Chapter 39: The Bloodline's Lament
The bridge of light, once a shimmering gold, had now taken on a bruised, metallic violet hue, reflecting the mounting corruption within Cyan's soul. As they stepped into the Eighth Gate, the vacuum of the previous halls was replaced by a suffocatingly familiar scent: the smell of pine, aged wine, and the iron-rich tang of ancestral blood.
They were standing in a distorted reflection of the Valerian Duchy's Great Hall. But the walls were not made of stone; they were made of living, pulsing veins, and the portraits of the Valerian ancestors didn't just hang—they breathed, their eyes following Cyan with a mixture of cold disdain and ancient hunger.
[System Notification: Entering the Eighth Gate - The Ancestral Bloodline.]
[Domain Rule: Blood is the Law. All power is scaled by 'Lineage.']
[Warning: The Architects have resurrected the 'Valerian Origin' to purge the traitor.]
"This place..." Cyan's voice was a low growl, his grip tightening on the hilt of his blade until the leather wrap groaned. "It's a mockery. They've dug up the corpses of my past to build a fortress."
From the shadows of the high-backed throne at the end of the hall, a figure stepped forward. He wore the ceremonial armor of the First Duke Valerian, but his face was a shifting composite of Cyan's father and his treacherous brother—the very men who had orchestrated his fall into the Abyss.
"Welcome home, Anomaly," the figure spoke, his voice a chorus of generations, echoing with the weight of centuries. "You stand in the presence of the blood that gave you life. Every cell in your body, every drop of mana in your veins, belongs to the legacy of this house. And yet, you use it to tear down the heavens that blessed our lineage."
"The heavens didn't bless our house," Cyan spat, his purple eye glowing with an intense, hateful light that seemed to burn the mist. "They used us as breeding stock for their 'Saints' and 'Heroes.' I didn't destroy the Valerian name; I set it on fire so it could finally stop serving as a leash!"
[Skill Triggered: Bloodline Suppression.]
[Status: Host's physical strength is being reduced by 50% due to 'Ancestral Authority.']
The figure raised a hand, and the blood-veined walls erupted. Hundreds of spectral warriors—the ghosts of every Valerian knight who had died in service to the "Light"—materialized from the red mist. They weren't just shadows; they carried the weight of Cyan's own DNA, making it almost impossible for him to strike them without feeling a phantom pain in his own limbs.
"Kill the sprout that went rotten," the First Duke commanded, pointing a finger at Cyan.
The Goddesses moved to intercept, but they were met with a strange, spiritual resistance. Isabella's magic was being absorbed by the pulsing walls, and Clara's spear felt impossibly heavy, as if the very air of the hall was discouraging her from protecting a "kin-slayer."
"Master, we can't get through!" Azrael shouted, his wings struggling against the gravity of the hall. "The domain is treating us as viruses! My sword won't even bite into their armor!"
Cyan stood alone as the spectral knights closed in. He felt the "Authority" pressing down on him, a spiritual weight that told him he was "Less" because he was "Younger," because he was the "Outcast." It was the ultimate weapon of the Architects: the hierarchy of tradition and the guilt of the blood.
"You think my blood is my weakness?" Cyan whispered, even as a spectral blade pierced his shoulder. He didn't flinch. He grabbed the blade with his bare hand, letting his own dark-violet blood coat the spectral steel.
"I am Cyan Valerian," he roared, his voice shaking the very foundations of the hall, causing the vein-filled walls to weep. "But I am also the King of Sin! And my sin is that I am the End of your Line!"
[Skill Activated: Mechanical Usurpation + Truth-Eater.]
Cyan didn't attack the knights directly. He attacked the Source. Using his ability to reshape matter and his power to eat the truth, he began to vibrate the blood in his own veins to a frequency that the Architects couldn't control. He reached into the "Truth" of the Valerian history and began to erase the honor and the glory, leaving only the raw, ugly reality of their secret ambitions and betrayals.
The spectral warriors began to melt, their forms turning into a dark, sludge-like ichor. Cyan walked toward the First Duke, his aura flaring like a supernova of violet despair.
"You are not my father," Cyan said, his hand reaching out like a claw, grabbing the figure by the throat. "You are just a memory held together by the Architects' desperation. You want my blood? Take it all!"
Cyan forced a massive surge of Absolute Corruption into the Duke's spectral form. The "Bloodline" couldn't handle the density of the Sin he had cultivated. The veins in the walls began to burst, spraying dark, acidic mana everywhere. The portraits of the ancestors screamed in high-pitched, agonizing tones as they were consumed by the rot.
[System Notification: The Eighth Gate - DESECRATED.]
[Bloodline Authority: EXTINGUISHED.]
[Core of the Valerian Origin Acquired.]
[New Skill Unlocked: 'Blood-Sovereign' - You have total control over the biological functions of anyone with a weaker will than you.]
The hall collapsed, the illusion of the Valerian estate crumbling into grey ash that tasted like iron. They were back on the bridge, but the bridge was now wide and jagged, like a scar across the heavens, stretching toward the final four gates.
Cyan stood in the center of the debris, his eyes colder than they had ever been. He had just erased his own past, his own family, and his own name. He was truly a man without a home, moving toward a godhood he never asked for, built on the ruins of everything he once knew.
"Eight down," Cyan said, his voice a hollow, chilling echo. "Four remaining. The next gate is the Gate of the Silent Prayer. No more blood, no more ghosts. Only the 'New God' they've been building to replace me."
He looked at his charred hand, then back at his followers. "The Architects are no longer testing us. They are trying to replace us. Let's go find this 'New God' and show them what happens to a replacement when the Original returns."