What do you think?
Rate this book
Blood World: Book One - The Broken Seal
Two hundred and thirty nine people are found dead aboard an aeroplane.
Not one of them has a single drop of blood left.
Forensic haematologist Zane Lazaar has spent his career uncovering what the dead can no longer say. Blood has always spoken to him more clearly than people do. But the evidence inside Flight 701 points to something no laboratory can explain.
As Zane follows the trail through sealed facilities, buried records and crime scenes that should be impossible, he discovers a hidden world operating beneath London. Vampires are real and so are the things they fear.
Something ancient lies sealed beneath the city, and generations have died trying to open it. Now the supernatural believe they have forged the key to unlock the door.
They are wrong.
The key could never be forged, only passed down.
Blood The Broken Seal is the first book in a dark supernatural fantasy series blending forensic mystery, vampire horror, brutal action and an ancient conspiracy buried beneath modern London.
Not one of them has a single drop of blood left.
Forensic haematologist Zane Lazaar has spent his career uncovering what the dead can no longer say. Blood has always spoken to him more clearly than people do. But the evidence inside Flight 701 points to something no laboratory can explain.
As Zane follows the trail through sealed facilities, buried records and crime scenes that should be impossible, he discovers a hidden world operating beneath London. Vampires are real and so are the things they fear.
Something ancient lies sealed beneath the city, and generations have died trying to open it. Now the supernatural believe they have forged the key to unlock the door.
They are wrong.
The key could never be forged, only passed down.
Blood The Broken Seal is the first book in a dark supernatural fantasy series blending forensic mystery, vampire horror, brutal action and an ancient conspiracy buried beneath modern London.
356 pages, Kindle Edition
Published July 17, 2026
About the author
Noctis Codex
1 book1 followerThanks for taking the time to visit my profile.
I’m a professional insomniac writing under the pen name Noctis Codex, meaning Midnight Pages.
Inspired by a lifetime of anime and manga, my goal is to create immersive stories that stay with readers long after the final page.
I am now 28 years old and have been theorycrafting and world building since I was in secondary school.
It's safe to say, the books I will be releasing are a culmination of my lifes work.
To that, I hope you enjoy reading.
I’m a professional insomniac writing under the pen name Noctis Codex, meaning Midnight Pages.
Inspired by a lifetime of anime and manga, my goal is to create immersive stories that stay with readers long after the final page.
I am now 28 years old and have been theorycrafting and world building since I was in secondary school.
It's safe to say, the books I will be releasing are a culmination of my lifes work.
To that, I hope you enjoy reading.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
July 22, 2026
The novel opens with a gripping hook: a plane has landed outside Essex with more than 200 passengers and crew dead and completely drained of blood. It happened within a short window, without a single drop spilled, apart from a footprint belonging to neither a human nor any known animal. From there, we follow hematologist Zane Lazaar as he investigates the mystery while uncovering the truth about who, and what, he really is.
Zane is an easy protagonist to root for. His mother died when he was twelve, and he has spent the following twenty-six years trying to understand the cause of her death. His unusual connection to blood allows him to glimpse what happened at crime scenes, a genuinely fresh mechanic that adds a supernatural element to the investigation while still letting Zane rely on his intelligence and instincts.
The lore is rich, and the overall plot feels carefully planned. The supernatural world includes Bearers, Watchers, Guardians and Vampires, along with Rabid, a terrifying monster, and the Seal on Zane's palm connected to his inner power, of the wall and the seam. At first, I found it difficult to hold all these terms, but as the story progressed, I grew more familiar. I particularly liked that previous Bearers had been unable to control their power, giving Zane an internal battle to face alongside the many external threats.
I have always been a vampire fan. Anne Rice was my first real addiction when I began reading novels, and I have watched the Underworld films more times than I can count. This book reminded me of those films through its darkness, ancient history, London setting, and the different classes and types of vampires existing within the same world. It also brought to mind the original Blade film, while still feeling original and distinct.
The rising action is where the book shines. Much of the momentum comes from Zane, Iris, and Aurelia either pursuing others or being pursued themselves, the monsters are genuinely unsettling, the action is easy to picture, and the revelations surrounding Zane's ancestry land well. Iris especially stood out to me as an older woman who says exactly what she means and never feels the need to soften her words. Aurelia is also well constructed, and the developing relationships feel earned rather than rushed.
While the events themselves kept me turning pages, the prose sometimes drags between them. I noticed repetition in the descriptions, some chapter openings recap events from the previous chapter, and certain details, such as the Victorian brickwork, are described more than necessary. Tightening these areas would let the story move as quickly as its best scenes do. I also wished there was more dialogue as I wanted to learn the characters by their words.
The ending lands. The different threads were brought together well while leaving enough unresolved to open the way for the next book. Overall, this is an ambitious and well-thought-out vampire novel with likeable characters, rich lore, and unsettling creatures. I could easily see it on screen.
Zane is an easy protagonist to root for. His mother died when he was twelve, and he has spent the following twenty-six years trying to understand the cause of her death. His unusual connection to blood allows him to glimpse what happened at crime scenes, a genuinely fresh mechanic that adds a supernatural element to the investigation while still letting Zane rely on his intelligence and instincts.
The lore is rich, and the overall plot feels carefully planned. The supernatural world includes Bearers, Watchers, Guardians and Vampires, along with Rabid, a terrifying monster, and the Seal on Zane's palm connected to his inner power, of the wall and the seam. At first, I found it difficult to hold all these terms, but as the story progressed, I grew more familiar. I particularly liked that previous Bearers had been unable to control their power, giving Zane an internal battle to face alongside the many external threats.
I have always been a vampire fan. Anne Rice was my first real addiction when I began reading novels, and I have watched the Underworld films more times than I can count. This book reminded me of those films through its darkness, ancient history, London setting, and the different classes and types of vampires existing within the same world. It also brought to mind the original Blade film, while still feeling original and distinct.
The rising action is where the book shines. Much of the momentum comes from Zane, Iris, and Aurelia either pursuing others or being pursued themselves, the monsters are genuinely unsettling, the action is easy to picture, and the revelations surrounding Zane's ancestry land well. Iris especially stood out to me as an older woman who says exactly what she means and never feels the need to soften her words. Aurelia is also well constructed, and the developing relationships feel earned rather than rushed.
While the events themselves kept me turning pages, the prose sometimes drags between them. I noticed repetition in the descriptions, some chapter openings recap events from the previous chapter, and certain details, such as the Victorian brickwork, are described more than necessary. Tightening these areas would let the story move as quickly as its best scenes do. I also wished there was more dialogue as I wanted to learn the characters by their words.
The ending lands. The different threads were brought together well while leaving enough unresolved to open the way for the next book. Overall, this is an ambitious and well-thought-out vampire novel with likeable characters, rich lore, and unsettling creatures. I could easily see it on screen.
August 2, 2026
I read the book as early ARC, so it might have changed later.
The plot is gray and grim and the climax is nice, while predictable. I was genuinely terrified by the ending with A*. The side characters pulling the strings were more compelling to me than Zane himself. Can't say I was attached to the characters, except for Vera.
Will recommend to those who love dark books with demons, tortures and time bleeding out.
The plot is gray and grim and the climax is nice, while predictable. I was genuinely terrified by the ending with A*. The side characters pulling the strings were more compelling to me than Zane himself. Can't say I was attached to the characters, except for Vera.
Will recommend to those who love dark books with demons, tortures and time bleeding out.
August 10, 2026
"Blood remembers. It tracks the hour a heart stopped and the hand that stopped it. It keeps the illness a body hid and the lie a mouth told, over the top of it. Most people never hear any of it."
Blood World: Book One - The Broken Seal by Noctis Codex is one of those unabashedly visceral fantasies that still somehow manages to maintain a graceful eloquence. It follows Zane, a forensic hematologist, who is called to investigate the mysterious massacre aboard Flight 701. All the passengers are drained of blood mid-flight. This is just the first incident in the story, as Zane learns that it is connected to a mysterious world of which he is, himself, a key component. A world consisting of, of course, vampires.
"Vampires exist? Seriously?"
Zane, we learn early on, has some strange intuition when it comes to blood. He feels a certain connection with blood, and it would seem to communicate with him.
Soon Zane meets Marlowe, one of the antagonists. Marlowe is trying to create a seal to open a hidden door buried beneath London. Then there are the Guardians:
"First vampires, now guardians. If I didn’t have the scars to prove it, people would think I was having a very elaborate midlife crisis."
Besides the obvious urban fantasy elements, the book deals with themes such as trauma, trust, and betrayal.
"The people who want you dead are the obvious danger. They aren’t the worst ones. The worst one will be a voice you already trust, telling you exactly what you want to hear, and steering you somewhere you believe you chose for yourself."
Or:
"You want me to have loved you and turned on you anyway, because a thing that breaks can at least be mourned. But nothing broke here, lad, nothing was ever whole."
The plot deepens as one reads on. However, it is difficult to give more details without spoiling it for potential readers. The novel ends with one of the best cliffhangers I have read this year.
The prose is exquisite in several places, particularly when the author is describing Zane's thought processes at different points in the story. Zane's traumatic past and a sort of Jungian shadow are also explored here:
"It was not his own second self. That was the thing Zane understood in the first frozen instant, and it was worse than if it had been. His dark half, the red version of himself, lived under his ribs, wore his own face and spoke in his own voice. This was not that. This hand had come from far away. It had reached up the open wall inside him, all the way from the bottom of the earth, from behind the stone door under London, and pushed out through him into the daylight. It did not belong to anything human. It was cold, colder than the sea, colder than the gap behind the slab had been. It was made of no color he had a name for. And it was strong in a way that had nothing to do with muscle. It held his wrist the way the tide holds a stone. Without effort, without any chance of being argued with."
These elements help make the reading experience much richer than the title of the book might suggest.
The characters are generally well-developed. Vera, a little child who was raised specifically for nefarious purposes by Zane's mother, was my favorite character.
Highly recommended for lovers of urban fantasy, especially if you are into visceral fiction. I shall be eagerly looking forward to reading the next volume of the series.
Blood World: Book One - The Broken Seal by Noctis Codex is one of those unabashedly visceral fantasies that still somehow manages to maintain a graceful eloquence. It follows Zane, a forensic hematologist, who is called to investigate the mysterious massacre aboard Flight 701. All the passengers are drained of blood mid-flight. This is just the first incident in the story, as Zane learns that it is connected to a mysterious world of which he is, himself, a key component. A world consisting of, of course, vampires.
"Vampires exist? Seriously?"
Zane, we learn early on, has some strange intuition when it comes to blood. He feels a certain connection with blood, and it would seem to communicate with him.
Soon Zane meets Marlowe, one of the antagonists. Marlowe is trying to create a seal to open a hidden door buried beneath London. Then there are the Guardians:
"First vampires, now guardians. If I didn’t have the scars to prove it, people would think I was having a very elaborate midlife crisis."
Besides the obvious urban fantasy elements, the book deals with themes such as trauma, trust, and betrayal.
"The people who want you dead are the obvious danger. They aren’t the worst ones. The worst one will be a voice you already trust, telling you exactly what you want to hear, and steering you somewhere you believe you chose for yourself."
Or:
"You want me to have loved you and turned on you anyway, because a thing that breaks can at least be mourned. But nothing broke here, lad, nothing was ever whole."
The plot deepens as one reads on. However, it is difficult to give more details without spoiling it for potential readers. The novel ends with one of the best cliffhangers I have read this year.
The prose is exquisite in several places, particularly when the author is describing Zane's thought processes at different points in the story. Zane's traumatic past and a sort of Jungian shadow are also explored here:
"It was not his own second self. That was the thing Zane understood in the first frozen instant, and it was worse than if it had been. His dark half, the red version of himself, lived under his ribs, wore his own face and spoke in his own voice. This was not that. This hand had come from far away. It had reached up the open wall inside him, all the way from the bottom of the earth, from behind the stone door under London, and pushed out through him into the daylight. It did not belong to anything human. It was cold, colder than the sea, colder than the gap behind the slab had been. It was made of no color he had a name for. And it was strong in a way that had nothing to do with muscle. It held his wrist the way the tide holds a stone. Without effort, without any chance of being argued with."
These elements help make the reading experience much richer than the title of the book might suggest.
The characters are generally well-developed. Vera, a little child who was raised specifically for nefarious purposes by Zane's mother, was my favorite character.
Highly recommended for lovers of urban fantasy, especially if you are into visceral fiction. I shall be eagerly looking forward to reading the next volume of the series.
August 11, 2026
THE REVIEW
This was a rich and dynamic dark fantasy-horror novel. The setting of London and the dark underworld beneath it came to life on the page through visceral imagery that fully immersed the reader in the story. The balance the author struck in the novel between high-octane action and in-depth character development was astonishing, keeping the reader invested in the story.
The heart of the narrative lay in the character dynamics alongside the rich mythology the author developed. Zane is a unique protagonist who blends modern forensics with an ancient, supernatural mythos that readers can get behind, while the classic vampire mythology gets a fresh twist with a looming, larger threat and the unique origins of Zane's family history, along with how he gained his unique insights to begin with.
THE VERDICT
Thrilling, entertaining, and richly developed, author Noctis Codex’s “Blood World” is a must-read dark fantasy meets horror novel. The vast character development exploring the vampire hierarchy and the dark tone in the setting of the story, when blended with the forensics and crime scene analysis that went into exploring the inciting incident, allowed the twists and turns that came about in the story and the rich mythos the author created to really shine in this narrative.
This was a rich and dynamic dark fantasy-horror novel. The setting of London and the dark underworld beneath it came to life on the page through visceral imagery that fully immersed the reader in the story. The balance the author struck in the novel between high-octane action and in-depth character development was astonishing, keeping the reader invested in the story.
The heart of the narrative lay in the character dynamics alongside the rich mythology the author developed. Zane is a unique protagonist who blends modern forensics with an ancient, supernatural mythos that readers can get behind, while the classic vampire mythology gets a fresh twist with a looming, larger threat and the unique origins of Zane's family history, along with how he gained his unique insights to begin with.
THE VERDICT
Thrilling, entertaining, and richly developed, author Noctis Codex’s “Blood World” is a must-read dark fantasy meets horror novel. The vast character development exploring the vampire hierarchy and the dark tone in the setting of the story, when blended with the forensics and crime scene analysis that went into exploring the inciting incident, allowed the twists and turns that came about in the story and the rich mythos the author created to really shine in this narrative.
July 31, 2026
A Quiet Shatter Beneath the Surface
The Broken Seal lands with a kind of subdued heaviness—the sort that doesn’t announce itself loudly but lingers, tightening in the chest as the pages turn. It’s not a flashy book; it’s a bruising one, quietly insistent.
At its core is a protagonist who feels painfully hopeful, almost to their detriment. Their flaw isn’t dramatic—it’s the way they cling to meaning even as the world keeps eroding it. That stubborn tenderness drives the entire narrative, making even small choices feel consequential. You don’t follow them for the plot; you follow them because watching someone wrestle with their own earnestness can be unexpectedly gripping.
The prose is precise and occasionally atmospheric, leaning into a deliberate, slow-burn pacing that rewards patience. Some chapters feel intentionally restrained, as if the author wants you to sit with the discomfort rather than rush past it.
The Broken Seal lands with a kind of subdued heaviness—the sort that doesn’t announce itself loudly but lingers, tightening in the chest as the pages turn. It’s not a flashy book; it’s a bruising one, quietly insistent.
At its core is a protagonist who feels painfully hopeful, almost to their detriment. Their flaw isn’t dramatic—it’s the way they cling to meaning even as the world keeps eroding it. That stubborn tenderness drives the entire narrative, making even small choices feel consequential. You don’t follow them for the plot; you follow them because watching someone wrestle with their own earnestness can be unexpectedly gripping.
The prose is precise and occasionally atmospheric, leaning into a deliberate, slow-burn pacing that rewards patience. Some chapters feel intentionally restrained, as if the author wants you to sit with the discomfort rather than rush past it.
August 3, 2026
“I’ve killed too many to know you’re not one.”
A passenger plane lands… and every single person onboard is dead. Creepy ?
It gets worse. They've all been drained of blood. (shhhh! Vampire, Mystery solved?) Zane have to collect scientific evidences to correctly point out who is behind all of this murders.
Before long, Zane discovers that vampires are real. Not the sparkly kind. The run as soon as you see them kind. As he dives further, he find a secret groups that have been protecting humanity for centuries, relics, and the mystery of the Broken Seal, Guess what? Some very bad people want that seal broken.
Read More: The Broken Seal by Noctis Codex
October 2, 2026
A Stunning Twist on Vampire Horror
“The Broken Seal” is a gripping supernatural thriller that expertly combines forensic investigation with dark fantasy and vampire horror. The mystery of Flight 701 pulls you in straight away, and Zane Lazaar is a great protagonist who follows clues into a hidden supernatural world beneath London. I particularly loved the way science and mysticism combine around blood, which makes this story feel fresh and original. The pace keeps the suspense high and the atmosphere dark and immersive without being shockingly gratuitous. The world-building is interesting, the mysteries are surprising and the characters complex. A thrilling start to what looks like a promising series.
“The Broken Seal” is a gripping supernatural thriller that expertly combines forensic investigation with dark fantasy and vampire horror. The mystery of Flight 701 pulls you in straight away, and Zane Lazaar is a great protagonist who follows clues into a hidden supernatural world beneath London. I particularly loved the way science and mysticism combine around blood, which makes this story feel fresh and original. The pace keeps the suspense high and the atmosphere dark and immersive without being shockingly gratuitous. The world-building is interesting, the mysteries are surprising and the characters complex. A thrilling start to what looks like a promising series.
July 22, 2026
Great book it’s a must read!
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews