
Ugh… help! I can’t breathe. My chest… It's crushing me. Cold. Why is it so cold? Why can’t I open my eyes?
... A young man tumbled to the floor of an unfamiliar room, clutching his skull as a migraine tore through his senses. Every pulse of pain felt like his head might split open. “Where… where am I?” His last memory hit like a blade, the last thing he remembered was his tiny cubicle room, a CGPA of 1.95 staring back at him from his laptop screen. Out of despair he took poison and committed suicide. He forced his eyes open. Wooden walls surrounded him, rough but orderly. Two beds, two hangers, a small table beside one of the beds, likely for reading. The air smelled faintly of cedar and candle smoke. “Am I… dreaming? Or is this another world?” A pounding in his head grew unbearable, memories that felt alien and yet familiar, flashed across his mind, laughter that wasn’t his, a room that wasn’t his, a life that didn’t belong to him. The door creaked open, a boy, around sixteen but built like a man, stepped inside with quiet confidence. “Big bro,” the boy called. “Mum says it’s time for dinner.” Adrian paused for a moment, ‘Big bro?’ His throat went dry. He nodded faintly, unsure if his own voice would betray him. Fragments of memory flooded him. Five children in the family. He was the eldest. And his name… Adrian. The same as his old self. The irony stung, even this body that had been primed for him was expelled from a prestigious church school, because of his low grades. 'Failure follows me everywhere… even here, huh', Adrian’s lips pressed into a thin line. He rose to his feet and walked toward the living room, The family sat around the table. Father, mother, younger brother, two little sisters. Adrian offered a faint, awkward smile as he sat down. It was strange, yet comforting. They were family… and yet, strangers. “Greetings, Father. Greetings, Mother,” he murmured in a low voice. The dinner spread was modest, a bowl of soup, some stodge-like substance, he looked at it strangely for a few seconds before thinking, ‘This is the life now, huh?’. He ate silently, letting the quiet hum of family life settle around him. Then his father’s voice sliced through the calm. “Have you considered it?” Adrian stopped eating for a moment, 'Consider… what?' His mother’s glare sharpened at her husband. “At least let him finish his dinner!” The father turned a deaf ear to his wife, he set his gaze on Adrian, “Son, academics aren’t your path. Have you thought about the police force? I can pull some strings. You could support the family… you’re a man now.” Adrian’s chest tightened. 'Ah… that’s what this is'. He forced calm into his voice. “I’ve considered it, Father,” he said, not like he really cares anyway, to him school is a scam. “That’s my boy,” the father said, pride softening his stern expression. “I knew I gave birth to no loser.” Adrian’s soup plate clattered softly as he finished his meal and pushed back his stool. “I’m done,” he whispered, retreating to the bedroom he shares with his younger brother. He was alone in the room, he realized, the room doesn't have any mirrors. He fetched a bowl of water from the bathroom, placing it on the table near the window. He pulled the curtains wide, light spilled across the room. And above him, in the dusky sky, hung two moons. He leaned over the water, Blue eyes stared back, a defined jawline and a tired looking eyes clearly from lack of sleep. “Not bad,” he muttered, almost with a smile. “At least I look good here.” He jokingly said to himself. Adrian set the bowl of water aside, wondering if this was all his transmigration had to offer, 'Aside from a second chance at life… nothing?'. “I mean, I’m not asking for much,” he muttered, half-laughing. “Just something unique. Something that sets me apart from the norm.” He shook his head, a wry smile tugging at his lips. I’m not a main character. I don’t need to fight a demon lord, slay monsters, or overthrow corrupt governments. Why waste my life chasing a story that isn’t mine? A deep sigh escaped him. This isn’t so bad. A strange world, a new life… maybe the police force is my path. Decent income, a quiet home, a decent woman, a decent family… peace. That’s enough. He began scanning the room, letting his eyes trace every corner, every shelf. Hanging clothes, a lantern, books piled haphazardly on the table. Nothing remarkable… until a drawer caught his attention. Inside, five candles, a sachet of salt, and a red, scaly book. “What the heck is this?” Adrian muttered, heart skipping a beat. Carefully, he lifted the book. Its cover was rough, almost alive under his fingers. 'Was… was the former owner trying to summon an evil god?' Memories surged. This boy, his former self, had an interest in the mystical and occult. He’d bought the book from a shady seller at the market on a whim, chasing curiosity rather than caution. Adrian flipped it open. The words were written in his hometown language back on Earth. A coincidence? He wasn’t sure. He skimmed through the text, the context barely making sense. Yet, a strange pull tugged at him, urging him to perform the ritual. This could be dangerous… he thought, heart hammering. But I’ve already died once. What’s the worst that could happen? Determined, he quickly locked the door before his brother would want to come in, he also closed the window. Following the book’s instructions, he poured salt at the four corners of the room and placed a candle on each. In the center, he drew a large circle, his hands trembling slightly. He stood in the middle, placed the final candle in front of him, and began reading aloud. At first, nothing seemed to happen. Then… the room grew unnaturally silent. The air turned icy, prickling his skin. One by one, the candles flickered to life, their flames hovering as if fed by unseen breath. Adrian’s throat went dry. He hesitated. Should he stop? 'Maybe I shouldn’t continue… ' But the wind swirled violently, threatening to knock the book from his hands. 'If I stop now… something dangerous will happen'. Clenching his jaw, he closed his eyes and pressed on, reciting the final lines of the ritual. The air seemed to hum, vibrating with a strange energy, and then suddenly everything snapped back to normal. The candles lay unlit. The wind stilled. The air warmed. Sweat drenched his back, and his chest pounded with adrenaline. For a moment, it all seemed like an illusion… until he glanced around. The red book was gone, He panicked a bit with his heart hammering. “It’s gone… but… what did I summon?”
Latest Chapter
Tallying the cost
The phantom chill of the God-Anchor was a new constant in Adrian's bones, a deep-seated cold that even the morning sun couldn't touch. The brand on his soul that mark of attention from the Hungry Void, thrummed with a low, persistent frequency, a reminder that their victory had come with a price far beyond the battlefield. He sat on the edge of his bed, the silence of the mansion pressing in on him. His first coherent thought wasn't of strategy or power. It was of Alan. He pulled up the System interface, his focus sharp. [Core Character: Alan - The Mystic Maestro - STATUS: COMPROMISED] The red, flashing text sent a jolt of cold dread through him, sharper than any magical chill. "System, full report on Alan's exposure and current status," he commanded, his voice tight. A flood of data streamed through his consciousness, grainy images of Alan's desperate flight through the archives, the collapsing bookshelves, the final, brutal look of comprehension on Sister Anya's face before Alan
Once the issue is all over, we can go back to being enemies
The silence after the rift closed was a physical thing, thick and heavy as wet wool. It was broken by the small, helpless sounds the vessel-boy made, shivering against the obsidian stake. Finn was the first to move, scrambling up the black steps with a knife to saw at the thick chains.Adrian didn't move. He stood over the spot where Mordian had been erased, the God-Anchor cold at his feet. The internal wound from using it was a hollow ache, a piece of him scooped out and fed to the silence. But beneath that, a new, deeper cold was settling in. The brand.It wasn't a pain. It was an awareness. A fixed point in the geography of his soul, a icy pinprick that felt like a distant, unblinking eye had just taken note of his coordinates.Boots scuffed on the stone behind him. He didn't need to turn. He knew Maria's step."You look like shit," she said, her voice rough. She came to stand beside him, looking down at the empty space where the ritualist had been. Her arm was bleeding from a deep
The Vessel
Adrian's boot hit the first step of the black altar. The stone wasn't cold. It was a void, sucking the warmth from his soul. Each step upward was a fight against the hook in his core, the hungry void above pulling him in while the dead weight of the Anchor tried to drag him down.He was halfway up when a wave of force slammed into him, not from the rift, but from the side. It wasn't physical. It was a command, written in pure will.STOP.Adrian staggered, his head ringing. At the top of the platform, Brother Mordian had turned from the raging pillar of green light. His eyes were no longer human. They were pools of the same oily blackness as the rift, his tattooed skin cracking like dry earth, leaking that same void. He held one hand toward the rift, sustaining the connection, and the other was now pointed at Adrian.YOU ARE THE KEY. YOU WILL BE THE GATE. The words weren't spoken; they were branded directly into Adrian's mind.The pull intensified. Adrian grunted, driving the base of t
Don't let it touch you!
The world broke with a sound like a mountain dying.One moment, the only noise was the wind and the distant, maddening drums from the basin below. The next, a concussion of force slammed into the ridge, so visceral it felt like a physical blow. The air didn't just grow cold; it became thin, starved, as if the life was being sucked out of it.Adrian's knees buckled. A white-hot brand seared the core of his being, the psychic hook the Reclamationists had embedded in him was no longer a tug, but a chain, and something on the other end was yanking with the force of a collapsing star. His vision swam, the grim faces of his pack smearing into a blur. For a terrifying second, he wasn't on the ridge. He was nowhere. A vast, gray, silent nothingness pressed in on him, and at its heart was a single, overwhelming sensation: Hunger. It was a cold, simple, and absolute need to consume, and his soul was the brightest thing on the menu.On the Sunken Altar below, the gaunt figure of Brother Mordian
The Bleeding Land
Two days of hard marching north-east had stripped away the familiar. The rugged but life-filled foothills of the Serpent's Teeth gave way to a blighted expanse that seemed to suck the very vitality from the air. The ground was a cracked, grayish-purple, like old, clotted blood. Sparse, twisted trees clawed at a sky the color of a day-old bruise. There was no birdsong, no scuttling of insects. Only the moan of a wind that carried the taste of ash and ozone.The Howling Peak army moved through this desolation with a grim, focused silence. The initial energy of their departure had been replaced by a wary tension. Their enhanced senses, a gift from Adrian's ascension, were now a curse, amplifying the wrongness that permeated everything."It's not just dead," Bella murmured, her boots scuffing the brittle ground. "It's... infected. The earth is in pain. It's screaming, but the sound is too high for anyone but it and I to hear."Adrian felt it too, a constant, low-level psychic static that
Alan has been discovered
The polished marble floors of the Eldrige Mage College’s main concourse had never felt so much like a pane of thin ice over a bottomless chasm. Alan walked with his head down, the hood of his apprentice robes pulled up, a single student among a river of them flowing between lectures. But where their minds were filled with spell matrices and alchemical formulas, his was a tangled snare of hyper-vigilance and remembered terror.Every reflection in a window was a potential enemy. Every snatch of conversation was a coded message. The System was silent, but its lessons were etched into his nerves. He saw the world as a spy now, and the picture was terrifying.He felt it first—a subtle, probing pressure against the mental shields the System had taught him to maintain. It was a feather-light touch, a psychic tendril searching for a crack. It was the same feeling he’d had in the Weeping Stone, just before Sister Anya had grown suspicious. They were here. They were using magic to find him.His
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