The first rule of hacking your own bloodline?
Don't.
The second rule?
If you do… don't stop halfway.
I was dying.
Again.
The Alchemic Datacore pulsed in my spine like a second heart, each throb a slash of heat through my bones. My veins glowed with red-threaded glyphs, forming code structures I didn't recognize. It felt like my cells were tearing apart—then stitching themselves back together wrong.
But I couldn't stop now.
"RECOMPILATION FAILED.""ERROR: BLOODLINE LOOP DETECTED.""INTEGRITY COMPROMISED. HOST COLLAPSE IMMINENT."
"No," I spat, biting down on a cracked data slate, "Run manual override. Inject fallback template from... memory core alpha."
"WARNING: TEMPLATE ORIGIN UNVERIFIED."
"I don't care. RUN IT."
The datacore screamed.
My body went cold. My heartbeat flatlined for 0.7 seconds. Then—pop. A jolt of blue fire shot through my chest, followed by a strange numbness.
"GENE NODE #1 INSTALLED: [GHOSTFIRE MERIDIAN PROTOCOL].""Bloodline mutation stabilized. Recompilation complete."
I gasped and collapsed onto the stone floor.
Alive.
But no longer the same.
I spent three days in the forgotten tunnels under Sector Twelve, surrounded by shattered arrays and dead tech cultivators.
During that time, I tested the new protocol.
My chi moved like a virus—unseen, silent, adaptable. I could pass undetected through spiritual arrays. My presence didn't register on scanning scripts. When a rat tried to bite me again, it simply... froze, its bloodline instinct rejecting the act.
I had no spiritual core.
I had something else.
A compiler. A reactive, learning node that adapted my bloodline in real-time.
I wasn't cultivating.I was evolving.Debugging the divine.
And then she appeared.
Not in a dramatic flash of light.Not falling from the heavens.She hacked my node.
"External signal detected. Source: Unidentified Bloodline Beacon."
I scrambled up, body tense. I was alone in a broken sector with corpses and failing arrays. Nothing should've pinged me.
Then I saw her.
A girl—no, a weapon shaped like one—stepping from the broken mirror gate like a glitch made flesh.
Pale skin etched with floating runes.Eyes glowing with quantum-scripted irises.Hair flowing like ink in water.Clad in nothing but tattered spiritweave robes and rage.
"You stole the code," she said."The one that belonged to my clan."
"Yeah?" I stepped forward. "Which one?"
She smiled—sharper than any blade. "All of them."
Her name was Seris Vael.
Last heir of the Arcanist-Bloodline Clan, rumored dead after the Sects purged the rogue alchemists ten years ago.
Turns out, they didn't kill her.
They bound her into a living containment array.
She'd been trapped in the broken gate for years, body modified into a vessel, cursed to house abandoned genetic scripts like a prison.
But when I hacked my bloodline—when I ran the code—they woke her up.
And now?
She was free.
"You destabilized the lock," she whispered, voice like corrupted wind chimes. "I'm unchained now. Because of you."
I pointed to the glowing marks crawling up my arms. "Not entirely intentional."
"You accessed the Master Code. The Alpha Thread."
"So?"
Her eyes narrowed.
"That means you're mine."
She moved faster than I could track.
One blink and her fingers were on my chest, tracing the glyphs that hadn't stopped burning since the recompilation. Her touch was ice. Fire. Electricity. Every sensation stacked at once.
My node flickered.
"WARNING: BLOODLINE INTERFACE DETECTED.""Foreign lineage attempting integration."
"Stop," I warned. "You try to hijack my code, you'll burn."
She leaned in, lips brushing my ear.
"I don't want to hijack it. I want to merge."
"NEW TEMPLATE AVAILABLE: [ARCANIST GHOST VEIN].""Merge with user Seris Vael? Success Rate: 41%. Risk: High."
I stared at her.
"You're serious."
"You unlocked me. You bear the core. The code wants to evolve." She tilted her head. "So do I."
I hesitated.
Bloodline mergers weren't supposed to exist. Not outside top-tier sects. Definitely not between trash-tier orphans and weaponized alchemist heiresses.
But then again...
I wasn't trash anymore.
"Alright," I muttered. "Let's rewrite the rules."
Merge Initiated.
What followed wasn't sex.It wasn't love.It was... code.
We sat cross-legged. Palms linked. Chi synchronized.
She fed her bloodline into mine in layers of fractal geometry, each thread pulsing with a story—pain, rebellion, fury, silence.
I returned fire.
My virus-blood latched onto her scripts, decrypted them, adapted them.
And something new emerged between us.
Not fusion.Symbiosis.
"GENE NODE #2 UNLOCKED: ARCANIST-GHOST OVERLAY INSTALLED.""New Skill: [Spectral Recompilation]."
When we stood, the air itself bent around us.
Her form glitched, phasing in and out of visible spectrum. My hands could now mold chi into raw data, breaking down enemy techniques mid-cast.
We were broken pieces.
Now part of a system.
Then the gate behind us flared.
Three Sect Hunters appeared—cloaked in jade light, wielding ancestral scripts turned into living weapons.
"Step away from the bloodline thief," the lead one growled. "That code is restricted under Heaven's Edict."
Seris stepped in front of me.
"I am the code."
"No," I said quietly.
"We are the patch."