Chapter 205: Chapter 205— Bane of Blood

“Sir… sir, what are you doing here and why are you dressed like this? We’ve been looking for you for so long!”

Dimitri Stein looked up from packing away the last of his core display with mild amusement. His assistant—Jani, a competent woman in her thirties who’d been managing his chaos for five years now—stood with her hands on her hips, exasperation radiating from every line of her body.

“Jani,” he said pleasantly, folding the cloth that had covered his merchant table. “You know it’s not every day I meet a person of my blood. I just had to do something for them.”

“You and your crazy Soul Talent.” Jani pinched the bridge of her nose. “How many relatives do you even have, sir? There are probably hundreds scattered across the Republic at this point.”

“Probably thousands, actually,” Dimitri corrected cheerfully. “I have seventeen confirmed sons, twenty-three daughters, and I stopped counting grandchildren after hitting triple digits. The bloodline spreads, Jani. It’s what bloodlines do.”

“Sir, we need to head to the Senate building. There are new updates on the matter at hand. The intelligence briefing about Valdris—”

“Well, what are we waiting for?” Dimitri stood, brushing dust from his merchant robes. “Let’s get out of here.”

Jani stared at him. “Sir. You can’t go to the Senate building dressed like some roadside merchant.”

“Why not?”

“Because you’re a Champion. One of the Republic’s most distinguished military assets. You have a reputation to maintain.”

Dimitri waved dismissively. “Jani, you need to learn something important. It’s not the clothes that make the man. It’s the power they possess. The weight of their words. Their capability to enforce will when necessary.” He smiled, and for just a moment, the affable merchant persona dropped enough to reveal the predator beneath. “I, Dimitri Stein, am not one to be sidelined regardless of what I’m wearing. Let’s go.”

Jani sighed deeply. “I’m going to be the laughing stock of those men who use words to kill. What kind of job did I get into?”

She thought this silently, but Dimitri heard it anyway. His awareness was good enough to read lips, and Jani had a terrible poker face when she was frustrated.

Still he chose not to comment.

—–

They walked toward the Senate building together, Dimitri still dressed in his merchant clothing, Jani maintaining professional distance as if hoping people wouldn’t associate her with the eccentrically-dressed Champion.

Dimitri Stein was—or is, depending on who you asked—a very distinguished but highly eccentric man of the Senate.

His Soul Talent, Bloodline, was absurd and powerful in equal measure.

And he was one of the few Champions of the Republic who didn’t come from a noble family.

Born into a mid-sized merchant cooperation, he’d clawed his way to power through a combination of strategic marriages, ruthless business sense, and the kind of combat capability that made people overlook his common origins.

His Soul Talent had been the key to everything.

Bloodline had started simply enough during his Fledgling years: the ability to perceive those who were his kin. Useful for confirming paternity, tracking down lost relatives, establishing family connections that could be leveraged for business advantage.

Then, at Initiate rank, the talent evolved. He could view other people’s bloodlines. See genetic connections between individuals. Trace lineages. Identify family relationships that people tried to hide.

At that point, he’d become a glorified paternity fraud detector. Useful for noble houses trying to verify inheritance claims. Profitable, but not particularly threatening.

But that had changed when he hit Adept rank.

At Adept, Bloodline allowed him to directly interfere with bloodlines.

Not just observe but Manipulate.

He could sever genetic connections. Corrupt bloodlines at the molecular level. Cause inherited traits to manifest incorrectly or fail to pass to the next generation.

Any massacres of entire family lines not in alignment with the Republic’s interests could be attributed to him. Not through conventional combat—though he was more than capable of that too. But through systematic bloodline corruption that rendered noble houses unable to produce viable heirs.

He was known as the Bane of Blood by anyone who knew enough to fear him.

Political enemies discovered their children born with crippling defects. Rival merchant families found their carefully-cultivated genetic advantages failing to manifest. Noble houses that opposed Senate directives watched their bloodlines thin and weaken across generations.

Dimitri had never needed to explain himself. The pattern was clear enough.

Cross the Republic at the highest levels, and your family line ended. Not immediately. Not obviously. Just… gradually. Inevitably.

But to his assistant, he was just an eccentric old man who liked to waste time playing merchant in Central’s streets instead of attending to his actual responsibilities.

Jani had no idea what he was actually capable of.

And Dimitri preferred it that way.

—–

That little girl is really related to me?

Dimitri thought about Mara as they walked. His Bloodline talent had recognized her immediately when she’d approached his stall. The genetic signature was unmistakable—third or fourth generation descendant, diluted but definitely his line.

I wonder which of my many sons must have done something stupid.

He’d stopped tracking all his descendants decades ago. There were too many and too scattered. The bloodline spread through the Republic like roots through soil, and Dimitri had learned to simply accept that he probably had relatives in most major cities.

Well, I can’t really blame them. I have many sons myself.

Seventeen confirmed. Probably more he didn’t know about from his earlier years before he’d started keeping records.

The merchant cooperation he’d built had grown substantially over the decades. Multiple sons running different branches. Daughters married into influential positions. A network of blood relations that gave him intelligence access and political leverage that rivaled some noble houses.

All anchored by his Champion-rank power and his willingness to use his Bloodline manipulation when necessary.

It was a good thing I decided to sell that core for dirt cheap to the girl.

Phase Strike. A rare core he’d acquired from a Tier 3 breach last month. Worth at least a thousand merit points on the open market.

He’d sold it to Mara for lessd.

Can’t have my relative calling me a cheapskate or something.

The thought amused him. As if a street merchant’s reputation mattered to a Champion.

But still. Family was family. Even distant family he’d never met before. His Bloodline talent made him aware of these connections in ways normal people couldn’t understand.

And seeing a descendant of his blood struggling to advance—recognizing that she had the capability but lacked the resources—had triggered instincts he usually suppressed.

So he’d sold her the perfect core. At a price she could afford. Anonymously, so she wouldn’t feel obligated.

It was the kind of sentimental gesture that would horrify anyone who knew him as the Bane of Blood.

Dimitri didn’t care.

He could be both. A ruthless political enforcer and indulgent grandfather-figure. The contradiction didn’t trouble him.

—–

This old man had a lot on his plate with the war they had to prevent.

The intelligence briefing Jani mentioned—Valdris’s economic warfare, the systematic effort to destabilize a trilateral cooperation—was just one of many problems demanding Senate attention.

Border tensions with Ashmar. Religious extremism in Solhaven creating diplomatic complications. Crawler activity increasing in patterns that suggested coordination rather than random emergence.

And underneath it all, the political fractures within the Republic itself. Noble houses maneuvering for advantage. Senate factions pursuing contradictory objectives. The slow erosion of institutional cohesion that Dimitri had been watching accelerate for years.

He wasn’t really built for the Senate, truth be told.

That wasn’t his forte.

Death by words wasn’t his style—although he could do it, had learned the necessary skills through decades of political survival. But he wasn’t as good as some of the old calculating monsters who dominated the Senate chambers through pure rhetorical manipulation.

The Bane of Blood was more of a muscle in the Senate. The guy they sent to show that the Senate wasn’t all pen and paper. The reminder that political decisions were ultimately enforced through power, and the Republic had Champions willing to use that power when necessary.

But even muscle had limits.

And Dimitri was feeling those limits more acutely lately.

The coming war—and he was increasingly certain it was coming, despite everyone’s efforts to prevent it—wouldn’t be won through bloodline manipulation or individual Champion-level combat.

It would be systemic. Political. Economic. Military. All simultaneously.

The kind of conflict that required coordination and unity the Republic currently lacked.

Still, Dimitri wondered about the coming years.

Wondered why his instincts—honed through decades of survival and political maneuvering—were screaming warnings he couldn’t quite articulate.

He felt there would be a lot of blood spilled in the near future.

And for the first time in his long career, he suspected he wouldn’t be the bane of it.

Someone else was moving pieces on a board he couldn’t quite see yet.

That uncertainty bothered him more than he wanted to admit.

—–

They reached the Senate building—a massive stone structure that dominated Central’s administrative district.

Guards recognized Dimitri immediately despite his merchant clothing and waved him through without comment. Jani’s concerns about reputation were unfounded. Everyone who mattered knew who he was regardless of how he dressed.

“Champion Stein,” one of the senior administrators greeted as they entered. “The intelligence briefing is in Conference Chamber Three. Senator Markus is already waiting.”

“Wonderful.” Dimitri didn’t change pace or acknowledge the administrator’s barely-concealed disapproval of his clothing. “Jani, I’ll need the latest reports on Valdris operative movements compiled after this meeting.”

“Already prepared, sir.”

“Good. Also, put together a dossier on current first-year students at Sparkshire Academy. Focus on outpost recruits and non-noble students showing exceptional capability.”

Jani blinked. “Sir? That’s… an unusual request. Why would you need—”

“Humor me.”

“Of course, sir.”

Dimitri smiled slightly as they climbed the Senate building’s grand staircase.

He’d just given a rare combat core to his descendant. Might as well keep track of how she developed.

Besides, his instincts about the coming conflict suggested that exceptional individuals outside traditional power structures might be more important than anyone currently realized.

The Senate would learn that eventually.

Until then, Dimitri would watch.

It wasn’t much. But it was something.

And right now, every small advantage mattered.

The war was coming and he more than anyone else could feel it in his blood.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

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