The Thread Beneath the Beating Heart
Smoke-thin, her voice faded out. Amara Ravenswood spoke as if balancing on a breath. Uncertainty curled through each syllable. Almost breakable, the silence followed. Fragile echoes stayed behind.
Out of nowhere, she offered so awkward explanation involving "help" along with aligning pressure spots on energy lines. Everyone in the space just froze, eyes flickering in silence.
Julian D’Aurelius blinked too.
They called ... to lend a hand?
The patriarch lay motionless beneath the silk quilt. His breathing was shallow, chest rising unevenly. The room slled of dicinal herbs and anxiety.
Julian stepped closer.
Even Amara couldn’t identify the problem. That alone was terrifying. She was the heir to the Miracle dicine Record, a once-in-a-generation prodigy of Ancient dicine.
What kind of illness leaves her confused?
Instinctively, Julian focused.
His golden eyes sharpened, attention narrowing like a blade. He let the noise fade—the murmurs, the shuffling feet, the faint ticking of the antique clock.
He scanned the patriarch’s body.
Nothing abnormal on the surface.
No visible toxins in the nervous system.
No ridian blockage.
No organ rupture.
Strange.
Could it be that after the De Dominicis household plot collapsed, the story forced the Obsidian Kings to step in as divine doctor and fix everything?
This was the first ti he had encountered sothing like this.
In previous transmigrations, he never survived past the first segnt.
Either dead on arrival.
Or alive for two or three hours before being slaughtered.
This was new territory.
He focused deeper.
And then—
He saw it.
A golden thread.
It coiled around the patriarch’s heart like a living filant of light.
It wasn’t blood.
It wasn’t nerve.
It pulsed.
It moved.
[Strange... what is this golden thread? How did it wrap around the old man’s heart?]
The filant tightened faintly, then loosened, as if breathing.
Julian’s scalp tingled.
[Damn... it even moves. Isn’t this Evan’s Bright Life Sucking Leach?]
His heartbeat skipped.
The Bright Life Sucking Leach.
A parasitic spiritual organism cultivated through forbidden thods.
It wasn’t poison.
It wasn’t conventional Black Magic.
It was worse.
It was alive.
The leach entered through skin contact—usually via a small wound or through food infused with spiritual dium. Once inside, it attached itself to the heart, feeding slowly on vitality while releasing microscopic pulses that mimic organ failure.
The victim would appear to suffer natural systemic collapse.
Within twenty-four hours—
Death.
And when the host died?
The leach would dissolve into nothing.
No evidence.
No trace.
No cri.
Perfect murder.
[This thing is extrely insidious. Once it enters the human body, the host is guaranteed to die within twenty-four hours.]
[After the host dies, this thing will self-dissolve, leaving no evidence behind.]
Julian’s jaw tightened.
Evan.
Of course it was him.
Or—
[To save the patriarch, either Evan has to co personally to remove the leach... or we can try the secret recipe from the Miracle dicine Record.]
[Using night-blooming mugwort, frost lotus pollen, crimson vine bark, powdered obsidian resin, black mountain saffron... thirteen herbs total to refine into cleansing incense.]
[The smoke must penetrate the lungs and force the parasite to surface.]
[I’ll find a way to secretly remind them later. We can’t let the patriarch die no matter what.]
The mont those thoughts passed through his mind—
Bianca De Dominicis stiffened.
So did Amara.
Their eyes flicked up simultaneously.
They both heard it.
The sa voice.
The sa thoughts.
For a fraction of a second, their gazes collided.
And in that silent exchange, understanding blood.
They could both hear Julian’s inner thoughts.
Bianca’s breath caught.
So that’s why Amara insisted on bringing him.
It wasn’t assistance.
It was access to truth.
"I just thought of a redy," Amara said quickly, masking the storm in her chest. "Let soone fetch the herbs for ."
Her voice regained its composure.
She grabbed paper and began writing rapidly—the exact formula she had just heard.
Night-blooming mugwort.
Frost lotus pollen.
Crimson vine bark.
Obsidian resin powder.
Black mountain saffron.
Ash-root.
White cedar gum.
Star anise ash.
Three-leaf bitterwort.
Amber dust.
She wrote all thirteen.
A servant ran imdiately.
Amara inhaled slowly, mind racing.
The Miracle dicine Record’s lost prescriptions were no ordinary formulas.
They were weapons disguised as redies.
"Since Amara has a treatnt plan," Bianca said, forcing steadiness into her voice, "let’s go out and rest for now. Let her take care of Grandpa."
Reluctantly, the family mbers filed out.
Ryan lingered for half a heartbeat longer than necessary.
His eyes narrowed faintly at Julian.
Then he left.
The door shut.
Julian glanced around.
"So... there’s nothing for to do?"
He was still wondering how to subtly hint at the leach.
"There is," Bianca said.
Her hand shot out, gripping his wrist.
"I have sothing to discuss with you. Co with ."
Her grip was firm.
Cool.
Julian allowed himself to be pulled.
[Why so serious? Is there sothing important she wants to tell ?]
The small garden outside was dimly lit. Lanterns cast warm halos across stone paths. Wind brushed through bamboo leaves, whispering like distant secrets.
Bianca stopped near a carved stone bench.
She pulled him down beside her.
For a mont, she didn’t speak.
Her shoulders trembled slightly.
Then—
"I think sothing’s wrong with my grandpa," she said quietly. "He was perfectly healthy... and suddenly this happened. Do you think he was poisoned?"
Her red eyes were glossy now.
Not the heiress.
Just a granddaughter.
Julian nodded slowly.
"I think it’s possible," he replied. "But we still need to investigate carefully."
His voice was calm.
asured.
[It’s not poison. It’s a Bright Life Sucking Leach.]
[The leach requires proximity to implant. If Evan didn’t co here personally... then it’s probably that idiot Ryan.]
Bianca’s fingers tightened around the stone bench.
Her nails dug into her palm.
Ryan.
The wind grew colder.
Sowhere inside the house, the patriarch’s breathing rattled faintly.
And for the first ti that night—
The De Dominicis estate felt like a battlefield.
Only this war was invisible.
And sothing was already feeding at the heart of it.
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