God Of Last Regret

Chapter 4: Glitch in the System

The resistance camp was nothing like Kael expected. Tucked deep in a narrow ravine where the trees grew thick and the rocks hid everything from above, it was a scattered mess of patched tents, smoldering cook fires, and wary-eyed people who looked like they’d been running for months. Maybe years. Makeshift walls of fallen logs and thorny brush circled the place, but it felt more like a desperate hideout than a real stronghold. Smoke hung low in the air, mixing with the smell of boiled roots and unwashed bodies. Kids with hollow cheeks stared at him as he limped in behind Mira’s group. No one cheered their return. They just nodded grimly and went back to sharpening blades or tending wounds.

Mira had given him a curt warning at the edge of camp. “Stay out of trouble. Rest that leg. We’ll talk more at dawn if you’re still here.” Then she disappeared into a larger tent with the other fighters, leaving him to fend for himself. The stocky man with the missing ear someone called him Garr tossed Kael a threadbare blanket and pointed toward a small fire on the outskirts. “Don’t wander. And don’t touch anything that ain’t yours.”

Kael didn’t argue. He was bone-tired, the kind of tired that sank into your marrow. The minor strength boost from the System hummed faintly in his muscles, dulling the worst of the limp, but it didn’t fix the deeper ache. He dropped down near the fire, back against a cold boulder, and stared into the flames. The camp noises faded around him low murmurs, a woman coughing raggedly, steel scraping stone. Alone enough for now.

His mind wouldn’t shut up. That young Legion soldier he’d spared was probably spilling everything right now. Description. Direction. The demon stranger who killed their commander without blinking. Consequences were coming, and Kael knew he’d dragged them here. Again. Blood on his hands, mistakes stacking like bodies.

“Fuck it,” he muttered. Time to figure out what the hell this System was before it got him killed. Or worse, turned him into something he couldn’t live with.

He closed his eyes and focused inward, reaching for that wild power he’d felt in the skirmish. The hot surge. The red haze. *Come on, you bastard. Show me something useful.*

At first, nothing. Just the crackle of the fire and the distant hoot of some night bird. Then a faint tingle ran up his arms, like static under the skin. The glowing runes from the temple flickered faintly across his wrists dim, barely there. He willed them brighter. Pushed harder.

Pain lanced through his skull like a hot needle. Sharp. Suddenly. He grunted and clutched his head, teeth grinding. The runes flared for a second, giving his hands a burst of unnatural strength. He squeezed a nearby rock and felt it crack under his fingers. Nice. But the headache exploded right after, pounding behind his eyes like someone was hammering nails into his brain. The power cut out just as fast, leaving his arms weak and trembling.

“Glitchy piece of shit,” he hissed under his breath. Inconsistent. Unreliable. Like the System was half-built or fighting against the body it got stuck with.

He tried again, slower this time. Focused on his leg the old limp. Maybe he could push strength there, steady it out. The runes flickered once more. A warm rush flowed down his thigh, easing the throb for a handful of seconds. He stood up, tested a step. Solid. No limp. For a moment, he felt almost whole.

Then the backlash hit. His vision swam with crimson edges, and the headache roared back worse than before. It dropped him to one knee, gasping. Blood trickled from his nose, warm and metallic. He wiped it away with a shaking hand, breathing ragged. The System voice chimed in coldly, mechanical and indifferent:

[Vessel Integration: 17%.]

[Experimental Essence Use Detected. Feedback Loop Initiated.]

[Warning: Overdraw Risk. Integration Incomplete.]

“Overdraw my ass,” Kael growled at the empty air. “You jammed me in here. The least you could do is make it work right.”

He sat back against the boulder, head throbbing in time with his heartbeat. Experimenting more felt stupid now, but he couldn’t stop. Not yet. He tried something smaller enhanced senses, maybe. Listening. The camp sounds sharpened for a beat: every crackle of fire, every whisper from the tents. He could hear Mira arguing with Garr about supplies. Then the pain spiked again, splitting his temples. He bit back a groan.

This power wasn’t a gift. It was a glitch. A broken tool in a broken vessel. Strong when it worked, but it punished him every time, like the body or whatever soul had been here before rejected him.

As the headache eased to a dull roar, something shifted in his mind. Not the System this time. Deeper. A pull, like invisible hands dragging him under. The firelight blurred. The camp sounds faded. A divine vision slammed into him without warning, cold and blinding white.

He wasn’t in the ravine anymore.

He stood on a shattered plain under a blood-red sky. Aresion stretched out before him vast, scarred, beautiful in a ruined way. Mountains split by ancient wars. Rivers running black with old blood. Cities crumbled to dust where gods had once walked. And in the center, a colossal throne of bones and iron sat empty. The winged figure from the temple murals towered above it, but its eyes were hollow. Missing.

A voice boomed through the vision, ancient and echoing, like thunder wrapped in sorrow. Not the System’s cold tone. Something older. Divine.

**“The vessel was missing. Not dead. Stolen from the cycle. Aresion waits. The War God’s chosen… gone. You are the glitch, outsider. The second chance neither world asked for.”**

Flashes hit him hard. Aresion wasn’t just a world of endless war. It was a forge. Gods bored with eternity turning mortals into weapons, harvesting essence from every kill, every battle. But the original soul the real owner of this body had vanished before the final binding. Missing. Ripped away somehow. Now Kael has the patch job. A foreign soul jammed in by whatever fucked-up mechanism ran this place.

The vision twisted. He saw himself from outside limping, bloodied, runes crawling across skin like parasites. The power wasn’t fully his. It never would be. Integration at 17%. Barely started. And every time he pushed it, the seams threatened to tear.

Kael gasped as the vision snapped away. He was back by the fire, sweat pouring down his face despite the chill night air. His hands shook. “Missing… not dead,” he whispered. The original Aresion warrior wasn’t gone in the usual sense. Something had pulled him out, left the body empty for Kael to fall into. A glitch. That explained the headaches, the inconsistency. Two souls fighting for one broken frame.

He laughed once, broken and bitter. “Great. I’m a fucking placeholder.”

Exhaustion finally won. He wrapped the thin blanket around his shoulders and lay down near the fire, eyes heavy. Sleep came fast, but it wasn’t kind. The nightmare dragged him under like it always did.

Back on Earth. The wet concrete. Rain hammering down. The blown-up van leaked fuel that mixed with blood. His team, his brothers surrounding him with guns raised. Jax’s face, twisted in greed. “Sorry, Kael. Bigger paycheck. Nothing personal.”

The bullets tore in. Fire and ice. He hit the ground hard, tasting copper and failure. Flashes of every dirty mission. The mountain village. That kid, fifteen at most, caught in the crossfire. Kael pulled the trigger because orders said threat. Telling himself it was necessary. Ruthlessness kept the world spinning.

In the dream, the kid looked up at him with the same terrified eyes as the young soldier from the skirmish. “Why?” the boy whispered, blood on his lips. “You said mercy…”

Kael tried to speak, but more bullets ripped through him. His team laughed as they stripped his gear. Betrayal burned hotter than the wounds. He reached for them, choking on blood and regret. “I trusted you…”

The scene twisted again. The temple. The forest skirmish. Bodies piling up. The commander’s face melted into Jax’s. The spared soldier turns into that Earth kid, running off to bring more death. The red haze swallowed everything, turning Kael into a monster that laughed while it killed. Power flooded him, but it wasn’t strength it was poison, eating him from inside.

He woke up screaming.

Not loud enough to wake the whole camp, but close. He sat bolt upright, chest heaving, blanket tangled around his legs. Sweat soaked his stolen cloak. The fire had burned low, just embers now. His head pounded from the earlier experiments and the vision, a constant dull spike behind his eyes.

“Easy,” he rasped to himself, pressing palms to his temples. “Just a dream. Old ghosts.”

But it wasn’t just a dream. The nightmare felt like a warning. Earth’s betrayal mixed with Aresion’s war machine. Two worlds demanding he be the killer. The System wanted a weapon. The gods wanted essence. And Kael? He just wanted not to fuck it up again. To break the cycle of blood and regret.

He glanced around the quiet camp. A few guards patrolled the edges, shadows moving against the ravine walls. No one had come running at his scream. Good. He didn’t need more wary eyes on him.

The runes on his arms had faded completely. He tried one last small experiment summoning just a flicker of strength to steady his shaking hands. The power sparked weakly, warming his fingers for a second. No major headache this time, but a warning throb. Inconsistent. Glitchy. Like the System was still booting up, or the vessel was rejecting the integration.

“Missing,” he muttered again, echoing the divine voice. The original soul of this body had been pulled away. Why? By who? And what did that make him? A thief? A second chance? Or just more fuel for Aresion’s endless wars?

Kael lay back down, staring up at the sliver of alien sky visible between the ravine walls. Unfamiliar stars winked down, cold and indifferent. His left leg throbbed steadily, the old limp settled back in after the failed experiment. Hunger gnawed at his gut again, even after the scraps he’d eaten earlier.

Tomorrow would bring questions from Mira and the others. Maybe pursuit from the Legion. More chances to spill blood and stack mistakes. The power in him hummed faintly, tempting and dangerous. Strong when it worked, but always with a price.

He closed his eyes, jaw tight. “Don’t let me fuck this up,” he whispered to the night, the same words from the temple. “Not again.”

The camp answered with silence and the low crackle of dying embers. Sleep didn’t come easy after that. Just fragmented thoughts of betrayal, missing souls, and the growing fear that this glitch in the System would break him long before any war did.

But he kept breathing. It kept aching. Kept moving forward in his mind, even if his body wanted to quit.

Regret still choked him, thick as ever. Two worlds worth. And the night stretched on, heavy with whatever came next.