Heir Rejected: Bound by the Legacy System

Rain beat against the marble entrance as Kieran Blackwell’s convoy pulled away for the final time. He stood on the slick driveway, shoulders slumped, palms trembling as his hot breath met the cold air. Behind him, the Blackwell Estate—opulent, unbroken—loomed like a mocking titan. Tonight, Kieran was its downfall.

“How could you betray your own blood?” Lady Bianca, his stepmother, had hissed. “You’re dead to this family.”

A driver tossed him the house crest: a gold-and-emerald sigil engraved on a heavy ring. “Take it,” the man had said as if it were a consolation prize. But Kieran let it skate off his wet palm onto the cobblestones. It shattered beneath his heel.

Lightning split the sky. He ignored it. He felt dead inside.

***

Kieran made it to his old apartment—a studio two rivers away from the estate. The rent was overdue. The landlord had stopped returning his calls. He pushed in a damp key and swung the door with a soft creak. Trash littered the floor. A crooked poster of Paris on his wall was speared by a coffee stain.

He dropped onto the sagging mattress and took out his phone.

Bank balance: $–142,000

“Hearing tragedy as Blackwell Jr. exposed as fraud. How will he rise again??”

Next, his message apps flashed—voice notes from old friends.

“Dude, where’ve you been? You owe us money, pay up!”

He stared at the wall. The Blackwell crest, shattered. His future, shattered. His dignity? Gone.

A darkness crept over him—rage, despair, bitterness. What did he still have to cling to?

Trash swept scooped over the floor in a single noiseless breath. He lay there, numb.

Then his phone buzzed.

“Legacy Inheritance Link: Claim What Is Rightfully Yours.”

No sender. No header. Just that line, in bold: “CLICK TO BEGIN.”

The Click

He stared at it for a long minute.

With trembling fingers, Kieran tapped “CLICK.”

The moment his thumb released, the world contracted.

The screen flashed white. A voice, disembodied and mechanical yet benevolent, filled his skull.

“Binding soul fragment of Lineage Zero‑Eight‑Seven‑Two. Legacy initialization in progress.”

Pain ricocheted up his neck, across his skull. His vision fractured—infinitely distant yet crushing close. Frame-by-frame, scenes exploded within him: a regal ancestor seated on a throne, a blood-stained treaty, a line of heirs—broken one by one—until the final, red-eyed line blinked before him: himself.

He wanted to scream.

A harsh crack: his phone hit the concrete floor. Rainwater pooled around it. The screen, shattered, blinked out.

His lungs burned. He gasped, stabbing a hand to catch himself. A low groan escaped him—something almost feral, unrecognizable. He lurched upright. Thunder rumbled.

He looked at his palms: veins pulsing like living runes. Cold, metallic energy coursed through him. His heartbeat thudded. Someone – something – watched from beyond sense, beyond reason.

Then—translucent panel hovered beside him, text in swirling silver:

SYSTEM ONLINE

TASK 001: Secure Shelter (Objective: Survive the night)

Do you accept? (Y/N)

He blinked, mind racing. He couldn’t accept—not now.

He scarcely remembered typing. But there it was:

The panel pulsed. Words shimmered and faded. Then the rain stopped, as if paused. The street lamps cheered to life. The cold seeped into his bones, and yet—something warmed under his sternum.

He felt a strange… promise.

“You are the last hope of the bloodline,” a faint whisper rumbled through his bones.

The panel disappeared. Rain resumed. He staggered to his feet. The world felt ancient, watching, waiting.

He noticed small things he’d missed before: the way light pooled on cracked cobblestones; how the air smelled like ozone after lightning; how every drop on his coat seemed to hum. The phone lay dead. His heart still pounding.

He pushed his hair back and squared his shoulders.

***

In the days that followed, no one would believe the changes—not yet.

But somewhere in the rain-washed streets, a man stood awakened. A man who had clicked a link and found a system had clicked him back. A man whose lineage, though shattered, still pulsed within his veins.

Kieran opened his phone again. The screen responded—system restored. No tasks yet, but there was… scale. Menu items began blinking faintly beneath his thumb.

BP: Broken Prince,

He tapped on Legacy.

He tapped on Tasks.

Task 001: Secure Shelter––Incomplete

His fingers tightened around the phone.

Somewhere, far away, thunder grumbled—a distant witness to his awakening.