The world did not end with a bang. It ended with a Whisper.
When the Whisper came, the stars went out. In their place, the "Veil" appeared—a purple, swirling mist that hung in the sky like a bruise. If you touched the mist, you changed. If you breathed it, you died. Only the "Marked" could survive, but their lives were a living nightmare.
Aris was a scavenger. He was nineteen, skin and bone, and lived in the rusted ribs of an old shipyard. He had no "Aspect," no "Rank," and no hope. He was a "Zero"—someone the Veil had ignored.
"Move faster, rat," a voice growled.
Aris flinched. Behind him stood Caine, a man twice his size with a glowing red Mark on his neck. Caine was a "Brute," a low-level Awakened who could make his skin as hard as stone.
"I'm moving," Aris muttered, dragging a heavy crate of "Soul-Scrap" across the sand.
"The Tide is coming," Caine said, looking at the purple sky. "If we aren't inside the Vault by sundown, the Crawlers will eat your soft skin first. I might even watch."
Aris didn't answer. He looked at his own shadow. It was thin and weak. He hated it. He hated this world where the strong ate the weak and the weak had to say "thank you" for the crumbs.
Suddenly, the ground trembled.
A sound like tearing silk filled the air. Aris looked up, and his heart stopped. The Veil was ripping open. A creature stepped out. It was ten feet tall, made of white bone and black smoke. It had no eyes, only three mouths, each one singing a different, terrifying song.
[Warning: Nightmare Creature Detected]
[Rank: Fallen]
[Class: Centurion]
The blue floating words appeared in the air. This was the "System"—the cruel voice that governed the world.
Caine, the tough warrior, turned pale. "A... a Fallen? Here? In the shallows?"
The creature moved. It didn't run; it simply blurred. In a second, it was in front of Caine. The man yelled, his skin turning to grey stone, but the creature's hand went through his chest like it was wet paper.
Caine fell, his life sparking out in an instant.
Aris was alone. He was a Zero. He had no weapon. He had no armor. The bone-creature turned its three singing mouths toward him.
"Little soul," the mouths sang in unison. "So empty. So quiet. Let us fill you with screams."
Aris felt a cold rage boil in his blood. He was tired of being the rat. He was tired of being the prey. As the creature reached for him, Aris didn't run. He lunged forward, grabbing a jagged piece of "God-Glass" from the crate he had been dragging.
"If I'm going to die," Aris hissed, "I'm going to choke you on my way down!"
He stabbed the glass into the creature's smoke-filled throat.
The world went white. A cold, robotic voice echoed in his brain—a voice much older and darker than the one that had warned him before.
[Condition Met: Defying the Impossible.]
[Soul Core: Awakening...]
[Inheritance Found: The Carrion King.]
[Your Flaw has been assigned: "The Price of Truth".]
[Effect: You can never tell a lie. If you speak a falsehood, your heart will stop for five seconds.]
Aris fell to his knees as a black mark burned itself into his palm. He had survived. He had Awakened. But as he looked at the dead monster and the "Flaw" dancing in his vision, he realized his nightmare was just beginning.
What happens next?
Aris gasped, clutching his chest. His heart felt like it had been dunked in liquid nitrogen. The blue text of the System didn't fade; it pulsed in time with his throbbing palm.
[Inheritance: The Carrion King]
[Rank: Divine (Locked)]
[Soul Core: Dormant]
The creature of bone and smoke—the Fallen Centurion—lay still. Its white ribs were cracking, turning into fine dust that swirled toward Aris.
"What... what is this?" Aris whispered.
The dust didn't hit him; it absorbed into his skin. A strange warmth spread through his veins, dulling the pain of his bruises.
[Soul Shards acquired: 10/10]
[First Kill Bonus: You have slain a creature three Ranks above your own.]
[Reward: Memory "The Bone-Stitcher's Needle" received.]
Aris looked at his hand. A faint, ghostly image of a long, black needle flickered in his palm. It looked wicked and sharp, made of the same white bone as the monster. With a thought, the needle became solid. It was cold to the touch.
"Hey!" a weak voice croaked.
Aris spun around. Caine was still alive, but barely. The hole in his chest was jagged, and the "stone" effect on his skin was chipping away. He looked at Aris, his eyes wide with shock and greed.
"You... you killed it?" Caine coughed, blood bubbling at his lips. "How? You're a rat. You're nothing. Give me... give me that Memory. If I have it, I can heal."
Aris looked at the needle, then at the man who had treated him like trash for three years. He remembered every kick, every stolen meal, every time Caine had used him as a human shield.
"I can't give it to you," Aris said.
Suddenly, his chest seized. His heart stopped. He collapsed, clutching his throat, his vision turning black. Five... four... three... two... one...
His heart slammed back into rhythm with a painful jolt. He rolled onto his back, gasping for air.
The Flaw, he realized, horror dawning on him. The Price of Truth.
He hadn't meant to lie—he just didn't want to give up his only weapon. But the System didn't care about intent. It only cared about the words. Because he could technically give the needle away, saying he "couldn't" was a lie.
Caine reached out a trembling hand. "Give... it... to me..."
Aris stood up slowly. He looked Caine in the eye. "I could give it to you," Aris said, his voice flat. "But I won't. I want you to die."
This time, his heart kept beating. The brutal honesty felt like a weight lifting off his chest, even as it made him feel like a monster.
"You... brat..." Caine's eyes rolled back. With a final, wet rattle, the Brute went still.
[Notice: Human Soul detected. Absorbing...]
[Warning: The Carrion King does not feast on the weak. Soul rejected.]
Aris shivered. The "Carrion King" inheritance seemed to have a personality of its own, and it was a cold, arrogant one.
He looked toward the horizon. The purple Veil was thickening. The "Tide" wasn't coming—it was already here. From the shadows of the shipyard, more clicking sounds echoed. The Crawlers were waking up, and they could smell the fresh blood on the sand.
Aris gripped the Bone-Stitcher's Needle. He was no longer a scavenger. He was a prey animal that had suddenly grown teeth.
"I need to find shelter," he muttered. "And I need to figure out what this needle actually does."
He turned away from Caine's body and ran into the deepening purple mist. He had survived the first ten minutes of his new life. Now, he just had to survive the night.
The shipyard was no longer a graveyard of rusted metal; it was a hunting ground.
The Crawlers arrived with the mist. They were the size of wolves, but their bodies were segmented like centipedes, covered in a slick, oily carapace that reflected the purple glow of the Veil. They didn't have feet—they had serrated hooks that scraped against the metal floorboards.
Scritch. Scritch. Scritch.
Aris pressed his back against the freezing hull of a capsized freighter. His breath came in shallow hitches. He held the Bone-Stitcher's Needle so tight his knuckles turned white.
[Item: The Bone-Stitcher's Needle]
[Rank: Awakened]
[Type: Stiletto / Tool]
[Ability: "Mend or Rend". The needle can stitch wounds shut using soul-essence, or it can "sew" an enemy's shadow to the ground for three seconds.]
Three seconds, Aris thought, his mind racing. In a fight, three seconds is an eternity.
A Crawler rounded the corner. Its mandibles dripped with a caustic green fluid that sizzled when it hit the sand. It hissed, its many eyes locking onto Aris.
It didn't hesitate. The creature lunged, a blur of black segments and hooked legs.
"Not today," Aris hissed.
Instead of dodging back, he dove forward—under the creature's reaching claws. It was a move born of desperation, not courage. As the Crawler's heavy body passed over him, Aris slammed the needle downward. He didn't aim for the creature's shell; he aimed for the dark, flickering patch on the sand.
He stabbed the Shadow.
A spark of black sparks flew.
[Ability Activated: Shadow Stitch]
[Essence Cost: 5%]
The Crawler let out a shrill, metallic scream. It was frozen mid-air, its body jerked backward as if anchored by an invisible chain. Its legs thrashed wildly, but it couldn't move an inch away from the spot where Aris had pinned its shadow.
Aris didn't waste the moment. He scrambled up, his heart hammering against his ribs. He knew the needle's "Mend" ability could work in reverse. He gripped the hilt and drove the point into the soft underbelly of the beast.
"Rend!" he shouted.
The needle didn't just pierce; it unraveled. The magical threads that held the creature's physical form together began to pull apart. The oily carapace cracked, and the black smoke inside leaked out like a popped balloon.
With one final, gurgling screech, the Crawler collapsed into a pile of lifeless, empty shell.
[Soul Shard acquired: 1/50 (Dormant)]
Aris panted, his lungs burning. He felt a tiny trickle of energy return to him—the "Soul Essence" he had spent was being replenished by the kill. It was a vicious, beautiful cycle.
"One down," he whispered. "Only a thousand more to go."
But the sound of the struggle had been too loud. From the darkness of the freighter's cargo hold, dozens of glowing red eyes blinked into existence. The swarm had found him.
Aris looked at the needle. He looked at the endless sea of monsters. He realized that staying here was suicide. He needed a place where their numbers wouldn't matter.
"The Spire," he muttered, looking toward the distant, jagged silhouette of a tower that pierced the purple Veil. It was the "Dead Zone"—a place so dangerous even the Awakened avoided it.
But Aris wasn't a normal Awakened. He was the Carrion King, and kings didn't hide in the dirt.
As he began to run, a voice echoed in his head—not the System's cold mechanical tone, but a deep, raspy whisper that felt like dry leaves brushing against his brain.
"Run, little carrion," the voice laughed. "Run until your legs break. Only then will you be ready to reign."
Progress Report:
* Current Essence: 90%
* Combat Style: Shadow-pinning and Precision Strikes.
* New Objective: Reach the Iron Spire.
Should Aris encounter a mysterious merchant hiding in the ruins who offers him a "Cursed Map," or should he be forced to team up with a girl who is also "Marked" but seems to be hunting the same monsters he is?
The Crawlers were no longer just clicking in the dark; they were a tidal wave of oily legs and hungry mouths.
Aris didn't look back. He sprinted toward the Iron Spire, his boots crunching over the skeletal remains of old world machines. Every breath felt like inhaling ground glass as the purple mist of the Veil thickened.
Behind him, a Crawler leaped. Its serrated hook grazed his shoulder, tearing through his thin tunic and drawing a thin line of blood.
[Warning: Vitality decreasing.]
[Minor Poisoning detected: Necrotic Rot.]
"Shut up!" Aris snarled at the blue text flickering in his eyes. He didn't have time for the System's commentary.
He reached a narrow alleyway between two collapsed warehouses. It was too tight for the Crawlers to swarm him all at once. He skidded to a halt, spinning around and holding the Bone-Stitcher's Needle out like a duelist.
"Come on then!" he roared.
The first Crawler squeezed into the alley. Aris waited until it lunged, then stepped lightly to the side—a movement that felt strangely fluid, as if his body was becoming lighter. He drove the needle into the beast's shadow, pinning it to the cobblestones.
[Shadow Stitch Activated.]
As the monster thrashed, anchored to the ground, Aris used its back as a stepping stone. He jumped high, his eyes catching a glimpse of a figure perched on a rusted fire escape above.
It was a girl. She looked around his age, wearing a cloak made of shimmering grey scales. In her hand was a heavy, blackened crossbow.
"Move, idiot!" she yelled.
Aris didn't ask questions. He threw himself flat against the brick wall.
Thrum!
A bolt made of pure white light whistled over his head. It struck the pinned Crawler and exploded in a shower of holy sparks. The creature didn't just die; it evaporated. The light was so bright it burned the retinas of the other monsters, sending them scuttling back into the darkness, hissing in pain.
The girl dropped down from the fire escape with the grace of a cat. She didn't look like a scavenger; her gear was too clean, her eyes too sharp.
"You're a Zero," she said, her voice suspicious. She pointed the crossbow at his chest. "How did a Zero survive a Fallen Centurion? I saw the smoke from three blocks away."
Aris opened his mouth to make an excuse—to say he just got lucky. But his chest tightened. His heart skipped a beat, a warning from his Flaw. He couldn't lie.
"I killed it," Aris said, his voice straining. "I Awakened. I have a Divine Inheritance."
The girl's eyes widened. She lowered the crossbow, but she didn't look friendly. She looked terrified.
"Divine?" she whispered. "Do you have any idea what they do to people like you? If the Great Clans find out there's a new Divine Spark in the Shallows, they won't recruit you. They'll harvest you."
Before Aris could ask what "harvesting" meant, the ground groaned. The Iron Spire in the distance began to glow with a sickly, rhythmic pulse.
"The Spire is waking up," the girl said, grabbing his arm. her grip was like iron. "If we stay in the streets, the Shadows will peel the skin off our bones. Follow me. I have a sanctuary, but you're going to owe me every Soul Shard you earn tonight."
Aris looked at her hand, then at the glowing tower. "Who are you?"
"My name is Lyra," she said, pulling him toward a hidden manhole cover. "And if you want to keep your 'Divine' heart beating, you'd better start running faster."
Progress Report:
* New Ally: Lyra (Class: Hunter? / Weapon: Light Crossbow).
* New Threat: The "Great Clans" and "Harvesting."
* Current Location: The Lower Streets, heading underground.
The manhole cover slammed shut above them, muffiling the screeching of the Crawlers into a dull, rhythmic thud.
It was pitch black, smelling of damp earth and ancient, rotting metal. Aris felt the cold tip of Lyra's crossbow press against the small of his back.
"Don't move," she whispered. "The dark down here isn't empty. It has ears."
She clicked a small dial on her wrist, and a faint, pale-blue light flickered to life. It didn't illuminate much—just the dripping pipes and the jagged scars on the sewer walls. Aris noticed that the "shadows" cast by the light didn't behave correctly; they seemed to lean toward him, swaying like tall grass in a breeze.
[Notice: Your Shadow is reacting to "The Deep Silence".]
[The Carrion King hungers for the dark...]
Aris ignored the prompt. He looked at Lyra. "You said they 'harvest' people with Divine Inheritances. What does that mean?"
Lyra started walking, her boots making no sound on the wet stone. "A Soul Core isn't just a battery, Aris. For the Great Clans, a Divine Core is a masterpiece. They can't steal your power, but they can kill you and turn your soul into a 'Cursed Echo'—a permanent slave-soldier that never tires and never disobeys. To them, you're more valuable as a weapon than a person."
Aris felt a chill that had nothing to do with the damp air. "I'm not becoming anyone's sword."
"Then learn to hide that light in your eyes," she snapped.
They reached a heavy iron door reinforced with glowing runes. Lyra tapped a sequence onto the metal, and the door hissed open, revealing a small, cramped room filled with humming machinery, crates of dried meat, and maps pinned to every inch of the wall.
In the center of the room sat an old man with no eyes. Where his sockets should have been, two polished white marbles rested.
"You brought a stray, Lyra," the old man said, his voice like grinding stones. "And a loud one at that. His soul is screaming."
"He's an Awakened, Silas," Lyra said, tossing her crossbow onto a workbench. "A fresh one. He killed a Centurion."
Silas turned his head toward Aris. Even without eyes, Aris felt like he was being dissected. "A Centurion? With a soul core that hasn't even solidified? You're either a genius or a curse, boy."
Aris stepped forward. "I need to know how to use this," he said, holding up the Bone-Stitcher's Needle. "And I need to get to the Spire."
Silas laughed, a dry, hacking sound. "The Spire? You want to jump into the mouth of the god that ate the world? That tower is the source of the Veil. No one goes there and stays human."
"I have to," Aris said. He didn't know why, but the Carrion King inheritance was pulling him toward it like a magnet.
"I can help you," Silas said, his smile fading. "But the 'Carrion' path requires a sacrifice. To unlock the first Gate of your power, you need the Heart of a Grave-Watcher. There's one nesting in the catacombs beneath the shipyard."
Lyra stepped between them. "Silas, that's suicide. A Grave-Watcher is a Rank 2 monster. He's just a kid with a needle!"
Aris looked at his hand. He remembered his Flaw. He couldn't lie, but he could be brave.
"I'll do it," Aris said.
His heart beat steadily. No lie detected.
Lyra sighed, rubbing her temples. "Fine. But if you die, I'm taking that needle off your corpse. That's the deal."
Progress Report:
* New Location: The Hidden Workshop (The Underbelly)
* New Objective: Hunt the Grave-Watcher.
* Current Item: Bone-Stitcher's Needle (Level 1).
Should Aris spend the night training with Lyra to learn how to fight properly, or should he head straight into the catacombs to face the Grave-Watcher while the "Tide" is still high?
"Rest is a luxury for those who aren't being hunted," Aris said, his voice echoing in the cramped workshop.
Lyra stared at him for a long moment, then reached into a crate and tossed him a small, leather-bound flask. "Drink that. It's distilled Essence. It'll stop the Necrotic Rot from your shoulder from reaching your heart, but it'll taste like battery acid."
Aris downed it. It burned, but the purple veins creeping up his neck faded. He felt a sharp jolt of energy—his Soul Core was buzzing.
"Let's go," he said.
The Catacombs: The Silence of the Grave
They descended through a rusted ventilation shaft that led deeper than the sewers. Here, the air was thick with the smell of old parchment and cold iron. This was the "Old World" library, now buried and infested.
[Notice: You have entered a 'Hazard Zone'.]
[Region: The Whispering Library.]
[Warning: Sound is a trigger. Stay quiet, or stay dead.]
The catacombs were a labyrinth of towering bookshelves that stretched into the darkness. But the books weren't made of paper anymore; they had been calcified by the Veil, turning into jagged pillars of white stone.
"The Grave-Watcher isn't like the Crawlers," Lyra whispered, her voice barely audible. She loaded a specialized bolt into her crossbow—one tipped with a jagged, obsidian crystal. "It doesn't have a body of its own. It's a parasite. It inhabits the armor of fallen warriors."
Suddenly, the floor beneath them vibrated.
From behind a massive pillar of stone books, a suit of ancient, blackened plate armor stood up. It was nearly eight feet tall. There was no one inside the metal; instead, a thick, pulsating mass of grey roots and eyes spilled out from the gaps in the visor and the joints of the armor.
[Target: Grave-Watcher (Elite)]
[Rank: Awakened - Class 2]
[Attribute: Iron Will / Soul Eater]
The creature swung a massive, rusted claymore. The blade was so heavy it whistled through the air. Aris dove to the left, the wind from the swing nearly knocking him over.
"Stitch its shadow!" Lyra yelled, unleashing a bolt.
Aris lunged, his Bone-Stitcher's Needle glowing with a faint, dark light. He aimed for the shadow cast by the heavy armor, but as he went to strike, the Grave-Watcher did something impossible.
It retracted its shadow.
The roots inside the armor shifted, and the shadow beneath it vanished into the cracks of the floor.
"It knows!" Aris shouted.
The giant armor turned with terrifying speed, its metal fist slamming into Aris's chest. He flew backward, crashing into a stone bookshelf. The impact cracked his ribs, and he felt a metallic taste in his mouth.
[Vitality: 45%]
[Internal Bleeding Detected.]
The Grave-Watcher stepped toward him, the heavy claymore raised for a finishing blow. Lyra was firing rapidly, her bolts sparking off the creature's heavy plate, but they weren't penetrating the "Iron Will" of the monster.
Aris struggled to breathe. He looked at the needle in his hand. If he couldn't stitch the shadow, he had to stitch the source.
"Mend or Rend," the System had said.
As the claymore descended, Aris didn't dodge. He thrust the needle upward, aiming for the pulsing mass of grey roots visible in the neck of the armor.
"Mend!" he screamed.
He didn't want to heal the monster. He used the "Mend" command to stitch the monster's roots to the inside of the armor.
[Ability Overload: Forced Binding!]
[Essence: 10%... 5%... 2%...]
The grey roots suddenly expanded, thick magical threads lashing out and sewing the organic parasite to the heavy metal plates. The creature froze. It tried to move its arm, but the roots were now stitched so tightly to the breastplate that it couldn't shift its joints.
The Grave-Watcher was a prisoner inside its own skin.
"Now, Lyra!" Aris coughed.
Lyra didn't miss. She leaped onto the creature's shoulders and jammed her obsidian bolt directly into the eye-slit of the helmet.
CRACK.
A shockwave of dark energy exploded. The armor collapsed into a heap of hollow metal, and the grey roots withered into ash.
A single, glowing red stone rolled out of the helmet. It beat like a heart.
[Objective Complete: Heart of the Grave-Watcher acquired.]
[Soul Core Saturated.]
[Evolution is now possible.]
Aris slumped against the wall, his chest heaving. He reached out and grabbed the pulsing red heart. As soon as his fingers touched it, a black flame erupted from his palm, consuming the heart instantly.
The voice of the Carrion King returned, louder this time.
"A small snack for a growing hunger. Open the gate, boy. Show them why the shadows are afraid of the dark."
Progress Report:
* Rank Up Available: Aris can now evolve his Soul Core.
* Condition: He is heavily injured and needs to survive the climb back up.
* The Flaw: He still cannot lie, and he just realized Lyra is looking at the "Divine" black flames with a look of pure terror.
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