Chapter 212: You Are Not Finished

Elias gasped as the blood re-entered his body through the same wounds it had left, but it was not the same.

It would seem that when his blood was taking the weird runes above him, it was transforming, and what Elias now felt flowing into his body was thicker, heavier, and brighter.

His body opened up to receive it as the blood flowed through veins that were wider now, deeper, as if his channels carved by the Art were now made to carry something more than blood.

The new blood flowed through his chest, shoulders, neck, and head, and where it passed, the flesh around it changed.

His skin split along new lines, lines that followed the expanded architecture of the Crimson Vein.

The splits opened in his arms first, then his chest, then his face.

There was pain, but this pain was different because these splits were not necessarily wounds but were something else.

To his eyes, these splits were doors, and through them, he could see the new veins pulsing beneath, red, and there was a bit of gold staining the surface of his veins.

Elias now understands that although this Art controlled blood, its main focus was on his veins, and the act of blood control was just the trait of having veins that could connect to the heavens.

More splits continued to appear all over his body, and his new blood erupted out of his body, took a new configuration in the air, and returned to him.

Before long, he no longer had skin, and he resembled a man made of naked flesh and bound by glowing wires.

He did not scream. Elias had learned to carry pain and to let it pass through him without breaking.

But this was not pain as he knew it, because the veins inside his body were not natural; they were newly created, and the way his body was interpreting the pain was strange.

It was the reason why the blood vessels in his eyes burst; it took him by surprise because his nervous system was overwhelmed.

His vision went red, but it was not because blood was filling his vision, but because he was seeing a new color that was similar to red. Elias thought he was seeing heat.

With this new vision, he saw the veins in his own arms and the patterns they made. He could not understand most of it, but he saw that they were connected to the marks on his chest, and in this way, they fed into the core of the Art that was now burning in his chest like a second heart.

A new understanding flowed into his mind about his art, as he could see in the arrangement of his veins how the blood that had spilled from the Rune Beast had flowed into him, and the way it had changed him.

He saw the line that connected him to every kill he had ever made, every life he had taken, every drop of blood that had ever been his or his prey’s.

There was too much knowledge, and Elias began to groan as it felt as if his head was about to explode. It stopped, and he was on his knees, but Elias did not remember falling.

His entire body was covered in blood, as the floor beneath him was slick with it. But the blood was not leaving him as it was crawling back into his skin, drawn by the new veins that now pulsed with a light that was visible even through closed lids.

The splits in his flesh were closing, but Elias knew that this was not because his body was healing; instead, his body was sealing itself along the new lines the Art had carved.

Elias sat in the cooling blood of his own transformation and called up his Status Screen.

Crimson Vein Dominion

Heaven-Grade Art

Blood Dominion Lash (Advanced): The whip of blood can now split into multiple strands, each capable of independent motion. Range tripled. Can maintain up to three lashes simultaneously. Drains vitality from targets at triple the previous rate.

Crimson Shroud (Advanced): The bleed aura now extends ten feet in all directions. Enemies within the aura suffer continuous blood loss that accelerates with proximity. The blood lost does not evaporate; it pools and becomes additional weaponized material for the user.

Hemorrhage Cascade (Advanced): Wounds inflicted by any of the user’s abilities now stack a bleeding effect that compounds exponentially. Each subsequent wound on the same target increases blood loss by 10% of the previous wound up to five times.

Sanguine Resonance (Advanced): Vitality gain from spilled blood increased to 0.5% per gallon (tenfold increase). The range of absorption extended to fifty feet. Can now draw vitality from blood not directly spilled by the user’s hand, provided it was spilled within the last hour, and the user is within range.

Elias blinked at the insane growth of this power, and every single one of his abilities from this legacy had reached the advanced state, and the sort of power it gave him access to was almost ridiculous.

With the growth of this legacy, he tried to imagine how his fight would have gone against the Rune Beast, and he saw that it would be very different.

However, as much as Elias celebrated the growth of his power, he began to see how acquiring three legacies could have been a very wrong idea.

His Crimson Vein Dominion at 35% had changed his body so drastically, and he had experienced great pain in reaching this level of power, but the pain was not the concern; it was the transformation of his body that was problematic.

As his vein completion for each of his legacies grew, they began to transform his body. He now had new veins in his body where there were none before, and that meant, if his other legacies began to grow, the clash within his body would only heighten.

If he had only one legacy, it would be relatively easy for his body to be able to adjust and transform, but with three legacies, he would be torn in three directions, and every change in his body would be many times harder.

He had more veins, and they were no longer normal; they were thicker and more powerful, and his blood had also changed. If he began upgrading his other legacies, they would have to adjust to the changes he had made with his Crimson Vein Dominion Art.

Perhaps it was a good thing that his other two legacies were not growing as fast as the Crimson Vein Dominion Art, because he did not know how he could have managed it without leaving himself at the verge of death.

Once again, it would all depend on his Elder Talent to keep him alive. His plan had worked; Elias could feel the sheer power radiating from his Elder Talent had grown.

Elias let the Status Screen fade and sat in the darkness of the empty room.

He was different. He had been different since the Fragment, since the first time he touched Lumina. But now he was becoming what the Art had been building toward.

And he was not finished.

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