Name: [Unknown]
Title: [Child of Darkness]
Rank: [Seed]
Pathway: [Undefined ???]
Codex of Being: [----]
Attributes: [Blessed by Darkness] [....] [??] [???]
Artifacts: [Bracelet of the Dark Prince] [Locket of Soul Chamber]
Arman stared at it for a while. "It's like a game status, huh? Where in the actual fuck am I…"
He felt like he'd been dragged into some twisted experiment part nightmare, part mockery of a game.
"There's no point in searching for answers. Even if I try, I don't think I'll find anything," he muttered under his breath.
His eyes skimmed over the glowing text again.
"Okay, it doesn't know my name. Title kinda makes sense. Pathway—most things are undefined, great. And what the hell is 'Seed'? Blessed by Darkness… sounds pretty damn appealing."
He thought of clicking on it and then it just happened on its own.
[Blessed by Darkness : You are born from the void of darkness. You reign supreme beneath the shroud of night.
Parameters:
[Vision] – Darkness does not obstruct your sight. To you, the void glows faintly like moonlight in the abyss.
[Power Amplification] – Your strength increases by 1.5× during night.
[One with Darkness] – You can merge with darkness, becoming undetectable to most enemies but comes at cost of Ojas essence. In full daylight, this effect is greatly weakened.
]
"It does seem useful," Arman murmured. "If I move at night, it'll probably increase my chances against that monster… but still not enough. I need a proper weapon."
After reading about Blessed by Darkness, his gaze shifted toward the artifacts.
[Bracelet of the Dark Prince : Forged by the Wielder of Darkness, it was once a gift to the Prince of Dark when he fell into despair devoured by the ———- he sought to command. It grants power… but at a cost.
Rank: Divine
Parameters:
[Resistance] –the wearer possesses high resistance to soul and mind attacks.
[Absorption] – It can absorb any sort of incoming fetal attacks and convert that into Ojas.
]
'So what's the cost? It doesn't say anything about that… weird. And what the hell is Ojas supposed to mean? There's too much I don't know—and too little information to figure anything out. And this bracelet… it's useless against that monster. It attacks my body, not my mind.'
He sighed quietly.
His attention drifted to the next artifact. "Locket of Soul Chamber, huh? What a weird name…"
[Locket of Soul Chamber:Unknown.
Rank: Unknown
Parameters:
[Preservation] – You can preserve anything within the locket. It can also repair damage done to the soul. [???]
'So it's more of a utility item. Pretty neat, actually. I can store things in it… and it can repair the soul? If this skeleton was its owner, then he probably had something stored inside.'
He began searching the remains scattered around the chamber. Most were empty dust and brittle bones. Some still had fragments of gear, but they crumbled into ash the moment he touched them. After that he placed the skeleton as it was before he touched him for no reason of sort.
***
It had been almost a day since he'd woken up. The dull ache of hunger had begun gnawing at his stomach.
'I still have some time before night falls,' he thought. 'It'll be safer to move once darkness comes.'
He spent the hours wandering through the vast hall observing, studying, and thinking. The more he saw, the stranger it became.
By the looks of it, it seemed like someone, or rather some cult-like group, had been trying to perform some kind of ritual. The location itself was hidden, far from the eyes of the world. They were probably trying to conceal whatever they were doing here.
What was most confusing was that most of them seemed to be frozen in time like statues and him, how come he was here at all? It had probably been thousands of years since this place was abandoned. From the looks of it, the ritual must have failed; otherwise, it wouldn't make sense why he was here.
'On top of that, the items I got seem to be of very high rank. If that's true, then these people were probably quite powerful before they died here. There are many theories I can come up with about what might have happened, but there's no way to know what actually did.'
'The main thing I should focus on right now is finding a way out and maybe finding some humans, if they even exist here. From the looks of it…' he trailed off, lost in thought.
***
A young boy in a tattered robe, his skin pale like jade, stood staring into the vast darkness under the setting sun.
'Can I kill that thing?' he wondered. It's pretty hard to avoid. 'I'm stronger and almost undetectable at night, but that mostly won't help; its hearing and smell are insane. I avoided one in another direction yesterday; it was smaller and weaker compared to this, but even if I evade that path, there are dozens of beasts deeper in that direction. I'd rather take my chances with this one. One-on-one is better than facing a herd of such monsters.'
He thought for a long moment. The beast was undeniably powerful, but he believed he could kill it. The problem was how. A head-on attack would get him killed. He had no weapon, and though his strength felt damn good, he hadn't fought before he couldn't remember if he ever had.
He thought for a long while, then the plan came together in pieces: robes, bone, stone, wood. He scavenged skeletons for ribs and femurs, snapped off a thick sapling for a shaft, and ground a shard of stone into a crude point. He lashed the stone to the wood with strips torn from tattered robes of skeletons and wrapped bone splinters around the haft to make a crude binding. It wasn't pretty more a weapon born of desperation than craft but it would bite.
"Man, I went out of my way to pose them properly, and now I'm borrowing their bones," he muttered. He let out a short, dry laugh, the sound echoing faintly in the dark.
At night he tested it. He learned the rhythm: strike, then pull back. He used Blessed by Darkness to fold into the darkness and slip close, to touch the beast and vanish again before it could orient. The bracelet hummed sometimes when the creature struck, drinking away the worst of the force; other times he bled and learned from it.
For two days he ran the same pattern. Hunger was a constant gnaw; he ate raw roots and bitter grasses when he had no choice, washing them down with cold drops from stalactites. He slept in short bursts, alert to every breath in the dark. Each night he returned to the beast and landed another cut: a careful slice at a joint, a wound where muscle frayed. Each morning it moved slower.
"So Blessed by Darkness isn't as overpowered as I thought," he realized. "Every time I use it, it burns something inside me Ojas, maybe. I can't keep using it freely all the time. I'll have to let it replenish every day on its own before I fight it again."
By the third night, the creature was limping, patches of dark blood staining its hide. It was slower now, more wounded, but still dangerous. Arman knew this was his only chance.
He lured it toward a narrow gap between two jagged rocks where its massive body could barely fit. Then, as it lunged, he thrust the spear forward with all the strength he had left. The stone tip broke through flesh with a harsh sound, and the beast roared, thrashing violently.
The force threw him back, his shoulder nearly dislocated, but he didn't stop. He grabbed the spear again and drove it deeper, twisting until the resistance gave way.
The monster's roar turned into a strangled groan before it collapsed, shaking the ground beneath him. For a moment, there was only silence.
Then a voice spoke:
[You have killed a titan beast ..... ]
[You have gotten a ...…]
.......
He didn't pay much mind to it because he was very exhausted and hungry.
Arman stood there, breathing hard. His hands trembled, his body aching all over.
He looked down at the creature its eyes still faintly glowing and whispered, "Guess that's one less thing trying to eat me."
The smell of blood filled the air, thick and metallic. He hesitated, but survival left no room for pride or disgust.
Using the broken edge of his weapon, he cut a strip of flesh and cooked it over a small fire made from dry scraps of wood and bone. It barely tasted like meat more like ash and metal but it was food, and he needed it.
After eating, he used the Locket of Soul Chamber to store what was left of the beast's meat. To his surprise, it didn't rot or cool; it just… stayed. Preserved, as if time had frozen inside the locket.
When everything was done, he leaned against the cold stone wall and closed his eyes.
The exhaustion hit him like a wave. His thoughts blurred, and for the first time since waking in this strange place, he felt the dull, almost comforting weight of survival.