Neptune lay sprawled on the cold, stony floor. At first, he thought he had been thrown into some barren wasteland on Earth—Antarctica, maybe. But no. This place was… wrong.
It wasn't Earth. It wasn't anything he'd ever seen before. It was something much worse.
A sharp, metallic voice cut through the silence in his skull.
[You have gained a new Aether Ability.]
His eyes snapped open. The voice was gone as suddenly as it had come, leaving only the dull throb of his heartbeat in his ears.
He coughed, his throat raw."Where… the hell… am I?" His voice cracked on the last word.
Slowly, painfully, he pushed himself upright. The movement made his ribs ache. When his vision cleared, he froze.
A vast desert stretched endlessly in all directions, the horizon broken only by towering sandstone buttes. The ground was hard-packed earth—cracked, sun-bleached, and littered with brittle tufts of grass and low, skeletal shrubs. The sky overhead was a pale, washed-out blue, scattered with drifting white clouds.
The sun hung bright and heavy above him. Yet it wasn't hot. Nor was it cold. It was… both. Like standing between two seasons that refused to decide which one would kill you first.
His breath came slow, controlled, but his face was expressionless—masking the storm beneath. He didn't know where he was.
How could he?
The Aether was a mystery. Humanity only knew fragments: The Drowned Islands, a place of eternal rain and grass that never dried and the Peak of Memories, where wind carried memories from a past you could never escape.
He was in neither of those places. Which meant… no one had ever been here before. Or if they had, they'd never returned.
A dry laugh escaped his lips. "Perfect…" Then it hit him.
The battle. The Gate Keeper. The Gate Corruption. His men screaming as the world folded in on itself. He had watched them die.
Something inside him broke.
It started as a tremor in his hands. Then his shoulders. Then the sound—A ragged, shrill scream tore from his throat, echoing across the barren plains.
It didn't stop. Even when his lungs burned. Even when his voice began to shred into something animal.
When he finally ran out of breath, his body collapsed onto the ground. He dug his fingers into the cracked earth, clawing at it until the skin split and blood smeared the stone. The pain didn't register—not over the weight crushing his chest.
He pressed his forehead to the dirt.
He couldn't do this anymore. Not the endless battles. Not the responsibility. Not the bodies piling higher every year. The war had eaten pieces of him for so long, there was barely anything left to take.
And now…They'd taken the rest.
He was alone. In a world that wanted him dead. In a place no one could save him from.
The cold mechanical voice returned—calm, unfeeling.
[Aether System Calibration Complete.]
[Core-Bearer: Neptune]
[Survive to Progress.]
His breathing slowed, but not because he calmed. It was the kind of stillness that came after shattering.
And somewhere deep inside, a new thought took root—not a vow to survive, but a question:
Why... bother?
Neptune slowly rose to his feet. His body felt heavier than it should—like the air itself wanted to drag him back to the ground.
He stared at the pale, half-clouded sky for a long moment, letting the light sting his eyes. Then, with a breath that felt too loud in the empty wasteland, he summoned the interface of his Core.
[Name: Neptune]
[Species: Human]
[Core: Soul Harvester]
[Core Rank: Mythical]
[Core Tier: 5]
[Core Abilities: Essence Drain, Soul Harvest, Collective Soul]
[Souls Collected: 423 / 1500]
[Aether Ability: SoulBound]
His brow furrowed. An Aether Ability? That was new. Does everyone gain that?
Tilting his head slightly, he focused, and the description unfolded before him.
[Aether Ability: SoulBound]
[Aether Ability Rank: Blessed]
[Aether Ability Description: You are the Bastard Son of [???]. Your soul is bound to the Goddess Lirael Taramasalata—The Drowned Grace—and your sister Naida Sorell—The Tearborne.]
His hand twitched without his permission. He wasn't sure if it was from shock or something else entirely.
Blessed.
He had never seen that rank before—never even heard it spoken in whispers. What was it supposed to mean? Blessed by who? Blessed for what?
There were six gods in total. He knew each name by heart—not out of devotion, but because the soldiers who raised him were religious to the bone. They had drilled their creation myths into his mind like orders on a battlefield.
Six gods and each of them had one domain. Two were known and four hidden from the mortal eyes.
And now… he was tied to one of them.
A rat like him.
A humorless breath left his nose. Of all the people in the realms, the Goddess Lirael Taramasalata—the Drowned Grace—had supposedly bound herself to him.
Her domain is the Water, Serenity, the Soul, Secrets of the Deep, Healing and Guilt. He remembered the stories. She was the one who shaped the Drowned Islands, where the rain never stopped.
And Naida Sorell—the Tearborne—his supposed sister. One of the Six Immortals. Each god had chosen one mortal to embody their will. Lirael had chosen Naida. A woman who, according to legend, had drowned herself in grief, only to be remade by the goddess into something immortal.
Only two Immortals were widely known: Naida… and Elrik Ashvell, the Emberscribe, chosen by Nimvora—the Flame of Memory.
And now this ability claimed he was Naida's brother.
"Funny joke," he rasped, his voice dry with sarcasm.
But then there was the other part. Bastard son of [???].
The blank name clawed at his mind. His expression darkened.
It was true—he'd never known his father. Or his mother. That had never mattered. The battlefield raised him. But seeing it written there, etched into the Aether's system like some undeniable truth, made something twist in his gut.
No. Nonsense. All of it. Lies written in glowing letters.
He clutched his head, fingers digging into his scalp. "Bullshit!" His voice echoed into the empty plain.
But the question gnawed at him, whether he wanted it to or not.
If it was true…
What would that make him?
The wind shifted and he froze.
There was no breeze here. No rustle of grass. No shift in the thin clouds above. The air had been still since the moment he arrived. Yet now it carried… something.
A low vibration, almost too deep to hear, thrummed through the ground. The hairs on his arms rose.
From beyond the sandstone pillars, a shadow moved. Long, jointed legs scraped against stone. Something inhuman stepped into view—a creature like a spider made of glass and black ichor, its body refracting light in jagged, unnatural angles.
The Aether wasn't going to let him wallow in questions.
It wanted him to fight.
And for the first time since the Gate collapsed, Neptune felt his mind go… quiet.
No past. No questions.
Just the sound of his own heartbeat, and the approaching click of too many legs.
It had already picked up his scent.There was no escaping now.
Neptune moved toward the giant spider with measured steps, his face calm, almost unreadable. The thing's limbs scraped and clicked against the sandstone, its every movement sending small tremors through the dry earth.
Judging from its Core Energy, it was probably Tier 5—maybe barely clinging to Tier 4.For most core-bearers, that meant a death sentence.
But Neptune wasn't most core-bearers.
With a flick of his wrist, he summoned Dark Moon. The old katana shimmered faintly in the Aether light—its steel covered in a patchwork of scratches, the edge worn thin with age. It was on the verge of breaking.
Neptune didn't care.If it shattered, he'd kill this Corrupted with his bare hands.
The spider halted about fifteen meters away, lowering its segmented body. It didn't move. It just stared—its dozen eyes burning with a reflection of pure, spiraling madness.
Then, without warning, its mandibles clicked open wide, and a stream of oily black liquid sprayed toward him.
"A poison attack? Nasty," he muttered.
Neptune's body moved before the thought finished.He rolled left, the black sludge hissing as it struck the ground where he'd stood a moment ago. The sandstone sizzled and cracked, releasing a bitter smoke. That wasn't just poison—it was corrosive.
The spider lunged, its long forelegs stabbing like spears. Neptune slid under the first, parried the second with a clang of steel, and kicked himself back into range.
[Essence Drain – Activated]
The air seemed to thicken. The faint shimmer of stolen life force began to bleed from the spider's limbs into him—small at first, like droplets feeding a dying ember.
It screeched, pulling away, sensing the theft. Neptune didn't give it the chance to retreat. He closed the distance in three strides, Dark Moon slashing in a wide arc.
The blade bit deep into one of its legs. Black ichor sprayed in a fan, spattering across his cheek. The spider recoiled with a piercing shriek, stumbling, its weight shifting awkwardly.
But that was when Neptune felt it—a strange, deep pull in his chest.
[SoulBound – Passive Trigger]
The ground beneath the spider rippled like disturbed water. A faint, spectral chain of liquid light shot upward, wrapping around the wound he'd just made. The spider shrieked louder, but the chain wasn't binding it—it was draining it's Soul
Neptune froze for a fraction of a second. This… wasn't his doing. His Core didn't work like this.
But his hesitation cost him.
The spider's remaining foreleg slammed into his side, sending him tumbling across the sandstone. His ribs flared in pain, air ripping from his lungs. The katana skidded across the ground, coming to rest near a jagged rock.
The spider advanced again, ichor dripping from its wounded leg, its steps uneven but relentless.
Neptune forced himself up, coughing. His vision swam, but his mind was oddly steady.The chains of light still clung to the spider, pulsing faintly, as if waiting for his next command.
A low, cold thought whispered through him—not his own voice:
"Claim it."
Suddenly, the chains of light flared, burning brighter until it was like staring into a second sun. Neptune instinctively raised a hand to shield his eyes.
[Successfully Harvested the Soul.]
[+3 Souls absorbed]
What… just happened?
When the light faded, he lowered his hand. The giant spider lay sprawled on the ground, motionless—yet he could feel it wasn't truly dead.
It was alive. Or rather… its body was.Its soul—and its Core—were gone.
The luminous chains had vanished as if they'd never existed. Neptune walked over to where Dark Moon had fallen, scooped it up, and inspected the blade. No new chips, no fracture. Good. Even in its worn state, it had survived.
His Core's resilience was working as intended; most humans would have had their ribs shattered from that earlier hit.
He turned back to the spider. It twitched faintly, aimless, like a puppet with its strings cut. Its empty eyes stared at nothing.
A grimace tugged at his face. The SoulBound description had never mentioned this.
The realization clicked into place—he could take the soul of a Corrupted without killing its body. That was absurdly powerful. His mouth curved into a thin, sharp smile. This… would change everything.
Could he do this to any being? Even a Tier 3… or higher? If so, he wouldn't just be powerful—he might be one of the strongest humans alive.
His musing was cut short as the ground beneath him began to tremble. A dry, skittering chorus rose in the air—dozens of legs clicking in the distance.
Neptune's head snapped up. Far across the sandstone plain, dark shapes emerged from the haze. One. Two. Four. Seven… no, more. The chittering grew louder.
He exhaled slowly, shoulders settling. His grip tightened around Dark Moon.
"Well," he muttered, stepping forward into the shifting light,
"time to test my new ability."