AH!!
What the heck?!
A sudden, excruciating headache had gripped him with an alarming intensity. After enduring countless debilitating ailments in the real world, he was now battling a relentless, year-long Glioblastoma. The pain was not merely present; it was an overwhelming, searing torment that threatened to consume his very being, pushing him to the brink of his endurance.
Oh... shit...
This is so painful...
Damn it...
He eventually collapsed without warning, falling unconscious onto the hard, polished marble floor. Simultaneously, a series of unexpected and unsettling changes were beginning to unfold within his own body, a silent, internal revolution he was powerless to stop.
Is this...
Really my end?
He desperately tried to cling to life, his eyes fluttering, barely half-open, but his profoundly weakened and fragile state made it utterly impossible to sustain his consciousness for much longer. He needed something, anything, and he needed it with an urgent, desperate immediacy.
As he laboriously crawled out of his room and into the dimly lit hallway, his gaze landed upon a strange, almost ethereal bottle filled with a luminous, pulsating blue liquid. He began to drag himself towards it with every ounce of his remaining strength, a frantic, desperate race against time to reach it before he inevitably succumbed to unconsciousness and, ultimately, death.
But fate, it seemed, was determined to be relentlessly cruel. Every fleeting minute, a sharp, agonizing sting of pain shot through his head, each throb a brutal reminder of his failing condition.
ACK!!!
Everything was unfolding unpredictably, spiraling out of his control.
In his weakened state, he accidentally fumbled the precious bottle, sending it crashing violently to the ground. The luminous blue liquid splattered everywhere, spreading across the cold floor like spilled hope.
I... need...
With one final, heart-wrenching act of sheer hopelessness, he painstakingly scooped up tiny, glistening bits of the precious liquid into his trembling hands and, without hesitation, drank it. Immediately, the world spun, and he was violently knocked out, his vision blurring and darkening as his entire world slowly, inexorably faded into an encroaching, profound darkness.
***
His eyes snapped open with a jolt, and he abruptly awoke, a powerful surge of adrenaline coursing through his veins, revitalizing him. "I... I'm alive! How is this even possible!" His face registered a complex mixture of utter disbelief and profound, overwhelming elation. The sheer, undeniable fact that he was actually alive was both an enthralling mystery and an utterly surprising revelation.
"But... my body feels profoundly unfamiliar..." He murmured, his voice a bewildered whisper, as he took a quick, disbelieving inventory of his hands, his entire body, and his chest. This was undeniably not his original body; it was another person's, one that was unmistakably athletic and impressively fit.
"This..." He paused, his thoughts momentarily suspended, as a black, glowing, and undeniably omniscient screen suddenly materialized directly before his eyes, illuminating the space around him with an otherworldly light.
{Welcome.}
{I am the absolute being that will help guide you on your destined way.}
{If you place your trust in me fully and unequivocally, I will provide invaluable guidance to empower you, allowing you to overpower your adversaries or, crucially, prevent your premature demise.}
He stood there, a profound sense of distrust swirling within him regarding the system's true intentions. He questioned deeply whether it would genuinely provide something useful and beneficial, or if its ultimate purpose was merely to cast him into an endless, suffocating void of eternity. "I will accept your guidance." he finally declared, his voice firm despite his reservations.
{Very well–}
"But!" He interjected sharply, pointing his index finger accusingly at the shimmering system. "You have to be ceaselessly active, always ready to provide information, no matter the cost, whatever it takes for me to simply survive in this perilous place."
{...}
{Very well, I shall take it upon you to fulfill that commitment.}
{Accepted Host.}
{Name: Decimus Cassius}
{The Tenth son of the Cassius Family.}
{The one that was abandoned and forgotten by all.}
The system provided a concise yet impactful description of the body he now inhabited. The name, "Decimus Cassius," struck him as incredibly familiar. Was he, by some impossible twist of fate, now trapped in Roman times?
{If you are pondering whether this is indeed the Hellenistic Period along with the significant rise of the Romans, it might outwardly appear that way, but this is, in its essence, mostly not the true reality.}
"What exactly do you mean by that!" he curiously inquired, a fresh wave of confusion washing over him.
{You are currently living within a distinctly different world, entirely separate and unconnected from everything you knew on Earth.}
{There are absolutely no connections whatsoever between this particular world and your original real world, so if you're also inquiring about how to return, it is technically an impossible endeavor. The primary reason why this world bears such striking similarities is because of its own unique inventions and its complex political structures that happen to closely resemble the historical development of kingdoms back during your time.}
With this crucial and rather unsettling information now firmly embedded in his mind, he summarily dismissed the system with a simple touch of his palm and, with a resolute sigh, walked off into the unknown.
Unfortunately, he soon found himself utterly disoriented, in the middle of nowhere, likely a vast and unfamiliar forest of some sort. So he found himself compelled to question the system once again. "Gosh... this is already proving to be quite boring. What year is it anyway in this... new, profoundly unexpected world I'm currently inhabiting!"
{It is currently the year 620. For further clarification, the Hellenistic Period, as you know it, occurred approximately 200 Before the Classical Era (BCE).}
"The year 620... time certainly moves quickly in this world, but their overall progress seems incredibly slow..." Decimus was already beginning to grow accustomed to the peculiar rhythms of this world, bit by bit, as he endlessly navigated the seemingly boundless forest. Just as he felt an overwhelming sense of being stuck in an inescapable dead end, his eyes finally caught sight of something disturbing.
Slavery, a common and brutal practice in days long gone, was undoubtedly a stark reality present here. From his concealed vantage point within a nearby bush, he watched in horrified silence as young girls, their clothes tragically torn and tattered, were mercilessly beaten with thick, hard ropes, leaving them both deeply traumatized and utterly horrified by the ordeal.
They were utterly incapable of screaming for help because they were, in fact, tightly bound to a sturdy tree, rendered completely vulnerable to whatever horrific fate might befall them. "Let's give them a taste of what's coming!" one of the gruff men snarled with a sickening grin.
The situation was rapidly descending into something deeply lewd and utterly depraved as the so-called "Romans" began their repulsive act of stripping. Unable to bear witnessing such a vile and abhorrent act any longer, Decimus, fueled by a surge of righteous indignation, stealthily threw a small stone at one of the men, immediately drawing their bewildered attention. "Who the hell did that!" one of them screamed, his furious gaze sweeping towards the general direction of the bush where Decimus was carefully concealed.
"I already know you're there. And let me tell you, you cannot escape us!" The man unsheathed his gleaming longsword with a flourish and swiftly cut through the dense bush. To his utter surprise, he felt no resistance, no sensation of a hard cut. Then, shockingly, Decimus materialized to his right and delivered a forceful, well-aimed kick to his calf, sending him sprawling painfully to the ground. "Ack!" he yelped, a cry that instantly drew the attention of the other "soldiers."
"It's an intruder!"
"Catch him!"
They displayed a surprisingly precise teamwork, and he almost sustained a dangerous cut from one of them due to their sheer coordination and determined willpower. Although they were undeniably aggressive and brutal, they largely lacked the true strategic thinking and refined combat experience that comes from genuine, hardened warfare. "I'll show you something entirely different..." He immediately seized the longsword from the man he had just knocked down and, with swift, calculated movements, proceeded to cut the legs of most of the soldiers. His aim was clear: to inflict debilitating pain and effectively incapacitate them, rendering them immobile. This was his cunning plan to outsmart them without resorting to a brute force confrontation or the typical clash of weapons.
{You have successfully defeated [12] people.}
{You have accumulated [12/100] Mastery Points.}
"Mastery points! Well, I genuinely hope that I'm embarking on a gradual, slow burn towards becoming genuinely unstoppable in this unfamiliar world. It certainly does seem like I might actually become a hero, which, to be brutally honest, is pretty boring, to say the least. So, I think I'll bind myself with something. Is there such a thing as a 'binding' available!" he inquired of the system, a flicker of curiosity in his eyes.
{Bind of the Faults; You are inextricably bound by the intrinsic faults and profound feelings of other people, as if your very essence is interconnected with theirs.}
{Warning!: This binding will generally alter your mind, slowly but undeniably, over time. It will either terrorize your very soul or inexorably strip away the last remnants of your own feelings, leaving you vulnerable.}
He chuckled nervously, the implications sounding genuinely ominous and potentially disastrous. "Ahaha... yeah, no thank you. Let's move on to the next option."
{Bind of the Lost: You are profoundly bound by those who are lost, as if you intimately feel their deep remorse and compelling temptation.}
{Warning!: This binding will generally strip you bare of your emotions and, in doing so, leave you utterly hollow and detached.}
He let out a weary sigh. It seemed that every single one of these bindings would almost literally strip his entire being of its emotions, his past, and its very essence of life. Despite the grim prospects, he decided to give the bindings one last, hopeful try. "Those are just as bad as I initially thought... well, I still hold onto hope for the very last one, just a tiny bit of hope..."
{Bind of the Institution: You are profoundly bound with the specific institutions of the people you carefully select. This binding generally makes you stronger, but at an incredibly slow pace.}
{Warning!: However, it also carries the significant risk that if their chosen institutions possess inherent negative aspects, they can slowly but surely corrupt your thoughts and convictions.}
This one, too, sounded initially bad! But upon a more careful and reflective examination, it wasn't seemingly as terrible as the others. This particular binding simply meant he could meticulously select only the people he fully trusted and with whom he chose to be fair and equitable. "It seems this one is quite the intriguing binding, after all. Very well then, I definitively choose the Bind of the Institution."
{Very well.}
{...}
He felt phantom chains wrapping tightly around his very heart, a deep, unshakeable sensation that underscored the permanence of this decision upon his entire life's trajectory.
{Bind of the Institution accepted. It will be permanent and irreversible.}
He was satisfied with his choice, yet he knew with an undeniable certainty that taking reckless risks from this point onward would only lead him down the absolute darkest and most perilous paths in his new life. As he stared intently at the terrified girls who remained tied to the ancient tree, he offered a reassuring smile, gripping his newly acquired longsword tightly as he began to frantically try and cut through the thick, unforgiving rope. "Don't worry, I'll eventually save you guys–"
He was suddenly, inexplicably knocked out cold.