Gasping sounds echoed at 5:40 on that cloudy morning; the running track could only hear the almost inaudible murmurs of a 16-year-old boy's panting breath trying to build stamina.
"Your body is truly exceptional," Carmilla said, still clutching Victor's shirt pocket.
He didn't answer and kept running, panting but not tired. He was training his endurance to withstand the blood he had ingested, so there was no faster way than training this body that was gradually becoming stronger.
"Your body was skeletal and weak until your first bloodline awakening. This means your bloodline is too strong to awaken as a child," she commented, continuing to explain: "This means you are naturally strong, but were prevented because of your body, as a way to keep you alive." Carmilla spoke, despite…
'Looking for solutions like that… if that were the case, my past life would have been easy and less problematic… that woman who awakened me or gave me an incredible lineage, not this cursed blood.' Victor discovered, but…
"I can feel your feelings, do you think it has nothing to do with it? Can you explain?" Carmilla questioned, and Victor sighed, forgetting about it…
"Let's say something happened for me to awaken. It wasn't exactly because of my body. At least, that's what I believe." He said, hiding the information, and Carmilla discovered it.
"Then there are things I can't tell you." She said, and he simply agreed, promising she wouldn't bother him with it anymore.
"Alright." Carmilla said: "I didn't even want to know anyway." and hid her head in his pocket.
Victor sensed her feelings and sighed, "Saying he doesn't know if he can talk, so he wants to keep this secret for now. When they're closer, he'll tell her."
Carmilla sighed and said nothing. She wanted to play hard to get.
He simply ignored her and started running.
'In this life, I need to get stronger and stronger.' Victor realized as he maintained a strong pace to stabilize his breathing. He was training his heart first. 'Drinking the primordial's blood gave me a lot of vitality and filled my body with some muscles, but muscles without training will be useless.'
Victor continued, forming his small plan for ascension.
'Blood Elixir… yes, that will be the first step. I need to get strong to obtain Elixirs on my own. Having the primordial's blood is good, but that doesn't mean she's absolute.'
He took another lap, increasing the pace of his walking through the mist. His potential speed increased with each lap…
"His body is assimilating my blood… that's unusual." Carmilla said as she watched, "His body is getting stronger."
Victor agreed that his body was indeed evolving. He continued for more than three hours. Until the sun rose completely apart from the overcast clouds in the sky and the first trainees arrived.
"How many more laps will he do?" asked one of the newcomers to the running area, seeing how Victor was running at such a high speed.
"Did he have this much energy before?" asked another.
Victor continued, and continued, until his body reached its limit.
[A few days later…]
"Yaaawn…" The woman stretched without meeting, seated on the stone bleachers bordering the training center's running track.
The leather of her outfit shifted subtly with movement. A cigarette flickered between her fingers, the burning ember drawing an orange dot in the dim light of the cloudy morning.
She slowly released the drum.
The wind carried part of her back, blurring her own field of vision.
Beautiful—in a dangerous way.
Green hair loosely tied back, a few strands falling across her face, marked by well-defined black makeup. The dark lipstick contrasted with her pale skin. She wore a fitted, functional leather training outfit, but with a neckline that seemed too deliberate to be mere accident. A sword rested at her waist, a natural extension of her presence.
Calindra Winters' Valentine's Day.
One of the managers responsible for the House's training center.
And someone who had just finished their own workout.
She rested her elbows on her knees and watched the nearly empty track, still shrouded in the light morning mist.
Then something crossed her field of vision. Fast. Too fast.
"But what—" The sentence died in half when a gust of wind whipped dust onto the fine gravel track. A silhouette passed like a blur, the sound of the last few strokes coming in fragmented, irregular bursts—not uncontrolled, but too intense for a typical workout.
She moved closer to the eyes.
"Is he still here?" she murmured, taking the cigarette from her mouth. "Hasn't he gone to sleep yet?" Her mind began to calculate. "How long has he been running…? Days?"
The name came almost automatically. "The damned…"
She didn't care about titles. For her, labels were social excuses for failures or to exalt mediocrity. Results were what mattered. And the boy on the track was delivering results.
Victor ran with brutal intensity. His body no longer possessed the fragility they said it carried. There was strength in his leg muscles, explosiveness in his tendons, resistance to the rhythm of the radiation—still uneven, but bearable.
Calindra tilted her head slightly, analyzing him like a predator assessing technique.
'His posture is wrong,' she immediately thought. 'He's running on impulse… not efficiency.'
His torso leaned a few degrees more than ideal. His arms expended too much energy in the swing. The last stride was long, but not perfectly aligned with his center of gravity.
Even so—He was fast. Very fast.
She arched an eyebrow as he completed another lap, maintaining the pace.
'If he adjusts his form… distributes his weight better… aligns his hips and shoulders…' Her eyes gleamed with genuine interest. 'He could double that speed.'
A short pause. 'No… with the right body… and the right training…'
She brought the cigarette back to her lips, watching as he accelerated once more. 'He could reach the speed of the Walk on the Mist without using abilities…' she thought.
Far away, Victor slowed down.
"Ahh… haah… ha…" Victor stopped abruptly at the edge of the track. The world spun for a second before stabilizing. His lungs burned as if filled with ground glass, each breath scratching from within. His legs trembled, the muscles in his thighs throbbing in protest.
He had pushed himself too far.
Again.
"I'm… dying…" he murmured in a slurred voice, before simply collapsing onto the cold ground, his arms outstretched, staring at the grey sky above the arena.
His heart was beating too fast.
Too fast.
Erratically.
"You overdid it." Carmilla's voice echoed within him, clear despite the exhaustion. "I know you need to get stronger, but this way... you won't die. Not immediately. But it could cause irreversible damage."
"I need to…" He tried to sit up, his abdomen contracting with difficulty. "Train until my body gives out. Only then will it adapt."
"Winner—"
"I need to get up."
He forced himself.
His body screamed for recovery, every fiber demanded rest. He was still weak. Still far from what he needed to be.
"Don't do that," Carmilla warned, her voice shifting to something more urgent. "Your core will—"
Too late.
A sharp pain shot through Victor's chest like an electric blade. The air vanished. His heart skipped a beat.
Then another.
His body arched violently.
A discharge coursed through his muscles, like exposed wires short-circuiting. His hands clenched, his teeth chattered. He convulsed on the floor, foam forming at the corner of his mouth.
And then— Blackout.
"Shit!" Carmilla spoke, trying to materialize to act, but her ethereal wings remained trapped in the inside pocket of his coat, where her reduced form remained bound. "Core deviation… that idiot forced the core!"
The field around his body vibrated erratically. The internal energy had lost its alignment.
If the flow wasn't stabilized—
He could really die.
—
"Hey."
The voice came from afar.
Firm footsteps approached down the track.
Calindra had sensed the change in the air.
She had already stood up when Victor slowed down incorrectly. This wasn't ordinary exhaustion.
It was collapse.
When she got close, the encounter stretched out on the ground, his body too rigid for someone who had merely fainted.
"Oh, no… no, no, no…" She threw the cigarette away and knelt beside him.
His skin was too hot.
The pulse—
Irregular.
"Are you stupid or do you just like testing your own coffin?!" she growled, turning him onto his side and then onto his back again.
Without hesitation, she ripped the front of his training shirt, exposing his chest, still contracting erratically.
She positioned her hands in the center of his chest.
She pressed.
One.
Two.
Three firm compressions.
"Breathe, you imbecile…"
Nothing.
The core inside him vibrated chaotically—she could feel it. The energy flow was desalinated, like an engine running out of phase.
"Nuclear deviation…" she murmured, clenching her teeth. "You forced the internal circulation beyond its capacity."
She continued the compressions, perfect rhythm.
But the heart didn't stabilize.
"Damn it…"
Calindra made a decision in less than a second.
She bit her own wrist hard.
Thick, dark blood gushed out.
She held Victor's chin, forcing his mouth open.
"Swallow this and don't die, you hear?" She poured her own blood into his mouth, tilting his head to make it easier to swallow. Some dripped down the side, but some went in.
Nothing.
His heart was still failing.
"Come on… come on!" she growled, instructing his chest again as more blood dripped between his lips.
Inside her pocket, Carmilla felt the different blood invade Victor's system.
"More… pour more…" she murmured, even though Calindra couldn't hear her.
The core needs a stable external shock.
And Calindra was, unknowingly—trying to save him with her own power.