Cracked Pillars of Fate

Chapter 2: The Survival Crater

The pain didn't leave. Instead, it settled in, crawling under Archen’s skin like thousands of roasted, white-hot needles. When his consciousness finally returned, the first thing he sensed was the metallic tang and the stench of dried blood. Every inch of his muscles throbbed, refusing to move.

"Wake up... come on, Huge. You’re not dead yet," Archen whispered to himself. His voice sounded like sandpaper scraping over concrete.

He tried to lift his back off the metallic floor. The gravity in this room was no longer as cruel as it had been during the trial, but it still felt as though he were wearing a weighted vest that couldn't be removed. With ragged breath, Archen sat up, leaning against a cold wall that vibrated softly.

In front of him, the blue holographic window still floated statically, as if waiting for him to recover.

[Status Recovered: 20%]

[Soul Integration: Stable]

[Name: Archen Huge]

[Class: Undetermined]

[Level: 2]

[Main Stats: Strength (22), Endurance (19), Agility (12)]

Archen stared at the numbers with a furrowed brow. As a dockworker, he knew his body weight and exactly how many tons of cargo he could lift in a day, but these numbers felt foreign. He felt denser. Sharper.

"What is this?" Archen touched the screen, his fingers passing through the light without resistance. "Tell me, are you some kind of grim reaper?"

[The Arcana System has no theological classification,] replied a cold voice that echoed inside his head. [This system is an evolutionary mechanism. You have surpassed the average human limit, Archen Huge. The average human strength on Earth is 10. You are now an anomaly.]

"Anomaly," Archen snorted, then coughed until a bit of blood came up. "I just want to go back to the docks, drink a cold beer, and forget this nightmare."

[Earth is being integrated. There is no road back to the old reality.]

That sentence hit Archen harder than 5G gravity. He fell silent, staring at his rough, scarred hands. If Earth was changing, then Sam, his colleagues, and everyone he knew might be experiencing the same hell. Or worse.

His stomach suddenly cramped. An overwhelming hunger emerged, as if the cells in his body were devouring each other for energy. Archen looked around. No food. No water. There was only a vast, dimly lit room with energy pillars that occasionally emitted sparks of electricity.

His eyes then fell on a small object lying where the shadow creature had been destroyed. It was a small, dim purple crystal that pulsed slowly.

"Is this food?" he asked skeptically.

[Object Detected: Low Energy Core. A source of biological and systemic fuel. Consume to restore energy.]

Without a second thought, Archen crawled closer and grabbed the crystal. As soon as his skin touched it, the object melted, soaking directly through the pores of his palm. The sensation was like injecting pure adrenaline into his veins. The pain in his muscles subsided, replaced by a comfortable warmth.

However, that tranquility only lasted a moment.

The metallic floor beneath him suddenly vibrated violently. From the ceiling of the red dome, a crack opened. Something fell with a heavy thud about ten meters in front of Archen.

Its shape was more terrifying than the last. The creature resembled a giant crustacean with a rocky shell and sharp legs made of black crystal. Every time a leg touched the floor, the gravity around that point seemed to warp, creating a disorienting visual distortion.

[Warning: Type-C Gravity Sentinel Detected.]

[Threat: High.]

"Again?" Archen scrambled to his feet, faster this time. He clenched his fists, feeling the flow of energy he had just absorbed. "You guys really don't give me time to breathe, do you?"

The Sentinel didn't growl. It simply moved. With an unreasonable speed for its size, the creature lunged. Archen tried to dodge, but he realized the gravity around the creature was changing dynamically. His legs felt suddenly heavy, pinning him in place.

"Damn it!" Archen raised his arms to parry the stabbing crystal leg.

Slash!

Red liquid seeped from his forearm. Archen winced, but his instincts took over. He was no longer fighting like a laborer relying on brute force to shift shipping containers. He moved like a cornered animal.

He lunged forward, sliding under the Sentinel's body. He unleashed a flurry of punches at the creature's belly, which was unprotected by the shell. Each impact sounded like a sledgehammer hitting stone. However, the Sentinel's hide was too hard. Archen's fists began to bleed.

"Not hard enough," Archen growled. "I need something... heavier!"

He imagined the weight of a hundred-kilogram sack of rice. He imagined the load of a port crane. He concentrated all his memories of "weight" into his right hand. Suddenly, the System reacted.

[Unique Skill Detected: Forming...]

[Active Skill: Gravity Strike (Level 1).]

Archen felt the air around him being sucked into his fist. The pressure in the room seemed to condense at a single point: his knuckles. His right hand emitted a thick, dark glow, making his arm feel ten times heavier than usual.

"Eat this, you rock crab!"

Archen released the punch. As his fist made contact with the Sentinel's shell, a deafening boom exploded in the room. An invisible shockwave hit the creature, not only shattering its shell but also crushing its internal structure as if a skyscraper had just been dropped on it.

The Sentinel was thrown against the wall, crumbling into pieces of crystal dust.

Archen panted, holding his right hand which was still shaking violently. His arm muscles felt as though they had been stretched to their absolute limit, but a strange sense of satisfaction began to grow in his chest.

[Sentinel Eliminated.]

[Experience Gained. Level Increased: 3.]

[Function Unlocked: Automatic Stat Allocation.]

The blue screen reappeared, displaying numbers that spun and increased.

[Strength: 22 -> 28]

[Endurance: 19 -> 23]

[Agility: 12 -> 14]

Archen stared at his palm. The gash from the Sentinel closed at a speed visible to the naked eye. His muscles looked more defined, and his veins now flowed with a faint, dim light. He no longer felt like Archen the dockworker. The man who complained every morning about his aching back seemed to have died, replaced by something else.

"I'm changing," he whispered, his voice full of both horror and awe. "What are you doing to me?"

He could feel every muscle fiber becoming denser. His senses sharpened; he could hear the hum of energy from the walls and feel even the slightest gravity fluctuations around him. This power... it was no longer just the result of lifting weights for over a decade. This was something primordial. Something deadly.

[Evolutionary Process Proceeding According to Plan. You are being prepared to become a Pillar, Archen Huge.]

"Pillar?" Archen laughed bitterly, a laugh that had lost some of its human tone. "I'm just a laborer. I didn't ask to be a hero or a pillar or whatever."

He walked toward the remains of the shattered Sentinel, picking up an Energy Core larger than the previous one. He didn't hesitate anymore. He consumed it, feeling a burst of power that made his eyes glow for a moment.

The fear was still there in the corner of his heart—the fear that he would forget the smell of the sea, Sam's laughter, and the bitter taste of beer. However, as he stared at the darkness at the end of the room that was beginning to open, that fear was defeated by a survival instinct that now burned hotter than ever.

"If I have to become a monster to get out of here," Archen clenched his fist, now surrounded by a black gravity aura, "then I will become the strongest monster there ever was."

Right then, a giant door at the end of the room slid open, revealing a long corridor shrouded in electrical mist. From the darkness of the hallway, growls much heavier and more numerous began to echo, making the floor beneath Archen's feet vibrate uncontrollably.

Archen did not retreat. Instead, he stepped forward, ready to crush anything that stood in his way.