The howl wasn't distant anymore. It tore across the Crimson Wastes, vibrating in Kael's teeth. He didn't need the Aether Codex's HUD to tell him (Abyssal Hunt Initiated). The sound was raw, too close. He pumped his legs, boots kicking up blood-red dust. Sylvara was a dark blur beside him, her longsword a gleam at her hip. She ran with an eerie, effortless grace. Kael just focused on not falling.
He risked a glance back. The horizon shimmered, heat rising from the ground. No visible pursuers yet. Just the sound. Horns blared again, a coordinated, hunting call. The Blood Coven. They were relentless.
"They're closing," Kael gasped, his throat raw. "Too fast."
Sylvara didn't break stride. "Expected. The Mire expands. Traps us." Her voice was flat, no panic, just fact.
Kael gritted his teeth. The Bloodmire. That cursed terrain Varak had summoned. It was consuming the landscape, forcing them into specific choke points. Their escape route was shrinking.
They veered sharply around a skeletal rock formation. The ground here was uneven, littered with jagged shards of what looked like petrified bone. Kael's foot snagged on something. He stumbled, pitching forward. His hand instinctively shot out, not to break his fall, but to push off the ground. His palm slammed onto a patch of black, glassy rock embedded in the crimson earth.
It hummed.
Not a vibration, more like a resonant thrum. Cold, then searing hot. It was a shard, jagged and dark, pulsating with a faint, malevolent light.
The Codex's voice, sharp and cold in his skull, immediately hissed: (Forbidden. Do not touch. System integrity compromised.).
Kael flinched, pulling his hand back as if burned. But it was too late. The moment his skin made contact, a surge of raw, agonizing energy slammed into his mind.
He gasped, dropping to one knee. Sylvara stopped, her head cocked, eyes scanning the empty landscape. She sensed something.
Visions. Not memories from Marcus Chen's life (the hacker). Not the warrior's muscle memory. These were alien. Brutal. A kaleidoscope of horrific pain.
A man, face contorted, screaming. His skin rippled, turning to ash. He clutched at a shard, identical to the one Kael had touched. Bones shattered. His eyes were wide with terror, then went dark. And still, the scream echoed.
Another. Female. Surrounded by shadowy figures. She fought with desperate, bloody abandon, but her power (a bright, searing light) flickered. Her body bloated, grotesque. Her eyes glazed over, staring at nothing as a dark tendril pierced her chest.
A third. A child. No, a small adult. Cowering. Whispering. Repeating a phrase (I am no one's pawn) even as his flesh melted from his bones, forming a black, bubbling pool around the shard.
Kael choked on air. The agony was immediate. Not physical, but deep in his skull, like a thousand dying minds screaming at once. He saw their fear. Felt their despair. The terror of being broken.
(Anomalous contact. Memory Echoes amplified. Previous Breakers. Cycle confirmed.) The Codex's voice was strained, agitated. It was something Kael had not heard before. It sounded… worried.
He shook his head, trying to clear the visions. They clung to him, a cold, spectral rot seeping under his skin, crawling up his arm. It was like his body remembered the physical decay he had just witnessed. The claw-grazed arm twitched. A subtle, unpleasant sensation. His Curse Gauge didn't flash a percentage, but it felt… heavier. Thrumming with a new, unwelcome energy.
"Kael?" Sylvara's voice cut through the psychic static. She knelt beside him, her frost-like eyes studying his face. Her gaze lingered on his arm. "What did you touch?"
He couldn't answer. His mind was still reeling. The images, the screams, they were too vivid. He wasn't just seeing them, he was experiencing them. The sheer, crushing despair of men and women who had fought the Codex, who had tried to break the system, only to be shattered by it. (This is my cursed role), he thought. (This is the cyclical fate).
The Codex hissed again. (Forbidden knowledge is a costly burden, Anomaly. Its reach is… pervasive.). Its tone was a mix of cold bureaucracy and agitated warning. It wasn't just a system. It was an antagonist that wanted control.
He pushed himself up, wiping a bead of sweat from his brow. His hand still tingled from the shard. "Just… a rock," he managed, but his voice was raspy. He looked at the jagged shard, now dull. It looked inert. But it wasn't. It had burned itself into his mind.
Then, a new notification. Kael hadn't even realized it was happening, but his combat instincts, sharpened by the warrior's muscle memory, were already processing the data.
(New Ability Unlocked: Runeslash (Mortal Codex Skill)).
A flash of insight. The blade. The way the dying warrior (Marcus's body's original owner) had moved. The way the visions had ended for the previous Breakers – in grotesque, messy failure. This skill wasn't about power. It was about precision. About finding the weak points.
(Runeslash has adapted to your core directive: System Logic. It will manifest as a tactical exploit of enemy vulnerabilities.).
Kael felt a grim, almost sarcastic satisfaction. Even the powers granted to him twisted to fit his hacker's mindset. He was no one's pawn. He would break their damn system, no matter the cost.
A low growl ripped through the air. Not a horn. Something else. Kael snapped his head up.
A wave of movement. Dark, scuttling shapes emerging from the broken terrain ahead. Too many. They moved like insects, but bigger. Much bigger. Spindly limbs, chitinous bodies. Demons. A swarm.
"Demons," Kael said, his voice flat. He instinctively reached for his blade. It felt heavier, somehow. The spectral rot on his arm pulsed faintly.
Sylvara was already moving. Her longsword was out, shimmering. "Fast. Weak points." Her voice was tight. She was assessing, calculating. Kael knew she was skilled. She could fight. But a swarm?
The first demon reached them. It was low to the ground, all claw and teeth. Kael moved. No thought, just instinct. He brought his blade down. It clanged off its carapace. A glancing hit. The demon shrieked, its mandibles snapping.
(Runeslash not optimized. Target weak point.) The Codex intoned, cold and analytical.
Weak point. Kael's mind, still buzzing with the trauma of the visions, snapped into focus. Not a brute force attack. An exploit. He saw it. A faint shimmer on the demon's neck, where the chitin overlapped. A seam. A glitch.
He twisted, pulling back his blade. The demon lunged. Kael ducked under its lunge, his blade flicking out. A thin, precise line. He scraped the seam.
The demon shrieked again, a high-pitched whine. Its leg buckled. Black ichor oozed from the cut. It was a minor wound, but it destabilized the creature. He didn't need to kill it in one blow. He just needed to find the crack in its system.
Another demon charged, then another. They were swarming. Kael knew they couldn't fight all of them. This was a retreat.
"Run!" Kael yelled, slashing at another demon's leg, again targeting a vulnerable joint. The creature stumbled, allowing him to push past.
Sylvara was already falling back, striking with brutal efficiency. Her blade carved through the demons, severing limbs with clean, precise cuts. She didn't hesitate. She was a grim guide, navigating the chaos.
They ran, cutting their way through the fringes of the swarm. The air filled with the stench of ichor and the guttural screeches of the demons. Kael kept his head down, focusing on his footing, on Sylvara's movements, on the glint of weak points on the demons' bodies.
The Runeslash felt… invasive. Every strike, he felt a subtle drain, a subtle surge of heat through his arm. It was connected to the fragment he had touched. To the cursed visions. The power came with a cost, a lingering taste of decay.
They were moving deeper into a narrow, winding canyon, walls of bleeding rock closing in around them. Weeping Stones. The psychic energy here was thick, a constant hum against Kael's raw nerves. He saw faint, shifting shapes in the periphery of his vision. Memory Echoes. The environment was reacting to him, amplifying the trauma he had just inherited.
"They're faster here," Sylvara grunted, parrying a lunging demon. "Too many."
Kael pushed past a twisted, calcified tree that resembled a skeletal hand. The Blood Coven horns were louder now. Closer. They were being funneled. Trapped between the swarm and the relentless hunt.
The canyon walls narrowed further, forcing them single file. Kael glanced back. The demons were a black tide, spilling into the canyon behind them. There was no clear path to safety. Just more ground to cover, more enemies to evade.
The horns blared again, impossibly close now, echoing off the canyon walls. They weren't just pursuing. They were closing a net. And Kael felt the spectral rot on his arm spread, a cold, numb sensation, a constant reminder of the price of survival. It wasn't just a physical cost; it was changing him, one agonizing echo at a time. The battle was far from over.