The breath came wrong.
Too fast. Too deep. Too sharp.
Raifu's chest rose, and the first inhalation of Alcries as a god masquerading in man felt like drowning in rust.
The smell hit first—smoke, iron, oil, and blood-soaked dirt. His spine jerked before his brain remembered how to interpret sensation. Then came sound: the dull clang of chains dragged across uneven stone, distant orders barked in monotone, and the occasional electric snap of a stun-baton correcting disobedience.
His eyes flickered open.
Dark.
Not night-dark.
Bunker-dark.
He lay in a shallow trench just beneath a collapsed scaffold beam—his body hidden, or discarded, or simply overlooked. The air buzzed with heat and silence. The kind of silence that only lives where people are not allowed to cry.
Raifu did not move yet.
His breath came again, steadier this time.
And with it, the rhythm.
Thum… thum-thum… pause… thum.
It lived inside his bones now—not memory, not illusion. Pattern.
Not a rhythm he heard but a rhythm that heard him.
The Thread was no longer theoretical. It was muscle.
He shifted his fingers. Slow.
They responded.
Nothing broken.
Nothing missing.
Not even the stab wounds that should've hollowed him out. His tunic was soaked, but there was no pain. No scabbing. Just warmth. Strange, living warmth that pulsed with order.
He had rewritten.
Raifu pushed himself up into a crouch.
The broken girder above him cracked and slid to the side as if understanding it was no longer permissioned to weigh down his body.
Where am I?
He scanned the trench.
Nearby, he saw corpses. At least three. All slave garbed. Two adults. One teen. Throats slit. System tags removed. Chainbrands burned out.
Raifu's eyes sharpened.
He was in Sector 7-Burnline. The outer circle of the execution fields. Where misfires, escape attempts, and "defective threads" were disposed of like torn fabric.
His body had been thrown away.
No one expected him to wake.
They'd made a mistake.
Something moved above. Light footsteps. Measured.
Raifu stilled.
A shadow passed the rusted grating above him.
Female. Small frame. Carrying a crate.
Then another voice—male, tired, sarcastic.
"They said clean by dusk, not count the damn bloodstains."
The girl muttered something back. Nothing angry. Just numb. The tone of someone whose voice wasn't owned anymore.
Raifu closed his eyes.
Thum…
The rhythm inside him shifted. No longer idle.
Protect. Observe. Don't move yet.
His fingers brushed against something in the dirt beside him.
Threadcloth.
A torn strip.
Blue.
He knew the pattern. Anaka's sleeve. Torn from the same dress she wore when they first kissed in the silent grove during ration night. She had stitched stars into the hem herself. Poorly.
But this star was still intact.
He gripped the cloth tightly.
The pain came. Finally.
Not in flesh.
In memory.
The rhythm quivered.
The world didn't fracture, but it tilted—like a tightrope about to be pulled into motion.
He could taste her voice now.
"Raif, if rhythm is all that matters, then maybe dying's just a beat between songs."
He clenched his jaw.
No more dying.
Not like that.
Not for them.
He stood slowly, silently.
The dust didn't even try to stick to him.
He emerged from the trench like a ripple coming back to the surface after the stone had long sunk.
He saw her first.
The girl. Young. Maybe fifteen. Bruised. Hair chopped unevenly. System brand still glowing red. Carrying a crate of bone-meal toward the incinerator.
She turned.
She froze.
Eyes wide.
Mouth parted, but no sound.
She saw a man rise from a grave.
Raifu didn't speak. He only lifted a single finger to his lips—an old signal, not of silence, but of alignment.
The universal sign of rhythm not yet broken.
She nodded.
Not out of fear.
But because something in the air told her to obey.
He vanished into the corridor before the guards could circle back. His steps made no sound.
But each footfall—left, right, slide, plant—stitched something new into the world.
A beat.
A breath.
A presence not yet noticed by the system.
Raifu walked the burnlines reborn.
Not as a slave.
Not as a rebel.
But as something unwritten.
The rhythm demanded feedback.
Each breath Raifu took now vibrated inside him—not like lungs filling, but like a string being plucked from beyond the bones.
He was no longer a vessel.
He was a chord, walking.
And he needed to know—
Was the Thread real in flesh?
Did rhythm still bend the world when soaked in vengeance?
He needed a target.
No, a test.
The corridors in Burnline Sector 7 were designed for disposal—not escape.
Rusted vents hissed recycled air. Security patrols rotated every twenty-seven beats—Raifu had already counted. He watched from behind a derelict exhaust pipe as three enforcers passed. Their boots hit the steel floor with precision.
Step. Step. Click. Pause. Rotate.
Same sequence. Every time.
Weakness.
He slipped behind them like fog splitting between gears. Each step he took matched their exhale.
Left. Right. Heel drag. Grip tighten.
Target 1:
Guard carrying a shock baton, distracted by his wrist-UI
Stat pattern: Low Agility, high Strength
Blindside: Right
Death Pattern: Twist-step > throat-fold > baton redirect to ribcage
Thread Map Prepared.
Raifu struck without warning.
He didn't roar. He didn't breathe heavy.
He just moved.
One.
A feint, shoulder dip—makes the guard shift stance.
Two.
Palm cracks the jaw, a spiral motion that disorients equilibrium. The guard staggers, opening his ribline.
Three.
Raifu's left foot hooks the back knee, dropping him to a partial squat.
Four.
The baton is wrenched free.
Five.
Backhand strike with the baton cracks the ribs inward—directed not with rage, but flow.
The sound wasn't even loud.
Just a muted snap, then silence.
The guard collapsed before his body realized it was dead.
Thread Count: 2
It whispered, not in numbers, but in approval.
The world bent slightly.
The air shimmered for a moment, then returned to stillness.
Raifu crouched, wiped blood on his tunic, and dragged the corpse behind an abandoned maintenance shell.
Target 2 and 3:
Approaching from north wing.
Same route. Same beat. Synchronized.
Raifu exhaled. This time, no need for finesse.
Only message.
He sprinted into the hallway on beat—boots silent.
They didn't see him.
They felt him.
Too late.
One. Two.
Forearm smash to the taller guard's temple. Skull dents inward with a nauseating crack.
Three.
Short kick to the side of the second guard's shin. Balance breaks.
Four.
Baton swings horizontally—wind-shifting motion—hits the second in the throat. The scream chokes halfway out.
Five.
Knee strike to sternum. His chest caves inward like cheap metal.
Six.
Final twist—the baton rotates behind Raifu's neck, slingshotting into the air, flipped mid-spin, and slams straight down on the taller one's crown.
Blunt finale.
They both fall.
Thread Count: 3
A subtle distortion again.
Reality made room.
He stood in the hallway now, surrounded by three corpses. Not breathing heavy. Not shaking.
Just aligned.
His rhythm was accelerating.
Each kill had been elegant. Precise. Purposeful.
And he felt the feedback.
"Stat Resonance Detected."
[5 Allocatable Points]
Strength: +2
Focus: +3
Raifu blinked.
No screen.
Just the feeling of density shifting in his body.
His muscles hummed. His heartbeat slowed—but sharper.
The Thread was rewarding rhythm—not rage.
Not vengeance alone.
Perfect execution.
He wasn't done.
His body turned toward the door leading out of the disposal wing.
There would be more guards.
More chains.
And more tests.
He didn't care about stealth anymore.
Not for now.
He needed to grow. Fast. Clean. Broken bones in five-beat chains.
This wasn't revenge.
This was practice.
They heard him now.
The clang of his footfalls as he left the disposal corridor was deliberate.
No more silence.
No more hiding in trenches.
The enforcers were coming—and he wanted them to.
Raifu's eyes flicked across the steel walls, calculating not exits, but opportunities.
He moved through Sector 7's second wing—the armory-hall split, where the training barracks connected to resource caging.
Dim lights blinked overhead in dead rhythm.
All eyes.
All ears.
He heard the alert klaxons warming up.
That meant maybe ten guards. Maybe more.
Didn't matter.
He felt his stats thrumming in his blood like rebar:
• Strength: 6
• Agility: 3
• Mana: 3
• Focus: 6
• Ferocity: 2
Still low.
Still early.
But the rhythm now felt limitless.
First came three enforcers from the left junction.
He charged directly toward them.
They didn't hesitate—batons out, stances clean, arcs tight.
They thought he was still a slave.
They thought they were still in control of tempo.
Step One:
He dropped to a low spin-slide, sweeping their ankles.
One fell. The others staggered.
Step Two:
Upward elbow into jaw. A crunch.
Step Three:
Redirect flow—shoulder roll into second guard, using his own velocity to launch him into the wall.
Step Four:
Palm-fist into solar plexus of the third. Wind knocked. Chest folds.
Step Five:
He kicks the fallen guard's weapon upward, catches it mid-spin.
Step Six:
Batons collide in a short hook against the last standing guard's collarbone.
It snaps like a twig.
Step Seven:
He exhales. Eyes close. Arms move like he's drawing a spiral into space.
The baton glows for a second.
Then reality blurs.
The guards freeze mid-fall.
One midair.
Another mid-shout.
Time doesn't stop—but it pauses.
Two seconds.
Raifu moves inside the pause. Hands open. Baton dropped. Nothing needed.
He just walks away.
The world unfreezes behind him.
The bodies hit the floor.
Thread Count: 4
Combo Type: 7-Step Reality Distortion Triggered
Skill-Weave Confirmed: Phantom Spiral Tempo
And something new ripples across his spine.
Not words.
A sensation like an ancient chord struck inside his brain.
He feels a new beat opening.
Not skill.
Style.
A style that's not from Earth. Not from Alcries.
Something… made by him.
The hall ahead is empty now. The guards radio static. Sirens beginning to wail. A system AI somewhere trying to calculate how the hell a corpse just walked out and started killing trained enforcers.
Raifu closes his eyes.
He doesn't feel joy.
He doesn't feel guilt.
Only clarity.
And the weight of his breathing. In rhythm.
Chapter: 1
Level: 2
Thread Count: 4
Stat Points Earned: 5
Points Allocated: +2 Strength, +3 Focus
New Combo: Phantom Spiral Tempo (7-step combo)
Combat Style Used: Redirect Flow + Improvised Spiral
Notable Event: Time distortion confirmed; Thread solidifies inside living flesh
🧠 Etymological Lore Note
"Focus" – from Latin focus, meaning "hearth" or "fireplace."
The original Roman use of focus referred not to attention, but the central fire in a home—the place everything revolved around. Later, it evolved to mean the center of energy or thought.
In Raifu's case, Focus is not mental effort—it's where rhythm burns brightest in him.
When he invests in Focus,
he's feeding his hearth.