The adrenaline was a lie. As soon as Atsu turned the corner away from the alleyway, the surge of power that had fueled the blood-wall vanished, leaving a hollow, freezing void in its place.
It wasn't just exhaustion; it was a physical emptying. His vision blurred at the edges, the vibrant colors of the city's elemental lamps bleeding into a dull, flat grey. His breath came in ragged shudders. He reached out to steady himself against a stone wall, but his hand felt distant, as if it belonged to someone else. The cross tattoo on his palm had faded to a sickly, translucent grey.
He was "leaking," just as the hooded figure had said. Not just blood, but the very essence that held his physical form together.
Atsu stumbled into the "Silt District," a part of the city where the Guild's influence was thin and the air was thick with the smell of coal smoke and desperation. Here, the magic was patchwork and flickering illegal mana taps and broken wands used to heat soup. It was a place for the discarded, and right now, Atsu felt like the most discarded thing of all.
He collapsed against a pile of rusted iron crates in a dead-end courtyard. His heart was hammering, but it felt thin, like a bird trapped in a cage of bone. He looked down at his arms. The veins, usually a healthy blue-green under his pale skin, were now faint, almost invisible.
Blood desaturation, a voice in the back of his mind whispered an analytical instinct he didn't realize he possessed. Internal supply: Critical. Material reserve: Zero.
He was a system running on an empty tank. If he didn't find a source soon, the pressure that made him an anomaly would simply collapse inward, crushing him.
A groan came from the shadows of the courtyard.
Atsu's apathetic eyes sharpened, though it took an immense effort to turn his head. A few feet away, a man lay slumped against a trash heap. He was a common thief, by the look of his tattered leather armor, and he was clutching a jagged wound in his side. He had been gutted in a territorial dispute, and the cobblestones beneath him were already stained with a dark, spreading pool of red.
The man looked up, his eyes glazed with the onset of shock. "Help..." he wheezed. "A... a healer..."
Atsu didn't move. He watched the blood pooling on the ground. To anyone else, it was a tragedy, a sign of ending life. To Atsu, it looked like fuel. It looked like survival.
He felt a repulsive, magnetic pull toward the spill. His skin began to itch again, but this time it wasn't a pressure trying to get out it was a vacuum trying to draw something in. He dragged himself across the cold stones, his knees scraping against the grit until he was inches away from the dying man.
"I'm not a healer," Atsu said. His voice was a dry rasp.
He reached out his right hand, the one with the cross. He didn't touch the man. He positioned his hand over the pool of blood on the stones, his fingers spread wide.
Logic check: Physical Drain (Hand Conduit).
He didn't know how he knew the name of the mechanic. It just felt right, like a formula finally being solved. He focused on the heat of the spilled blood. He willed the void inside his own veins to open.
The effect was haunting. The blood on the cobblestones didn't just sit there; it began to ripple. Then, as if being pulled by an invisible straw, the liquid rose from the ground in thin, spinning ribbons. The red strands spiraled through the air and touched Atsu's fingertips.
The moment of contact was electric. The blood didn't stay on his skin; it was absorbed instantly, vanishing into his pores as if his hand were a sponge.
Atsu let out a sharp, involuntary gasp. As the external blood flowed into him, the grey void in his vision began to recede. The "数字" tattoo on his cheekbone pulsed with a faint, predatory light. He could feel the foreign energy the man's life force being processed by his own anomalous biology. It was cold, metallic, and violent, but it was strength.
The thief watched in silent horror, his mouth working but no sound coming out. He was watching his own life being "drawn" into a boy with apathetic eyes and a cross on his hand. To the thief, Atsu wasn't a savior. He was a parasite.
Atsu felt the desaturation lift. His veins regained their color, turning a dark, bruised purple. The internal pulse returned, steady and heavy.
Material Source: Replenished.
He pulled his hand back. There was still blood left on the ground, but he stopped. He didn't want to kill the man not out of mercy, but out of a strange, logical restraint. If he took it all, he would be no different from the monsters the Guild claimed he was. And if he became a monster, he would lose the tactical clarity he needed to survive.
He stood up, his movements fluid and sharp once again. He felt a different kind of weight now the weight of someone else's life moving through his heart. It was a messy, disorganized energy that his system was already starting to filter into usable forms.
"Keep the rest," Atsu muttered to the shivering man. "You'll need it to crawl to a real doctor."
Atsu turned to leave, but as he reached the exit of the courtyard, he stopped. The "wrongness" in the air had returned, but it wasn't the Guild.
In the center of the street, illuminated by a flickering gas lamp, stood a girl. She looked no older than him, dressed in a clean, high-collared uniform of the Imperial Academy a place for the most gifted elemental prodigies. She held a wooden staff topped with a glowing amber crystal.
She wasn't looking at the wounded man. She was looking at Atsu's hand.
"That wasn't a spell," she said. Her voice was bright, curious, and utterly devoid of the fear he had seen in the Cathedral. "I've studied every school of mana manipulation from the Great Library. What you just did... it doesn't exist in the records."
Atsu stared at her, his detached expression masking the calculation running through his mind. She was a "Type 1" a registered, elite mage. The exact person who should be calling the guards.
"It's a curse," Atsu said shortly, turning to walk away.
"Is it?" she asked, stepping into his path. The amber light of her staff flared, but it didn't flicker like the others. It seemed to challenge his presence. "Or is it just a different set of numbers? My name is Elara. And I think the Guild is lying about what you are."
Atsu gripped the unlit cigarette in his pocket. A "False Ally" interruption. His system warned him to run, but his mind stayed to listen.