My Blood Legacy: Bloodlines

The first tank shattered before Ghideon had even finished lowering his arms. Glass exploded outward, scattering dark liquid across the floor and throwing an unfinished body into the blood channels. The other tanks began to crack one after another, each rupture accompanied by the sound of flesh hitting the ground, feet slipping, and air being forced into newly formed lungs. Within seconds, the circular chamber stopped looking like a laboratory and became an arena surrounded by dozens of versions of the same man.

Victor did not advance immediately. He watched.

Some bodies emerged from the tanks with awkward movements, still unable to fully coordinate their limbs. Others touched the floor already in combat stances, with defined muscles, exposed fangs, and shadows concentrated around their arms. There was an obvious difference between them. Ghideon did not produce identical copies only in appearance. He kept bodies at different stages of maturation, reserving the most stable ones for combat and using the incomplete ones as disposable material.

The man who had been sitting in the chair took one step backward and disappeared among the other versions before Victor could keep his eyes on him. There was no smoke, leap, or burst of speed. He simply stopped being different. The coat, the scars, and the posture were reproduced by several bodies at the same time, until at least twelve identical Ghideons were scattered around the central platform.

Rowena growled inside Victor’s mind.

"He mixed the scent."

"Can you find him?"

"Not while all of them are covered in the same liquid. I need you to open a few."

Victor smiled as he closed his hands.

"That part I can do."

The first group advanced from the right. There were five mature bodies, all with shadow blades extending from their forearms. Nera ran to meet them before Victor needed to say anything. She lowered her body, let the first blade pass over her head, and struck the attacker’s knee with the lower end of the shaft. The bone bent sideways, but the clone continued attacking as it fell. Nera spun the scythe in a space that seemed too small for the weapon, removed his arm, and used the curved blade to hook a second clone by the neck.

Victor advanced through the center at the same moment. Three copies tried to seal the passage, positioning their shadows as overlapping shields. He did not strike directly. Black Lightning ran through his legs and altered his acceleration on the final step, allowing him to change direction before the blockade was complete. Victor passed along the side of the first clone, drove his shoulder into its ribs, and released Black Ice at the point of contact. The dark layer entered through the gaps between the bones and expanded inside the chest, freezing lungs and joints before the body was hurled into the other two.

A blade pierced the side of Victor’s abdomen.

He felt the shadow enter his flesh and try to spread around the wound, blocking his regeneration. Instead of retreating, Victor seized the clone’s wrist and pulled him closer. The blade sank deeper into his own body, but the enemy lost the distance needed to react. Victor pressed his forehead against the clone’s and released a short burst of Black Lightning directly through the skull.

The clone’s head snapped backward with a dry crack. Its eyes burned inside the sockets, and the shadow around its arm lost consistency. Victor pulled the blade from his own stomach, sealed the wound with a thin plate of Black Ice, and used the dead body as a projectile against another approaching group.

Nera cut through two clones at once and shouted without looking at him.

"More are coming out of the floor."

Victor noticed too late.

The blood channels running through the chamber began to overflow. Black hands emerged from the liquid and seized his ankles, while skinless forms rose from the floor like corpses being dragged from a shallow grave. They were not complete clones. They were muscular structures covered in coagulated blood, faceless and without any sign of consciousness. Ghideon was using them as living obstacles.

Victor slammed his foot against the floor and spread Black Ice across the entire central platform. The channels froze first, trapping hands and torsos halfway through their movement. Then short spikes grew upward from below, piercing the creatures and pinning them to the floor. The ice did not cover the entire chamber. Victor focused the expansion only on the routes the clones were using to surround them, forcing everyone to move through narrow corridors.

Nera understood his intention immediately.

She positioned herself in the first corridor and began cutting.

With no space to attack from the sides, the clones had to advance one at a time or push their own bodies against her. The scythe became almost absurdly efficient. Nera made short movements with the shaft, using the curve of the blade to trap arms and necks before pulling them into the next cutting line. When two clones tried to advance together, she stepped back half a pace, rotated her hips, and swept the blade horizontally through both torsos.

Victor occupied the second corridor. Instead of holding his position, he attacked and retreated using minimal bursts of Black Lightning. Every approach ended with a different strike. One clone had its face smashed against a wall of ice. Another lost both legs when Victor created a dark blade close to the floor. The third tried to grab him, but received White Fire directly in its mouth. The flames passed through the throat and burst out of the chest, burning the shadow that served as the core of that body.

The Ghideons who remained on the platform did not participate directly. They watched.

Victor noticed this while destroying another copy. Twelve versions wearing the same coat moved around the chair, calmly exchanging positions while dozens of disposable bodies maintained the pressure. This was not merely an attempt to exhaust him. Ghideon was analyzing his abilities, their range, his reaction time, and the way Victor combined the three powers.

"He is studying you," Rowena said.

"I know."

"Then stop showing him everything."

Victor dodged a shadow spear and broke the attacker’s arm.

"I already showed everything during the Ritual."

"Showing power is not the same as showing habit. He is learning when you freeze, when you burn, and when you accelerate."

Victor glanced quickly at the twelve Ghideons.

Rowena was right.

Until then, he had been using Black Ice to control space, Black Lightning for movement, and White Fire to destroy cores. It was efficient, but also predictable after several repetitions. Ghideon did not need to overcome the strength of each ability. He only needed to force Victor to use them at the wrong moment.

Victor stopped attacking.

The clone in front of him advanced, expecting a change in position. Victor remained motionless until the blade was close to his neck. Then he tilted his body just enough to avoid the cut and struck the enemy’s face with an ordinary punch. No power. No acceleration. Only physical strength.

The impact knocked out several teeth and twisted the clone’s head. Victor grabbed its hair, smashed its face against his knee, and threw it toward Nera.

She removed its head in midair.

"That one was mine."

"I prepared it."

"Still mine."

Victor began fighting in a less organized way. He alternated ordinary blows with brief activations, avoided ending combinations in the same manner, and started using the clones themselves as barriers. When a blast of shadow came from the platform, he pulled two bodies in front of him and let them be pierced. Then he ran behind them without using Black Lightning, concealing his acceleration until the final instant.

One of the twelve Ghideons raised a hand.

Shadow passed through the floor beneath Victor and formed a massive jaw around his leg. He pulled his foot free before it closed, but the attack had never been meant to trap him. Another Ghideon was already behind him, with a dark spear aimed at his spine.

Victor turned and caught the weapon between his hands.

The force of the impact pushed him several meters across the frozen floor. The tip pierced his left palm and nearly reached his chest, but he kept the spear trapped while studying the man on the other end. The scent was the same. The face was the same. Even the scars were the same.

"Are you him?" Victor asked.

The Ghideon smiled.

"Perhaps."

Victor pulled the spear and the man with it. When he lost his balance, Nera appeared beneath Victor’s arm and struck with the scythe. The clone managed to turn part of its body into shadow, but not quickly enough. The blade opened its abdomen and scattered organs across the ice.

Rowena reacted at once.

"Not him."

"How do you know?"

"The scent changed when you opened him. That body was empty inside."

Victor looked at the other eleven.

"Then we need to open all of them."

Nera heard only the final sentence.

"Finally, a good idea."

The two abandoned the defensive corridors and advanced directly toward the platform. The disposable bodies tried to close the space, but Victor dissolved part of the ice and rebuilt it elsewhere. A black rise formed beneath his feet and launched him above the first line. In the air, he used Black Lightning to change the axis of his body and fell into the center of the Ghideons with his fist covered in White Fire.

The explosion was not wide. Victor concentrated the impact within a circle only a few meters across, shattering the platform and throwing four copies into the tanks. The glass broke apart, and more liquid spilled onto the floor. Nera appeared immediately afterward, using the shaft of the scythe to brace herself against the broken edge as she spun around her own axis. The blade struck three bodies across the chest.

Two were cut.

The third turned its flesh into shadow and let the scythe pass through.

Victor saw it.

That body had not merely reacted faster. It had anticipated the strike before Nera completed the rotation.

Victor advanced toward it, but the other copies moved into his path. A chain of shadow wrapped around his neck and pulled him backward. Another trapped his right arm. A third emerged from the floor and pierced his thigh with a black stake. Ghideon had waited for Victor to identify a difference and then concentrated every defense around that point.

Nera tried to reach him, but four clones surrounded her. The first blade struck her shoulder. The second opened a cut along the side of her thigh. She swung the scythe to drive them back, but a chain wrapped around the shaft and pulled the weapon downward.

Victor did not try to break the restraints one at a time.

He released control over his own blood.

The open wounds on his neck, hand, and thigh expelled red threads that spread across the shadow chains. Victor’s blood did not try to dominate them. It merely served as a conductor. Black Lightning traveled through the threads and struck every connected clone at the same time.

The bodies convulsed.

Victor broke the chain around his neck with his hands, pulled the stake from his leg, and charged the Ghideon who had avoided the scythe. The man retreated, but Victor created a wall of Black Ice behind him. For the first time, the target’s expression changed.

Only slightly.

A movement in the eyes.

But Rowena felt it.

"This one knows more."

Victor struck his face with his left fist. The man blocked, twisted Victor’s arm, and tried to use his own strength to throw him into the wall. The technique was clean, precise, and completely different from the direct attacks of the previous clones. Victor allowed the movement to happen, planted his foot on the ice, and used Black Lightning to reverse his acceleration halfway through the throw.

Both of them lost their balance.

Victor fell first, pulling the man down with him, and smashed his head against the floor. Before Ghideon could become shadow, Black Ice covered half his face and pinned his head to the ground. Victor held the other side with a hand covered in White Fire.

"Now we find out."

The man smiled even in that position.

"You still believe there is a simple answer."

The other copies began advancing, but Nera finally broke free from the encirclement. She pulled the chain attached to her scythe, dragged two clones closer, and cut through both with the same strike. Then she ran to protect Victor, keeping the others away.

"Open him already."

Victor pressed the White Fire against the prisoner’s face.

The skin burned.

The scent changed.

Rowena remained silent for one second too long.

"Rowena?"

"He is different."

"Original?"

"I don’t know."

Victor intensified the flame, burning the layer of shadow beneath the skin. Ghideon did not scream. The body began to crack around the neck, revealing a black structure between flesh and bone. It was not a simple core. Threads ran from it into the floor, connected to the blood channels and the other tanks.

"He is a bridge," Rowena said. "Cut the threads."

Victor drove his hand into the man’s chest.

His fingers passed through flesh, ribs, and the dark mass pulsing inside. The moment he grasped the threads, every copy in the chamber stopped for a fraction of a second. Victor felt dozens of consciousnesses flowing through the same connection, mixed together in a stream too fast to distinguish.

Ghideon looked directly at him.

This time, the voice came from every body at once.

"Now you found it."

Victor closed his hand.

Black Lightning traveled through the entire network.

A brutal discharge consumed the chamber. The blood channels exploded, the remaining tanks shattered, and dozens of bodies fell at the same time. Some burned from within. Others dissolved into shadow. Nera drove the scythe into the floor and shielded herself behind the blade while fragments of glass and flesh tore through the air.

Victor maintained the discharge until the threads began to disintegrate between his fingers. The body trapped beneath him arched its back, opened its mouth, and released a scream formed from several overlapping voices. When Victor pulled his hand free, he brought with it a black mass the size of a heart.

He burned it with White Fire.

Silence fell over the chamber.

All the Ghideons were on the floor.

Victor slowly stood, breathing heavily as his wounds began to close. Nera pulled her scythe from the floor and watched the bodies around them, waiting for one to move.

One of them stood near the chair.

It was unharmed.

It was the same man Victor had seen at the beginning, with the open coat and the scars crossing his chest. He looked at the burned mass in Victor’s hand and showed a strange satisfaction, as though the destruction of the entire structure had confirmed some hypothesis.

Rowena spoke with certainty for the first time.

"That is the scent."

Victor turned toward him.

Ghideon gave a tired smile.

"Congratulations. You destroyed the system that kept me spread across all of them."

Nera pulled the scythe back.

"Then now you only die once."

Ghideon looked at her, then returned his attention to Victor.

"Now I can fight without carrying all the others."

The shadow around him began to climb the walls of the chamber. It did not form clones, chains, or blades. It merely covered the space, extinguishing the red crystals and compressing the air until the floor began to crack.

Victor wiped the blood from his mouth with his thumb and smiled.

"This is what I was waiting for."