The cave reeked of old blood and rotting leather.
Seth crouched behind a mossy boulder, eyes fixed on the stone altar ahead. The only light came from the artifact — a jagged shard of crimson crystal, floating a few inches above the pedestal, humming with ancient magic.
He licked his lips. This was the real thing.
A relic.
It pulsed like a heartbeat, casting eerie red light on the cavern walls. Vines clung to the stones, and bones lay half-buried in the dirt — human and beast alike. Nothing came this deep into the Black Hollow unless they had a death wish.
Or were desperate.
Seth was both.
He inched forward, careful not to step on the scattered bones. One wrong noise and a mana-warped predator might crawl out from the dark. He'd seen it happen. Scavengers screaming as their bodies were torn apart by hounds with too many eyes and melted faces.
The forest around this place had long since died. Even birds wouldn't fly overhead. The villagers whispered that this cave had been cursed by the gods, abandoned after a betrayal centuries ago. The truth didn't matter.
What mattered was the relic.
The church called them divine remnants — the crystallized blood of dead gods. Kingdoms hunted them. Nobles hoarded them. Mage towers locked them behind enchanted gates.
But here it was. Alone. Unbound.
Waiting.
Seth's hand trembled as he reached for it. He wasn't a knight. He wasn't a mage. He wasn't anything, really. Just another dirt-born orphan scraping by in a world that didn't care if he lived or died.
He was supposed to take this to the Church.
Turn it in. Earn a few copper coins and maybe a clean meal if the priest was feeling generous.
But Seth was sick of scraps.
He wanted power. The kind they locked away behind walls of gold and bloodlines. The kind only nobles or chosen Vessels ever touched.
He wanted to matter.
And something deep in his gut whispered that this relic wasn't meant to be turned in. It was meant to be his.
He hesitated for only a moment, then made his choice.
He had nothing waiting for him outside this cave. No family. No future. No second chance. If he turned it in, he'd still be nothing tomorrow. Still cleaning chamber pots, begging for leftover bread, watching the world pass him by.
But if he claimed it now — right now — and lived?
Everything would change.
The air thickened as his fingers closed around the shard. Heat rushed through his hand, then his arm, then his chest. His breath hitched.
He felt it.
Magic. Real magic. Like fire and thunder wrapped in silk and poured into his bones.
But there was no rite. No sealing spell. No divine chant from a bishop.
There was only what he had heard. Whispers. Rumors. Superstition.
That relics could be claimed another way.
That the old ones — the ones before the churches and towers — had taken the shards into their own flesh. That their bodies became vessels not through ceremony… but through instinct.
Through consumption.
He didn't know if it was true.
But he had no other way.
He brought the relic to his lips — and bit down.
It shattered like glass.
Pain exploded in his skull. His body jerked backward, convulsing on the stone floor. Every vein burned. His teeth cracked. His spine arched as if something inside him was trying to crawl out.
He screamed, and it echoed through the cave like a dying animal.
Visions flooded his mind — a knight in crimson plate armor, swinging a sword that screamed as it cut; a battlefield soaked in ash and fire; a voice chanting in a language that tasted like blood.
A name etched itself into his brain.
[RELIC ABSORBED: BLOODLIGHT SHARD]
[CORRUPTION RISK: HIGH]
[UNBOUND USER DETECTED. PROTOCOL OVERRIDE.]
[ADAPTIVE HOST PROCESSING… SUCCESS.]
Then silence.
Seth lay still, chest heaving, the taste of iron in his mouth. His body hurt — but it hadn't ruptured. He was still alive.
Alive.
The relic was gone. Nothing remained but shimmering dust on the altar.
But something had changed.
He sat up slowly, the pain fading into a strange warmth. His fingers twitched — faster than before. His vision was sharper. His heart beat slower, but stronger. His entire body felt… wrong, but also better.
He flexed his hand.
The bones shifted beneath the skin — subtly, unnaturally. Not broken. Not damaged.
Transformed.
A faint red glow pulsed just under his skin. His blood sang with power.
It worked.
He'd eaten the relic.
And he'd survived.
But then the whispers began.
Soft. Cold. Just on the edge of hearing.
"More…"
He spun around, heart racing — but there was no one there. Just darkness, and the sound of dripping water from deep inside the cave.
He pressed a hand to his chest. The relic wasn't gone. Not really.
It had merged with him.
And it was hungry