Chapter 87: How to Get a Bloodline Upgrade (Side Effects May Include Death?!)

Chapter 87: Chapter 87: How to Get a Bloodline Upgrade (Side Effects May Include Death?!)

Carmilla smiled. "There, now you’re officially mine."

"That sounded much worse than I think you intended."

"Did it?" She didn’t sound remotely sorry.

She straightened, her hands folding by her chest. "You keep calling me the Goddess of Blood."

"Because that’s what you called yourself."

"My name is Carmilla." She said it with theatrical importance, her chin lifting slightly. "So call me Carmilla, my Holy Son."

"...Fine, Carmilla."

She beamed like he’d handed her a prize.

He glanced at her expectantly. "You mentioned two things that could fix me."

"Oh, right!" She snapped her fingers.

Two objects appeared, hovering between them.

The first was a small crystal vial holding a single drop of crimson liquid that rotated slowly, despite nothing moving it, the space around it subtly warping.

Lucien tried Appraisal on it out of habit before stopping himself, remembering the last one.

"Your little skill won’t work on this," Carmilla said, watching him try. "Divine items don’t explain themselves to mortal tools, unless you have a Divine skill to go with it and the mana to spare. "

"Then explain it."

"Gladly." She gestured at the vial. "That’s a drop of my blood essence. Drink it, and it’ll try to fuse with your current bloodline, purify it and evolve it."

"Though it might also destroy your body in the process."

"You could’ve led with the destroying my body part."

"Why? It’s important, but it’s not the interesting part."

She turned more serious. "Your situation is unusual. Your Bloodline is already Mythical and it’s related to my blood, add that unknown demon blood that is still in there, and you’ve basically got two divine bloodlines sharing one body."

"And both are territorial."

"Territorial?"

"Extremely." She tapped a finger against her chin. "Divine blood carries the fundamental nature of whoever it came from. Two of them occupying the same host don’t coexist peacefully, and most of the time they fight for dominance."

"So yours would win?"

"Obviously."

"You sound very confident."

"I am." Her smile sharpened slightly. "But that doesn’t mean it’ll be painless, though. Mine won’t simply erase the other one, both will try to devour each other, and the losing side might resist, might even try to destroy itself rather than become fuel."

Lucien’s expression flattened. "So I could die."

"Yes, probably?"

"Probably?!"

She giggled.

The second item appeared, a small clear bottle filled with liquid that looked like molten silver threaded with faint crimson-gold light.

Appraisal returned the same useless result, and this time he didn’t bother trying twice.

"This one repairs souls," Carmilla said. "Completely. Alignment, structure, stabilization, even any old damage, foreign influence, anything broken about the connection between soul and body."

Lucien’s mind went immediately, without hesitation, to Seraphina and her problem, though he didn’t know if this would fix it.

’Her bloodline rejection, this could actually fix that.’

He didn’t explain the reasoning to Carmilla and just said, "I’m use this one later."

"For yourself, right?"

"For someone I care about."

Carmilla’s eyes drifted to the tattoos visible at his collar. "Your wife?"

She grinned. "You’re a strange one, don’t you need it too?"

"I’ll manage."

"Wait," Lucien said, glancing around the endless white space. "When I leave, these things actually come with me, right?"

"Of course."

"This isn’t some mental construct?"

She laughed. "No, you’re physically here, this is a temporary space I made linked with the dungeon, but not imaginary, so anything you get here leaves with you."

"Were you worried I’d scam you with fake treasure?" she asked, mock-offended.

"You’re a Goddess, but I wasn’t ruling anything out."

She looked wounded for exactly two seconds before laughing again.

She handed him two manuals next, the techniques she promised as she explained their uses.

Blood Sovereign Scripture — Mythical

A supreme cultivation method built around blood, life force, vitality, and mana. Converts ordinary mana into Sanguine Mana, introducing a blood aspect to the cultivator’s core.

Sanguine Mana carries exceptional compatibility with blood manipulation, blood related abilities, physical enhancement, regeneration, and blood-based skills. Allows body, soul, and mana to reinforce and grow in tandem.

"Selected specifically for you," Carmilla said. "Your bloodline already revolves around blood. Your talent revolves around blood." She tapped his forehead. "And your entire existence has apparently made blood everyone else’s problem."

"So you’re basically a mortal, male version of me." She laughed and said.

"Why word it like that?" Lucien grimaced.

"Well, it’s not inaccurate."

Foundation Severance Scripture — Mythical

A dangerous technique for dismantling an existing cultivation foundation of any kind, temporarily preserving its refined mana. The preserved mana must be immediately reused to construct a new foundation. One-time use only.

Repeated use risks permanent damage to mana pathways, core, soul, and cultivation, potentially resulting in irreversible cultivation crippling. The dismantled foundation can be used to reinforce the new cultivation foundation making it better.

"One chance," Carmilla said, watching him read it twice. "Don’t waste it, and don’t be stupid enough to try it a second time."

"Got it."

"So?" She spread her hands toward the two divine treasures. "Which one first?"

"The soul elixir stays for later," Lucien said. "I’m taking it home."

Carmilla tilted her head, curious. "You still won’t tell me who it’s actually for."

"Someone who needs it more."

"You really are strange." Her eyes gleamed. ℴ

"What about the blood?" He asked.

Her whole demeanor shifted as genuine excitement showed now and barely contained.

"That one happens here."

"Why here specifically?"

"Because if you drank it alone in the mortal world," she said, "the divine energy would erupt before you could control anything. Your body would go up like a struck match, and if you somehow didn’t die instantly, you’d attract attention, the kind of eyes you really don’t want on a mortal holding divine items."

She gestured around the void. "Here, I control everything, the space, the mana so I can stop the fight from spreading. And," her eyes sparkled, "I get to watch this."

"You’re really enjoying this."

"Very."

"So should I dismantle my cultivation first?"

She shook her head immediately. "No, the bloodline battle doesn’t depend on your cultivation rank, it cares about your body, soul, and compatibility, and dismantling it first just leaves you more fragile going in."

"So the order, then?"

"Bloodline transformation, recovery, foundation severance, Blood Sovereign Scripture, rebuild." She counted it off on her fingers like a recipe.

"Let’s do it."

Her smile stretched enormous. "Finally."

Lucien sat cross legged, the vial resting in his palm, the single drop still rotating gently inside.

"One last warning," Carmilla said, her playfulness draining away.

"What."

"If your body starts failing completely, don’t fight the transformation."

"What does that mean, exactly?"

"Your body’s going to be destroyed."

"Then rebuilt."

"Probably more than once."

"You really enjoy saying things like that."

"A little," she admitted.

He opened the vial and drank.

BOOM.

His entire body started convulsing at once.

Crimson light flooded his veins. His heart stopped, then hammered back to life. His pupils contracted as his blood began to, unmistakably boil.

His existing bloodline reacted first, surging to meet the intrusion and beneath it, the other stirred awake.

The moment Carmilla’s blood essence entered his system, three forces collided at once.

Lucien screamed.

Carmilla raised her hand, and the entire white void changed, mana pouring in from everywhere, dense enough to feel almost solid.

Through the agony, he managed, "What are you doing?!"

"What?" She blinked at him.

"Why is there suddenly a mana ocean?!"

She laughed, entirely unbothered. "You thought this would just be drinking blood?"

"I was hoping!"

"Your body needs fuel," she said, gesturing at the flood. "The fight’s going to consume everything it can reach. Without this, you’d be drained dry before either side even started, dead before the interesting part."

’So I would have died alone in some random corner of this world, if I decided to do this outside’ Lucien thought horrified.

"Glad I asked then," he managed aloud.

"Me too," Carmilla said, grinning.

Inside him, the war truly began.

Carmilla’s blood essence spread through his veins, and rather than treating his existing bloodline as an enemy, it recognized something similar and began merging into it.

The demon blood reacted violently to the intrusion, refusing assimilation, lashing out at the evolving bloodline.

His body became the battlefield.

Skin split, blood erupted from every pore, bones cracked, ribs snapped, muscle tore loose from bone. His organs failed one after another as his eyes ruptured under the pressure, then began reforming, then ruptured again. His mana core cracked and sealed and cracked again in an endless cycle.

Carmilla’s smile had vanished entirely, replaced by something closer to fascination.

’This shouldn’t be possible,’ she thought, watching the demon blood resist with a ferocity she hadn’t accounted for. ’A normal mortal would already be gone.’

An idea struck her.

’I wonder...’

"What happens," she murmured, "if I add a little divine energy?"

She released a small bit, nowhere near enough to kill him outright, but enough to shift the entire equation.

Both bloodlines seized it instantly, absorbing it, growing stronger, the conflict escalating violently.

Carmilla’s blood surged ahead, overwhelming the demon blood’s resistance.

And the demon blood, realizing it was losing, changed strategy entirely.

It ignited.

Not physically, its divine essence itself began burning, a final act of spite. If it couldn’t win, it would rather destroy itself entirely than become fuel for something else, and maybe in the process go for mutual destruction.

"Oh," Carmilla said. "My bad."

Lucien’s body began collapsing faster than it could repair, bone dissolved, flesh burned away in patches as blood poured from every opening he had and his heart stopped.

Started.

Stopped again.

His soul itself trembled under the strain of hosting a war between two divine bloodlines.

Carmilla’s expression finally sobered completely, watching his barely open eyes.

Through the haze, Lucien’s broken fingers twitched toward his storage ring.

He pulled out a blood candy, then another and forced them into his mouth. They dissolved instantly, as he activated Primordial Rebirth on top of it his regeneration surging to meet the damage.

It was not enough to win, but enough to survive one more second.

He kept going, candy after candy, healing racing destruction, neither fully winning, until, inevitably, the ring came up empty.

No more shortcuts and no more emergency reserves, only endurance left.

Hours passed.

His body broke and repaired, broke and repaired, the cycle grinding on. The demon blood burned itself down piece by piece, while Carmilla’s blood consumed each fragment it shed.

Somewhere in the third hour, his body barely recognizable as vampire anymore, and looked more and more like a hideously of blood Slime as his mind reached for something to hold onto.

Aurelia and her face when she beat the heck put of him as training. Seraphina, quiet, kind and always exploding potions. Evelisse and her aura farming, absolutely ridiculous. His wives,

’I’m not dying here.’

Another wave tore through him as his heart stopped.

’Not after coming this far.’

’Not while I still have things left to do.’

The demon blood, whatever remained of it, finally guttered out.

Silence descended, as Carmilla’s blood absorbed the last fragments, and Lucien’s own bloodline drew Carmilla’s essence into itself completely fusing.

His body collapsed entirely.

For several long seconds, nothing happened.

Even Carmilla didn’t know, watching, whether he’d survived, as pnly a blob was left.

Thump.

Thump.

Another.

His body began rebuilding, not merely healing now, but reconstructing from the ground up. Bones grew denser. Muscle reformed stronger than before. His blood settled into something purer, cleaner. Mana channels rebuilt themselves before fusing into his whole body. Organs reformed. Skin knit whole as his hair settled back into place.

His eyes came last as yyelids twitched, then opened.

They weren’t the same crimson anymore.

Deeper and richer, like the color itself had gained dimension it hadn’t possessed before.

Carmilla stared at him.

For the first time since they’d met, her expression held genuine, unguarded surprise.

Lucien slowly pushed himself upright, something entirely unfamiliar moving through his veins.

[Ding!]

[Bloodline Evolution Detected]

[Bloodline: ??????]

Lucien stared at the notification, as Carmilla’s eyes went wide.