The auction hall was empty, but the tension within the walls of the Celestial Estate had only shifted. Ross Bailey stood in a private observation lounge overlooking the dark grounds. In front of him, a massive holographic array projected the faces of the other high-ranking directors of the House of Celestial. This wasn’t a public eting; this was the inner sanctum, where the real masks ca off.
"Ethan Blake is a variable we failed to account for," said Ross Bailey, swirling his wine as the holographic figures shimred with agitation. "His offensive power is astronomical. During the breach, he moved with a speed and lethality that bordered on the divine. To be blunt: if we had fought to the death in that corridor, I cannot guarantee I would have survived."
"Preposterous!" shouted a man with a scarred face, his holographic image flickering as he leaned forward. "You are a Pri Enforcer of this House, Ross! You’re telling us a brat who runs a glorified bodyguard agency almost put you in the ground?"
"I am telling you that I felt the cold breath of the abyss," said Ross Bailey, his voice dropping to a dangerous whisper. "His aura isn’t just strong; it’s ancient. He fought through our automated defenses and our elite guards as if they were made of paper."
"He should have been recruited before he showed his hand!" another director hissed, slamming a stack of papers onto her desk. "We could have owned him! Now, he knows his own leverage. Everything is a ss because of that arrogant imbecile Axhel. He provoked a sleeping dragon because he wanted to play God with a few test subjects!"
Ross set his glass down, the sound echoing in the silent room. "Axhel has been dealt with. To prevent Blake from leveling this entire estate, I stripped Axhel of his dignity and handed him over as a tethered slave. It was a necessary move to pacify the boy," said the executive.
"A brilliant, if ruthless, play," a silver-haired man muttered, though his eyes remained cold. "But it doesn’t solve the bigger problem. The potion, Ross. Tell them about the potion."
Ross’s expression turned grim. "He produced a healing elixir that Zwager appraised as Grade 4. It wasn’t just dicine; it was a miracle. The Blackwood matriarch—the ’Blood Rose’—is currently in a deep healing trance in our sanctuary. She didn’t even wait to leave the building before consuming it."
The room erupted into a heated debate.
"You let her take it here?" the scarred director yelled. "Do you realize what you’ve done? That woman has been a dying ember for twenty years! If she recovers even half of her forr strength, the balance of power in this city is dead!"
"He’s right," a woman’s voice added, trembling with newfound fear. "The Blackwood family was purged for a reason. Every house represented in this room has their hands stained with their blood. If Ethan Blake has unleashed the Blood Rose, he hasn’t just broken the peace—he’s signed our death warrants. She will go on a hunt, and she won’t stop until every head involved in the purge is on a spike."
"Ethan Blake didn’t just walk into our auction," said Ross Bailey, looking out into the night. "He walked into our world and flipped the table. He gave the most dangerous woman in the underworld a second life, and in doing so, he made himself untouchable. If we kill him, we lose the source of the elixir. If we leave him alone, he builds an army."
"Then we watch," the silver-haired man declared, his voice cutting through the panic. "We watch and we pray that he points that Rose at our enemies before he points her at us."
The news of the "Taboo" auction spread through the supernatural underworld like a wildfire in a dry forest. In the hidden corners of the globe, where power is asured in blood and ancient legacies, the na Ethan Blake was being whispered with a mixture of dread and intense curiosity.
In a skyscraper in Tokyo, the leader of the Shadow-Step Syndicate sat in a room filled with incense. A digital report glowed before him.
"A Grade 4 healing elixir? From a man with no lineage?" said the Syndicate Leader. He closed his eyes, his fingers tracing the hilt of a katana that pulsed with dark energy. "The balance is shifting. Send a scout. Do not engage, do not threaten. Just watch. If the source of life has appeared in the West, we must know if it can be bought."
anwhile, in a sprawling estate in the Italian countryside, the Crested Fang family—vampiric nobility who had lived for centuries—were gathered in their war room.
"A human knight with the power of a mage," said the Grand Matriarch, her voice like grinding stone. "He broke a Commander of the Union and tethered him like a dog. This Ethan Blake is either a fool or a god. Either way, the House of Celestial is terrified, and that brings great joy."
However, nowhere was the reaction more violent than in the fortress of the Soaring Blaze.
Deep within a volcanic mountain range, the atmosphere was thick with the scent of sulfur and panic. The Soaring Blaze were a house of fire-elental warriors known for their brutality. Twenty years ago, they had been the primary executioners during the purge of the Blackwood lineage. They had burned the Blackwood forests, slaughtered their children, and thought they had left the matriarch to rot from a terminal curse.
"He did WHAT?" roared the Patriarch of the Soaring Blaze, slamming his wreathed-in-fla fist into a stone table, cracking it in half.
"The reports are confird, my Lord," said the trembling ssenger. "Ethan Blake provided a Grade 4 potion. The ’Blood Rose’ has consud it. Our spies inside the Celestial grounds say the mana fluctuation coming from her healing chamber is... overwhelming. Her withered heart is beating again."
The Patriarch’s face paled, the flas flickering on his shoulders turning a sickly yellow. "The Blood Rose... if she regains her peak form, she will co for us first. We were the ones who set her ho ablaze. We were the ones who killed her daughters."
He looked around at his generals, seeing the sa cold terror reflected in their eyes. For two decades, they had slept soundly, believing their greatest enemy was a dying shadow. Now, because of one man’s appearance at an auction, the most feared assassin in the history of the underworld was being restored to her forr glory.
"Prepare the defenses!" the Patriarch scread. "Mobilize every fla-knight we have! And soone find out everything there is to know about this Ethan Blake! If he is her benefactor, he is our enemy! We must kill him before he gives her another drop of that cursed life!"
While the world burned with the news of his deeds, the man at the center of the storm remained fast asleep, unaware that he had just ignited the fuse of a global war.
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