The Age of Martial Enlightenment.

Chapter Seven – Blood in the Wind

After completing the seventh pillar—Marrow Refinement—and spending nearly a century piecing together the fragments of a hidden war, Emrys finally had a name for the nightmare that had taken root across the continent:

Blood Lotus.

Twelve Assassin Lords.

One Poison Martial King.

A secret empire of death embedded in the veins of civilization.

He learned this only after the Kingdom of Delvane was devoured—erased from maps by a storm of black venom and silence. Of the millions who once called it home, none remained.

That was when Emrys knew.

It was time to ascend again.

The 8th Pillar – Blood Refinement

Where the 7th Pillar had been about the marrow birthing new blood, the 8th was something deeper.

Something fundamental.

It was no longer just about generating power.

It was about transforming what power meant.

Emrys secluded himself—but never in one place for too long. The Assassins of Blood Lotus were watching. He could feel them in the wind, in the shadows of each town, in the silence that followed a passerby's glance held too long.

So he moved.

And as he moved, he refined.

Essence Within the Blood

Using his internal essence, Emrys began to channel it into his liver, where the purification of toxins began. He learned to sense the chemical imbalances of his blood, feeling the heat of stress hormones, the corrosive tinge of environmental poison, the subtle weight of memory itself.

His essence filtered through his lungs, oxygenating each drop of blood with ruthless precision. He no longer breathed like other men—he distilled air into power.

He refined his kidneys, learning to manage blood volume and electrolyte balance with instinctual control, adjusting hydration and pressure with the barest shift of will.

He could now raise or lower his body's temperature by shifting blood flow through his skin, making his pulse imperceptible or flaring his surface like molten steel in a heartbeat.

Where once his body had been a weapon, now it was an alchemy furnace—burning away weakness, converting every impurity into insight.

Blood That Reached for the Wind

But something strange began to happen as the decades passed.

As Emrys refined his blood, he began to feel it stir… to pulse in rhythm not with his heart, but with the world itself.

When he stood on mountaintops, the wind curled around him like a lover.

When he ran, he could feel the drag and lift of his movement through air.

When he fought, he no longer just displaced the wind—he danced with it.

His blood had begun to reach for something. Something intangible. Something above.

So he followed it.

He began to study wind—not just in the poetic sense, but in the language of aerodynamics, of pressure systems, of lift, drag, vortices, and compression waves.

He would leap from cliffs just to feel the way wind bent around him.

He would meditate during storms, letting his blood synchronize with the thunderclaps.

He would spar with air itself, learning how to cut it, ride it, command it.

It was during one such session, high atop the jagged cliffs of the eastern rift valleys, that Emrys stood alone against the gale. His body flickered—once, twice—and vanished for a moment between breaths.

When he reappeared, there was no sound.

Just stillness.

And the faint whistle of wind within his veins.

He smiled.

Not because the journey was over.

But because the storm inside him had just begun.

...…

Unbeknownst to the wider world, the true completion of the 8th Pillar of Blood Refinement was not merely the purification of blood—but its alignment.

Only a select few Martial Kings had uncovered this hidden layer.

The blood, once refined to purity, would begin to resonate.

With the world.

With an element.

Some felt the slow chill of Death creep into their veins and walked paths of Slaughter, Poison, or the solemn rites of the grave. Others burned with the warmth of Life, their blood stirring toward healing, growth, or the infinite persistence of nature.

Some walked among rivers and found Water.

Others stood upon cliffs and felt the weight of Stone.

A rare few heard the sky's whisper—and were claimed by Wind.

Emrys was one such man.

His blood had become motion itself, fluid and unseen. In his silence, there was swiftness. In his stillness, pressure. His essence danced upon the world like mist curling over a blade.

And as his attunement deepened, so too did his instincts.

He now knew that Wind was not passive.

Wind was everywhere.

It eroded mountains, sculpted deserts, and carried the scent of blood from a battlefield a hundred leagues away.

It was freedom, yes—but it was also force.

During a rare moment in a southern outpost near the Skyroot Expanse, Emrys overheard the tale whispered from a caravan of pilgrims and mercenaries.

A name spoken like thunder behind closed lips.

"He burned him from the inside out… Took his venom and turned it into ash."

"They call him the BloodFire King now."

"Said he walked out of the ruins of an entire Black Lotus branch, holding the Assassin Lord's heart in one hand and flames curling out his back like wings…"

A man had risen.

A Martial King.

Ambrose.

A name Emrys hadn't heard in over a century.

A ghost of a smile tugged at the corner of Emrys's mouth.

He remembered the name.

The strength.

The will.

It made sense. Fire was destruction, but also refinement—the forge of intent.

And for a moment, Emrys felt the faintest tension in the wind.

A pressure building far off on the horizon.

A storm meeting a wildfire.

He did not know where or when, but their paths would cross again.

BloodFire and BloodWind.

Two Martial Kings.

Two elements.

One inevitable clash…

or an alliance that could unmake the Poison King himself.