The world shattered into violet light.
Aiden hit the Rift floor hard enough that the air left his lungs in a single violent gasp. His palms scraped against crystalline dust—fine, metallic, humming with undercurrent energy. The ground here was always strange, always shifting, as if built from broken reflections of reality rather than true stone.
He pushed himself upright.
Shadows peeled off his back like wet paint, rising in a slow, instinctive halo before collapsing into a mantle of whispering smoke. The purple nodes beneath his skin glowed in a rhythmic pulse.
[Minor Rift Entered.]
[Stability Rating: 3%.]
[Warning: Host Distortion Imminent.]
Aiden grimaced. "Great start."
The air vibrated around him, tinted violet-blue. Rift particles drifted like ash suspended mid-breath. The cavern walls were jagged, shaped by the geometry of a world that didn't obey physics. Sharp edges bent into curves; straight lines folded backward. The space was a nightmare sculpted into a room.
He remembered this Rift.
A Rank-F dungeon. Weak mobs. Rudimentary cores.
A place where new hunters cut their teeth.
But for him, this wasn't training.
This was stabilization.
Survival.
And the fastest way to force the parasite to sync with this timeline.
He stepped forward.
Shadows trailed behind him like obedient dogs—until they weren't.
A sudden spike of heat lanced through his spine. Aiden staggered, gripping the wall.
[Corruption Surge Detected.]
[Source: Emotional Residue.]
[Memory Fragment Triggered.]
"No—no—NOT HERE—"
He slammed his eyes shut as the memory ambushed him:
Lyra's blood soaking through his fingers.
Moonfall ash drifting like dirty snow.
Her voice breaking.
Her heartbeat fading.
The parasite whispering: _Let it go. She slows you down._
Aiden ripped himself free of the vision with a raw snarl.
The shadows on his back writhed violently, tendrils thrashing against the cavern floor. A violet crack split the space behind him.
It took a full ten seconds for him to steady.
He hated that this was happening so early. In the previous timeline, the First Corruption event had occurred weeks after his regression—after he'd cleared multiple dungeons and eased into the mutation curve.
But now?
Now everything was shifting faster.
More unstable.
More dangerous.
"Focus," he muttered. "Just finish the dungeon."
The first creature emerged from the fog with a wet, scraping hiss.
A Shadow-gnawer—low tier, barely sentient, shaped like a starved wolf made from ink and bone shards. Its eyes glowed hollow white, flickering like dying lamps.
It lunged.
Aiden didn't move out of instinct; the parasite did.
His shadow mantle surged upward, forming jagged spikes that intercepted the gnawer mid-air. The creature shrieked, body melting around the shadows as if devoured by acid.
Aiden grit his teeth as the parasite pushed further.
[Basic Consumption: ACTIVE.]
[Memory Cost: Pending.]
[Processing…]
"Stop—stop—STOP!"
He seized control just before the parasite could consume the gnawer entirely. The shadows hesitated, twitching in irritation.
Aiden shoved back mentally. "No eating without my permission."
The parasite curled coldly around his mind.
**Objection. Consumption increases power. Host requires strength.**
"Not at the cost of—"
His voice cracked.
Not at the cost of _her_ memories.
Not again.
A wave of pressure hit his skull, as if the parasite were sighing inside his mind.
[Basic Consumption: CANCELLED.]
[Penalty: Host Fatigue Increased.]
Aiden pushed a hand through his hair. Already exhausted, and this was only the first monster.
Perfect.
The gnawer faded into black dust, leaving behind a Rift Fragment—small, glowing, warm. Aiden pocketed it. He'd need several to purchase stabilizers from the Shadow Market.
He stepped deeper into the Rift.
As he walked, the cavern pulsed with eerie rhythms—walls breathing subtly in and out, crystals cracking quietly, whisper-like drafts circling around him. Aiden's shadows reacted to every sound, raising, lowering, flaring, curling like they had a mind of their own.
Which they did.
He reached the first chamber, a circular clearing surrounded by jagged obelisks of light. The Rift core was deeper inside, but this room always held two or three mobs.
A growl emerged from behind a pillar.
Two gnawers.
One crawler.
Weak enemies.
But Aiden wasn't fighting the mobs.
He was fighting the parasite.
"Keep calm," he whispered. "Don't let it trigger the Corruption Meter."
The creatures lunged all at once.
The parasite reacted faster than he could think.
Shadows exploded from his back—full wing-like arcs, elegant and monstrous. Aiden's arm moved involuntarily as tendrils wrapped around it, forming a blade-like extension.
He slashed.
A ripple of void-energy cut across the room, slicing through the first gnawer cleanly.
Too cleanly.
Too efficiently.
[Shadow-Fang Prototype Detected.]
[Mutation Pathway: UNLOCKING.]
[Warning: Memory Slot Remains SEALED.]
Aiden panicked.
"NO. Don't mutate yet—!"
The parasite ignored him.
His vision flickered.
His pulse spiked.
A fragment of memory slipped like sand through fingers—
His mother's voice.
Faded.
Then gone.
Aiden choked.
"No—no—damn it—STOP!"
He slammed his fist against the obelisk. His own shadow crackled in pain.
The parasite pulsed.
**Loss minimal. Evolution beneficial.**
Aiden fell to his knees.
"Don't tell me what's minimal," he whispered.
His hands trembled.
But the monsters were still coming.
The crawler leaped—
And Aiden, shaking with fury, didn't let the parasite act first this time.
He moved.
His foot pivoted, body twisting in a low arc. He grabbed a loose shard from the ground and drove it into the crawler's head with a controlled, human precision.
The creature dissolved.
Silence followed.
Heavy.
Thick.
Unforgiving.
Aiden exhaled shakily.
He'd already lost a memory.
Aiden stayed kneeling for several breaths before he forced himself upright. The cavern's violet haze moved like water around him, and his shadows twitched, sensing his imbalance.
He hated this feeling.
This helplessness.
This sense of losing pieces of himself one by one.
He clenched his fists.
"I can control this," he whispered, even if the words felt like lies. "I've done it before. I'll do it again."
The parasite responded in a pulse through his spine.
**Control is inefficient. Evolution is required.**
"Not at the cost of my mind."
Another pulse—slower this time, almost mocking.
**Your mind is fragile. Replaceable.**
Aiden rubbed a hand over his face, forcing his breathing to steady.
He couldn't let the parasite dictate the pace. Not this early. Not when the corruption curve was already rising faster than he remembered. If this continued, he'd reach Ego-Erosion much earlier in this timeline.
He scanned the chamber.
Two more Mob chambers remained before the core.
Three memory risks.
Three chances to lose pieces he couldn't recover.
His gaze hardened.
"I'm finishing this."
The shadows behind him fluttered like wings on the edge of unfolding.
The next stretch of hallway narrowed into a jagged corridor where violet crystals jutted like ribs. Light refracted in strange angles. Footsteps echoed wrong, repeating with delays as if some parts of the Rift lagged behind reality.
Aiden walked slowly, shadows whispering along the walls.
He didn't trust this corridor.
Neither did the parasite.
It curled tighter around his nerves, sharpening the edges of his perception.
A whisper brushed across his ear—
Not the parasite.
Not memory.
Something else.
A faint skittering sound echoed from the ceiling. Aiden looked up.
A Rift-Stalker clung sideways along the crooked plane—long limbs bent like needles, its whole body dripping ink. Six empty eye sockets swiveled toward him.
"Perfect," Aiden muttered.
The stalker moved with stuttering, glitch-like motions. It didn't drop from the ceiling—it **jerked** downward like a corrupted video frame.
Aiden dodged left. The creature hit the floor hard, sending cracks through the crystal lattice.
It hissed, a metallic, scraping rasp.
Shadows surged off Aiden's back.
**Consume?**
The parasite asked eagerly, tendrils already sharpening.
"No."
**Evolve—?**
"No. Let me fight."
The parasite shivered with annoyance.
The stalker lunged.
Aiden pivoted sharply, grabbing a crystal shard and slashing across the creature's jaw. Black ichor sprayed, sizzling on the ground.
The parasite reacted anyway.
A ripple of void energy burst from Aiden's spine, slamming the stalker into the wall. The creature convulsed as shadows wrapped around its limbs.
Aiden snarled. "I said LET ME—!"
Too late.
The parasite pulsed in triumph.
[Basic Consumption: ACTIVE.]
[Memory Cost: Processing…]
[Memory Target Selected.]
Panic shredded through him.
"No—stop—stop—DON'T CHOOSE—!"
A wave of dizziness punched him in the skull. Images warped. Color bled from the edges of his vision.
Aiden staggered.
He tried to hold onto everything—
Faces.
Voices.
Moments.
But the parasite was choosing.
He felt it pluck a thread in his mind and snap it.
Aiden gasped.
He didn't know what he'd lost—
only that something was gone, replaced by an ache where memory used to be.
His knees buckled. He caught himself on a crystal shard.
The stalker dissolved into dust.
The shadows retreated, pleased.
Aiden wiped the sweat from his brow, but his hand trembled.
He hated this system.
He hated how efficient it was.
He hated that it judged memories with some alien calculus he couldn't decode.
He whispered into the cavern air:
"Please… not the important ones."
For a moment, the parasite gave no answer.
Then—
**Important is irrelevant. Power is required.**
Aiden slammed a fist into the wall.
He reached the final chamber—a vast, circular expanse with a floating Rift Core pulsing above a cracked platform. Energy spiraled upward, making the air ripple like heat waves.
Shadow-nests clung to the walls—dark cocoons that twitched softly, as if dreaming.
Aiden felt his pulse quicken.
The Rift Core wasn't strong enough to kill him.
But the parasite…
it might not wait for permission this time.
He stepped forward, eyes fixed on the core.
The moment he approached, three shadow constructs erupted from the cocoon nests—bipedal, twisted things built from ribbed smoke and bone fragments. Their heads tilted unnaturally, listening to the parasite's pulse.
Aiden's shadows flared behind him.
**Eliminate. Consume. Evolve.**
"NO."
His voice echoed, cracking.
This was it.
Aiden forced his stance steady.
Forced his breath to calm.
Forced the parasite to hold its claws back.
The constructs attacked simultaneously.
The first swung an elongated arm like a scythe. Aiden ducked and drove his knee upward, shattering its torso of bone-smoke. It burst apart.
The second grabbed his shoulder, shadows digging into his skin. Aiden twisted and slammed it into the ground, pushing human strength against mutant anatomy. It liquefied.
The third leaped from behind—
—and the parasite lunged, breaking his control.
Shadows erupted, forming a jagged, wing-like spike that impaled the construct mid-air.
Aiden felt the parasite surge.
[Basic Consumption: ACTIVE.]
[Mutation Pathway: Opening.]
[Memory Slot: STRAINED.]
"No—no—no—!"
A storm of cold pressure pressed against his mind. He clawed at the floor, willing the parasite to stop—
But something snapped.
Aiden inhaled sharply.
A memory was gone again.
He didn't know which one.
He only knew he was emptier than before.
The shadow spike retracted, dissolving into smoke.
And the Rift Core pulsed slowly… waiting.
Aiden staggered toward it.
He grabbed the core with both hands.
Energy surged into him—a shock of heat and pressure.
[Minor Rift Cleared.]
[Reward: Rift Energy +2.]
[Reward: Stability +1%.]
[Shadow-Parasite Core: PARTIALLY STABILIZED.]
Aiden collapsed to one knee, chest heaving.
Stabilized.
Barely.
But the cost—
the memories lost—
He gritted his teeth.
This timeline was already spiraling into danger.
And he had **only just begun**.
Aiden stayed crouched on the Rift floor until the last tremors faded from his fingertips. His breath came in uneven bursts. Heat radiated from the parasite's node clusters along his spine, each pulse throbbing with an alien rhythm he could already feel syncing with his heartbeat.
He hated it.
He hated how natural it felt.
He pushed himself upright and staggered toward the exit fissure forming at the far edge of the chamber. Rift clearings always opened a path home, but this one flickered—unstable, like it hadn't expected him to survive this early. The violet light broke into fractured shapes before stitching together again.
Aiden ignored the dizziness clawing at his skull.
He refused to think about what memories were gone.
He refused to let panic take root.
But he _felt_ the empty spaces.
Like gaps between thoughts.
Like words he couldn't remember knowing.
Like rooms missing furniture.
He pushed the sensation aside and stepped into the light.
He emerged in District 3 behind a collapsed barricade. The wail of sirens still droned overhead, distorted by the lingering Rift energy. Civilians were already returning, murmuring to one another in confused tones. Guild officers scanned the area with handheld detectors.
Aiden ducked behind a tram pillar before anyone could see the faint glow radiating from his shadow-cloak. He tugged his hood low, controlling his breathing.
The parasite quieted, but not entirely. It purred under his skin like a satisfied beast.
**More.**
The thought slithered along his nerves.
**Evolve. Feed. Grow.**
"Shut up," Aiden whispered.
The shadows tightened around him in response, clinging like a second skin.
A Guild medic hurried past, nearly bumping into him. Aiden stepped aside just in time, but the movement jostled something loose—an ache behind his eyes, a hollow tug at his consciousness.
He froze.
A memory fragment struggled to surface.
A woman's voice.
Soft. Familiar.
Saying his name.
He grasped for it—
but the parasite yanked it away like a spoiled child refusing to share.
Aiden went cold.
That was the second memory the parasite had devoured today.
And there would be more.
He retreated into an alley where the neon didn't reach and sank onto a rusted metal crate, palms pressed against his eyes. The shadows curled around him like smoke rising from a burned-out candle.
He whispered, "If this keeps up… I won't make it to Moonfall."
The parasite pulsed, dismissive.
**Power is the objective. Survival of identity is optional.**
"I won't lose myself."
**Inevitable.**
Aiden's jaw clenched.
He could feel the parasite's logic, colder than ice, smoother than glass, grinding against his resolve.
In the previous timeline, he had resisted for years before reaching this level of dysfunction. But this time the parasite was awakening faster. It remembered the apocalypse too. It remembered Moonfall. It remembered the hunger.
It remembered winning.
But Aiden wasn't the same desperate, broken survivor he had been back then. He had returned early enough to prepare. To strategize. To cheat fate.
He just needed time.
And stabilizers.
Lots of stabilizers.
He pulled the Rift Fragments from his pocket—three small shards glowing faint violet. Not nearly enough, but a start.
He closed his fist around them.
"Shadow Market," he whispered. "Tonight."
He would buy the illegal serum.
He would stabilize his Core.
He would stop the early corruption curve before it consumed everything.
And then—
Then he would find Lyra.
But only when it was safe.
Only when he wouldn't hurt her.
Only when the parasite couldn't use her heartbeat against him.
Movement at the alley's edge snapped Aiden's head up.
A figure stepped out of the rain haze—lean build, dark coat, boots that made no sound on wet pavement.
Kael Draven.
Aiden's blood froze.
He'd hoped… prayed… that Kael wouldn't appear until after the Guild Rising Tournament started. But that hope was gone the moment Kael tilted his head with that same cold amusement he'd always worn—whether in their past alliance, their bitter rivalry, or their final duel.
Kael's voice was a low murmur.
"You return early this time."
The shadows behind Aiden reared like a frightened animal.
Kael's eyes gleamed with recognition—and hunger.
"So the parasite remembers," Kael whispered. "Just like mine."
Aiden swallowed hard.
Kael stepped closer, boots splashing quietly. His aura flickered—cold blue, jagged, unstable. Not like Aiden's shadow-parasite. Different. Mutated through an entirely separate corruption pathway.
Kael leaned in, smile razor-thin.
"Tell me, Aiden… how many memories did it take this time?"
Aiden's fists clenched.
Kael's grin widened.
"Don't look so tense. I'm only here to confirm something."
He paused.
His eyes sharpened.
"Lyra is alive again, isn't she?"
Aiden went still.
Kael laughed softly. "I knew it. The timeline cracked the moment you opened your eyes."
The parasite hissed through Aiden's skull, reacting to Kael with a venom he had never felt before.
**Threat. Eliminate. Devour.**
Aiden forced himself to breathe past the urge.
Kael drifted backward into the shadows, expression unreadable.
"Enjoy this peace while it lasts," he said quietly. "Because this time, Aiden… I won't be the one who dies first."
Before Aiden could move, Kael melted into the dark.
Gone.
Aiden stood frozen, heart pounding, shadows trembling violently around him.
The timeline was accelerating.
Kael was awakening early.
Lyra had already sensed him.
The parasite was mutating faster than ever.
Everything was spiraling.
And Aiden hadn't even survived Day Zero yet.