[BETA-READ / Side Project] RoU | B1 | Chapter 5

(Be advised that this book contains a dark setting, strong romance, and explicit scenes. I do not recommend it for anyone under 18.)

Rise of the Unbound / Book 1: The Blade and The Pawn

• Cover / synopsis: https://www.patreon.com/posts/141212971 <-New Covers!

• Prologue - > https://www.patreon.com/posts/141378684

*** IMPORTANT:

• The power system had been changed a bit, but it's still elemental mastery.

• I have officially written the draft of the 30 first chapters.... now I only have to edit those. The worst part of writing T_T.

• With Ascension of Primalist still taking 90% of my writing time, I'm aiming for an official launch of this story at the end of the summer! It's still a side project that I mainly write on the bus to work... ahaha

Chapter 5: Twins

As his consciousness returned, Seven heard the faint scuff of a boot against the stone beside him. He did not move, keeping both his eyes shut and breathing shallow and steady.

Where am I?

The air was biting, tinged with alcohol and copper. He lay naked on a slab of freezing metal, his skin prickling as the chill seeped into his bones. A steel table.

The man next to him mumbled something incomprehensible. Seven strained his ears, listening past that person's voice. Breathing? Footsteps? No, nothing. 

They were alone.

Then, suddenly, a cold hand pressed flat against the center of his chest, and an odd sensation surged inside him. It wasn’t pain or anything he had ever experienced before. Seven felt something being hooked, a deep grapple, then a strong pull. 

The man was dragging something out.

Deep in Seven's gut, a visceral shriek echoed through his bones. The thing inside him—the one that had absorbed the first stone on the stage—desperatly thrashed as if begging the process to stop.

Seven's hand, hanging limp off the side of the table, twitched. His fingers brushed a wooden tray. Furtively, he walked his fingers forward until they reached something thin. And sharp. A blade.

He curled his fingers around the handle.

The force inside Seven's chest intensified, building to a sudden, violent tug. Then the sensation vanished all at once. The man beside him muttered, confusion obvious in his voice. “Why is it dead? That’s… wait, there’s—”

Seven's eyes snapped open.

Mid-forties. A face with a few deep lines etched around pale, unfocused eyes.

Seven didn’t hesitate, and his arm lashed out. 

The blade in his hand bit deep, then a thin red line opened the man’s throat before he could even raise an arm to protect himself. Blood spurted, hot and bright. A wet, choking sound escaped his lips as his eyes widened in shock. An instant later, he collapsed backward and hit the floor.

Not wasting a second, Seven slid off the cold metal slab.

His feet hit the tiles, and his knees instantly buckled. He slammed a hand onto the table to catch himself, his head spinning. I’m still weak.

Gritting his teeth, he forced himself upright. As he steadied himself, Seven's gaze flicked down.

His naked body was a road map of scars, hundreds of old marks carved into his flesh, but three stood out—the fresh wounds from the Butcher and Four. The gashes should have still been raw, or at least crusted with drying blood, yet the skin had already sealed itself shut, pale and tight, as if days had passed rather than hours. Odd.

Then he saw it.

On a wheeled cart next to the main table lay the thing the man had extracted. 

It was small, curled into a tight, fetal ball, like an unborn child. But it wasn't human. It was a pup-like thing with pale skin and six tails, which were all still. 

The thing wasn’t breathing.

Seven stared at the small corpse, his throat tightening.

That... was inside me?

The realization hit him like a physical blow. The mark. The curse. The rejection. It was all bullshit. 

The marked ones' bodies hadn't been rejected by the energy of the stars. They had been brooding freaking monsters. The Black Merchants had been collecting the corpses to harvest them.

But why did Seven's die? Was it because—

Before the thought could finish, something stirred in his chest. He froze.

It started as a low whimper against his ribs, then turned into a snarl. An instant later, emotions that didn't belong to him surged through his mind. Raw, burning grief. A hunger for vengeance. The need to avenge the thing lying dead on the cart.

Seven's hand pressed against his sternum as his eyes widened. There, right next to the rhythmic thrum of his heart and his new astral core, something else was uncoiling in a dark void.

Another one, he realized with a clench of his fists. There were two. Twins.

The first stone had nourished them both, keeping them alive, but it hadn’t been enough. That was why those things had tried to consume the astra of the flawless ore, too. And now the remaining creature would soon be starving again.

Shit. 

Seven looked down at the dead man sprawled at his feet, blood pooling across the tiles. He should have waited. Let the extraction finish. Now there was still a beast inside him, and no easy way to remove it. He would need another Soulwarden.

But first, he needed to get out of here.

Shoving the thought aside, Seven snapped his head up and took a deep breath when a prickling sensation crawled up his spine, causing him to turn around. 

A man stood in a doorway to his right.

Instinctively, Seven's arm whipped forward. The blade in his hand flew straight for the man’s left eye. He did not flinch and merely tilted his head, as casually as sidestepping a falling drop of rain. The blade buried itself into the wooden frame behind him with a dull thud.

Seven took a step back, his muscles tightening.

It was him. The man from the Iron Claws headquarters. The one who had stood beside Kaiser and had a presence that could crush air itself despite his frail frame. The leader of those nobles.

He was dressed in a fine attire of dark fabrics, trimmed with subtle embroidery that marked his status without a single wasted flourish. His brown ponytail cascaded neatly down his back.

He glanced at Seven, then down at the corpse. Mild annoyance flickered across his features. “Was such a mess truly necessary?”

“Was he important to you?” Seven retorted.

He used the conversation to buy time; his eyes moved down to the dead man in a feint, then darted to the walls, searching for a window, a door, anything. Every bit of his instincts screamed at him to run. He couldn’t fight this person.

“Clever.” A faint smile touched the man's lips, and he nodded toward a heavy steel door in the distance, on the left. “However, the only other exit is over there. And much to your dismay, it’s locked.”

Seven didn’t wait—that could be a lie. He burst into a sprint while still naked, his bare feet slapping against the cold tiles.

But, suddenly, the floor beneath him groaned. The smooth tiles dissolved, shifting instantaneously into living rock. The stone surged upward like a trap jaw to clamp around his ankles. His momentum immediately double-crossed him. 

The prison of rock forced him to a halt, causing him to tumble face-first into the ground. A sharp cry tore from his throat as the shear almost wrenched his joints, his lower legs locked in place.

Seven strained and tried to pull his free, but he couldn’t break the damn thing.

“To answer your question,” the man began, his calm voice echoing through the large room as he walked closer to lean casually against a nearby table. “No, he wasn’t important to me. He was merely a harvester for the Black Merchants."

The noble turned his attention to the nearby cart, studying the pale, curled remains of the dead creature. "Must have been a rare species of astral beast," he mused aloud. "I confess, I do not even recognize the taxonomy. That's a pity it didn't survive the awakening."

A dry chuckle escaped his lips. “I suppose that last owner of yours is going to have a difficult time reimbursing the guild for such a loss.”

Seven stopped struggling for a fraction of a second. An astral beast. That was the second heartbeat thumping against his ribs.

"But, digressions aside," the man continued, his expression hardening as he faced Seven. "I was told you were the perfect weapon. Voracious. Lethal. A killer who struck without hesitation. Yet it seems the mere prospect of freedom has turned you into a petulant runaway."

Seven tested the rock fused around his ankles once again. He pulled, gritting his teeth until his tendons nearly popped. It didn’t budge. As if the stone was rooted to the foundation of the whole building.

“It appears a practical demonstration of the reality of your situation is necessary.” The noble reached into one of his jacket’s inner pockets and pulled out a piece of parchment. The faint, sickly glow was unmistakable.

“A ‘Predator Contract,’ as you slum-rats call it, is a quite beautiful piece of weaving,” the noble continued, smoothing the paper with both hands. “It’s way more complex than just a few binding letters. All know that words possess a large range of meaning and... well, intensity.”

He clenched his fists around the paper, and the entire room dissolved around Seven.

His knees gave way, and he collapsed, ankles still trapped in the stone. It wasn’t just pain; it was an excruciation. Being hurled into a forge wouldn’t have been worse. Every nerve in his body screamed in unison, a single, endless shriek that drowned out all his thoughts. If he still had the blade in his hand, he would have slit his own throat right there. Anything to make it stop.

Then, it ceased.

Seven's body trembled violently as he gasped, the metallic taste of blood filling his mouth.

“The pain isn’t set,” the noble explained with a casual tone, as if he were discussing the weather. “It’s proportional to the astral control of the one holding the contract. So, if you ever believed you could endure it because that little Pyrosmith couldn’t handle the weave... well, you will find that I’m from a whole different caliber.”

The man tightened his grip again.

The scream that tore from Seven's throat next had nothing of human—even beasts did not make sounds like that. 

His vision went white from the pain as his body was being pulled apart, piece by piece by invisible threats.  Inside his chest, the astral beast writhed in shared agony. Its pain echoing through Seven's core and amplifying his own until he could no longer tell where one ended and the other began.

Through the roaring in his ears, Seven barely heard the noble’s voice. “And... this is merely a fraction of it.”

The next second the torture finally stopped, and Seven lay sprawled across the cold tiles, retching dryly as his body steamed with phantom heat. His vision refused to focus, the world swimming in fractured light.

“So, if I were you, I'd comply.” The man's thin shadow loomed over Seven. “And began acting as the weapon you are supposed to be.”

The noble then walked over to a wooden cabinet in the back of the room. He then opened the top drawer and pulled out a fresh instrument—a blade made to dissect bodies. “And to get it out of the way.”

The man rolled up his pristine sleeve to the elbow then pressed the sharp edge of the blade against the pale skin of his own forearm. 

Seven's eyes widened. 

The blade didn’t bite. The man kept pressing it down with shaking strength, but the steel buckled with a groan, folding upon itself like a strip of tin. The skin beneath remained intact. No white mark. No drops of blood.

“There isn’t a world in which you could kill me and steal the contract.” The noble tossed the twisted metal onto the floor with a clatter. “So please. Don’t waste both our time with any attempt.”

The stone clamping Seven's ankles crumbled into dust, allowing him to move. 

Yet he remained on his knees. 

Instead of the rock, it was something else that rooted him in place. Something he hadn’t felt in years—not since the day he had first been dragged into the Iron Claws’ hideout.

Despair.

He was out of the cage, only to be thrown into a pit.

“Don’t make such a face,” the noble said with cold detachment. “People who work under me and do what I ask live well. They earn enough to buy what they want. They have homes. Some even take wives, raise children. A respectable life.”

Seven remained silent, the pain still ringing behind his eyes.

“I have no intention of eternally holding you prisoner,” the noble continued, “nor of controlling every single one of your actions. At least not if you prove yourself worthy of the coin I paid for that flawless stone. And for you.”

Seven frowned, the words cutting through the haze inside his mind. “The flawless stone?”

“The very one your former owner provided you.” The noble rolled back his sleeve and adjusted his cuff. “I supplied it. Well, after confirming the element of the beast they planted in you years ago. I wanted to ensure you would awaken as a Dark Weaver.”

Seven's expression didn’t change, but something inside him tightened. Everything finally clicked. 

He was supposed to inherit the element of the beast in his chest. Darkness. Not the wind. Somehow, the second affinity had slipped through because he had two beasts in his chest during the awakening. A trump card.

Seven's thoughts returned to the contract he’d signed in Kaiser’s office. The buy-back clause demanded fifty thousand silver coins—ten times the market price of a flawless stone. This noble couldn’t stop him from repurchasing his freedom if Seven earned the coins, thanks to the clause the Soulwarden had added. It was the law of the weave. 

He still had a way out.

Just as Seven was about to push himself up, something stirred behind his sternum. The beast inside recoiled from the humiliation, then surged forward in raw fury. Pain rippled through Seven's ribs as astra shimmered and pooled around his core. 

It wanted blood. It wanted him to tear the noble apart.

Seven clenched his jaw and forced the surge down, compressing the swelling energy with sheer will. A sharp wince crossed his face, and immediately, he shifted one leg, disguising the effort as pain from moving the limb.

Shut up, he thought as if talking to the beast inside. I can’t kill him.

The pressure subsided as if the thing understood. Yet it still continued to writhe like a grounded child. 

The man watched Seven hauled himself up, then one of his eyebrows quivered. “Don’t you want to know how much I paid for you? How heavily I invested in your potential?”

“What would that change?” Seven retorted. “You made it clear. The only thing I can do to win some freedom back is to prove my worth.”

A sharp smile appeared on the noble’s lips. “Good.”

He turned and headed for the exit, the hem of his meticulously pressed jacket swaying with each step. “Someone will arrive shortly to provide clothing and equipment for your first assignment. Do not try to kill them.”

The noble then halted at the doorway and glanced back over his shoulder, eyes meeting Seven's. “Be the blade I bought. Cut when I tell you. Stay sheathed when not needed. Do that, and perhaps one day you shall be a free man.”

Seven nodded while being careful to keep his expression blank. Empty words. Empty promises. 

His gaze dropped to the floor. He was used to this. And yet, just like every other time, there wasn’t a single trace of submission inside him.

Wear the mask. Play the obedient.

One day, every chain would be gone.

______

Next --> Chapter 6: https://www.patreon.com/posts/150032185