The night swallowed me as I left the plaza. The roar of the crowd faded behind me until it was nothing but a dull echo in my memory.
My feet hit the pavement hard. Every step sent a faint jolt up my legs, but the pain felt distant. The city felt different now. The lights were too sharp, the shadows too deep, as if the world itself was holding its breath.
The Sin Mark pulsed in my palm.
Warmth rolled up my arm, spread across my chest, and settled behind my ribs like a second heart. I could feel it changing me, shifting something beneath the surface of my skin.
I stopped under a flickering streetlamp and opened my hand.
The mark glowed like molten steel. Lines of crimson traced a complex pattern across my palm. It looked less like a symbol and more like something alive that had chosen my flesh as its nest.
The system voice murmured quietly in my head, almost gentle.
[Sin Mark can be used one time per evolution stage][Choice is irreversible][Marked target will be bound to the user's soul]
The weight of it pressed against my thoughts.
One use. For now.
If I placed this mark on someone unworthy, the opportunity was gone. If I hesitated too long, the advantage this life offered might slip away.
Lucas.Evelyn.
Two names, two futures.
A cold wind cut across my face. Somewhere in the distance, sirens screamed, late to a disaster they could not understand.
My instincts tightened.
Someone was watching.
I closed my hand over the mark and lifted my head.
A figure stood in the mouth of an alley across the street. Tall. Completely still. Eyes catching the faint city light with a subtle, unnatural red gleam.
He stepped forward.
The man had pale skin and silver hair that fell neatly to his shoulders. His clothes were dark and tailored in a style that did not belong to this decade or this country. It was not just expensive. It was old, the kind of old that lives in portraits and old money.
His presence pressed against my senses like pressure at the bottom of the ocean. Heavy. Ancient.
He studied me with an amused curiosity, as if I were an interesting specimen in a cage.
"So it is true," he said softly. His voice carried an elegant accent that had seen too many countries and too many centuries. "The world has shifted. The underworld is already whispering your name."
The air between us seemed to tighten. My muscles tensed on instinct.
"Who are you?" I asked.
He smiled, slow and deliberate, like a man unwrapping a blade.
"My name is Victor Draven," he said. "Head of the Nightshade family. Overseer of the Eastern Vampire Court."
The title hit like a punch.
A vampire lord.
In my previous life, his rise began two years after the first supernatural awakening. He ate cities. Nations fell to him. People knelt because they feared him more than death itself.
And he was standing in front of me now.
Early. Too early.
"You came quickly," I said.
He nodded.
"Power calls to power," Victor answered. "Tonight the air trembled. When the sky darkened above that stage, every creature with sense felt it."
His gaze drifted to my hand.
To the faint glow seeping through my fingers.
"You awakened something forbidden," he said. "Something old. Even the gods would look twice."
He walked closer. Not rushing. Not cautious. A man who had never needed to run from anything.
"In my first life," I said quietly, "you did not appear until much later."
His eyes sharpened.
"So you remember a different world."
Silence settled between us. The city noise seemed very far away.
He studied my face. There was no pity there. No warmth. But there was respect.
"You interest me, Aiden Crow," he said. "Great power always comes with a price. So let me ask you something simple."
He leaned forward slightly.
"Who do you intend to Mark first?"
He already knew the answer sitting closest to the surface.
Lucas.
But another name burned deeper.
Evelyn.
Marking Lucas would twist his future empire into my chain. I could drain him slowly, break him piece by piece, turn my executioner into my fuel.
Marking Evelyn would change the shape of everything. Her bloodline, once awakened and corrupted, would not just give me power. It would move the board itself.
Both paths were thrones. Different heights. Different kinds of crowns.
Victor's voice cut clean through my thoughts.
"Choose carefully," he said. "The first Mark decides what kind of throne you climb."
He turned away from me as if he owned the street and the sky above it.
"We will meet again soon," he said. "And when we do, I will expect an answer."
His body dissolved into a swirl of dark mist that rose and vanished into the night.
The system pulsed hard.
[New quest: The First Mark][Available targets: Lucas Crow / Evelyn Black][Reward: Ability awakening and bloodline revelation][Penalty for refusal: System suppression for 72 hours]
The street fell quiet. The wind tasted of rain and iron.
My heart beat once.
Slow. Heavy.
For the first time since I came back, the future felt different. Not fixed. Not like a path I remembered walking. It felt fluid. Bending. Ready to break.
I tilted my head back and looked at the sky. The clouds were already sliding back into their usual shapes, pretending nothing had happened.
"Choose wisely," the system whispered.
I closed my hand over the Sin Mark.
"Do not worry," I murmured. "I always do. Eventually."
I turned away from the alley and walked into the dark city streets, already thinking of the one place in this timeline that still belonged to me.
I needed a roof, four walls, and time to decide which soul I would claim first.