Chapter 151: Blood Mark
Jack turned his red eyes toward Nyx’ira, lightning still crackling across his fingertips. His expression was calm, almost bored, as if killing a Nightmare-class champion was barely worth his attention.
Nyx’ira stood frozen, her shadows coiling tighter around her body. Her void-like eyes flickered between Jack and Vel’thor’s corpse.
Then, slowly, she took a step backward.
The armies responded immediately. From both sides, demons began retreating.
Not in panic or chaos. They instinctively retreated.
Warriors backing away while maintaining formation, keeping their weapons ready but lowered.
The Aurion forces moved toward their city on the left, their radiant light dimming to something less aggressive.
The Thal’Gorin mirrored them on the right, shadows withdrawing like a dark tide.
Within moments, the battlefield was nearly empty. Only Nyx’ira remained near Jack, along with two other figures who stepped forward from their respective armies.
From the Aurion side came a demon wrapped in armor that gleamed like captured starlight.
Tall, regal, with wings of pure light that spread majestically behind her.
Her face held an otherworldly beauty, any man who looked at her, would not be able to look away.
From the Thal’Gorin emerged a male demon carved from living shadow.
His form was constantly shifting, shadows peeling away and reforming. His eyes were pits of absolute darkness.
Both leaders walked forward with measured steps, stopping about ten meters from Jack. Then they did something that made Jack’s confusion spike.
Each leader pulled a blade from their belt. Without hesitation, they drew the weapons across their palms, opening deep cuts that began bleeding immediately.
The Aurion leader’s blood glowed with faint luminescence.
The Thal’Gorin leader’s blood was so dark it looked like dried ink.
They knelt in unison, pressing their bleeding palms against the scorched earth. The blood soaked into the ground, and both demons spoke words in a language Jack didn’t recognize, something ancient and guttural that made the air itself vibrate.
Then they stood, took their bloodied palms, and smeared the mixture across their foreheads in deliberate horizontal lines.
Jack stared, completely lost. ’What the hell are they doing?’
A presence materialized beside him, so suddenly that Jack actually flinched. S stood there, immaculate black suit somehow still pristine, his red eyes gleaming with amusement as he observed the ritual.
"A ceasefire," S explained casually, as if he’d been standing there the entire time. "The Blood Mark. It’s a ritual demons perform to show respect to a superior power. By mixing their blood with the earth and marking themselves, they’re essentially declaring that they acknowledge your authority."
Jack glanced at S, then back at the two leaders who remained kneeling with blood on their foreheads. "So they’re... what? Surrendering?"
"Not quite." S pulled out another tangerine from somewhere and began peeling it. "They’re agreeing not to continue this war while you’re present. Think of it as a temporary truce enforced by mutual respect for something that could kill them all."
He popped a segment into his mouth. "In this case, you."
Nyx’ira had backed away further, her shadows still defensive, but she too lowered her weapons. Her void-like eyes remained fixed on Jack with an expression that looked like fear and dread.
Jack looked at the battlefield, at the retreating armies, at the two leaders marked with blood.
His red eyes tracked every movement, every subtle shift in posture.
The frenzy was still active and his perception was enhanced.
But there was no immediate threat. Just... respect. Fear. Acknowledgment of power.
"So what do you plan to do next?" S asked, his tone conversational despite the tension crackling through the air.
Jack’s gaze moved to his reanimated servant, still kneeling patiently nearby, then to Vel’thor’s corpse. "I want to know what’s going on. Why they’re so insistent on fighting."
S laughed, genuinely amused rather than mocking.
"Jack, demons fight all the time. Sometimes it’s over territory. Sometimes it’s over resources. Sometimes it’s simply because they don’t like the way someone looks."
He gestured broadly at the two cities. "This could be as meaningless as any other tribal dispute."
’Then why the quest to uncover the truth? The system wouldn’t offer that reward if there wasn’t something more going on.’
"Something feels off here. Don’t tell me you can’t feel it?"
’Can the boy actually feel the titans’ presence?’ S thought as he ate his tangerine.
"Fair point." S finished his tangerine and tossed the peel aside. "But humor me. If you had to choose a side, Aurion or Thal’Gorin, which would it be?"
Jack considered the question, looking at the light demons on one side and the dark demons on the other.
Natural opposites. Incompatible. Both were equally willing to slaughter each other over whatever grievance had sparked this war.
"Neither," he said finally.
S’s smile widened. "Oh? And why is that?"
"Because choosing a side means the other side becomes my enemy," Jack explained. "And I don’t know enough about either clan to make that call. For all I know, they’re both terrible and deserve each other."
"How diplomatic." S’s tone carried mockery, but his eyes gleamed with approval.
"Though I should warn you, if you really want to solve this dispute permanently, it will likely end with one side dying. Demons don’t forgive. They don’t compromise. They kill or they’re killed."
Jack’s jaw tightened. "You’re saying there’s no peaceful solution."
"I’m saying," S corrected, "that peace for demons looks different than peace for humans. A demon’s idea of resolving a conflict is usually eliminating the opposition so thoroughly that no one’s left to continue the fight." He gestured at the two leaders still marked with blood.
"So if you’re determined to involve yourself, choose carefully. Because you’re not just picking an ally, you’re picking which demons you’d rather hunt."
The words hung in the air. Jack looked at the two cities again, at the armies that had withdrawn, at the battlefield still littered with corpses.
’Hunt,’ Jack thought. ’As if solving this war means becoming an executioner.’
Jack paused for a moment as he tried to figure out what was best.
"What would you do?" Jack asked S.
S’s smile became something sharper. "Me? I’d slaughter them all. Both clans. Every demon in both cities." He said it with the casual tone of someone discussing dinner options. "Then I’d burn the settlements to ash and move on. Clean. Simple. No loose ends."
"That’s genocide," Jack said flatly.
"It’s efficiency," S corrected without a hint of remorse. "But you’re not me, and you seem determined to play mediator. So let me offer actual advice rather than what I’d do."
He stepped closer, his red eyes boring into Jack’s crimson ones. "Find out what they’re really fighting over. Not the surface excuse, the actual reason. Every war has a catalyst, something specific that sparked the violence. Once you know that, you’ll understand which side has the legitimate grievance."
"And then?"
"Then you decide if either side deserves to survive," S said simply. "Because make no mistake, Jack, this war won’t end with handshakes and apologies. It ends with bodies. The only question is whose."
Jack felt the crystal’s warmth pulse in his hand, keeping his frenzy controlled, keeping him sane. But even with full consciousness, S’s words made a brutal kind of sense.
Demons didn’t operate like humans. They didn’t value peace the way humans did. For them, conflict was natural. Expected. Sometimes even necessary.
’But that doesn’t mean I have to accept it,’ Jack thought.
He looked at the two leaders, still kneeling with blood on their foreheads, waiting for him to acknowledge their ceasefire. Behind them, their armies watched from the safety of their respective cities.
"I’ll find the truth," Jack said finally. "And then I’ll decide what to do about it."
S’s laugh was genuine. "How admirably stubborn. Very well, Soul Warden. Investigate. Question. Discover your precious truth." His smile took on a knowing quality. "Just don’t be surprised when that truth makes the choice for you."