CHAPTER 64: BOND, MONEY AND BLOOD

The staircase seemed endless. Not because it was long, but because each step required more than simple movement—it required acceptance. A silent pact with the absurd.

Eren descended with Kaela close behind, his eyes still alert. The architecture around them oscillated between Gothic and biotechnological: curved columns formed by fossilized collagen, runes flashing like sleepy eyes, and luminous veins running down the walls as if the underground dome itself were alive.

The smell was dense, metallic, a mixture of laboratory, profane temple, and ancient library.

At the end of the staircase, the entrance opened like an eyelid—the walls retracting, revealing an immense space.

The Headquarters of the Core.

The Dome of the Four Thrones.

Living maps stretched across floating panels on the ceiling, showing not fixed continents, but shifting patterns of affinity, monster routes, and patches of emotional instability that danced like constellations. Artifacts pulsed on tables and pedestals, each with its own frequency, vibrating like isolated hearts.

And then, they appeared.

Four figures, each emerging from a different direction, as if they were the cardinal points of an inverted world.

Eren recognized them from fragmented visions, flashes from previous encounters, but seeing them live was... something else.

The woman on the left advanced first, her steps as steady as scalpel cuts. Hair shaved on one side, neon-green eyes that seemed to pierce flesh and thought. The runes on her skin vibrated like organic circuits.

"Eren Vale," she said, without greeting, without reverence, "you are even more... functional than the fragments suggested."

Kaela instinctively positioned herself between the two, growling low.

Eren raised an eyebrow.

"And you are... the cannibal doctor?"

"Biologist," she replied with surgical precision. "Kelna. Throne of Biothermia."

Another appeared behind her, like a programmed shadow. A man with eyes hidden behind hexagonal glasses with floating HUDs that seemed to map even Eren’s heartbeat. He wore a dark tunic covered with constantly changing symbols — lines from the system flashing like debugged errors.

He didn’t speak. He just nodded, as if he had already run through a thousand mental simulations of this conversation.

"Is that the mute one?" Eren muttered, already turning his face away.

"Vaen," Kelna replied. "Throne of Systemalogy. He speaks little, but thinks for us all."

On the opposite side, a figure wrapped in lilac veils and silver adornments walked with elegant, almost dancing steps. She had a smile too sweet to be sincere, and eyes that flashed like someone in love with their own voice.

"Oh, but he’s exactly as I imagined," she said, putting her hand to her chest. "A little more cynical, perhaps." But that’s what makes him perfect..."

Eren looked at her as if she were an intruder in his mental space.

"Don’t tell me... Throne of Psychodynamics?"

She smiled even more.

"Lady Lorith, at your service."

"You’ve written fanfiction about me, haven’t you?"

"Three," she replied, winking.

Eren looked away as if he had just seen an insect in his soup.

And then, the last one appeared.

From atop a small platform—as if he always spoke from above, even when he was at the same level as others—a man in torn robes, covered with sacred symbols scratched with red ink, descended the steps with a gait that mixed preaching and judgment. His eyes... were burned. Literally. But the way he walked, the way he spoke, indicated that he saw better than anyone else there.

"Brothers and sisters," he said, his voice deep and slow, "he who carries error in his heart finally steps onto this altar. Dissonance made flesh.

Eren raised his hand as if trying to stop an insistent salesman.

"Archmage Rethar," he recited wearily. "Throne of Fragmented Theurgy. I bet you’ve already written a prophecy about me."

"More than one," replied the man. "And in all of them, the end of faith begins with your steps."

"Cool."

Eren took a deep breath, then rubbed his face with both hands.

"Okay. There are... four. Each one weirder than the last. Noted."

"Do you remember the names?" Lorith asked excitedly.

"Of course not," he replied, already pointing at Kelna. "You. Body doctor. Tell me what’s going on.

And only you."

Kelna narrowed her eyes.

"Very well."

The other three seemed to retreat, almost amused. Rethar made the sign of the inverted blessing.

Vaen just disappeared into the shadows. Lorith wrote something down on a digital scroll with dreamy eyes.

Kelna walked over to a nearby table and activated a projection crystal.

Runes rose into the air, forming a three-dimensional network. Each node represented a point of instability within the "universe." The lines vibrated with arcane codes and hidden data.

"What we are about to show you," she said, rotating the map with a flick of her fingers, "is the behavior of the world since you emerged as a functional anomaly."

"Of the universe, you mean," Eren corrected sarcastically.

"Universe, system, code," Kelna replied dismissively. "To us, it’s all the same. An organism that reacts. That defends itself."

Eren crossed his arms. He knew the system was after him. He knew the changes weren’t random.

But seeing those dots connecting in a network, as if his own journey was being watched, mapped, responded to... it was uncomfortable.

"You are being tracked," she continued. "Not by an entity. Not by a player. By a set of forces that operate outside the logic of classes. Outside the mechanics of combat. And that only happens when a player escapes the margin of error.

"Are you saying I’ve become a bug?"

"I’m saying," Kelna replied, turning to him, "that you’ve become a vector. Of imbalance. Of narrative.

Of faith. Of connection."

"Poetic. Can I request a song now?"

"You can request a report. And that’s what we’re going to give you."

She raised the crystal.

"But first... you need to choose. Which Throne do you want to talk to first?"

Eren looked at the map. Then at the four of them. And finally, at Kaela, who just shook her head in resignation.

"The doctor. I’ll take the doctor."

Kelna smiled. Not affectionately. But with the gleam of someone who had finally managed to crack a rare nut.

The dome darkened when Kelna activated the report core.

The projection crystal pulsed blue-green, and the living maps gave way to a floating screen with translucent inscriptions. Lines of code slid in columns, mixed with magical runes and small spiral diagrams that moved like organisms. The symbiosis between system and biology was clear. Nothing there was meant to be just read—it was meant to be absorbed.

"Let’s begin," said Kelna, her voice surgical. "The universe began to codify the bonds with a new contractual structure. The first manifestations appeared shortly after its internal recognition as an anomaly.

She ran her hand over the crystal. A system window appeared — an automatic message, elegant in its coldness:

[New Global Rule — Bonding with Emotional Entities]

To establish a contract with creatures bonded by affinity, the following criteria are now required:

• Minimum affinity: 70%

• Emotional Consent Record: YES

• Symbolic Signature: mandatory

• Initial Bonding Cost: 500 gold

Kaela narrowed her eyes.

Eren, on the other hand, kept his face impassive. But his brain was on fire. Every word, every number, every comma of this new rule spun around in his mind like a cog searching for a gap.

"Symbolic signature," he muttered. "That’s new."

Kelna nodded, activating a hologram on the side. It showed a magical creature—a crystal werewolf—being enveloped by strands of golden light that closed over its chest like a seal.

"It’s a ritual representation. The symbolic signature is a psychic manifestation that replaces the creature’s traditional ’yes.’ It must literally desire the contract and manifest it in magical form. In other words," she paused, looking directly at Eren, "it’s no longer enough to convince them. They have to believe in you. And pay."

"Pay?" Eren raised an eyebrow.

"The emotional cost of the bond now also requires a material cost. 500 gold is the standard for common class creatures. The value scales with rarity, emotional resistance, and previous status.

Some bonds can cost thousands."

Kaela let out an indignant sigh.

"They’re putting a price on the bond right at the beginning of the contract?"

Kelna didn’t react.

"They’re converting bonds into contracts. Turning emotional relationships into transactions. Just as it was originally planned by the developers."

Eren began to walk in circles, his hand on his chin, his gaze fixed on nothing.

"That’s... brilliant, actually," he said. "If you wanted to destroy the Tamer class without deleting it from the game, that would be the way to do it. You force the player to monetize affection. You put a price on love. You prevent someone like me from using bonds as a strategic basis. Well, it’s not like there are other tamers using this tactic besides me."

"But it also prevents you from using bonds as an emotional basis," Kelna added. "Which is much more dangerous for the universe."

Rethar, who had appeared in the distance, added in a low voice:

"Bonds are faith. Faith is power. Power without restraint breeds heresy. The universe fears heretics more than it fears monsters."

Eren simply said:

"Yes, I know. According to Aristotelian philosophy, politics is reciprocity."

Rethar remained impassive, and quite impressed, even though they did not know who Aristotle was.

Eren then opened his own interface. He tried to initiate a bond simulation with a nearby creature.

Instantly, the confirmation window appeared.

[Bond attempt initiated]

Requirements:

– Affinity with entity: 12% (INSUFFICIENT)

– Symbolic signature: ABSENT

– Gold available: 126

Result: BOND DENIED

He sighed.

"So that’s it. Not even promises work anymore. The system now wants paperwork, emotion, and... money."

Kelna projected a graph. It showed the historical evolution of the Tamer class since the launch of BloodRealm. In the beginning, the class was weak. Then, for a short period of time, there was a surge of growth. An emotional exploit was discovered by Eren. This caused the class’s combat win rate to grow by 0.06%. But then came the nerfs — led by someone with the initials E.S.

Eren knew.

And now he understood: the system was just going back to its roots. Erasing the mistake called

Eren Vale with old but effective methods.

"What if I already have affinity?" he asked. "What if a creature already likes me? Can I circumvent the cost?"

"If there is spontaneous symbolic signature, yes," said Kelna. "But they are rare. And monitored."

"What if it is forced?"

Everyone looked at him.

"Hypothetically," Eren added, raising his hands, "if I... say... induce a creature to manifest the symbol... even without knowing it?"

Kelna crossed her arms.

"That’s... technically feasible. If the induction is emotional and the symbolic manifestation is recorded as voluntary, the system can’t tell the difference. But the risk is high. And it can lead to corruption in the bond."

"I can handle corruption," said Eren. "What I can’t handle is being forced to pay for something that used to be earned."

He thought for a moment.

"What if the bond happens outside the system’s radar? What if it’s created in an area where the architecture isn’t intact?"

Vaen, who until then had not said a word, appeared in the shadow of a floating monitor. He spoke in a drawling voice, almost like an electronic echo:

"You’re thinking like us, Eren Vale. But know this... the more you escape, the more the universe adapts. The current patch is just the beginning. Every deviation you encounter... will generate a more complex response.

"So I just have to be faster than the system?"

"No," said Kelna. "You have to be smarter than it."

Eren smiled.

"That... I might be able to do."

He turned around. Kaela watched him in silence. She knew that look. It wasn’t one of rebellion. Nor of anger.

It was the look of someone who had found a loophole.