The Altar of Ascension
Author: Sage_Ryuuzen
last update2026-04-01 15:03:09

The night air was heavy, thick with the scent of damp earth and the electric hum of an approaching storm.

I was hovering aimlessly over a stagnant pond, my wings beating in a restless rhythm.

To anyone else, I am just a nuisance in the dark (that's actually true though). Anyway, I was an anxious mosquito counting the seconds until midnight.

​In the hollow space where my stomach used to be, I felt the weight of the prize: the Crimson Tax. The blood of that monster Roy was still warm within me,
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  • A Promise to the Dead

    ​I pressed my back against the damp plaster, clutching the two-foot chef's knife. My human heart was a frantic bird trapped in a cage of ribs, hammering out a rhythm of pure terror.​"If you die here, your existence will be erased in all timelines."​The System's words looped in my mind like a funeral dirge. I've faced a twenty-seven-story drop. I've lived as a parasite in the dirt. But this? A world where the dead refuse to stay down? This was a different kind of nightmare. I was a man who used to close his eyes during horror movies, and now, I was the lead actor in one. Should I say holy zombie!​"Better than dying in Xena's hands," I whispered, a hysterical laugh bubbling up in my throat. "At least these monsters don't pretend to love you before they bite off your flesh."​Snap out of it, Zilu, I scolded myself. I had twenty-four hours to survive. Energy was my most precious currency. I needed to find a hole, crawl into it, and wait for the clock to run out. ​I began to move, d

  • The Red Zone Hunt

    "Yes, of course. Show me," I muttered, my wings twitching with a mix of dread and desperation. I had paid the tax in blood and years of my life. I wanted the prize.​[Look at your shadow, Host. Enjoy.]​The red glow from the ritual hadn't fully faded when I looked down at the surface of the rainwater puddle. My heart...or the frantic little pump in my chest nearly seized.​"Holy... what kind of monster is that?" I screamed.​On the surface of the water, I was still a mosquito. But the shadow I cast on the stone beneath the water? It was the towering, jagged silhouette of a man. A man with elongated, claw-like fingers and eyes that burned like embers in the dark. It looked like a demon made of cheap ink.​[That is your new form, Host. You can haunt the waking world now. Consider it a gift.]​"A gift? This is a nightmare!" I buzzed, my voice spiraling into a panic. "Imagine a mosquito flying into a room, but the shadow on the wall is a six-foot-tall reaper. That's not a gift, that's

  • The Altar of Ascension

    The night air was heavy, thick with the scent of damp earth and the electric hum of an approaching storm. I was hovering aimlessly over a stagnant pond, my wings beating in a restless rhythm. To anyone else, I am just a nuisance in the dark (that's actually true though). Anyway, I was an anxious mosquito counting the seconds until midnight.​In the hollow space where my stomach used to be, I felt the weight of the prize: the Crimson Tax. The blood of that monster Roy was still warm within me, a pulsing, rare energy that felt like liquid fire. It was Rh-Null. The Red Blood. The kind of rare essence that was supposed to bridge the gap between my bug life and my human soul.​"System," I buzzed, my tone sounded sharp and impatient. "Midnight is breathing down my neck. Where are you?"​Silence.​Usually, that cold, robotic voice used to snapped back before I could even finish a thought. But now? No answer came. Just the distant croak of a bullfrog and the rustle of leaves. A cold knot

  • Blight of the Damned

    The transfusion room was a sterile, white-tiled purgatory that smelled of rubbing alcohol. Nurses moved with a frantic urgency, their rubber-soled shoes chirping against the floor like panicked birds. In the center of it all stood Roy or rather, the hollowed-out shell that used to be Roy.​I watched from the back of a plastic chair, my compound eyes tracking the jerky, robotic movements of his limbs. Inside that body, the real Roy was howling. I could feel the vibrations of his terror through the System's link; he was a passenger in his own skin, screaming at a wall of silence.​"Get out! Get out of my body, you freak!" his mind shrieked.​I chuckled, the sound came out a low, dry vibration in my thorax. No one gonna noticed me... A mosquito! Hahaha...​"Lay down here, Mr. Roy," a senior nurse urged, her voice tight with the stress of the ticking clock. "We need to tap the vein now. Every second we lose is a second your wife doesn't have."​Roy stood stiffly, his muscles twitching

  • A puppet

    "Baby, if you don't give your blood, won't she be angry at you?"​The woman's voice was like honey dripping over broken glass. She lounged on the hospital sofa, twirling a lock of hair around her finger as she looked at Roy. Her eyes were bright with the predatory gleam of someone watching an obstacle being removed.​Roy let out a jagged, ugly laugh. "Angry at me,pfft? Teresha is obsessed with me. Even if she wakes up... which she won't. She'll probably thank me for not ruining my health with a needle. She's a pain, honestly. Always has been."​"Baby, look at Dr. Andre," she whispered with a sharp smirk, pointing toward the door. "He's still standing there. Hoping you would donate your blood."​Roy turned his gaze toward the doctor. The air in the room seemed to thicken with the stench of his arrogance.​"Dr. Andre, I believe you value your career, don't you?" Roy's voice was a low, vibrating threat.​The doctor's face went from pale to a deep, insulted red. "What exactly are you i

  • Blood of a Betrayer

    The first rays of the morning sun didn't feel like a blessing. it felt more like they a blowtorch.​I tried to yawn, but the motion was just a sickening vibration of my chitinous jaw. Last night was a fever dream. A blurred montage of shadows, the metallic tang of human life on my tongue, and the terrifying rush of playing god. I still couldn't wrap my head around it. I was a man who used to order expensive steaks and vintage wine... And now, I was a parasite lurking in the weeds.​As the sun climbed higher, my skin began to sizzle. To a human, it was a pleasant morning. To me, the light was a searing radiation that threatened to cook me from the inside out. I scrambled into the damp, dark safety of a hollowed-out log, my tiny heart hammering against my ribs.​"What now?" I croaked into the silence blaming my bad luck.​I was bored, terrified, and fueled by a singular, jagged purpose: I had to make Xena bleed. I had to see the light leave her eyes just like it almost left mine. Bu

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