"In a world where death grants power, only the forgotten can rise."
A steady beep... beep... beep dragged Raven out of the dark.
His lungs burned before his mind caught up, and he gasped like a drowning man breaching the surface.
White ceiling.
Fluorescent light.
The smell of antiseptic and metal.
He was lying in a hospital bed.
For a few seconds, that made sense. He'd been injured before—healers, wards, recovery rooms. But the air here felt… wrong. It was too clean. Too still. No hum of mana stabilizers, no sound of nurses, no window to show daylight.
Just him. And that damn beep.
Raven's head pounded as memory hit him like a hammer.
The Gate.
The flickering mana.
The scream.
The blood.
"Sector Twelve…" he muttered hoarsely. "What the hell happened?"
No answer. Only the monitor, its rhythm steady like a metronome keeping time with his confusion.
He sat up slowly. Pain lanced down his ribs, dull but constant. Bandages covered his torso and arm, but underneath he could feel the faint vibration of mana threads — stabilizers used by Association medics. Which meant someone had healed him.
But that shouldn't be possible.
His entire team had died.
He remembered it — their faces, the sound of bones breaking, the leader's last shout before the Gate imploded.
And him?
He remembered dying too.
So why the hell was he breathing?
He reached for the IV needle in his arm — but froze.
The fluid wasn't clear.
It shimmered faintly, like diluted mana. A thin mist rose from where the liquid entered his vein, pulsing with every heartbeat.
Raven's chest tightened.
"Mana infusion therapy?" he whispered. "But… I'm E-rank. That treatment costs more than my life's worth."
Something moved in the corner of his vision — a reflection, faint and wrong.
He turned sharply toward the small glass cabinet beside his bed. For a split second, his reflection didn't move with him. It lagged, like a delayed frame in a broken video.
A cold shiver crawled down his spine.
Then the overhead light flickered.
Once.
Twice.
And everything went dark.
The monitor stopped beeping.
Silence swallowed the room.
"...Hello?" he called out, voice low. "Anyone there?"
No response. Only the quiet, heavy enough to feel like it was pressing on his skull.
Then—
> [Vitals Detected. Subject: Raven Ahn.]
[Death state: Null.]
[Soul fragments: 6 acquired.]
[Initializing System protocol...]
The words didn't come from a speaker.
They appeared in the air.
Glowing white text hung inches from his face, scrolling like lines on a transparent screen. Each word shimmered faintly, then burned away.
He blinked hard. "No. No, this—this can't be real."
> [Deathbound System—online.]
[Welcome back, Raven Ahn.]
[Your body was reconstructed using absorbed essence.]
"What the—what essence? Who's talking!?" He grabbed the edge of the bed, heartbeat racing. "Is this some kind of Association experiment?"
The screen pulsed once, responding almost like it could hear him.
> [Query: 'Experiment.' Response: Incorrect.]
[Cause of revival: death absorption event within Gate Sector Twelve.]
[System function: harvest, assimilate, survive.]
His breath came short and fast. The words made no sense—and yet they did.
He could still feel them. Deep in his chest, beneath the pounding of his heart, something else pulsed.
Six faint thuds, each echoing differently.
Six fragments. Six souls.
"Oh… shit…" he whispered, clutching his shirt as a wave of nausea hit him. "No, no, that's—"
> [Warning: host instability detected.]
[Adaptation required. Complete a harvest within 72 hours.]
[Failure to comply will result in dissolution.]
The text turned crimson, bleeding light into the darkness.
Raven's voice cracked. "Harvest? What the hell does that mean?"
> [Definition: Harvest — obtain a dying essence to stabilize host core.]
[Target: living organism. Human or monster acceptable.]
He stared at the glowing words until his stomach turned. "You're saying… I have to kill something?"
The screen didn't answer.
Instead, the light flickered—and the monitor suddenly beeped again, loud and erratic.
The room lights flared back to life.
He blinked hard as a door slid open across the room.
Two figures entered—an older nurse and a man in a dark suit. The nurse froze when she saw him upright. The man didn't.
"...Mr. Ahn," the suited man said, voice calm but wary. "You're awake."
Raven looked between them. "Where am I?"
"This is a private recovery ward," the man replied, flashing an Association badge. "You were brought in after the Sector Twelve incident. Officially… you didn't survive."
Raven's blood ran cold. "Didn't survive?"
The man's eyes narrowed slightly. "Your vitals stopped for over three minutes. Then—suddenly—you came back. No pulse, no healer, no medical explanation."
He stepped closer, scanning Raven's wrist where the IV shimmered faintly.
"We've been running tests. You're producing unstable mana. Far beyond what an E-rank should generate."
Raven's mouth went dry. "What are you saying?"
"I'm saying," the man said quietly, "that whatever brought you back—it's not something human medicine can explain."
He placed a tablet on the table beside the bed. On it, a report flashed with his name and the word "DECEASED."
Date: Two days ago.
Status: Unregistered corpse pending transfer.
Raven stared at it, the words blurring.
He'd died.
And yet—he was here.
The man turned toward the door. "The Association will want to see you. Rest while you can."
They left without another word.
The door sealed behind them.
Raven sat in silence, staring at his trembling hands.
Then, as the clock ticked softly in the corner, the System flared again—its words slicing through the air, red and cold.
> [Quest: Harvest one soul to survive 72 hours.]
[Time remaining: 71:59:59.]
His reflection in the cabinet glass smiled.
He didn't.