The world was still drowned in red. The air had changed completely. What once everyone — mundane or awakened — could breathe, had become something only the damned, the forsaken, could begin to inhale.

The ones who had nothing to lose. The ones abandoned by the gods and destined to die, their blood slowly joining the river that was growing—thick, dark-red, relentless—into a terrifying… ocean of blood.

The battle was still going on. People were still dying. And the more they died, the more the scent of the air changed again, as if transformed into something… forbidden, something vile and ancient, alongside the heavens that now bled crimson.

Thanks to Kaden and Daela who took away the grandmasters, the Warborns were slowly taking ground, slowly turning the tide against the beasts. At this point, only the most terrifying, the most skilled, or the most treacherous of them remained. And their every strike was lethal. Their energy hadn't faded, their fury wasn't quenched, their rage hadn't dulled.

Honestly, they looked like devils who had no business being on earth.

No one knew how long it would last, how long they could keep going without hesitation, their mouths smiling, their eyes bloody as they continued their merciless slaughter.

But what was certain… was that it would last as long as their Heirs were doing their job.

One Warborn soldier, a muscled woman, her last strands of golden hair now sticky with blood, her face drenched, her body wounded in many parts and yet her grip on her colossal hammer didn't waver.

She turned her head out of instinct to glance across the battlefield. And her emerald eyes locked onto a scene she would never forget.

It was a scene that would soon be whispered between them…

The image of their young master Kaden, blood smeared across his wickedly handsome face, smirking down at a grandmaster whose jaw was shattered like rusted scrap, looking up at him in trembling fear.

And beside him… another grandmaster, lying lifeless, Kaden's crimson sword resting deep inside the man's gaping mouth.

Two grandmasters. Both down.

Their young master had neutralized two grandmasters on his own, without a single scratch on his body.

She froze. Took it in. Heart pounding with something like awe, like adrenaline, like worship.

And then, she remembered the title their young master had been born with.

The title that had made him famous across Waverith without him even lifting a finger. A title they once thought too grand, too much, for a mere child.

The Child of Blood.

But at that moment… he was no child.

He was something more.

Something profane. Something otherworldly.

So, instinctively, the woman threw her head back and screamed, her voice — in some mysterious, war-drunk way — reaching every soldier across the blood-drenched battlefield.

"THE LORD OF BLOOD! THE LORD OF BLOOD! THE LORD OF BLOOD!"

The battlefield seemed to freeze.

Every soldier looked at her. Even the Steelbeasts.

And they all turned to the direction she was pointing… taking in the same scene.

BADUM—!

Their hearts thundered in unison. No… their blood itself seemed to thrum faster, violently, euphorically…like it too had recognized its master.

And in that instant… the Warborns' energy exploded.

Their murderous intent surged to a level never before recorded in history.

They cackled. Laughed. Some cried. Some wept.

All of them driven to madness by pride and love and bloodlust as they saw their own young master besting two grandmaster Steelbeasts with ease.

Their brutality soared into a whole new realm of carnage.

They began to slaughter the Steelbeasts with renewed, near-insane viciousness, the beasts still frozen in shock from the scene they'd just witnessed.

All while the Warborns continued to chant…

"LORD OF BLOOD! LORD OF BLOOD! LORD OF BLOOD!"

Their combined voices shook the very air. Space itself twisted, vicious and unstable.

Daela took a moment during her fight to glance at her brother. And she smiled…wide, proud, untamed.

Then she twisted mid-air, dodging an attack from Jeni.

She landed, turned toward her, and spoke through a bloodstained grin, her tone dry and dangerous, "It's time to end this farce. My brother is waiting for me."

Her twin swords ignited with a deep, searing glow and seconds later, Jeni screamed in agony.

The turn of the war changed then and there.

All because of Kaden.

And the man himself watched it all unfold, this elevated massacre, with a small smile pulling at his lips.

"Lord of Blood, huh…" he chuckled. "That's not a bad title, is it?"

Morre still couldn't believe what he was seeing. Or feeling.

His mind simply refused to accept that a Master could beat them so easily.

But any other result… would have been disappointing.

Kaden had broken his stat limits not once, but twice. He had reached Master through a Mythic Evolution Quest, with a Mythic Stone. His Will had transformed into something utterly unique, like his master's The Undefeated Slave.

And then there was his Soulbrand, his black flame that devoured blood, mana, and lifespan alike.

With all of that…

How could a Grandmaster threaten him now, even if he was only a Master?

They couldn't.

"After I kill you, I'll slaughter the rest of the Steelbeasts." Kaden said to Morre, while Laye writhed nearby, still trapped in the black flame of Reditha.

Reditha herself had manifested fully, her crimson form coiling behind him, wrapping around him like always—seductive, loyal, inhuman.

Morre and Laye trembled because of his voice. Because of the certainty. The cruelty. The inevitability within it.

"Don't hope for your master to save you," Kaden added coldly. "He'll die too."

His voice was thick with confidence.

His father wouldn't lose. The man hadn't even drawn his sword yet. He was still fighting Goremaw with fists alone and still, Goremaw was losing.

Foolish.

Kaden shook his head slowly, wondering how they could ever have underestimated them. They might not be good at mind games… but absolutely no one could match the Warborns in battle.

No one.

"You wanted to devour, huh?" Kaden said aloud, and Reditha grinned wickedly behind him.

"Yes, Lord of Blood," she replied, her voice full of playful malice.

Kaden stood straight, looking across the battlefield.

He saw, from afar, his sister calmly seated atop the corpse of grandmaster Jeni, her swords driven deep into the woman's eyes. Her body was still wounded, here and there.

But she was smiling, then she raised a thumb toward him.

Kaden mirrored her action, grinning back, Reditha's crimson hands still wrapped loosely around his neck.

"Spare the core and the corpses," he said, "but devour their blood and souls completely."

"I'll need the bodies of these beasts for some upgrades later."

He gave the order and Reditha obeyed with wicked delight. Strangely, she didn't even touch the ocean of blood beneath them.

Instead, she reached toward the bodies, pulling the blood and the soul that still flowed within the corpses scattered across the field, lifting it softly above the crimson surface.

A tidal wave of blood erupted upward from their corpses, reaching toward Kaden under the stunned, wide-eyed gaze of every Warborn soldier.

Kaden didn't open his mouth.

Only Reditha did with her mouth stretched wide with savage hunger, while the blood and the soul, invisible to all but them, cocooned around his body. Slowly, surely, it entered him.

His body grew stronger. His soul denser.

The two grandmasters died fully, not just their bodies, but their entire existence, consumed. Same for the others.

This scene… looked like a ritual.

Like the coronation of a new demonic god.

And It was the perfect moment to cement the new title the Warborns had just given him.

The title they were now screaming, eyes crimson with fervor, stomping across the ocean of blood, slamming their fists against their chests…

They cried it. They howled it. They sang it.

It was the evolution of the Child of Blood.

The child born in battle, surrounded by blood and now returned to battle, surrounded by an ocean of blood.

But this time…

It was an ocean he had created.

And with this…

He was no longer the Child of Blood.

He was now…

"LORD OF BLOOD! LORD OF BLOOD! LORD OF BLOOD!"

Yes.

That's what he was.

The Lord of Blood.

—End of Chapter 258—

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