Blood Online: Evolving Endlessly

With breakneck speed, Akhil could see the human settlement.

The descent into the settlement was eerily smooth. Akhil cut through the clouds, his eyes scanning the perimeter for smoke, rubble, or the tell-tale signs of a struggle. Instead, he found a scene of industrious peace.

The streets weren't littered with bodies; they were being swept. The walls weren't being torn down; they were being reinforced.

'Everything seems fine,' he thought, his boots finally touching the pavement a few blocks away from the Administrative Block. He didn't let his guard down. If anything, the normalcy was more suffocating than a battlefield. It felt like a stage play where the actors were trying too hard.

He hurried toward the center of the district, his heart hammering against his ribs. As the Administrative Block came into view, he skidded to a halt. There, amidst the scaffolding and the hum of construction drones, was a familiar silhouette.

Seth was standing near the entrance, holding a digital blueprint and directing a team of workers. He looked busy, healthy, and entirely human.

A massive wave of relief crashed over Akhil, nearly making his knees buckle. The dark images of crystals and "puppets" he had carried from the mountain began to dissolve. He took flight again, a short, low-altitude burst that landed him directly in front of his friend.

Seth looked up, his face brightening instantly. A wide, genuine smile broke across his features.

"I saw the notification from the system... It's just like I expected! You actually did it!" Seth's eyes gleamed with pride, his voice carrying that same upbeat energy that had always anchored Akhil. "The First King of the South. I knew that emblem wouldn't settle for anyone else."

Akhil breathed out a ragged laugh, his hand resting briefly on Seth's shoulder. He felt warm. He felt real.

Akhil had never felt more happy to see Seth than he was at the moment, but the reprieve was short-lived.

The memory of Layla's warning instantly made his expression harden.

"Yeah... I managed to get the emblem," Akhil said, his voice dropping an octave as his gaze sharpened. "But I also got some very useful information."

Seth raised a brow, tilting his head with curious innocence. "Oh? What information is that?"

"Where's Langdon?" Akhil threw the question back, his eyes surreptitiously scanning the rooftops and the shadows of the doorway behind Seth.

"Oh, him?" Seth gestured vaguely toward the edge of the district. "He went to investigate the Titan sightings like you told him to. I couldn't follow along because someone had to stay back and supervise the repairs. You know how he gets—he's a lone wolf when it comes to data."

Akhil paused for a second, looking at Seth again, as though sizing him up.

Without a word of warning, Akhil's expression shifted. His eyes narrowed with a sharp, predatory crimson glint. In a motion so fast it blurred, he flicked his wrist. A condensed, needle-sharp spike of blood erupted from his palm, streaking straight for the center of Seth's chest—the exact spot where the crystal should be.

The Seth in front of him didn't flinch in fear. Instead, his pupils suddenly flared with a profound, jagged blue energy.

With a movement that was too fluid, too mechanical to be human, he twisted his torso in mid-air. The blood spike whistled past his ribs, trailing a few inches of his shirt. "Seth" leaped backward, covering ten meters in a single, gravity-defying bound, landing silently on the edge of a half-finished stone wall.

The warm, prideful smile was gone. In its place was a look of chilling, vacant curiosity.

"That was a lethal strike, Akhil," the voice was Seth's, but the cadence was wrong. "I'm surprised you figured out so quickly" another voice came from the side, but this time it was one of the constructors who had a mask on his face.

""Would you mind telling me how you saw through my new pet?" the puppet asked, the synthesized voice of Langdon drifting through the lips of a mechanical constructor. It reached out, placing a cold, metallic hand on Seth's shoulder.

​Akhil didn't reply. His fists curled into tight knots, his knuckles turning white as he stared daggers at the masked figure. The cold clarity of the betrayal settled in his gut.

​'I almost fell for it,' Akhil thought. 'But Seth doesn't call him Langdon. He calls him "The Nerd" or "Short-stack." And the Seth I know would never spend a beautiful day supervising paperwork.'

​Akhil activated his {Heat Vision}, the world shifting into a spectrum of thermal energy. The sight made his heart sink. Hidden beneath Seth's clothes, the beast crystal throbbed with a rhythmic, artificial pulse—but it was cold. Most terrifyingly, the three constructors standing nearby showed no heat patterns at all. They were hollow shells. Machines.

​"What did you do to him?" Akhil's voice was a low, dangerous snarl.

​The masked puppet tilted its head, the motion jerky and unnatural. Through the machine, Langdon's voice took on a mocking tone. "I have no reason to explain my masterpiece to an asset that is about to be decommissioned. Besides, you shouldn't be worrying about the process. You should worry about the time."

​As the puppet spoke, a chilling transformation swept across the courtyard. The workers who had been hammering away at the walls stopped in perfect unison. One by one, they turned their heads toward Akhil.

Their movements were synchronized, the sound of grinding gears echoing in the eerie silence.

​Dozens of "constructors" dropped their tools, their synthetic skin flickering to reveal the cold steel beneath. The settlement wasn't being repaired; it had been turned into a factory.

​"We barely have any time left until the transition is complete and I fully activate my powers," the puppet continued, its voice now coming from multiple bots at once, creating a disorienting wall of sound. "You're late, Nexus. The King's Selection was just a distraction to keep you away while I prepared the Southern District for its new architect."

​Akhil gritted his teeth, his mind racing through his status window.

​{Current Blood Essence: 910}

​It was a pittance. He had used almost everything to reach the city, and now he was standing in the center of an army. If he used a single high-level blood spell, he would be completely drained. If he didn't, he would be overwhelmed by the sheer numbers—and he still had to face the modified version of his best friend.

​Seth stood on the wall, his eyes glowing with that jagged blue energy. He didn't look like a victim; he looked like a weapon waiting for a trigger.

​"You're low on energy, aren't you?" the Langdon-bots said in a chilling chorus. "I can see the tremor in your hands. You cleared the mountains, but you arrived here with an empty tank. How very... human of you."

​The circle of puppets began to close in, their metallic fingers twitching.

​'I can't kill Seth,' Akhil's mind screamed. 'But if I don't fight, I die here. And if I die, Langdon wins everything.'

​He took a deep breath, trying to calm the frantic beating of his heart. He needed a way to replenish his essence, or he needed a way to end this without a drop of blood wasted.

​"Seth!" Akhil shouted, his voice cracking the mechanical silence. "I know you're in there! Fight it!"

​The puppet on the wall didn't move, but the blue light in its eyes flickered for a fraction of a second.

​"A sentimental plea?" Langdon's voice laughed through the speakers. "How disappointing. Kill him."

​The army of bots lunged forward at once.

The air was thick with the sound of grinding metal and the rhythmic thud of mechanical feet. Akhil didn't hesitate. He knew that in his current state, hesitation was a death sentence.

{Skill: Gene Avatar activated}

{Beast: Star Wolf}

{Cost: 100 Blood Essence}

{Remaining Essence: 810}

His body tensed, the Corded muscles of the Star Wolf giving him the explosive power he needed. He became a blur of silver-grey motion, his obsidian claws shearing through the "skin" of the nearest bot. He ripped a mechanical arm from its socket and used it as a club, denting the heads of two more attackers in a single sweep.

But for every five bots he dismantled, ten more stepped over the scrap metal to take their place. They weren't just attacking; they were a living wall of steel, slowly contracting their circle to crush him.

'Too many,' Akhil thought, his breath coming in sharp, ragged gasps. 'I can't keep this up for more than ten minutes before I'm down to zero essence.'

He glanced at Seth. His friend was still perched on the wall, watching with that unsettling, jagged blue glow in his eyes. Seth wasn't attacking yet. He was being saved—the final nail in the coffin.

"Is that all, Nexus?" the chorus of Langdon's voice echoed from the surrounding machines. "You're fighting like a cornered animal. I thought you're meant to be the best player?"

Akhil tore straight through the group, using {air walk} to move up into the air, he stared down at the group of bots, a small smile forming across his face.

"No, I'm not the best player.... I'm currently a king" Akhil said as he pulled out the emblem from his pocket.

If it was a fight of numbers, he didn't have to do it alone.