Chapter Two: The Shape of Freedom.

  The thought felt dangerous. Like a secret he hadn’t meant to uncover.

  His gaze flicked to the others, then back to the smear on the stone.

  He leaned back against the damp wall and let the silence stretch until the others’ breathing became the only sound.

  While he ran possibilities in his mind, wondering if he should tell them

  If he drains his own blood and becomes weaker, how will he be able to escape then

  Then, steady and quiet, he said,

  “I think I can get us out of here.”

  Ash blinked. “What, you’ve been hiding a key up your ass this whole time?”

  Malachai’s eyes narrowed. “Explain.”

  Red studied him like she was weighing whether to believe him—or break him.

  Samael kept his voice even.

  “Not a key. Not yet. But… a way to make one.”

  The silence deepened.

  Even Ash’s smirk faltered.

  Then Red’s voice cut, sharp as glass.

  “That’s impossible. Keys aren’t made. They’re found.”

  Samael met her gaze, unblinking.

  “Then maybe we’ve been looking at it wrong.”

  Ash barked a laugh, but there was no humor in it.

  “Gods, listen to him. You sound like one of those mad prophets in the market square—raving about visions and miracles before someone stones them.”

  Malachai leaned forward, chain clinking.

  “I don’t think he’s joking.”

  His eyes stayed on Samael.

  “You’re saying you can do what no one else has managed. That you can make things out of nothing.”

  Samael tilted his chin toward the bloodstain on the stones.

  “Not nothing. Out of what we already have.”

  Red leaned forward, voice edged like steel.

  “Then say it plain, Sam. What are you planning?”

  Samael hesitated. His gaze drifted back to the dark smear on the stone.

  He swallowed.

  “Blood.”

  The word felt heavier than the chains.

  Ash blinked, then laughed too loudly.

  “Blood, he says. See, Mal? And you call me the reckless one.”

  Malachai didn’t laugh.

  His eyes narrowed. “So you want us to bleed for you. You know what kind of men usually ask for that?”

  Samael met his stare without flinching.

  “The kind who probably takes. I’m not taking. I’m offering a way out.”

  Red’s stare burned into him, unreadable.

  “And you think it can be shaped into a key.”

  “I don’t think,” Samael said. “I know.”

  The confidence surprised even him.

  Ash rattled his chains, smiling thinly.

  “Bleed ourselves into a key? Sure. Maybe if we shape it like a sword, we can stab our way out, too.”

  “It would probably cost more,” Samael said quietly.

  He tightened his fingers around his cuffs.

  “I’ve seen something—a prompt. It is called blood energy. Said it could be stored. Shaped. If we pool enough—” Sam lied, it is kind of the truth he thought.

  Red cut him off.

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  “You want us to bleed for you.”

  “No,” Samael said quickly. “Not for me. For all of us. It’s not a ritual. Not dark magic. It’s… fuel.”

  “If we give it, my system can shape it into a key. One we can use.”

  Malachai’s jaw flexed.

  “Just so you know,” he said quietly, “I wouldn’t go around asking people for their blood. Most men who do that don’t live long.”

  Samael hesitated, then spoke.

  “When you showed us that fight, you looked somewhere else. Like you pulled it out of yourself. I’m guessing you have something too.”

  Malachai nodded once. “Of course I do. Everyone does.”

  His eyes sharpened.

  “The question is what yours can really do.”

  The torch crackled.

  Ash’s grin faltered as his eyes flicked between them.

  “Sounds like the dumbest smart plan I’ve ever heard.”

  Malachai didn’t look away from Samael.

  “And if it doesn’t work?”

  “Then we’re still chained,” Samael said quietly. “But at least we’ll know we tried.”

  Red’s eyes narrowed.

  “Better than rotting here.”

  The words hung in the dark like a knife.

  They argued.

  They cursed.

  But hunger gnawed louder than doubt. Exhaustion cut sharper than pride.

  In the end, desperation bent them all the same way.

  Consent, forged in chains and blood,

  For a long while, no one moved.

  They had agreed this was the easy part. Now came the hard one — finding the nerve to actually do it.

  Malachai’s eyes drifted to a cracked bucket near Red. “That’ll hold it,” he muttered.

  No one moved. The sound of dripping water marked each second.

  Red broke first. “We do this now, or we don’t get another chance.” She nudged the bucket toward Ash.

  Ash tilted his head back against the wall. “Fine. Freedom meal, coming up.” He tugged at his chain for leverage, snapped off a sliver of stone, and nicked his palm.

  Blood welled bright. It pattered into the basin like rain.

  Red followed without a word, expression tight, jaw flexing as she drew a clean line across her wrist. She didn’t flinch.

  Malachai’s turn was quiet. He made his cut clean and practical, without ceremony.

  Samael hesitated last.

  The metallic scent thickened in the cellar, sharp and raw. Ash didn’t even blink when he cut himself. Red’s expression barely changed. Malachai’s was……efficient.

  They did it like it was normal.

  Samael stared at them, wide-eyed.

  Who just slices themselves open like that?

  They didn’t argue. Didn’t complain. Didn’t flinch.

  Brutes, he decided.

  Every single one of them.

  Red noticed his stare first.

  “Well?” she said flatly.

  Waiting.

  The silence pressed in.

  Samael swallowed.

  Instant regret bloomed in his chest. This had sounded smarter in his head. Abstract. Theoretical.

  Now it was blood. Real blood.

  His blood.

  This is insane.

  But they were all watching.

  And he had said he could get them out.

  So he relented.

  He dragged the shard of stone across his palm.

  Pain flared, immediate and ugly.

  He hissed through his teeth.

  The first drop fell.

  Ash peeked into the basin, grin crooked. “Look at that. We’re making art. Anyone up for some finger painting?”

  The first cuts were shallow, wrists nicked with slivers of stone. Blood dripped slowly, dark and steady. Red clenched her teeth and forced more. Ash whimpered and joked, “Look at me. Already half a skeleton. If this doesn’t work, I swear to God, Sam—”

  “Shut up and bleed,” Red hissed.

  Day after day, the bucket filled. They only stopped when they were brought food. Their skin grew pale, lips cracked, limbs trembling. By the seventh night, the stench was thick — metallic and sour.

  Samael watched the bucket as it breathed.

  Then the System stirred again.

  A key began to form.

  [Blood Essence Input: 37%… 73%… 99%.]

  [Sync to world information complete, data retrieved]

  The key had not even fully hardened when suddenly the world felt it.

  A deviation in pattern.

  The blood in the bucket tightened one fraction too perfectly.

  The world reacted.

  Pressure gathered deep in the fabric of existence — a dull resistance pushing against the forming key. The cellar air warped for half a second.

  Every being attuned to the world’s pulse paused.

  A skipped beat in reality.

  Then—

  The resistance failed.

  The key formed completely.

  Small. Black.

  The world recoiled.

  Far away, something arrogant felt the same anomaly and responded without hesitation. A strike was instantly thrown in that direction, filled with finality.

  It began traveling.

  [High-speed attack imminent]

  Samael’s breath hitched.

  [Origin: distant. Intent: annihilation. ]

  “What?!” Sam yelled.

  [ Impact estimate: ten minutes.]

  Upon the key's completion, they should have cheered. They did not.

  The bucket was nearly empty. Their wounds were raw and new. Ash’s knees trembled; Red’s lips were a thin line. Malachai sagged against the wall, breathing hard.

  Samael stared at the key. He felt an answering tug in his chest — something in it calling for shaping, for direction. It wanted a function. It wanted a lock.

  The key sat warm in his palm. He set it on the stone between them like a coin placed on a tomb.

  “First try,” he said, voice small but triumphant. “It’s… a key. Not clean. But it’s the key.”

  Ash laughed more like a sob than humor. Red closed her eyes and breathed. Malachai’s narrowed, awe and suspicion weighing equally. “Not witchcraft. What was that?”

  Outside, someone laughed in the tavern above — coarse and ignorant. The key hummed, tiny and dangerous, and the whisper settled into the shape of a plan.

  They had bought a chance.

  Now they had to see if it worked.

  Samael reached for the key.

  The thought of using it flickered — not even a full decision, just a spark of intent.

  The key moved.

  It rose on its own, slow at first, then steady, hovering chest-high in the center of the room. Light poured from its seams, thin threads of white-gold spilling into the air like veins filling with life.

  Red staggered back, shielding her eyes.

  Malachai’s jaw locked. “Sam,” he said carefully, “what did you do?”

  “I didn’t—” Samael began, but the light pulsed, swallowing his words.

  The key spun once.

  Chains shuddered. Metal moaned.

  Then, all at once—

  CRACK.

  Every shackle in the cellar snapped open. The sound rolled through the walls like thunder in a bottle. Bolts tore from stone. Iron links burst into dust. The air thrummed with pressure — something alive pushing back against the world.

  The key rose higher, humming louder, and then—

  BOOM.

  A single pillar of light burst through the ceiling. Wood splintered. Plaster rained down. The beam didn’t burn, didn’t scorch — it unwrote what it touched, phasing through the floors above, through the tavern itself, until it tore open the night sky.

  Above, clouds twisted into a whirl of light.

  The key drifted back down, its glow fading to a slow, steady heartbeat.

  No one spoke.

  Red grabbed a broken chain. “We need to run. Now.”

  Samael stood slowly. “What? Fight our way out?”

  Ash grinned, wild. “I’m starting to like you.”

  _I was asking out of self-preservation,_ Samael thought. _Now won't I just look cowardly if I don’t agree?_

  The boards above groaned as boots thundered closer.

  “Uh,” Samael added casually, “I should probably mention we don't have long before an attack from somewhere destroys this entire area.”

  They stared at him.

  Red’s voice was flat. “Define attack.”

  Malachai didn’t speak. He was watching Samael’s face.

  Samael swallowed.

  “Very fast,” he said. “Very far. Very lethal, I think.”

  Even though the system turned out to be right about the key, he can't completely trust it, right? But better safe than sorry.

  Above them, wood splintered as the cellar door was kicked open.

  Boots pounded down the steps.

  “GET DOWN THERE!” someone roared. “WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT LIGHT?!”

  Red grabbed the broken chain hard and stepped forward.

  “We survive this part first.”

  Ash laughed and surged past her.

  “Now that’s my language.”

  Ash didn’t hesitate.

  The first man barely cleared the bottom step before Ash met him.

  There was no warning—just a sudden upward rush of motion.

  Ash collided with him halfway down the stairs, shoulder driving into the man’s chest hard enough to lift him off his feet. The impact slammed him back into the door frame with a splintering crack. His head snapped sideways. Before he could gasp, Ash’s hand clamped over his mouth and jaw and wrenched.

  A sharp pop. The man went limp.

  Ash let the body drop where it fell, already moving.

  Light spilled down from above—torches flaring, shadows writhing along the walls. Three silhouettes crowded the entrance, weapons half-raised, confusion still slowing their reactions.

  Ash took the stairs two at a time.

  The second man tried to bring up a blade.

  Too slow.

  Ash caught his wrist, twisted. The bone shifted incorrectly under the torque. The blade clattered down the steps. Ash drove forward without breaking stride, slamming the man back into the one behind him. They tangled together, cursing.

  Ash’s grin flashed in the firelight.

  He seized the nearer one by the front of his coat and hurled him down the staircase. The body crashed into the waiting fist of Red, climbing up from behind. She was holding the sword from earlier.

  A torch slipped free, bounced, and guttered out against the stone.

  Darkness swallowed the stairwell.

  Above, someone shouted, “He’s coming up!”

  Ash laughed—low and breathless.

  “Damn right.”