Ren awoke to the scent of ash, moss, and old incense.
He was lying in a room barely bigger than a coffin—stone walls, rough bedding, a flickering paper lantern hung from a wooden hook. His limbs felt like lead. Every muscle screamed.
[Reaper Form: Deactivated][Fatigue Status: Critical. Recovery Required][System Cooldown: 11:27:43][Class Promotion Pending…][Notice: You are being watched]
His eyes opened fully.
There was a girl sitting at the edge of the cot.
Maybe sixteen. Slender, but wiry. She wore tight black wrappings under a frayed cloak marked with blood-worn glyphs. Silver chains ran across her sleeves, each link etched with tiny spirit runes. Her eyes—one brown, one ghostly white—stared at him with flat disinterest, like a hunter assessing a wounded animal.
A blade rested across her knees. Not steel. Bone. Pale, curved, and humming with resentment.
Ren shifted.
The girl didn't move. "You're awake. Took you long enough."
"…Who the hell are you?"
She leaned forward, voice calm, almost bored. "Your savior, obviously. You were twitching in your sleep, sweating spirit mist. I thought your soul was trying to crawl out of your skin. Would've cut you in half if I hadn't seen the system mark on your chest."
Ren blinked. "Wait—you can see the system?"
She gave him a humorless smile. "Of course. I have one too."
That made him sit up fully. His body protested, but adrenaline helped.
[New System Signature Detected: Host ID – Aria Veyne][Soul Class: Spirit Slayer (Awakened)][Contracted Entity: The Pale Mirror][Affiliation: Ghosthollow Exorcists – Red Fang Division]
[Warning: Her system is not bound to Reaper Protocol. Cross-compatibility unknown.]
"Aria Veyne," she said, almost mockingly, as if repeating something the system had just told her. "Age seventeen. Full Slayer Rank. I hunt corrupted ghosts, drain-bound phantoms, and cannibal spirits that eat children. And you, apparently, are the idiot who bonded with a Reaper Tree core without understanding the cost."
Ren rubbed his temples. "Can we go back to the part where you said 'I saved you'?"
"You passed out in the shrine courtyard after the raid. The local exorcists didn't want to touch you. Said your soul reeked of 'forbidden pathways.' So they called me."
Ren's eyes narrowed. "You're an exorcist?"
She gestured to her bone blade. "Independent contractor. I specialize in high-threat spectral infestations and soul-bound anomalies. You qualify as both."
Great, Ren thought. I'm an anomaly now.
He glanced around the chamber. "Where are we?"
"Underground temple beneath the village. One of the old Deathkeeper sanctuaries. Wards are strong enough to hold off most spirit beasts while you stabilize."
Ren sat up slowly, fingers brushing his side. The sickle was gone.
"Relax," Aria said. "I left your weapon by the altar. Didn't want it trying to bite anyone."
"…It bites?"
"Spirit-linked tools sometimes have hunger. Yours feels particularly nasty."
Ren exhaled. His thoughts were starting to clear. "Why help me? You don't know me."
Aria tilted her head. "You're wrong. I know exactly what you are."
A long silence.
She stood, walking over to the altar where his sickle rested in a bed of spirit salts and ashes. Her fingers trailed across the handle. "A decade ago, the last Reaper Candidate lost control and turned an entire city into a graveyard. They called him the Bone Sovereign. Slaughtered both sides of the Spirit War. Ghosts still whisper his name in death-tongue."
Ren swallowed.
She turned, eyes cold. "So when the Reaper System pings awake again—this far from the Forbidden Lands—I'm sent to investigate. And what do I find? A half-dead boy wielding cursed tools, talking to a system no one's heard from in years."
"Lucky me," Ren muttered.
"You shouldn't exist," Aria said bluntly. "But now that you do… I'm stuck watching you."
"Watching me?"
She tapped a jade talisman at her belt. "Binding tag. You and I are linked now. If you go full Bone Sovereign, I get to kill you before you bring down another continent."
Ren flinched. "That seems a little extreme."
"Not really," Aria said flatly. "One dead anomaly is better than ten thousand corpses."
[Companion Link Detected: Aria Veyne – Soulwatcher Contract Established][Conditions: Monitored – Emergency Termination Protocol Enabled][Status: Suspicion: 83%]
Ren groaned. "System, do I even have rights?"
[Technically: No.]
Aria stepped closer, kneeling beside him. "But I'm not here to kill you. Not yet."
"That's comforting."
She ignored him. "I want to know how you survived the Spirit Beast raid. No awakened core. No training. No talismans. And you reaped four spirits."
"Five," Ren said quietly.
She blinked. "…You reaped the centipede?"
"I subjugated it."
Her mouth tightened. "You bound a Spirit Beast on your first night?"
Ren shrugged weakly. "It was that or die."
Aria stood again, walking a slow circle around him, muttering as if to herself. "This shouldn't be possible. The Reaper System was sealed. Purged from the cultivation cycle. Even high-order exorcists can't access its permissions anymore."
Ren asked, "Why was it sealed?"
She looked at him, serious now. "Because the Reaper Path doesn't cultivate. It consumes. Reaper users don't balance life and death. They burn karma for power. They harvest the dead—not to release them, but to become stronger."
Ren's mouth went dry.
She knelt again. "You will be hunted. Not just by exorcists. The Five Clans will want you dead. Cultivators will call you a heretic. And the Undying—they'll smell you coming."
"…What do I do, then?"
Aria smiled faintly. "You learn. Fast. You hide. Harder. And if I say run, you run."
[System Update: Companion Synergy Bonus – Unlocked][New Joint Skill: Soul Trace Lv. 1 – Locate nearby corrupted spirits within 1 km radius][New Location Added: Ghosthollow City – 61 km west][Main Mission Path Updated: Journey to Ghosthollow. Meet the Pale Council.]
[Class Promotion Available – Choose Path Before Departure]
[Reaper Class Tier I: Path of the Wraithblade – Soul Assassin][Reaper Class Tier I: Path of the Hollow Monk – Deathbound Caster][Reaper Class Tier I: Path of the Dread Shepherd – Spirit Commander]
Aria folded her arms. "Time to choose, Reaper. What kind of monster are you going to be?"