It was midnight, but Priyanshu was wide awake.
The candle on his desk flickered softly, casting shadows across the pages of an ancient book—its cover worn, its pages delicate, but inside it lay truths that could shake empires.
He wasn't reading it like a curious scholar.
He was reading it like a man digging through his own grave, searching for the bones someone else buried.
His fingers stopped on a symbol—half sun, half moon, entwined by a serpent.
He'd seen this symbol before.
In dreams. In flashes of memory. In a nightmare when he was five, where he stood before a burning palace and watched a woman cry while the symbol bled onto the floor beneath her feet.
Back then, he didn't understand.
Now he was starting to.
He whispered the title of the chapter.
"The Primordial Serpent Lineage…"
The book said only a few were ever born with this bloodline. All of them were hunted. Every record of their existence was erased from royal scrolls. Not because they were evil.
But because they were too powerful to control.
One drop of their blood could awaken spirits buried for centuries. Their presence could bend time inside ancient formations. Their thoughts could shape the flow of elemental energy itself.
They weren't cultivators.
They were walking catastrophes.
And Priyanshu… had one of those bloodlines inside him.
But it was incomplete. Locked. Chained. Fragmented by someone long ago.
He remembered the hidden message in the jade pendant his mother left him before she died.
"Your blood is your weapon, but only if you bleed for the right reason."
He never understood it.
Until now.
Suddenly, a knock came at the secret chamber's door.
"Enter," he said calmly.
Anaya stepped in, her face tense.
"Urgent news. One of our outer informants was caught trying to leak information about your bloodline to the Dragon Society."
Priyanshu's jaw tightened. "Who?"
"A boy named Vihan. He was a merchant's son. Low-level, average talent. We thought he was clean."
"Where is he now?"
"In custody."
"Bring him to the pit."
Anaya hesitated. "But he's just a boy."
"So was I," Priyanshu said coldly. "Look what they turned me into."
—
An hour later, in the underground punishment chamber, Vihan was tied to a stone pillar, shivering.
He was barely seventeen.
"Please," he cried. "I didn't know it would reach the Dragon Society! I thought I was just selling a small story to make money for my mother!"
Priyanshu stood before him, silent.
He didn't speak. He didn't move.
He just stared.
Until the boy began to sweat under the pressure of his gaze alone.
Finally, Priyanshu spoke.
"Do you know what would've happened if your story had spread? If they had confirmed what's in my blood?"
Vihan sobbed. "I didn't mean to—"
"They would've sent not assassins… but historians. Priests. Curse-breakers. They wouldn't have tried to kill me."
He stepped closer.
"They would've tried to seal me."
The boy's face went pale.
"And I don't let anyone seal me," Priyanshu said, his voice low.
He turned away.
"Give him a chance," he told Anaya. "One test. If he passes, let him live. If he fails, erase him. Cleanly."
Anaya nodded. "What test?"
Priyanshu didn't look back.
"Loyalty."
—
That same night, far away in the Eastern Border Fortress, the High Oracle of the royal court stirred from his slumber. He gasped for breath and stared at the ancient mirror on his wall.
It had cracked.
And in the center of the crack… was the symbol of the Primordial Serpent.
"No," the Oracle whispered. "It can't be. The last heir… was killed."
But deep in his heart, he knew the truth.
The bloodline had returned.
And the empire would soon face something far more terrifying than war.
—
Meanwhile, Priyanshu stood alone in the inner garden of his secret base.
He stared at the moon.
He didn't look angry. Or sad. Or excited.
Just… ready.
He lifted his hand.
Sliced his palm with a thin silver blade.
Blood dripped onto the ground.
But instead of vanishing into the soil… it began to glow.
Black mist rose from it. The wind howled. The trees trembled. Somewhere, a wolf howled in fear.
And then, a voice whispered through the air.
"You have awakened… a thread."
The mist formed a figure—a serpent with wings, eyes of burning silver, and a crown on its head.
"I am the first guardian of your blood," it said.
Priyanshu didn't flinch.
"What do you guard?"
"The truth of who you were. Who you are. And what you must become."
"Then speak."
The serpent's eyes narrowed.
"You were not born in this world. You were made. And not by chance."
"What do you mean?" Priyanshu asked.
The serpent curled tighter.
"You are the last creation of the First King of Serpents. A being who tried to restart the world thousands of years ago."
"He failed?"
"No. He succeeded. But he gave up the throne… and placed his legacy in one drop of blood."
"In me."
"Yes."
The serpent faded.
"But this is only the first thread. To unlock the others… you must bleed again. In a land that remembers your name."
Priyanshu opened his eyes. The garden was quiet again.
But his heart was racing.
He finally had a path.
Not just revenge.
Not just chaos.
A true destiny.
And nothing—not dragons, not emperors, not gods—would stop him from walking it.