Chapter 139: Blood Modification (2)
They entered Peter’s blood, separated, and began searching for the small pale cells inside him. Lucard could feel them. Tiny, dull, simple things moving through Peter’s veins without thought.
Lucard’s eyes became cold. "Wake."
The blood art began, and Peter screamed. The sound struck the stone walls and came back heavier. Jake flinched, but Jenny covered his mouth before he could call out. Her own eyes were wet, but she did not move from the wall.
Peter’s veins rose under his skin. His face turned red, then pale. His hands clawed at the blanket. The muscles in his arms tightened so hard the cloth under him tore. Lucard did not stop. Inside Peter’s body, the white blood cells were forced to change. Lucard’s blood surrounded them, pressed them, cut into them, and fed them small pieces of controlled blood power. Many died at once. That was expected. Weak soldiers died first. The ones that survived became sharper.
They began to multiply.
Peter’s body reacted like it had been invaded by fire. His temperature rose. Sweat poured from him. Then the cold shook him so violently that his teeth struck together. His blood tried to reject Lucard’s art, but Lucard controlled the rejection and turned it back inward.
"Breathe," Lucard ordered.
Peter could barely hear him.
"Breathe."
Peter dragged air into his lungs.
The first night was only the beginning. The pain moved through Peter’s body in waves. First his blood burned. Then his bones ached so deeply that he thought they were cracking. Then his skin became too sensitive, as if every thread in his shirt had turned into a blade. The modified white blood cells attacked old damage, hidden sickness, weak scars, and impurities left from years of hard fighting. Peter’s body became a battlefield.
Lucard sat before him the whole time and guided the art without sleep. Every hour, he changed the direction of the blood threads. If one area became too damaged, he pulled the force away. If one part resisted too little, he pushed harder. If Peter’s heart weakened, Lucard sent a small pulse through the blood to wake it. If Peter’s breathing became too shallow, Lucard slapped his chest and forced him to breathe again.
Jenny stayed until dawn. Jake fell asleep against her despite trying not to. His small hand still held the edge of Peter’s old cloak. When Peter screamed again near morning, Jake woke with a start and whispered, "Live, Peter."
Peter heard it. Somehow, through the pain, he heard it. He did not die.
On the second day, the pain changed. It became deeper. Peter no longer screamed all the time. His throat had become too rough. Now the sounds came as broken groans and hoarse breaths. His eyes were red. His lips were cracked. His fingers bled because his nails had dug into his palms. Brant helped hold him down when the body spasms became too violent.
Brant’s face was grim. "I have seen men awaken aura on battlefields. I have never seen anything like this."
Lucard did not look away from Peter. "This is not a battlefield awakening."
"What is it?"
"A forced rebuilding."
Brant looked at Peter with troubled eyes. "Will he live?"
"That depends on him."
Jenny came back with water and clean clothes. She wiped Peter’s forehead even when Lucard told her not to get too close. Peter tried to speak when he saw her, but only a broken sound came out.
Jenny leaned closer. "Do not apologize. Just survive."
Peter closed his eyes.
The second day opened the aura path, and it did not open gently. Deep inside Peter’s body, near the spine and heart, there were blocked channels that knights of this world slowly awakened through training, battle, and will. Lucard could feel them like dry riverbeds. Peter had spent years striking against the entrance, but the gate had never broken.
Lucard used the modified white blood cells like countless tiny teeth. They ate the weak scar tissue around those paths. They carried blood heat into the blocked places. They caused swelling, pain, and repair in repeating cycles. Peter’s body tried to close the damage. Lucard forced it to heal in a wider shape.
Peter arched off the blanket and screamed without a voice.
A faint pressure flickered around his body.
Brant stepped back. "Aura."
It vanished almost at once.
Lucard’s eyes sharpened. "Again."
Peter could not answer. Lucard drove the blood art deeper.
The third day almost killed him. Peter’s heartbeat became uneven before sunrise. His skin turned gray. His breathing stopped twice. Both times Lucard forced blood movement through his chest and dragged him back. Jenny was no longer allowed inside after that. Lucard ordered Brant to keep her away because her fear might make her interfere at the wrong moment.
Jake sat outside the door for hours. He did not cry loudly. He only held his knees and whispered the same order again and again.
"Live, Peter. I ordered you to live."
Inside the room, Peter heard nothing clearly anymore. He was buried under pain. He saw old memories. The burning Vardros house. Jenny’s terrified face. Jake crying in the forest. Peter himself stands wounded and useless in the Ravencroft tool room. Then he saw Brant standing strong with Rank Four aura. He saw Lucard facing enemies without fear. He saw his own hands empty.
The pain tried to turn those memories into despair. Peter held one thing. The order. Live. The word became a nail driven through his mind. His body broke. Then it began to be repaired.
Near the end of the third night, the fever dropped. The shaking slowed. The terrible heat inside his blood became steady. The modified white blood cells no longer ran like mad beasts. They moved like trained patrols through his body, cleaning, repairing, and guarding. His muscles settled into a denser shape. His breathing became deeper. The old hidden injuries in his shoulder, ribs, and left thigh vanished one by one.
Lucard pulled back the last blood thread.
A system message appeared inside his mind.
[Blood Art: White Blood Cell Modification has stabilized.]
[Target: Peter.
Survival: Successful.
Body Reconstruction: Completed.
Physical Strength: Greatly Increased.
Movement Speed: Increased.
Recovery Ability: Increased.
Aura Path: Partially Opened.
Rank State: Peak Rank Three.
[Note: Target has reached the threshold of Rank Four. Aura awakening is now possible through training, battle pressure, or direct will stimulation.]
Lucard read the messages calmly. Peter lived. Barely. But he lived.
Peter lay on the blanket, thinner, pale, and covered in sweat. His breathing was weak but stable. For a long while, he did not move. Then his fingers twitched.
Brant, who had stayed in the room for the final hours, leaned forward. "Peter?"
Peter’s eyes opened slowly. They were bloodshot and tired, but clearer than before. He tried to speak. His voice came out like a broken stone.
"Did... I live?"
Lucard stood above him. "Yes."
Peter closed his eyes for a moment.
A faint pressure moved around his body. It was weak. Unstable. Not true aura yet. But it was there.
Brant felt it and became silent.
Peter felt it too.
Tears slipped from the corners of his eyes, though his face barely moved.
Lucard looked down at him and said, "You are not Rank Four yet."
Peter’s lips trembled.
"But now," Lucard continued, "the door is open."
Peter breathed in slowly. For the first time in many years, the wall before him had a crack.
Lucard looked at him for several more breaths, then turned his eyes toward Brant. "Bring him water. Not too much. His stomach may reject it."
Brant moved at once. He lifted the cup beside the blanket and held it near Peter’s lips. Peter tried to raise his own hand, but his fingers only shook. Brant did not comment on it. He only supported the back of Peter’s head and let him drink a little. Peter swallowed with difficulty, and even that small movement made his whole body tremble.
Jake was still sitting outside the door. Jenny was beside him now. Lucard had allowed them to come back only after Peter’s breathing became stable. When Jake saw Peter’s eyes open, he rushed forward, but Jenny caught his shoulder before he could throw himself onto the wounded knight.
"Careful," Jenny said softly. "He is alive, but he is not well yet."
Jake nodded quickly, but his eyes stayed on Peter. "Peter, you lived."
Peter tried to smile. It was weak and looked more painful than happy, but he still managed it. "Young Lord gave me an order. I could not disobey."
Jake rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand and tried to look serious. "Good. You should keep obeying."
Peter’s smile became a little more real. "Yes, Young Lord."
Jenny walked closer and looked down at Peter. Her face was pale from three days without proper rest, but her voice stayed gentle. "You foolish man. You almost killed yourself."
Peter lowered his eyes. "I am sorry, my lady."
"Do not apologize for surviving." Jenny knelt beside him and fixed the damp cloth near his shoulder. "Just do not make us watch something like this every week."
Lucard said from beside them, "He cannot survive something like this every week."
Jenny looked up at him. "That was not the comfort I wanted."
"It was information."