Chapter 419: Debt
[A while Earlier]
Yara knelt beside Castor’s broken body, her hands glowing with green healing Aura, working frantically to stabilize the damage Chronos Overclock had inflicted.
"Stay with me," Yara whispered, her voice tight with focus. "Don’t fall unconscious again."
Castor’s eyes were closed, his breathing shallow but steady under her healing influence.
She’d just finished explaining about the Shadow Kings becoming demons.
Her healing Aura pulsed stronger, mending bone fragments, reknitting torn muscle fibers, stabilizing his fractured spine millimeter by millimeter.
"The worst is over," she said, more to herself than to him. "You’ll recover... It’ll take time, but you’ll–"
Then both of them felt it.
Thump
Their hearts synchronized for one beat, hammering against their ribs with sudden urgency.
Thump...thump...
Yara’s hands stilled, her healing Aura flickering as confusion crossed her face.
"What–"
Thump thump thump thump thump.
The rhythm accelerated, their pulses racing without reason, like their bodies were screaming warnings their minds hadn’t processed yet.
Castor’s eyes snapped open, calculation flooding back into his gaze.
’This feeling... It’s like when the old beggar–’
His senses extended outward on pure instinct, enhanced perception pushing past the limits of his shattered form and reaching toward the distant battlefield.
And he saw.
A grotesque demonic form, three meters tall with crimson skin and black horns, fighting against someone wielding a broken axe blade.
’So they even had a demon attack the headquarters...?’
Then his perception focused on the demon’s opponent.
And everything stopped.
The figure fighting the demon had long crimson hair that flowed past his shoulders, almost luminescent in the dim light.
Translucent crimson marks glowed across his skin, faint but unmistakable patterns spreading from his chest outward across his arms and his face.
The marks pulsed with power that made the air shimmer.
’Wait... Those marks... That hair...’
Recognition crashed through Castor’s analytical mind like ice water.
’Blood... Sovereign...?!’
His breath caught.
’He... Damian is the Bloodworth heir?!’
The realization rewired everything he’d thought he’d understood.
The Bloodworth family, the massacred Imperial lineage that everyone believed extinct.
And the one skill that had defined them above all others.
Blood Sovereign.
The skill that activated when their intent to protect their people burned strongest.
The skill that had been present in every legend, every story and every historical record of the main Bloodworth family standing against impossible odds.
Then everything started clicking into place with terrible clarity.
’We appeared in Damian’s life just when he was about to be assassinated by the Kestrel Noble family...’
His analytical mind raced, connecting threads he’d dismissed as coincidence.
’Before that... For years, we roamed the underworld without being affected much... We were hunted, yes, but we always managed to escape... Never pushed hard enough to seek anyone’s protection...’
The pattern emerged with devastating precision.
’But just before we arrived in Tranquil City... It was like almost all the Noble Family heads could suddenly find us easily... Like they all received our location simultaneously... Like a coincidence...’
He remembered the desperate flight, the way pursuers had appeared from every direction, the impossible coordination that had forced them to seek sanctuary.
’Forcing us to come here... To seek Headmaster Kaiser’s protection...’
In the distance, through his enhanced perception, Castor saw the demon fall.
Saw Damian’s final strike separate head from shoulders with perfected Abyssal Slaughter.
Saw the Bloodworth heir sit down hard beside his enemy’s cooling body, exhaustion overwhelming everything.
’So... the Bloodworth heir was right in front of us... I knew the heir was alive... That old beggar wasn’t simple...’
Then Castor felt his body move.
’Huh?’
His shattered legs pushed against the ground despite the agony screaming through every nerve.
’My body... is moving on its own?’
"Castor?! What are you doing?! You’ll–"
Yara’s voice cut off as she felt it too, the invisible pull dragging him toward that distant battlefield.
’How... and why...?’
His broken form lurched and accelerated despite the damage as fresh blood seeped from wounds Yara had just closed.
’I’m not controlling this... Something else is moving me...’
Then he sensed it.
Vash’s Domain, the Undying Domain that had held the Shadow Kings at bay, shattered.
The break resonated across kilometers, a ripple in reality that Castor’s perception caught immediately.
And in that same instant, he saw.
The 4th Shadow King hung in the air above Damian, his grotesque demonic form positioned perfectly for a killing strike.
"Did you really think it was over, boy?"
The clawed hands came down.
And Castor heard words emerge from his own lips without conscious thought:
"Chronos Overclock."
And the Domain erupted.
BOOM
One moment the world moved normally, the Shadow King’s claws descending, Mafia members beginning to scream warnings.
The next moment, everything froze.
The Shadow King’s clawed hands hung suspended mid-strike, centimeters from Damian’s throat, the killing blow frozen in place.
And Castor moved normally.
The cost hit him immediately as his already broken body began destroying itself from the inside.
’Why... Why did I activate this...?’
His analytical mind screamed the question even as his body positioned itself between the frozen Shadow King and Damian’s locked form.
’I didn’t choose this... My body moved on its own... Activated the Domain without my permission...’
Pain beyond description burned through every cell.
’I’m already broken... Using Chronos Overclock now means I’ll die... There’s no recovery from this... No healing strong enough to fix what this costs...’
He turned his head, the motion smooth and normal while everything else remained frozen, and looked back toward where he’d left Yara.
In the distance, her face was locked mid-scream, her expression frozen in horror, tears suspended on her cheeks like crystals, one hand reaching toward him in desperate plea.
’I’m sorry... I’m so sorry...’
Then the old beggar’s words rang through his consciousness with devastating finality: "The debt isn’t something you owe... it’s already become part of what you are now, whether you realize it or not."
Understanding flooded through him with the cold clarity of someone watching their own execution.
’So... this is what he meant?’
His eyes found Damian’s frozen form, this sixteen-year-old boy, this child carrying the weight of the Bloodworth legacy without even knowing his own heritage.
’The old beggar saved us that day... Not out of kindness... Not because we were special...’
Castor’s gaze shifted to the frozen Shadow King, to the clawed hands suspended centimeters from Damian’s throat.
’He saved us so we would survive long enough to reach this exact moment...’
’So we could die when he wanted it... When it would matter most to his plans...’
Complex emotions churned through his analytical mind, rage at the manipulation, bitterness at the decades spent as unknowing puppets, grief for the life he’d thought was his own.
But underneath it all, acceptance.
’Is his life really worth mine?’
He looked at Damian, truly looked at him.
This boy who’d activated Blood Sovereign to protect an old man kneeling on pavement.
’Worth all of ours? Worth Gregor, Vash, Yara, and me throwing away decades of survival? Why?’
But even as the question formed, he knew there was no answer that would satisfy.
The beggar had made it clear from the beginning, their survival came with a price, a debt that would be collected when the time came.
And they’d all agreed.
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