The fire in his veins had not faded.
Kael's steps were slower now, heavier, but not from exhaustion. Each one felt charged with gravity, as if the world had suddenly taken him more seriously. Or perhaps it was he who had changed.
Kael's footsteps echoed through the crypt corridor like war drums.
His body pulsed. Not with pain, but with pressure.
His heart still hammered in his chest, though not from fear. That had burned away—cleansed in fire. What now pulsed through his veins was different. Cold and sharp and electric.
He no longer felt hollow.
He felt whole.
His fingertips crackled. Threads of darkness danced across the skin of his palm like ink in water. The once-burned veins on his arm now glowed faintly red beneath the surface, pulsing in sync with his breath. The system still whispered at the edge of his thoughts. There were no visuals now—no glowing prompts or structured boxes—only instinctual understanding. A sense of power constantly coiling around his bones. It was alien. Thrilling. Addictive.
[Voidflame]: Generate a corrupt flame that feeds on divine energy.
Burns stronger in proximity to faith.
He flexed his hand again.
[Voidflame] curled around his fingers like a familiar. The fire hissed in the quiet crypt air, its blackened hue rimmed in red, flickering unnaturally. It didn't emit heat the way a normal flame did. Instead, it drew in warmth, devouring it. Sapping it.
Faith. A concept that had once defined this world. The core of its structure. The very currency of power. Now, it was kindling.
Kael's breath fogged in the cold. The flame didn't flicker in the draft. It danced to his will.
And it was hungry.
He wasn't ready to go back upstairs.
Not yet.
He walked the length of the crypt, passing rusted sarcophagi and decayed relics. His thoughts churned as he processed what had just happened.
He had a system now. A real one. Not a bastardized imitation, not a theoretical framework cobbled together from monk scriptures—but an actual, functioning mana system bonded to his soul.
But it wasn't divine.
It didn't operate by the rules taught in the world above.
This one was dark. Unregulated. Personal.
And its path to power was littered with ash and ruin.
He should have been afraid. Maybe two days ago, he would have been. But now?
Now he felt… clarity.
He had never been given the chance to be anyone important. The system had passed him over, the nobles had dismissed him, the monks had tolerated him. They all wrote him off the moment the Obelisk stayed dark.
He was never weak, Kael thought. He was simply on the wrong path.
Now, that path had revealed itself.
And he would walk it unapologetically.
He emerged from the crypts quietly, not bothering to hide his return. Few stirred in the monastery at this hour. The old bells hadn't tolled in years. The central chapel was dim, the faint flickering of candles barely reaching the dark corners. He passed two monks asleep in prayer, their heads bowed against ancient texts.
But one man was awake.
"Who dares disturb the sanctum at this hour?"
He stood near the reliquary cabinet, hunched over, muttering a low chant. His bald head glistened in the candlelight as his fingers traced the carved symbols on a silver charm.
Kael paused.
Henrick was the worst of them. Devoted. Proud. Always watching. He'd called Kael a "nonentity" to his face once—said he had no place in divine order. Kael hadn't forgotten.
He'd never liked Henrick. The man had often "corrected" his posture with a rod or scolded him for reading books deemed above his station. Still, Kael had expected more… hesitation.
"What are you doing here, boy?" Henrick barked. "You've no permission to roam the crypts. Answer me."
Kael said nothing.
Henrick frowned. "Boy, I asked you a question. You look pale. You've been in the crypts again, haven't you?"
Still no answer.
Henrick stepped closer, brandishing the charm like a badge. "Whatever thoughts trouble you, be rid of them. Come now, confess. The system sees all. The Lightmother's grace—"
"Her grace?" Kael cut in softly. "Where was her grace when I touched the Obelisk and was met with nothing?"
Henrick blinked. The boy's tone wasn't defiant—it was quiet. Measured. Dangerous.
"You know as well as I that alignment cannot be forced," the monk said cautiously. "It is not the system that failed you, Kael. You simply... do not belong."
"Yes," Kael whispered. "That's what I finally realized."
He raised his hand.
Kael stepped forward. Just once.
Henrick took a step back. Instinctively.
The monk's eyes darted to Kael's hands. He frowned.
"What is that glow?"
Kael glanced at his palm. Sparks still danced in the creases of his skin.
He tilted his head. "Would you like to see?"
Before Henrick could react, Kael raised his hand. And willed it.
The magic answered.
A tongue of fire burst from his fingertips, not red or orange, but a deep, churning black edged in crimson. It struck the stone floor at the monk's feet with a sound like tearing silk.
The fire hissed.
Henrick screamed—not from pain, not yet—but from the sight of it.
"You've... what have you done?"
"I've been aligned. Just not by your gods."
"This… this is forbidden!" he shrieked. "Darkness! Heresy!"
"You've embraced corruption," Henrick snarled. "I'll have the high abbot summon the Inquisition. You'll be purified, boy, I swear it—"
Kael snapped his fingers.
A gout of [Voidflame] erupted between them, striking the old rug and lighting it like oil. The fire writhed, not spreading outward but up—tendrils of flame reaching like grasping hands.
Kael watched the man's face twist into the same mask he'd seen a thousand times—judgment, fear, contempt. And yet, behind it, something else: uncertainty.
"Darkness!" he shouted. "You've consorted with the fallen! This is heresy!"
"I didn't ask," Kael said, voice flat.
"You don't understand," Kael said softly. "You all thought I was nothing. But I wasn't. I was just unaligned."
Another burst of flame surged toward Henrick's feet. The monk scrambled back this time, fumbling with a warding talisman around his neck.
"By the Light, be gone!"
The talisman flared gold—only to blacken in his hand as the fire touched it. It cracked. Split. Disintegrated into ash.
Kael blinked. The system chimed.
[Voidflame] has devoured a minor divine relic. +1 Corruption Resonance
Corruption Resonance: 1/5 – Tier 0 Threshold
A thrill ran through him. He felt a pulse of new energy, like muscle strengthening in real-time.
Henrick's face drained of color.
"You're a monster."
"No," Kael said, stepping forward again. "I'm what happens when monsters create the rules."
He raised his hand again, but this time didn't cast.
Henrick ran.
Kael didn't smile. He didn't gloat.
He simply watched as Henrick fled through a side door, robes flapping, his prayers faltering into desperate gibberish.
He let him go.
Because fear would spread faster than fire.
He could have burned the monk where he stood.
He'd wanted to.
But the system didn't grow from murder alone. It grew from impact. From doubt. From despair.
Henrick would speak of this. Would warn the others. And Kael would become something more than forgotten.
He would become feared.
Kael slipped into the back chapel, away from the light of the main corridors. His body still trembled—not from weakness, but from the flood of power that surged through him with every breath.
He collapsed onto a bench beneath a broken statue of the Lightmother. Her marble face was cracked, one hand missing.
He chuckled.
How fitting.
System Alert: Emotional Resonance Detected
New Trait Unlocked: [Witchmarked]
Trait Effect: Your presence subtly disrupts divine alignments within 10 meters.
Priests, paladins, and relics are 20% less effective when near you.
Kael exhaled slowly.
He was evolving. Just as the others had—mages, scholars, battlepriests. But unlike them, his growth came not from study or mentorship. It came from conflict.
He now understood.
His system thrived not on balance or order. It rewarded imbalance. Instability. When faith cracked, Kael grew.
Let them come.
By morning, whispers ran rampant through the monastery. Henrick hadn't left his chambers. The scorched rug had been hastily replaced. But the scent of burnt silk lingered. Everyone felt it.
Kael watched them from the shadows—how their eyes darted toward the stairwell that led to the crypts. How they avoided his gaze when they passed him in the corridor.
Kael kept to the shadows. Word had spread quickly—Brother Henrick had collapsed in the library, muttering about demons and flames that fed on prayer. A dozen monks had gathered to examine the scorch marks in the catacombs.
Let them wonder.
He was no longer invisible.
He felt nothing.
No fear.
No remorse.
Only clarity.
He returned to the sealed altar chamber after dusk. The system greeted him with a pulsing light.
That night, he returned to the sealed altar chamber. The system shimmered before him again, translucent text floating in the air.
[VILLAIN'S MANA SYSTEM ]
Core: Corrupt Mana Core – Tier 0
Resonance: 1/5
Active Skill: [Voidflame]
Passive Trait: [Witchmarked]
Growth Condition: Sow fear, defile sacred grounds, break oaths, destroy relics, undermine faith.
Next Unlock: Tier 0.5 – New Active Skill
Progress: 1/5
He needed more.
Kael left the monastery under the cover of darkness.
The surrounding woods were gnarled and damp. Mist coiled between tree trunks like silver snakes. Somewhere, wolves howled.
He walked for an hour until he found what he was looking for:
A humble roadside shrine stood half a mile north, nestled in a glade by a stream. The Shrine of Saint Elaron is a patron of travelers and healers. It was old, untouched by vandalism, always maintained by passing pilgrims.
Kael had passed it a dozen times on trips into the village. When he was younger, he'd once left a copper coin, hoping for protection during a storm.
It hadn't worked.
Tonight, there would be no offerings.
Only fire.
He stepped into the clearing.
Even before he lit the flame, he could feel the resistance in the air. Holy places had a tension to them, an invisible pressure that tried to correct the world back to balance.
Good.
He knelt—not in prayer, but in study. His fingers traced the shape of the saint's sigil: a winged hand, palm open in mercy.
He spat on it.
Then he raised his hand.
Cast [Voidflame]?
"Yes."
The fire roared to life.
[Voidflame] erupted from his palm and struck the stone altar with a hiss. The marble blackened. The vines withered. The statue of the saint cracked at the knee, then again at the brow.
Black and red and wrong.
The flame fed on everything sacred.
The light in the clearing vanished, swallowed by oily smoke.
Kael knelt at the edge of the destruction, watching the flame consume the hand-carved prayers etched into the altar. He did not speak. There were no chants. No declarations.
Just silence.
And power.
The Lightmother's face melted first.
Then, her outstretched hand.
By the time the fire died, nothing holy remained.
Just ruin.
[Shrine of Saint Elaron] desecrated.
+2 Corruption Resonance
Progress: 3/5
You feel something awakening…
Kael collapsed to one knee.
New Trait Unlocked: [Desecrator]
Trait Effect: Sacred locations lose passive sanctity in your presence. Area-wide debuff to divine spell effectiveness.
Passive Perk: [Silent Flame] — Your fire no longer emits sound when cast. Only its effects are noticed.
Power surged through him. His Core flared. He saw images—not memories, but impressions.
Chains snapping.
Wings blackening.
Laughter. Cold and infinite.
And a whisper.
"More."
Kael exhaled as the notifications faded.
His skin tingled. The Core inside him pulsed stronger now, less like a flicker and more like a furnace being stoked.
Kael returned to the monastery before dawn.
He would need more than roadside shrines.
He would need temples.
Priests.
Believers.
He would burn their hope. And from the ashes, carve his name into their history.
Kael Blackwell will not be forgotten.
He looked up at the crumbling tower and the cracked bells that had never rung for him. He raised his hand—and the flame danced at his fingertips again.
They would see him now.
Whether they wanted to or not.