Chapter 6
Kiro stepped past the broken threshold, where once-proud walls had stood in defiance of stars and empires alike. The ruined temple breathed a silence too deep to belong to the living. His every footfall was absorbed by ash and ancient dust. The air was cold. Not the kind of cold that came from weather or time.
This was deeper.
It settled into the marrow, spoke to the bones, whispered through the blood.
He stood at the center of the circular altar, his gaze drawn to the fractured obelisk that rose like a crooked fang from the earth. It still pulsed with that same red light—heartbeat slow, patient. A rhythm that matched his own.
The System responded.
The air rippled as unseen glyphs lit the ground beneath him—lines of crimson, wrapping the altar in jagged patterns that spun and intersected like veins.
The voice returned.
Not words. Not exactly.
But sensation.
Understanding.
A presence unfurling around him like the wings of something vast and long-forgotten. The Blood God was not a figure—not a man. It was not flesh. Not even spirit. It was will. Will sharpened by rage, tempered in death, and now returned through Kiro's blood.