The Bloodline System Chapter 2 - Unknown Man
Previously on The Bloodline System...
"Huh? I’m not dead?"
Gustav stirred awake, discovering his body stretched out amid the dense forest.
He gradually rose to his feet and brushed off the soil clinging to his attire. His school uniform remained intact.
"I don’t have a single scratch on me," he observed while inspecting his frame.
The sun began its ascent from the eastern horizon, with beams of sunlight filtering through the gaps in the foliage of the tree before him.
"Has a whole night already gone by?" Gustav’s eyes bulged in surprise upon this realization, though they quickly settled back. "No one would even realize I’d vanished anyway," he grumbled with a sense of defeat.
He spun around to eye the cliff from which he had tumbled, when a flickering glow caught his attention in the lower left of his vision.
Gustav fixed his gaze on the pulsing blue rectangular panel, triggering an unforeseen event.
-[Welcome host!]
Text abruptly materialized before his eyes.
"Eh, what’s going on?" Gustav exclaimed, his face etched with wonder.
He swiveled his head side to side, yet the text refused to vanish from view.
Believing it a dream, Gustav shut his eyelids. "I must’ve smacked my head during the fall,"
Several moments later, he reopened them, only for additional text to emerge in his sight.
-[Idiot host, you have been chosen to wield great power!]
"Idiot host? Did this text just mock me?" Gustav wondered. "Hold on, host?" he queried, puzzled.
-[You have ten seconds to decide if you accept this power or not.]
"Power? What kind of power? What’s all this? Why am I even responding to these strange letters? Am I truly gone? Is this punishment for taking my own life? Insanity beyond the grave?" Gustav rapid-fired his queries, questioning his reality and mental state.
As though responding, the text shifted once more,
-[You may choose to decline this power, but that would spell death for you!]
Gustav rubbed his chin as the text updated again,
"So I’m still breathing, but the cost is this lunacy," he mused aloud. "Wait, did it just warn me of death?"
-[Ten]
-[Nine]
"What? It’s counting down now," Gustav spotted the text altering with each tick.
-[Seven]
"Will death really claim me if I stay silent or refuse?" Gustav felt a twinge of fear at the prospect of dying anew after the previous night’s ordeal.
-[Six (You shall die)]
The text replied without mercy.
Gustav: "..."
-[Four]
-[Three]
Gustav sensed his pulse decelerating as the timer neared its end.
Ba... dump! Ba... dump!
-[Two]
-[One]
"I accept!" Gustav yelled desperately.
The timer halted the instant those words escaped his lips.
"Huff! Huff! Huff! Was this thing seriously about to end me?" Gustav panted raggedly once the countdown ceased.
He pressed his right palm to his chest, sensing his heartbeat. Relief washed over him as the rhythm steadied.
-[Congratulations on accepting this power! Your fate has now been turned around!]
The text transformed yet again.
"Hmm? What exactly is this power it mentions?" He regarded the text with bewilderment.
-[Your body shall now undergo constitution examination and evolution!]
Yawn!
Gustav felt his eyelids drooping heavily following the final text display.
[Host shall be transported to his abode and remain unconscious for the next twenty-four hours]
"What is..." Gustav couldn’t finish his words before spotting a shadowy figure darting from branch to branch roughly a hundred feet to his west.
Zwee! Zwe! Zwe!
The blur moved with incredible velocity, leaping between the trees encircling Gustav.
It resembled a shadowy specter.
"Who’s there?" He instantly knew it was human.
As if in reply, a towering two-meter figure in a sleek black bodysuit materialized twenty feet distant, his build rippling with muscle.
A green mask concealed the upper half of his features.
"You’re coming with me, kid!" The voice came out raspy.
[Ten]
"Who are you, and why do you want me?" Gustav demanded, terror flashing across his face as he retreated several paces.
[Nine]
"I just need you to follow me! No inquiries!" The stranger commanded firmly.
[Eight]
"What are your intentions with me?!" Gustav’s heart pounded wildly.
"Simply comply without resistance! Don’t pull any stunts, or I’ll make you regret it!" The masked man warned, brows knitting together.
[Five]
Badump! Badump! Badump!
With each ticking second, drowsiness overtook Gustav, yet he resolved not to fall into this stranger’s grasp. ’A kidnapper? Organ harvester? What if he traffics me? Torments me? Harvests my parts for the black market?’
Despite his earlier suicidal intent, the potential terrors of capture filled him with dread, blinding him to the ongoing countdown.
[Four]
’Flee!’
The instant that urge hit, Gustav pivoted and bolted away.
"Idiot!" The man scoffed, weaving through the canopy in a looping path around the fleeing Gustav.
Suddenly, he plummeted from the midst of the six-hundred-foot giants straight at Gustav.
Gustav, aware of the man’s mixed-blood prowess, had anticipated the trajectory and flattened himself to the earth just as the assault launched.
As his form dropped, the attacker hurtled through the air toward him at breakneck pace.
Gustav’s estimates proved slightly off; the man’s fingers nearly grazed his shoulder mid-fall.
Time seemed suspended as the stranger’s hand loomed perilously close to contact...
[Zero]
[Host shall now go into a deep sleep!]
Gustav’s world plunged into darkness the moment the alert surfaced in his vision.
A brilliant glow erupted, enveloping Gustav, and within an instant...
Zing!
Gustav vanished into nothingness, the man’s hand slicing through lingering light motes.
Dum!
The pursuer’s boots hit the soil, skidding forward from his prior momentum.
He whipped his head around, scanning frantically in all directions.
"He disappeared?" The man muttered in disbelief. "A spatial bloodline? So uncommon," he added softly.
"Still, that boy’s at best a Zulu-ranked mixedblood! His powers are immature, so his teleport can’t take him far... He’s got to be lingering somewhere in this woodland," With that, the figure blurred into motion, bounding through the treetops at astonishing swiftness.
He opted to comb the northern sector of the forest, hoping to relocate Gustav. But it proved pointless, for Gustav now lay in his own room.
A gentle breeze whispered through the woods, oblivious to the drama that had unfolded. Gustav overlooked how the once-majestic peak from which he’d sought death stood halved compared to before.
----
-Thirty minutes ago
Dawn broke as the sun climbed, signaling the night’s close.
While most slumbered through the dark hours, a cluster of individuals had converged near a specific peak in the woodland bordering Plankton City.
These people donned lab-like medical outfits.
A massive disc-shaped gadget hovered over the mountain, emitting azure beams that probed every crevice.
A dark-haired man in an azure suit positioned himself before the formation, flanked by four guards in shadowy, form-fitting suits.
The medical personnel bustled about, probing the bizarre event of the mountain’s sudden bisection overnight.