APEX CONDUIT

The weight of null

The man in the suit didn't wait for an invitation.

He stepped past me into the apartment like he owned the place—which, I was beginning to suspect, he might. His eyes swept over the cramped living room, the peeling wallpaper, the stack of unpaid medical bills on the kitchen counter. He didn't look disgusted. He looked bored. Like he'd seen a thousand slums and they all blurred together.

"Nice place," he said flatly.

"What do you want?"

He turned to face me. "My name is Agent Cross. I represent the Apex Guild. We've been monitoring the Awakening Ceremony results."

I crossed my arms. "Why?"

"Because you're an anomaly, Mr. Vance. [Beast Conduit]. F-Rank. Null potential. Do you know how many of those we've seen before?"

I didn't answer.

"Zero. You're the first." He smiled again—that cold, empty smile. "The Apex Guild likes firsts. We'd like to offer you a position."

"A position?"

"A probationary contract. You'd work under our supervision. Your Talent would be studied. Evaluated. And in exchange..." He glanced toward the hallway where Mira was sleeping. "We'd provide medical care for your sister. The best care money can buy."

My heart stopped.

Mira.

They knew about Mira.

"For how long?" I asked, my voice tight.

"As long as we find your Talent useful."

"And if you don't?"

The smile didn't waver. "Then the contract ends."

I understood. They weren't offering me a job. They were offering me leverage. They'd use Mira to control me. If I became useful, she'd live. If I didn't, she'd die.

And they'd never have to say a single threat out loud.

"No," I said.

Agent Cross raised an eyebrow. "No?"

"I'm not interested."

"Mr. Vance, I don't think you understand the offer—"

"I understand perfectly." My voice was harder than I expected. "You want to own me. You want to use my sister as a leash. I've seen how the guilds treat people like me. We're tools. Disposable. I'd rather take my chances alone."

Cross studied me for a long moment. Then he shrugged.

"Disappointing. But not surprising." He reached into his pocket and pulled out a business card. "If you change your mind."

He set it on the counter and walked to the door.

"One more thing, Mr. Vance."

"What?"

"Your Talent is Null. That means the System can't measure you. Can't categorize you. Can't control you." He paused. "That makes you dangerous. And dangerous things get put down."

He left.

I stood there for a long time, staring at the door. Then I picked up the business card and threw it in the trash.

Three days later, the medicine ran out.

Mira was getting worse. The coughing fits were longer now. She couldn't keep food down. The light in her eyes was fading, and I could see her slipping away from me one breath at a time.

I needed money. I needed it now.

The Logistics Corps paid next to nothing. The underground fighting pits were an option—but I had no beasts, no combat skills, nothing. I was just a guy with an F-rank Talent and a dying sister.

Then I heard about the warehouse job.

"Clear the vermin," the contractor said. He was a fat man with yellow teeth and a nervous twitch. "Easy work. Just rats. Maybe some slimes if the Rift's been acting up."

"I'll take it."

"Pay's fifty credits."

"Fine."

He looked at me like I was crazy. Maybe I was.

The warehouse was on the edge of the Logistics District, right next to a low-level Rift. The kind of place nobody went unless they had a death wish.

I didn't have a death wish. I had a sister who needed medicine.

The job was simple: go in, kill the rats, come out. Fifty credits was enough for one more week of medicine. One more week of Mira breathing.

I grabbed a stun baton from the contractor's supply closet and headed inside.

The warehouse was dark. Abandoned. The air was thick with dust and the faint, sickly-sweet smell of Aetheric residue. My footsteps echoed on the concrete floor.

Rats scattered as I walked. Big ones. Mean ones. They hissed at me from the shadows but didn't attack. They knew I wasn't a threat.

Just rats. Just rats. Just—

A sound.

Wet. Slurping. Coming from the back of the warehouse.

I raised my stun baton and moved toward it.

What I found wasn't a rat.

It was a [Rift Slime]. G-Rank. The lowest tier of monster, barely a threat to anyone with even a basic combat Talent.

But I didn't have a combat Talent.

The slime was gelatinous, translucent, about the size of a large dog. It pulsed with a sickly green light. Inside its body, I could see the dissolved remains of several rats.

It turned toward me.

Oh no.

I swung the stun baton. It passed through the slime like it was hitting water. The electricity crackled uselessly, dissipating into the air.

The slime lunged.

I dove to the side, barely avoiding the acidic mass. It splattered against the wall where I'd been standing, dissolving the concrete.

I scrambled to my feet. My heart was pounding. My hands were shaking.

I'm going to die here. I'm going to die in a warehouse, and Mira is going to die alone, and no one will even remember our names.

The slime lunged again.

And then—a blur.

Something small and fast darted between me and the slime. A rat. Scrawny. One ear. It hissed at the slime, baring tiny teeth.

The slime paused. Confused.

The rat looked back at me. Its eyes were bright. Intelligent.

Run, I thought. Get out of here.

The rat didn't run.

The slime lunged. The rat dodged—faster than anything its size had any right to be—and sank its teeth into the slime's outer membrane.

The slime screamed. A horrible, wet sound.

And in that moment, something clicked.

I felt it. A connection. A thread of something invisible stretching between me and the rat.

[Beast Conduit: Latent Bond Detected. Initiate Bond? Y/N]

The System's voice was cold. Mechanical. But the words were the most beautiful thing I'd ever heard.

Yes.

I didn't even hesitate.

Pain.

White-hot, searing pain, like something was being ripped out of my chest and shoved back in. I screamed. The rat screamed. The slime screamed.

And then—sensation.

I could feel the rat's fear. Its hunger. Its stubborn, desperate will to live. It mirrored my own so perfectly that for a moment, I couldn't tell where the rat ended and I began.

The slime attacked again. The rat—Scritch, I knew its name now, somehow, I just knew—dodged. But it was tired. Slowing down. It couldn't keep this up forever.

I need to help it.

The thought came from nowhere. But the knowledge came with it—an instinct, a compulsion, a need.

I reached out.

Not with my hands. With something else. Something deeper. I felt the slime's core—its Essence—a tiny, pulsing knot of energy at its center. And I pulled.

[Essence Siphon (F-Rank): Acquired!]

The slime shrieked. Its body convulsed. I ripped a fragment of its Essence away and channeled it into Scritch.

The rat's body glowed.

[Conduit Beast: Scritch has evolved! Shadow Rat (E-Rank) - Acquired Skills: Shadow Step, Enhanced Bite]

Scritch moved like a blur. Faster than before. Deadlier. Its fur had darkened to a shadowy black. Its eyes gleamed with intelligence.

It darted forward, sank its teeth into the slime's core, and ripped.

The slime dissolved.

Silence.

I collapsed.

I don't know how long I lay there. Minutes. Hours. The concrete was cold against my back. My whole body ached. My chest felt like it had been cracked open and put back together wrong.

But I was alive.

Something small and warm crawled onto my chest. Scritch. The rat—no, not a rat anymore. A Shadow Rat. My Shadow Rat.

It chittered at me. Its tiny claws prickled through my shirt.

I laughed. A broken, exhausted, disbelieving laugh.

"I did it," I whispered. "I'm not useless."

Scritch chittered again, as if to say, Obviously.

I checked my System status.

[Name: Leo Vance]

[Class: Beast Conduit (F-Rank)]

[Level: 1]

[Conduit Beasts: 1/2]

[Skills: Essence Siphon (F), Shared Perception (F)]

Essence Siphon. The skill that let me rip energy from monsters and channel it into my beasts.

Shared Perception. I could feel Scritch's senses overlapping with my own. See what it saw. Hear what it heard.

I looked at Scritch. Scritch looked at me.

"We're going to figure this out," I said. "We're going to get stronger. And we're going to save Mira."

Scritch nuzzled against my chest.

For the first time in years, I felt something I'd almost forgotten.

Hope.

I pushed myself to my feet. My legs were shaky. My vision blurred at the edges. But I was standing.

I looked around the warehouse. The slime was gone. Nothing left but a faint stain on the floor. The rats had fled.

I should have left. I should have gone home, gotten some sleep, figured out my next move.

But something stopped me.

A shadow moved in the corner of the warehouse.

Not a rat. Not a slime.

Something bigger.

I froze. Scritch hissed, its fur bristling.

The shadow shifted. A shape emerged from the darkness. Tall. Hulking. Eyes glowing faintly in the dim light.

It wasn't a monster. It was... something else. Something that didn't belong in a G-Rank warehouse.

It looked at me. At Scritch. At the spot where the slime had died.

Then it spoke.

"You're not supposed to exist."

Its voice was like grinding stones. Old. Deep. Wrong.

"What are you?" I managed.

The thing tilted its head. "I'm what happens when the System makes a mistake."

It stepped forward.

"We need to talk, Beast Conduit."