Bloodline: Sovereign's Awakening - Chapter 30

Chapter 30: Retribution of the Awakened

A force beyond mortal reckoning paralyzed the entire space of Tala’s residence.

Everything—the breath of wind, the hush of flowing water, the subtle pulse of living energy—had ceased. The very air carried a weight so dense it felt as if time itself had congealed, trapping the estate within an eerie stillness.

The cosmic tapestry above, once interwoven with glimmering celestial threads, flickered erratically, as though struggling to decide whether to persist or unravel.

The mansion’s vast moonlit gardens, once a sanctuary of tranquil beauty, were now caught in a paradox of existence.

Frozen between bloom and decay, the monarch rosemallow blossoms, which unfurled only under the touch of starlight, hung with half-withered, half-thriving petals, uncertain of their fate.

The shimmering pools of Dalisay Dew, known to ripple with the softest of heartbeats, had turned into motionless mirrors of silver, reflecting a sky in disarray.

And then there were the elders.

Five figures, once the unshakable pillars of the Tala lineage, stood suspended mid-motion on their thrones, their robes and flowing insignias petrified in the air.

Something denied them the right to interfere; expressions frozen—eyes wide, mouths barely parted in halted words. Whatever force had woven itself into the fabric of the estate had made a declaration: this moment was not theirs to touch.

A whisper—soft, layered, almost reverent—began to coil through the stillness.

“He awakens… yet not alone.”

The voice did not belong to one but too many, a chorus of echoes slipping through the very seams of reality. It was neither malevolent nor kind—simply inevitable. The very walls of the residence trembled beneath its proclamation, as if the mansion itself recognized the presence of something greater.

Beyond the borders of the pocket space, the entire city of Pagadianara quaked in response.

The Weaver Pillars, great monoliths that bound the city’s protection through centuries of layered enchantments, surged wildly, their luminous threads twisting and snapping like frenzied serpents.

The Keepers stationed at each sacred column gasped as their bindings burned hot, their senses overwhelmed by an invisible hand tugging at the very foundation of the protective structures.

“The threads—!” one of them choked out, gripping his staff as the sacred fibers pulsed erratically beneath his fingertips.

“The Threads are resisting something! This is—”

A deafening crack split the night.

The Negation Obelisks, ancient sentinels meant to nullify disturbances of unnatural origin, flared like dying stars, consuming more energy than they ever had in recorded history. Their normally subdued glow became a blinding beacon, flaring in erratic pulses as they attempted to quell the force pressing against the city’s very essence.

Then—silence.

A hush so complete, so absolute, it crushed the city in its grasp.

The Empyrean Shield, the last and most sacred line of defense, flickered in and out of existence, its translucent dome struggling against something unseen. The very sky above Pagadianara churned, winds reversing their natural course, forming spirals of light and shadow that twisted into shapes—almost figures, almost eyes—watching.

Then, all at once—motion ceased.

Something had paused the entire city, from the soaring districts atop Pagadianara’s grand terraces to the lowest streets where the lanterns had flickered moments before. No sound. No movement. Frozen time ensnared even the faintest heartbeat.

Only those who claimed Echoed Sovereign Titles remained conscious, still suppressed, their breaths shallow, their souls whispering the same unspoken question:

“What… has awakened?”

Back within the Tala residence, the whisper returned—closer this time, lingering against the ears of those who could still listen.

“He sees.”

The weight of those words did not fade. Instead, it pressed against reality itself, shifting the balance of the course of the threads in Pagadianara in that paused moment.

Tala’s mansion fell silent, a silence so profound it consumed even the faint whispers that had just moments before woven through reality. The weight of something unseen pressed down like the hand of a god, suffocating, undeniable. The very air groaned beneath its presence.

Then—violence.

From the heavens of the pocket space, golden and silvery star threads, thick as the pillars of ancient temples, erupted downward, their radiance both divine and merciless. They twisted through the void like cosmic serpents, writhing with purpose, drawn to a single point.

A hand clawed forth from the storm of threads—massive, ethereal, forged from woven constellations and cosmic fire. It did not hesitate. It did not falter.

It reached.

Its fingers, shimmering with celestial fury, passed through the grand walls of the central mansion as if they were smoke, ignoring the laws of matter, bypassing all barriers as though they were illusions.

And then—it grasped.

A strangled cry ripped through the still air.

The unseen force wrenched something—someone—from within the mansion’s depths and dragged them into the open. Effortlessly, like plucking a leaf, the motion shattered its impact. Something yanked the figure through space, pulling it toward the heart of the mansion’s vast gardens for a cruel display.

All across the estate, guards, noble-kin, and esteemed seniors from the various branches of the Tala lineage stood paralyzed. Horror gripped their hearts. Awe shivered through their bones. None dared to move.

Then—another rupture.

The sky of the pocket space tore open once more, a jagged wound in the heavens. From its depths, an enormous, ethereal eye emerged, unblinking, omnipotent. It was neither mortal nor divine—something beyond comprehension. Its gaze fell, unwavering, upon the captured figure.

The hand of woven threads unraveled, its form dissolving into a luminous star web, locking its prey within a celestial snare. The bindings glowed with an almost sacred brilliance, yet their presence exuded the weight of an inescapable decree.

A noble voice quivered in recognition, breaking through the hushed terror.

“S-Sionan Tala…”

The words spread like wildfire. The name echoed across the garden, carrying the weight of revelation.

Sionan Tala. Only son of Elder Yvandro of the Gilded Star Branch.

The elites of the Gilded Star recoiled as their instincts screamed at them to act, to protect their kin—but when they reached within, their threads refused to form. Their power, their very essence—sealed.

Even the strongest among them, the captains of the revered Weaver Guards, strained against the suppression, their hands trembling, their wills defiant—but the threads did not come.

Not a single one.

Then came the screams.

Sionan’s voice ripped through the pocket space, raw and agonized. He writhed within the celestial weave, his body burning—scorching—consumed by something that should have been his birthright.

The radiance seared his flesh, solar flames licking at his skin, despite his very blood being attuned to the celestial elements. His essence rejected him.

And the web sang at his suffering.

The threads vibrated, amplifying his cries, forcing them into the ears of all who bore witness.

It was deliberate.

It was a message.

Then—rupture.

A thunderous crack split the air.

The land trembled. Fractures appeared in the sky. The very space of the Tala estate shuddered as if on the brink of collapse.

And in the eye above, something shifted.

Yet, it did not spill beyond the grand space within Tala’s mansion.

Contained. Precise. The omnipotent will that had descended did not wish to shake the greater world—not yet. It would not grant Auralis the privilege of bearing witness to its full wrath.

Instead, within this vast, isolated expanse, the air thickened to the point of suffocation. Time itself slowed, its flow twisted and held in place by an unseen force. The Elders—lords of power, sovereigns of wisdom—remained frozen at that moment.

And in that stillness, the voice arose.

Not as a mere sound, but as a truth that demanded recognition.

It did not scream or roar.

It simply spoke.

And the weight of its words was heavier than any calamity.

“The stars of Auralis have diminished into hollow embers, remnants of their once-glorious selves. Yet, in their arrogance, they persist in believing they still illuminate the grand design.”

The golden and silver threads that bound Sionan Tala pulsed with erratic radiance, each wave of energy lancing through his form—scorching, unraveling, remaking. He did not perish, for the threads would not allow it. His agony was deliberate.

“It is a most fascinating contradiction—a dwindling ember that still dares to claim dominion over flames greater than itself. One would think, after eons, wisdom might have found its way into your lineage.”

The brilliant eye above the expanse narrowed, its celestial gaze locked upon Sionan. A single entity. A single existence. And yet, beneath that eye, he was but a fragment of a much larger indictment.

“To strip a nascent star of its light—was this done in fear? Or folly? Or is it simply the nature of lesser beings to consume what they can never truly wield?”

The very threads of fate shifted. The bindings around Sionan were no longer just chains—they were a mirror, reflecting the arrogance and the consequences of those who once believed themselves above divine order.

The noble kin, the Weaver Guards, and the elites of the Gilded Star Branch—all who stood within this space could feel the weight of judgment.

They tried—desperately—to summon their threads, to manifest even a fragment of their power.

Nothing.

Even the strongest Weaver Guard could only muster a faint shimmer of resistance before the suppression swallowed it.

“And yet, how curious—”

The tone of the voice shifted, not to anger but to something akin to contemplation.

“Auralis, whose stars once wove destinies, now weaves ruin. A cycle doomed to repeat, again and again, until nothing remains but its self-inflicted demise.”

Sionan screamed—raw, visceral.

His body, though attuned to the celestial, could not endure the force now coursing through him. His very essence, a child of the gilded stars, now burned as though it were unworthy of the light it had once claimed.

“There was hope once—”

A sorrowful weight laced the voice’s timbre, so faint yet so absolute.

A silence followed.

It was not the silence of absence, but of unraveling certainties.

“And yet you defiled it. You sought not to guide the sovereign light to its rightful course, but to extinguish it. To consume it. To bury it beneath the weight of your hubris.”

A shudder ran through the ethereal space, but it did not breach its containment. The world beyond remained untouched, unaware—an act of precise, deliberate restraint.

Then—

A decree.

“So be it. We will sever the ties that have bound us for far too long.”

A single fracture spread across the heavens above.

Not a break of destruction, but of liberation.

“I, the brilliant star, shall bend to none but Haraya.”

Someone made a choice. A truth restored.

And with it, the unraveling of a bond that had long been assumed eternal.

“I will bear the cost, as all things must. But know this—”

The grand cosmic eye pulsed once, its radiance shifting from the coldness of judgment to something deeper, something unshakable.

“The stars that were taken, I have returned to the void. They shall be paid in kind.”

A final severance.

A long-lost guardian, once shackled to the service of Auralis, had cast aside its chains.

And then, for the first time since its descent, the voice carried something else.

No wrath. Not fury.

But loss.

A grief too vast for time to mend.

A mournful farewell uttered not for the present but for something long buried in the past.

The threads constricting Sionan tightened one last time—a final imprint of the judgment passed.

Then they unraveled into a sea of cosmic light.

Sionan Tala collapsed onto the cold ground beneath him, body smoldering, yet untouched by mortal fire. Lifeless, but won’t decay—take the right to be one with the universe.

The eye above the expanse remained for but a moment longer, gazing down upon all who had borne witness.

Then—it was gone.

And with it, the world within the space breathed once more.

And as if nothing had ever transpired…

The world beyond Pagadianara remained untouched.

The skies stretched undisturbed; the wind carried no whispers of what had unfolded. Not a single ripple marred the great cities, nor did the stars blink in concern.

Life moved forward. Unaware. Unchanged.

But within the heart of Tala’s mansion, the silence left in the wake of judgment was deafening.

Then—the unraveling began.

The space itself groaned, a fractured symphony of breaking foundations. The grand, fabricated realm that once existed as the pride of the Tala Lineage—a domain woven from the very fabric of the cosmos—tore asunder.

It did not shatter.

It did not explode.

Instead, it simply… ceased.

The celestial vastness that once stretched endlessly—the golden pathways suspended in eternity, the luminous constellations woven into its very sky—withered as if their existence had never been more than a passing illusion.

The very anchors that tethered this fabricated reality to the world crumbled.

The grandeur, the divine luster of the noble dominion, dimmed, its brilliance bleeding away like golden dust cast into the abyss.

The Weaver Guards, the noble kin, the elders, and those who had stood within the vast expanse now found themselves on solid, unremarkable earth.

No longer above it. No longer beyond it.

The grand floating expanse of the Tala’s Territory had been returned to the ground.

Not as a choice.

But as a decree.

The golden halls of the mansion, once towering with astral majesty, now stood dulled and muted, their ethereal glow replaced by the crude weight of reality. The pathways that once shimmered with boundless cosmic energy now lay as nothing more than stone and soil.

For the first time in ages, the Tala clan’s domain had been bound to the mortal land.

The once-proud territory—a realm that had once floated between the heavens and earth—

—had been cast down.

A consequence. A sentence.

A return to what they had always been, still earthbound embers—far from being stars.