly as threads of light began to weave themselves together behind the woman. Nearby cars were stripped of the metal, fragments flying toward the figure.

Layer by deliberate layer, a structure formed in the air behind her.

Blades segments unfolded themselves like a mechanical halo, each piece hovering independently as though suspended by invisible chains.

The metal pieces finally assembled an elegant coffin, before it opened up, revealing the figure inside—

A woman sat in the middle in a tucked position, and from the central throne, thin chains tethered themselves to her arms and legs.

The remaining Defilers stepped back instinctively. Some tried to run, but chains lashed out immediately, indiscriminately attacking everything in sight. Some Defilers were impaled mid-fleeing.

"I had hoped you would simply die," the woman said quietly.

"But I suppose we will do this properly."

Aren stared at the figure in both awe and shock.

The Iron Seraph.

A Spirit-Type of both Light and Steel Elements. It was comparable to later stages of Luna’s Ice Jade Spirit.

Aren looked back at the woman, his eyes widened at the horrific scene unfolding in front of him.

The woman’s scalp began bleeding, as well as her eyes, nose and mouth. But she didn’t care.

"HAHAHAHAHAHA!"

"IT’S TIME TO DIE!"