"Born with a frail body and dull eyes? Damn it, even a puppy is more useful!"
Laughter echoed across the clan courtyard, sharp and merciless. In the center stood a boy — trembling not from the cold, but from the weight of humiliation.
His name was Ashen, heir to the Primordial Blood Clan — the rarest and most powerful bloodline… or so it was said.
"The son of the clan leader? He's nothing but dead weight."
"Pure blood on paper maybe, but in reality? Just a walking joke."
The children mocked him relentlessly, some even younger than he was. The adults watched in silence, their eyes filled with silent disdain.
But the worst came not from their mouths — it came from his uncles' eyes.
"He should step down."
"My brother thought his son was a miracle. He birthed a curse."
"If he weren't the bloodline heir, we would've let him rot."
Day after day, pressure mounted. Their words cut deeper than blades. Each glance, each insult became a thorn buried in Ashen's chest… until it festered into darkness.
Hatred was born in silence.
But silence doesn't last.
That night… the sky fell upon the clan.
Screams. Blood. Shadows devoured everything.
Twisted creatures, soaked in curses and malice, poured into their homes, crushing walls, ripping bodies apart. It was a massacre, a disaster that should have never escaped its prison.
Ashen didn't understand what was happening. He wasn't strong. He wasn't ready. But with his own eyes, he saw…
The same boys who mocked him — forming a wall of flesh to protect him.
One screamed as he was torn apart:
"Run, you idiot! Our legacy must live on!"
His eldest uncle, the one who always looked at him with cold eyes, pressed down on a gaping wound and shouted:
"Tell them… the Primordial Blood Clan did not die in silence!"
Then, as Ashen's father and mother stood with the others, a ritual began.
Blood gathered — an ocean of crimson swirling toward Ashen.
Runes etched in living flame. Wings of blood breaking apart. Souls howling as they were pulled into a single vessel.
In a moment, Ashen's body was flooded with generations of blood — a legacy forcefully sealed within him. Countless voices cried, mourned, and vowed vengeance inside him.
His body burst with pain. Bones cracked, reshaped. Flesh tore and healed.
He collapsed, bleeding not tears, but pure blood.
And inside his mind… he heard them.
All of them. Everyone who died for him.
"Avenge us!"
"Don't let our blood be wasted!"
"Ashen… you are no longer just you. You are all of us now!"
Suddenly, the sky split open.
A beam of light descended and swallowed him whole.
The last thing he saw — his uncle's charred corpse, one finger raised toward the heavens… pointing at him.
---
When Ashen woke up, he was alone.
A desolate land. Dry, dead, and cursed.
Beneath the cracked soil, blood still boiled. The air reeked of ancient wrath. No beasts, no men… only the whispers of the damned.
A land feared by all…
The Cursed Blood Wastes.
There, in that forgotten soil, Ashen knelt.
With the blood of a nation pulsing inside him.
His eyes welled with tears — not of fear, but of sorrow... and a cold, rising fury.
He whispered, his voice laced with something darker than hate:
"That night... I wasn't a heir. I was a grave — carrying the blood of an entire nation."