Axel had lost track of how long it had been since the shadow attacked him. There was no sunrise to measure time, no moon to mark nights—just the same endless grey above and the silent breathing earth below.
He barely survived.
Most of his time had been spent scavenging the edible moss and fibrous stalks growing near the ravine. They tasted like rot, but they kept the hunger at bay, it was that or die because of the hunger he was feeling, there was no animal nor other type of plants—it's not like it mattered much, as he was used to synthetic nutrient paste or vitamin injections and similar, also he didn't know how to cook, so it's not like he missed good cooking.
"Seems that whatever I've eaten has helped raise the fusion percentage."
For now. His fusion had increased until it reached 0.082%.
> Warning: trace toxin accumulation.
> Note: biological assimilation may lead to structural deviation.
"Oh great, now I'm poisoned"
The message had startled him. Not the warning itself, but the implication: something in this world was changing him.
He sat, chewing a piece of root, watching the trees. They weren't just trees. They were in patterns. The way they grew, leaned, pulsed with light. He began to suspect this place wasn't a forest. It was a structure.
Not a world. A construct.
A dungeon, or ... maybe a prison?
That idea shouldn't have made sense. Yet it did.
The ground changed subtly again. The moss thickened. The thorns thinned out. And soon, he found it:
A second monolith.
Taller, darker, and humming with an aura that unsettled him. As he approached, light surged from its base—not blinding, but deliberate. Symbols carved across its surface reconfigured themselves until they projected a panel of translucent light in front of him.
Not in his head.
Outside.
Visible.
He stepped back. For the first time, Axel saw what the others might see. What this world's natives might be using: a system interface projected externally. A language coded into the world, not overlaid by an AI.
He didn't know if they activated it by contact, by will, or something else.
But it was there.
He circled the structure slowly, half-expecting the light to vanish. It didn't. The interface remained, hovering slightly above the surface like a reflection with its own agenda. He moved closer again, and the symbols pulsed in response.
< Status: Unbound.
< Synchronization: unstable.
< Clearance: insufficient.
The message faded.
Axel stared, mind racing. The systems overlapped. NEX was mimicking something preexisting.
More questions came to him. Did the natives see this when they were born? Did they train with these structures? Did they choose their own paths, their jobs, their oaths, right here?
The silence offered no answers.
He ran a hand through his hair unsettled. If this was normal for them… then his entire interface, everything NEX showed him, was a reconstruction. An outsider's copy of something native. He wasn't just different.
He was incompatible.
Or maybe it was needed some process to adquire that system.
A process that at the moment would be unimaginable for him to go through, first of all he was alone, there was no contact yet, and if there was any requirement to have it, he should look for information when he left that lifeless place, otherwise, they would realize that he is different, that he did not belong there.
If it were so, that he should have it, he would simply try to obtain it by his own means or simply help himself in the interpretation of NEX, in the end, it was an AI too powerful to be understood by him, perhaps even something that goes beyond the standards of this new world.
Further behind the monolith, tangled in thick vines, he found the weapon.
A sword, rusted at the edge, worn by age, but intact.
The only distinguishing feature was that it was completely black with a purple line in the middle of the leaf.
He gripped it with both hands and lifted. It felt too heavy, or maybe it was simply that his physical condition did not allow him to wield more force. But he held on.
That's when it happened.
A pulse surged from the sword.
Something struck him in the chest. Not physically, but internally. Like a system hook lodging into his neural structure. He gasped, staggering back.
> Warning: unidentified fusion event.
> Classification: unknown.
> Threat level: pending.
Something had fused into him.
NEX didn't elaborate. But Axel felt it. A faint presence. Alien perhaps.
He didn't know if the sword had been corrupted or if it had recognized him. Only that the damage was already done.
That night, curled in a hollow near the stream, sword beside him, Axel checked his status.
> Display status?
"Yes."
The screen unfolded again. Cleaner this time. Less fragmented. And something had changed.
------
Name: Axel
Rank: F
Strength: F
Agility: F+
Mana: F-
Stamina: F-
Intelligence: E
Luck: F-
Skill: –
Physique: –
Oath: –
Grimoire: –
Job: –
Trait: Persistence
Tag: Deviant – Survivor (incomplete)
Fusion: 0.1003%
Status: Persisting Anomaly
Adaptation: Initiated
System Integrity: Degraded
-----
The fusion increased–which was likely because of the sword, but there were also other changes, the section 'potential trait' disapeared and now it was just trait, and also a new trait.
"Deviant..."
He didn't know if the system had labeled him that, or if NEX had.
Right now his assumption was that NEX was just copying what the system would say, but he couldn't be sure until he knew more about this world.
But the words carried weight.
He didn't speak. The silence didn't need him to.
The labels remained on the screen, static.
But the sword beside him pulsed once.
Axel closed the display and looked at the trees beyond the stream. The air had grown denser. The light in the bark dimmer. The silence had changed. No longer the emptiness of solitude, but the pressure of something withholding sound.
He sat there, listening.
Nothing moved.
Somewhere beyond the trees, something moved.
And this time, he knew it wasn't watching.
And it was waiting.