The scent of scorched earth still clung to his tattered uniform.
He didn't know how long he had walked since the slaughter at Hollow Edge. The horizon never changed. Blackened trees clawed at the sky like skeletal hands, and the wind carried a hollow sound, as if mourning the thousands who had died screaming. The quiet was heavier than silence—it was guilt, stretched thin over a world that had already begun to forget.
He clutched his shoulder where the burn hadn't fully sealed. The bandages he'd torn from a dead man's kit were stained through. His steps faltered more from the weight in his mind than the gash in his flesh.
"Why didn't you run?"
The voice again. Not real. Just memory. But it returned each time his body slowed.
A girl's voice. Young, but not innocent.
"Because," he muttered, "I didn't want to die meaningless."
A lie. He'd run too. Just in a different way.
A rustle.
His instincts sharpened instantly. He dropped low, hand grazing the hilt of the bone dagger strapped to his back. The cursed tool hummed faintly, resonating with nearby hostility.
Through the trees, a silhouette—small, ragged, alone. A child?
He stepped forward, caution overriding sympathy. But as he neared, the figure turned.
Not a child.
A scavenger. Eyes sunken, cheeks hollowed. Desperation in human form.
The man lunged with a jagged piece of metal.
Too slow.
The cursed dagger flared. With a flick of his wrist, the assailant's arm twisted unnaturally and snapped. No blood spilled—Reversal Bind froze the internal damage. Pain without death. A warning.
The scavenger dropped, clutching his limp limb, eyes wide in terror. "P-please, don't kill me! I thought—I thought you were—"
"A corpse?" the boy asked flatly.
The man nodded rapidly.
He didn't respond. Just stepped past him, leaving the groans behind. No need to kill. No time to help.
He reached a ridgeline by sunset. The plains below were dotted with black flags—Domain Suppression Zones. He recognized the pattern: old military placements used before the Collapse. That meant one thing.
An active Censor outpost.
They wouldn't let him in. Not without registration. Not without surrendering his curse.
But he wasn't planning to walk in.
His hand moved to the satchel strapped beneath his cloak. Inside, the last thing he'd stolen from the battlefield: a fragment of crystallized soul energy.
A Grave Core.
Even unbound, its presence pulsed faintly against his chest. A war crime to possess. A death sentence to misuse.
He sat under the ridge and stared down at the outpost as lights flickered on.
He wasn't ready.
But neither were they.
Flashback: One Month Ago
"Your innate technique is unstable," the examiner had said. "Too cerebral. Too reliant on observation. You'll never survive direct combat."
He had nodded. Calm. Cold.
They were wrong.
His cursed technique wasn't unstable. It was unfinished.
A system that grew with comprehension — built on memory, on meaning, on choices made under fire.
It was called Fracture Theory — a binding law that allowed him to replicate the conceptual weak points of anything he observed long enough.
But to use it properly, he had to sacrifice something each time. Memory. Pain. Time.
To understand meant to lose.
He was still learning what that meant.
Present
A shadow moved near the outpost fence. No guards—only constructs powered by passive curses.
He unsheathed the dagger.
Tonight wasn't about conquest.
It was about stealing back time.
He whispered the technique's trigger.
"Fracture: Pattern Echo."
The world slowed, lines of tension and vibration glowed faintly in his vision. Pathways of failure. Cracks in movement, sound, light.
He smiled for the first time in days.
It didn't reach his eyes.
End of Chapter 3