The world around Ethan seemed to slow, the air thick with an unnatural heaviness. The infection-no, the power-that surged through his body had become an overwhelming thing within him.
He felt it in every corner of him, infiltrating his bloodstream as much as his very essence, creating an aura declaring itself. Once-powerful thoughts barely made it to him; they were simply drowned beneath the torrent of ambition dark and forbidden.
{System Notification: Power Surge Detected. Activation of Crimson Monarch Pathway Complete.}
What once sounded mechanical and quite detached now became almost a whisper, very far away-just an observer, not a guide. Ethan would hardly catch it. He was absorbed and focused on something altogether different: the reality outside himself.
The atmosphere itself seemed to respond to that rise. It sky above trembled by the ominous darkening hue of red, which seemed to blanket everything else in its wake-to fear him. The ground he stood on split, as through it snaked fissures of blood-red light, as though acknowledging the reality of his newfound dominion.
The pulse of the world and the beating heart of every living thing within an enormous radius was in his nervous fingertips. Each heartbeat, each breath, was a thread in the web he could now control. It was intoxicating.
{System Alert: Blood Parasite Mutation Progressing. Host Power Surge: Critical.}
Ethan was breathing heavily, deliberately. It wasn't feeding off of him. It was evolving. Adapting. Entering and becoming part of him. It had come inside his mind; it had wrapped around his thoughts.
And yet manipulation could still be felt. The infection had its roots much deeper than blood; it had buried itself into the very will of the man.
But that didn't matter now. What mattered was the power thrumming through his veins. The parasite would serve him. He would be controlling it; it would not control him. The world would bend his command with this power.
{System Query: Host's Presence Detected by Local Survivor Group. Response Required.}
His eyes moved to the signal. His rise was even noticed by a small group of survivors—humans, weak and fragile, clinging to life in a world that no longer cared to exist for them. How quaint. They thought themselves the last bastion of humanity, a pathetic remnant fighting to hold onto their fragile existence. They had no idea what true power meant.
He could feel them now-they were weak. Desperate. They trembled in fear. The faint sound of their voices carried on the wind and barely reached the ears through all the howling gusts.
They were talking among themselves, trying to decide their next move, ambience survival snaking its way among them as they plotted escape. But there was nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide.
{System Notification: Enemy Group Detection. Survivors Status: Low Strength. Estimated Combat Power: Insufficient.}
Ethan grinned, the expression foreign to his own face. A grin filled with dark promise. What were these survivors even thinking that they couldn't understand who they were actually dealing with? They were truly standing on the edge of extinction.
"Let us show them what being first means around here," he whispered, his tone menacingly low.
His fingers clenched into a fist; the power within him answered. He could feel it twisting, thrumming with violent anticipation. The parasite was now a part of him-his blood was not just the weapon but about domination, making every life in the world bend before him.
Ethan waved his hands, sending out a shock of energy into the rippling air. The earth under the feet of Ben and the other survivors cracked open as the crimson tendrils growing on the earth reached up, clenching onto their legs and pulling them down. Their screams were drowned and covered by the sound of cracking stone and rumbling earth. The world seemed to hold its breath as Ethan's power surged, stretching out across the land.
Of course, the survivors fought back. Who wouldn't? Some managed to break free of the tendrils and scrambled toward supposed safety. Most were just too weak, though. All in all, their resistance was pathetic; they were nothing more than insects fighting to survive in a world that had no place for them.
{System Alert: Blood Control Activated. Sub-skill: Blood Grasp.}
His blood had belonged to the survivors. He simply had to think about them, and the blood within their bodies came under his commands. It was like a symphony of agony-their veins would burst, tissues rupture, as blood broke free from their body and twists its way into weapons.
He could sense the life be drained from them as their bodies convulsed into wild frenzy as if dancing in contorted ropes of blood and death.
"Pathetic," he did not need to say loud enough, observing the last of them crumbling in the ground, lifeless bodies with blood staining the earth below them.
And then, it was quiet.
Amidst the debris stood Ethan with wind circling him, seemingly afraid to touch the stained ground. The dark red glow of his veins pulsed with the beat of his heart, every throb a reminder of the command he now held. He had been born anew; it would now shape the world according to how he saw fit.
The parasite within him stirred, pleased, content. Not infection anymore-symbiont air-dweller evolving with him. But Ethan knew better than to let it overwhelm him. No. He would control it. He would use it to carve a path of destruction that would leave nothing but ashes in its wake.
So, with the fall of the first survivor, hope fell too. They were the first to taste the true cost of awakening Ethan Blackwood. They were the first to fall under the shadow of the Crimson Monarch.
But not the last.