Losing a week of time was a bigger amount than it seemed. I had to spend around a day collecting myself and that entailed several tasks.

Alexandra called me about seventy times and left countless messages. She was less than happy to be left out of the loop after I killed Henry, but she calmed down once I told her I was in the middle of the awakening and relented.

The entire situation had been ‘handled’ in one way or another. Which I took to mean that she worked out some deal with the Emerian Government and they made short work of the entire situation with a cover-up of sorts. Pushing the idea that it was a robbery rather than a blatant assassination. Since Henry was a fairly prolific individual, his death made a lot of headlines. The blurry cellphone footage of a "figure" fleeing the scene was starting to make its rounds among forums and other websites.

After finding that the situation was settled for the moment, I headed straight into research. I ignored the sudden flood recruitment emails from the various guilds that filled my inbox, most of which “coincidentally” appeared in greater frequency after I was assigned a higher classification.

I used my time scrolling through forums, articles, and anything else that could help me gain even the smallest bit of insight into the Dread Sorcerer’s path.

My results could be summarized in three points:

One, Thanatos was the name of the Greek personification of death, non-violent death to be specific.

Two, Azrael is the name of an angel of death who was said to have a body filled eyes and tongues that corresponded with the number living on earth. I couldn’t shake the image of some random guy covered in tiny googly eyes which I would absolutely prefer over the more realistic expectation.

Three, and by far the most confusing, The Endless Penumbra. Apparently, a penumbra was the edge of a shadow cast by an eclipse and that’s as far as I got. Really, I had no idea what it meant. Of course, in just about all forms of mythology, an eclipse was hardly a good thing.

I didn’t get concrete answers, not that I expected any, but at least I had somewhere to start– Ah, I almost forgot!

I lifted my shirt and glanced at the black ring around my navel. It had definitely appeared during the time I was asleep and it was obviously related to the penumbra. I tried everything to get a reaction from it, but I got nothing back.

I concentrated for an hour straight, shouted at it, poked it, I did just about anything I could think of before begrudgingly giving up. Meaning, I had to leave this parasitic thing to its own devices while it did whatever it was going to do to the inside of my body. It didn’t mean I was content with the many possible dangers, but I had no means of interacting with it and I didn’t want to consult Evanora yet. My relationship with the witches was a cordial one, but I wasn’t going to lean on them too heavily.

I exhaled lightly before closing my eyes.

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Disregarding everything else, it was time to start learning the Art of Sanguina. Before taking on the path of the Dread Sorceror, I had a few abilities related to blood, so I wasn’t unfamiliar with using it. However, the description of the Art of Sanguina didn’t seem to relate to blood exclusively but rather, life as a whole.

Even though I should've looked for the bigger picture, I couldn’t help but imagine millions of red cells flowing throughout my body, which was in direct opposition of what the grimoire spoke of. I was supposed to find something more than just blood.

So, I imagined something different.

A single red cell, but not just blood. I tried to see something beneath it and then something reacted within my mind.

The tiny little blotch of red surrounded by the darkness of my subconscious had begun to dissolve. It was almost as if someone had used a paintbrush to smear it. My confusion at the sudden change began to grow.

‘Is there some significance to the shape?’

Once that thought crossed my mind, the red streak shifted into something else. It was only then did I realize I was the one controlling the streak.

At some point, I had transitioned from simply imagining, to entering into a different state of mind. I felt I could actually control this tiny drop of blood.

I forced it to expand, in search of whatever lay inside of it. Well, I didn’t know if there was anything, but I wouldn’t stop my search. Stretching the small amount of blood to its limits made it split into two, setting me a step back.

‘Think, Casper,’ I ignored the rising frustration and sought some other avenue of enlightenment.

Ok. I needed to first look at it from a simpler point of view before going further.

The true value of blood was in its potential. A single drop was nothing to think of, but when millions came together. What could they become? I could form blades, arrows, use it as poison, and even absorb more. Those were all predesignated uses, knowledge that I had acquired through exchanging the souls I gathered. There was so much more I could make if I could tap into my own knowledge, but that was hardly what I was after at the moment.

I recalled the term ‘lifeblood’ being used in the grimoire and it made me wonder. What gave a soul its power? If it was the lifeblood then the amount of vitality in a being and its soul were intrinsically linked if that was the case.

I thought of Alexandra, Evanora, and the witches who had souls much more powerful than the average human. If I took them into account, it had to be a matter of vitality. Or, at least, vitality played a big part. The evidence was strong enough to proceed as if that were the truth.

So, the Art of Sanguina wouldn’t be just forcing my blood to take on different forms, although that was one benefit. The main essence of the art would be manipulating life energy. Or maybe, to alter the link between both the physical, the blood, and the non-physical, the soul.

The image of two shapes made of blood suddenly changed when I had reached that point in my pondering. Like an explosion, the two cells began to multiply at an alarming rate.

I watched as my subconscious became filled with the sight of red and felt a certain weight fill my body. The sensation was so strong that I could no longer concentrate and was forced to open my eyes and I was greeted with the sight of blood. Boiling droplets fell from my face and I could even see it leaking from underneath my fingernails. A stinging burning sensation slowly climbed up from inside of me.

I could only resist for a moment before blood was expelled from my insides, spilling onto the floor. I immediately pressed my palms into the puddle of blood than began gathering underneath and me before absorbing back into me after panicking.

“Agh, fuck,” I barely managed to speak as blood was forced out of my eyes, nose, and mouth simultaneously.