NOVEL ONLINE FREE Chapter 15: The Pathway of the Heartbound
Pathway Name: The Pathway of the Heartbound
Also known as:
The Crimson Path
The Pathway of Passion and Yearning
The Chain of Sentiments
(Derogatorily by Velkaris cultists) The Path of Slaves to Longing
Domain:
Emotion, Desire, Longing, Obsession, Love, Suffering, Empathy, Passion, Regret, and Manipulation of the Heart
This pathway governs the deep, chaotic undercurrents of the soul — not logic, not illusion, but the raw power of what beings feel, crave, or grieve.
Where Fake Pathway twists facts, and Witness Pathway anchors truth, the Heartbound pathway controls belief and yearning itself.
Sequence Overview:
Sequence 9 – Empath
Can sense the emotions of those nearby.
Can amplify or soothe one emotion in a target.
Weak against mental pollution, but highly intuitive.
Sequence 8 – Pleaser
Can make others emotionally inclined toward them temporarily (trust, affection, empathy).
Can implant short-term emotional imprints, e.g., "He feels like an old friend."
Begins developing resistance to emotional manipulation.
Sequence 7 – Sufferer
Can transfer their emotional pain to others.
Becomes more powerful the more emotionally wounded they are.
Presence inspires pity, fear, or admiration — depending on what they feel most.
Sequence 6 – Bondmaker
Can create temporary emotional bonds between people.
Can force empathy between enemies for brief windows.
Begins feeling the "echo" of others' regrets and desires from touch or proximity.
Sequence 5 – Yearning Weaver
Can weave desires into physical or mental illusions.
Can make someone act on a long-buried emotional instinct.
Can smell emotional bonds — romantic, familial, envious — like a scent.
Sequence 4 – Thorned Heart
Gains aura that repels liars and crushes emotional suppression.
Can turn repressed feelings into raw psychic damage or control vectors.
Deep emotions within 20 meters become visible as spectral colors or threads.
Sequence 3 – Obsessionist
Can manifest a being's greatest longing or worst heartbreak.
Can use their own obsessions to fuel massive emotional storms — panic, awe, joy.
Anyone touching them feels the strongest desire they've ever felt.
Sequence 2 – The Heart's Tyrant
Can command beings through their own love, loyalty, or hatred.
Can sever emotional ties or rewrite whom someone loves/hates most.
Immune to all forms of emotional coercion, including demonic seduction.
Sequence 1 – The Boundless Craving
No longer feels or expresses their own emotion normally.
Becomes an anchor and mirror for the world's desires.
Can reshape geography, fate, and even gods temporarily based on surrounding emotion.
The more they are wanted, the more powerful they become.
Sequence 0 – The Heartbound Sovereign
Embodiment of Desire Incarnate.
Can create, destroy, or redirect passions across nations.
Entire cities may worship them unknowingly, mistaking obsession for devotion.
Can create Emotional Echo Constructs — living beings made of desire (e.g., a lover one regrets, a child one never had).
Velkaris fears them — for truth can be manipulated, but yearning is harder to kill.
Doctrine of the Pathway of the Heartbound
"What we want is who we are."
"Hearts are the first chains, and the last weapons."
"To love is to risk creation."