Reincarnated with a lucky draw system

Blade lunged.

The hybrid moved like a coiled spring, claws flashing toward Aaron's chest. Aaron barely shifted—sidestep, a ghost of motion—and Blade's talons sliced only through empty air. The spar had started hot, intent on showing teeth, on testing boundaries. But Blade wasn't done. From that outstretched hand he spat a volley of compressed blood-bullets, each one humming with lethal intent.

For a heartbeat Aaron was off-balance—caught mid-thought—then he improvised. With a flick of will he summoned a low, thick wall of congealed blood; the bullets struck and shattered against it in sparkling crimson shards. The wall narrowed his field of vision to a slit, but hearing had always been his fallback. He relied on the sanctuary's muted night sounds and the soft crunch of Blade's boots on the turf to triangulate the next move.

Only… he couldn't hear Blade move.

The wall thudded to the ground as Aaron dropped it, revealing a sight that knotted his gut with pleasant surprise: Blade hovering above him, wings unfurled—fallen-angel feathers black as oil, wings that hadn't been there a second before. Twin swords of shimmering, coagulated blood spun between his hands, catching the moonlight and throwing it back as crimson sparks.

"Right. So your talent's called Blade," Aaron said with a grin, and a wooden practice sword materialized in his hands at the thought—simple, light, perfectly balanced to test swordplay rather than slaughter.

They traded strikes. At first it looked like a fencing match: precise, economical. Aaron's swordsmanship talent was real—an instinct honed on steel and dance. He parried, riposted, slipped under a swing and landed a soft cut that would have written a lesson on any lesser opponent's skin. Blade realized fast that his blood-swords were clumsy against Aaron's bladework; metal met will and the metal blunted.

He abandoned the blood-weapons and returned to claws and fists—close, brutal, merciless. This was where Blade excelled. In close, he was a predator: hybrid strength coiled in muscle, reflexes tuned to land lethal contact before the other could register pain. Aaron grinned; this was the kind of spar that told truths. Blade's physicality was right up there—fast, raw, disciplined. He moved like someone who had learned to cover his short range with instinct and to extend reach with blood manipulation.

But Blade was not one-note. Mid-spar, Aaron felt a tickle at the edges of his mind, like a fly buzzing against a windowpane: an attempt at mental intrusion. A hypnosis probe, soft and testing.

"Did you just try to get into my head?" Aaron asked aloud, breaking contact and taking a breath. He stepped back, forcing distance. The probe collapsed, unsuccessful—expected. They'd agreed this spar was a showcase; Blade would demonstrate everything in his kit and Aaron would catalog it.

Blade's skin shifted. Pale turned to ink-dark, like night spilled over him, and the tips of his fangs gleamed. His claws lengthened until they sang the air. He surged with noticeably greater speed.

He threw a punch; Aaron met it with his forearms. The impact shoved him backward—Blade's newfound strength was not to be underestimated. Then Blade blurred. Under sanctuary night, where Aaron thought he knew every shadow, Blade melted into the darkness like a wraith. His rhythm became jagged and unpredictable, a hunter changing cadence to unnerve prey.

Aaron blocked, rolled, parried; the pace amplified. Then Blade's mouth opened and a howl uncoiled into the night—a sonic blade that shoved air like a physical thing. Aaron braced and stopped most of it, but the howl had a second effect: from the tree-line animals answered. Wolves, long-snouted hounds, a pair of stags with antlers like twisted crowns—they poured from the brush, eyes aglow with an unnatural golden light, and attacked.

Aaron dodged and weaved. The beasts came like a second front, teeth and horns and fury. He realized the eyes weren't theirs—the beasts were puppets. Blade was directing fauna with a cruelty smooth and surgical. Defending became a constant, draining rhythm. He could parry but not press; offense would have left him exposed to a dozen ambushes.

"Is that all you got?" Blade snarled and moved again, and this time the air ripped—something silver and feathered blazed past Aaron's head. His vision clipped the raven as he ducked, barely missing a spike of metal that seemed grown out of wing-feathers: a silver raven whose primary feathers were sharpened like blades.

Aaron blinked. He controlled this sanctuary, knew its denizens and their habits like a landlord knows his tenants—yet this bird wasn't one of them. It winked through the twilight and settled ceremoniously on Blade's shoulder.

"That's my familiar," Blade said, voice folding back to human timbre as he reverted to his baseline shape. The raven perched like it owned the world. "Name's Blitz."

Blade lowered his stance, signaling the end of the exchange. The spar had been a demo, show-and-tell of his hybrid breadth: feral power, blood manipulation, airborne maneuverability, a mental edge and an animal-caller's knack.

Aaron stretched, rolling his shoulders and exhaling. He felt impressed more than surprised. Blade's hybrid form had a dangerous coherence—half-angel mobility, half-vampiric brutality, and the bloodarts to glue it together. "You're… not bad," Aaron admitted, genuine warmth in the praise. "With this, you could take Liam in a one-on-one. Maybe not—Liam's a demon—but you'd give him trouble."

Blade cocked his head. "Thanks. You learned what you wanted?"

"I did," Aaron said. He clapped Blade on the shoulder, an ownership-tinged gesture. "Come with me. We're making more of you. Hybrids. My sired vampires, my wolves—turn them into what you are. Loyalty multiplies when you stitch bloodlines together. Plus, exponential growth is addicting."

They walked away from the clearing. Blade moved like a blade—direct, efficient—while Aaron's mind ping-ponged between practical and predatory. He had questions.

"So system," he said privately as they moved through the vampire and werewolf quarters that dotted the sanctuary, "why does Blade feel richer as a hybrid than I do? I mean, I've been lazy with my roots, but he did stuff I can't—no knowledge, no prep, pure instinct."

[Host has a universe-placed curse inhibiting bloodline expression. Your primogenitor heritage will eventually grant you a unique compensatory power—devouring anomalies into your genetic architecture. That process is slow. Blade's lineage is less hindered, hence the apparent edge.]

Aaron frowned. "Devouring anomalies?"

[Yes. Your white blood cell complex is the focal point. Your bloodline's specialty is assimilation—the ability to internalize curses, foreign blood traits, and convert them into usable traits for the host. It consumes anomalies and folds them into the genome.]

"So the curse doesn't disappear—it gets eaten by my bloodline?" Aaron's grin split his face. The idea was grotesque and elegant at once.

[Correct. The curse is being subsumed. Given time and stress, Host, your root will erupt and adapt. Expect surges. Expect changes. Expect appetite.]

Aaron laughed—hollow, hungry, thrilled. "Then hurry the hell up, bloodline. I've got plans."

---

Meanwhile, somewhere within the university, the Doppelgänger Aaron had left behind adjusted his tie and moved toward Professor Silas's office with a practiced calm. Today was the test day they'd bargained for—the one-month trial's end. Freedom hinged on a performance, and freedom mattered. The real Aaron might have been off carving dragons and cores, but the copy walked down the stone corridor with the same calculated arrogance. The day had finally come; whether the world was ready for what he planned next was another question.