The corpse was gone.
Burned to ash in a breath, scattered to nothing by the rain and the sighing wind that haunted the Undersprawl.
But Rex remained.
He stood alone in the alley's throat, steam rising from his bare skin, rain sliding down the scars and filth like he'd been forged anew in the gutters. The black mark over his heart—that crown of thorns—throbbed faintly, a slow, steady rhythm that didn't match his pulse. Each beat carried a whisper through his nerves, something alive and ancient that hummed beneath the skin.
He drew one breath. Then another. The air hurt his lungs, thick with rust and mana-ash, but it was air all the same.
He was alive.
No—more than alive.
The silence pressed in again, broken only by the dripping of rain and the distant, ghostly clang of the forges. Somewhere, mana reactors pulsed and spat purple lightning into the sky. The Undersprawl breathed, groaned, and settled back into its endless decay.
Then light flickered before him.
A faint shimmer, blue-white and translucent.
Rex blinked, focusing—and the shimmer solidified into a holographic panel. It hovered just above his line of sight, flickering in and out with the rain like a ghost uncertain of its form.
> [System Interface: Start-Up Package v1.0]
A circular glyph rotated at the center, glowing brighter with every turn. Rex tilted his head. He'd never seen a System that installed itself. Tokens activated instantly, no loading screens, no software jargon. Systems were divine code, not tech.
This was different.
"...What the hell are you?" he muttered.
A soft chime answered.
> [System Interface: Start-Up Package v1.0]
Download complete.
Another.
> [Installation Package v1.0]
> System Installation Complete…
The glyph fractured into motes of light that swirled, then formed a cleaner, more stable panel—sleek blue script over black glass.
> [System Interface: Devourer Protocol v1.0]
User: Rex
Level: 5
Race: Human (Unregistered)
Class: None
System Tier: Devourer
Stats
• Strength – 1
• Endurance – 2
• Agility – 1
• Intelligence – 2
• Mana – 5 / 10
• Luck – 0
Stat Points Available: 50
System Points: 3
Abilities
• Shadowstep (Tier D) – Teleport up to 5 meters in a chosen direction, leaving a brief afterimage.
→ Mana Cost: 5
→ Upgrade Progress: 1 / 100 uses
Passives
• EXP Gain +100 %
Active Protocols
• System Assimilation – Consume a weakened or inactive System, absorbing its core functions.
Rex stared. Then squinted.
"...My mana's what?"
Five. Ten max.
That couldn't be right. Even the weakest novice casters began with twenty. Gifted ones reached thirty. Even brute warriors—barely literate, system-forged muscleheads—started with fifteen.
His had dropped after ascending four levels.
He clenched his jaw. "You're kidding me."
Then his eyes caught the next line.
Stat Points: 50.
That couldn't be right either. New initiates got maybe five per level. Ten if the gods liked you. Fifty was absurd—impossible. Unless…
He remembered what the voice had called it: Forbidden System.
Maybe forbidden meant broken.
Either way, he wasn't about to waste it.
> [Assign Points?]
– Strength +25
– Mana +25
Confirm? [Y / N]
Rex grinned faintly. "Yeah. Confirm."
The alley exploded in silence.
Power hit him like a detonation without sound—an inward storm that rippled through bone and blood. His muscles coiled and stretched, every fiber tightening like forged wire. His heart raced, his breath deepened, and for a second he swore the rain slowed mid-fall.
He felt it.
The shift in his perception, the way his thoughts moved faster, how each drop of rain seemed to hang suspended for him to count. His hearing sharpened until he could trace the echo of a rat's claws ten meters away. He felt the steady vibration of nearby mana conduits beneath the street, like thunder trapped in stone.
The System's whisper slid across his mind.
> [Stats Updated.]
> Strength 1 → 26
Mana 10 → 35 (max 25)
He looked down at his hands—no longer shaking, no longer soft. His fingers curled into a fist, tendons standing out like steel cable beneath the grime.
A single punch now might crack stone.
He smiled. It wasn't a happy smile. It was the first real one he'd had in years—raw, hungry, promising.
"They won't push me around anymore."
---
He turned toward the mouth of the alley. The rain had thickened, becoming a curtain of soot. Steam drifted up from grates as molten runoff from the forges met the downpour.
Something shifted above.
A flicker—movement across the rooftops.
Rex's eyes narrowed. The city guard. They'd have followed the alchemist's mana trail back here by now. And if they found him standing over a vanished corpse with an illegal System blazing from his chest, they wouldn't bother with questions.
Execution was faster than paperwork.
He drew a slow breath. "Not tonight."
The mark on his chest pulsed in reply.
> [Shadowstep – Activated]
→ Upgrade Progress 2 / 100
The world blinked.
One heartbeat he stood in the open; the next, he was five meters away—behind a rust-streaked crate. An afterimage of him hung where he'd been, dissolving into vapor.
> [Mana – 5]
A low laugh escaped him. He couldn't help it.
He tried again.
Blink.
Five meters to the left.
Blink.
Up a wall, fingers catching a pipe as he materialized mid-air.
The ability burned five mana each use, but it was intoxicating. The speed, the weightlessness, the way the world folded between breaths—it was freedom in motion.
He ran.
Through puddles, across broken stairways, over rusted bridges. The rain lashed his skin, but he barely felt it. Each Shadowstep left an echo—a smear of blue light—and he counted them by instinct.
> [Upgrade Progress: 17 / 100]
[Mana: 0 / 30]
The last step hit him like a wall. His lungs seized; his veins burned cold. He stumbled, collapsing against the metal railing of an old catwalk. Every nerve screamed at once.
The backlash was brutal.
But he was grinning.
Because for the first time in his life, he'd outrun the city.
---
He slumped against the railing, catching his breath. Below him, the Undersprawl stretched endlessly—an ocean of pipes, neon leaks, and shanties built atop one another like tumors. Steam vents exhaled ghostly plumes into the air. The glow of mana-crystals painted the streets in sickly blues and purples.
This was his kingdom.
Or it would be.
He summoned the panel again, studying it more carefully now. The design felt… alien. No emblem of the Divine Accord. No encryption seals. No sign of system regulation. The architecture of the interface looked half-organic, like it had grown rather than been coded.
"Devourer Protocol…" he murmured. "What the hell are you?"
No answer came. Only the rhythmic pulse beneath his ribs.
---
Far above, in Caldrath's upper rings, lightning split the storm.
Inside the Temple of Accord, a sensor rune flared to life on the ceiling mosaic—an intricate network of sigils that monitored all registered System activity in the district. The rune pulsed black instead of blue, sending a shudder through the crystal grid.
Unregistered signal detected.
Tier: Unknown.
System Type: Forbidden.
Clerics rushed to the chamber, robes whispering. Their prayers flickered across the air as data runes scrolled before them, impossible numbers spinning faster than any human mind could track.
At the heart of the temple, seated on a throne of pale iron, the High Inquisitor of District Seven opened a single eye.
He had been meditating—communing with the Accord's divine code—but the pulse from below had ripped through his trance like a spike of ice. The eye that opened was gold and cold, the eye of a man who saw laws as weapons.
"Location?" he asked. His voice echoed through the marble chamber like a verdict.
A scribe stammered, "Lower Caldrath, Sector E-92. The Undersprawl."
The Inquisitor exhaled slowly, the corner of his mouth tightening. "The filth," he murmured. "Of course."
He rose. Even standing, he seemed carved from stone—tall, robed in armor-silk that shimmered with code. Around his neck hung his own System token, a golden disc engraved with the seal of the Accord.
He touched the disc. It flared faintly.
"Send a watcher," he said. "An unregistered System has awakened. I want its bearer alive."
He paused. Then, colder: "For study."
The acolytes bowed low. Bells began to toll—low, mechanical sounds that rolled down through the storm toward the slums like a warning.
Somewhere below, in the Undersprawl's dripping veins, Rex felt the sound before he heard it—a vibration crawling up his spine, the city itself trembling in response.
He frowned. "Guess someone noticed."
---
The rain eased for a moment, softening into a drizzle. Rex leaned against the rusted railing, staring out over the sprawl. He could see the glow of the upper tiers far above, a halo of gold through the black smog.
That was where the gods of this world lived—the nobles, the classed, the blessed. The people whose Systems worked properly.
He'd never seen that light this clearly before.
For the first time, he wanted it.
He touched the black mark on his chest. It pulsed once, as if answering the thought.
"You want more too, huh?" he whispered. "Fine. We'll take it."
The rain began again, thick and relentless. Steam curled off his skin, and somewhere in the distance, alarms wailed.
The hunt had already begun.