The Archfiend System

Throughout this sprawling world, greatness was defined by Systems—magnificent and intricate channels through which power flowed, distinguishing the worthless from the elite. 

Every child born into civilization received their System at the age of ten, a sacred ritual presided over by the Council of Ascendants. 

Blue light would corona their brows, ancient runes would inscribe themselves across their skin, and they would transform into something more than human. 

Mages wielded fire and lightning. Warriors gained strength that could bend steel. Healers commanded life itself.

Klein Slash had experienced none of this.

He stood in the marketplace of Krell, watching from the shadows of a crumbling archway as a young girl no more than ten years old underwent her Awakening. Her parents wept with joy. 

The gathered crowd erupted in cheers as violet light erupted from her chest—a Mystic System, rare and coveted. 

Her mother pressed her face against the girl's forehead in gratitude, murmuring prayers to the ancient powers that had blessed their bloodline.

No one looked at Klein. No one ever did.

He was twenty-three years old, and he had never possessed a System. Not for lack of trying. 

His parents had taken him to every temple, every shrine, every purported healer and priest within a hundred leagues. They had begged the Council for answers. 

They had sacrificed livestock and coin, offered prayers until their voices grew hoarse. Nothing had worked. At seventeen, after another failed attempt at awakening, his father had simply stopped speaking to him. 

At nineteen, his mother followed her husband's silence into the grave. She died believing her son was cursed.

Perhaps she had been right.

Klein Slash dwelled in that chasm of worthlessness, deemed lesser by a society that had cast him aside. 

In Krell, the Systemless were not imprisoned or executed—the world had progressed beyond such crude barbarism. Instead, they were simply erased. Jobs were reserved for the gifted. 

Housing was rationed to those with demonstrable value. 

Education, apprenticeships, even simple commerce were designed to exclude those who lacked the intricate channels of power that defined modern civilization.

He survived by taking work no one else would accept: hauling refuse, digging ditches, scrubbing the blood from the floors of the Coliseum after the gladiatorial matches. 

His hands were callused and scarred. His back perpetually ached. 

And every night, he returned to a room smaller than most storage closets, in a tenement that reeked of despair and disease, to sleep on a mat of straw.

This was his life. This was all it would ever be.

The young girl's Awakening ceremony concluded, and the crowd dispersed, carrying her forward into a world of infinite possibility. 

Klein turned away and melted back into the narrower streets of the lower districts, where the Systemless clustered together like rats in a sinking ship.

Three days later, a call went out through Krell's lower districts. 

The Council was recruiting laborers for an expedition into the Blackspine Mountains, a treacherous territory where ancient ruins had been discovered, sites of incomprehensible power that required excavation and study. 

The pay was meager, but it was pay. And more importantly, it was work that would take Klein away from Krell, away from the suffocating weight of a city that despised him.

He signed the contract with a crude mark,as he had never learned to write and was assigned to a team of twelve other Systemless laborers. 

They departed at dawn, trudging behind a contingent of six Council-sanctioned adventurers, powerful individuals with gleaming Systems and armor that caught the morning light like captured stars.

The journey took two weeks. The Blackspine Mountains rose from the earth like the broken teeth of some ancient leviathan, their peaks perpetually shrouded in mist and storm. 

The expedition pushed deeper into those slopes, following maps that were hundreds of years old, chasing whispers of legendary power and lost civilization.

On the fifteenth day, they discovered the first ruin.

It was massive—a temple of black stone that seemed to drink in the sunlight, its architecture so alien that the eye struggled to comprehend its geometry. 

The Council adventurers approached with caution, their weapons drawn, their Systems flaring with readiness. 

The Systemless laborers were ordered to remain a safe distance away while the gifted ones investigated.

Klein sat on a cold stone, watching the distant figures of his betters disappear into the temple's gaping maw. 

Around him, the other Systemless whispered anxiously. Some prayed. Others simply stared at their feet, as if expecting the earth to swallow them whole.

Then, the ground shook.

"Wlh-what's going on?!"

"Get ready!" the leader shouted. "The boss monster is close!"

The ground shook even more, and all the System Bearers received a prompt. Klein looked at his hands, but nothing appeared. Panic filled him as he realized he was alone.

A massive shape emerged from the shadows. The Giant Lesser Archfiend stood tall, its dark crimson scales gleaming in the dim light. Klein’s heart raced as he took in the creature’s glowing eyes.

Manny raised his weapon. "We need to take it down. Follow my lead!"

The System Bearers prepared for battle. 

They charged at the Archfiend while Klein stayed back, watching. The Archfiend lashed out, and Manny countered with a powerful strike.

"Watch out!" one of the bearers yelled.

Klein held his breath, admiring Manny's strength. 

The battle dragged on, lasting nearly half an hour. Klein felt both fear and awe as he saw the System Bearers struggle against the beast.

Finally, with a final blow, the Archfiend fell. Cheers erupted in the cave. Klein rushed forward, eager to see the loot. He found a large sack filled with gold, diamonds, and ethereal ore.

"Look at this!" he exclaimed, eyes wide with wonder.

"You can’t keep any of it, Klein," a System Bearer said with a smirk. "Only the bearers take the loot."

Klein's heart sank. "But I helped carry the goods too!"

Manny approached, handing him a $50 note. "Here’s your cut."

"What’s this?" Klein frowned, disbelief washing over him. "I helped defeat the Archfiend!"

Manny's lackeys laughed as they took the loot. One shoved Klein to the ground. "Blanks don’t get much. Know your place."

Klein's anger boiled over as he saw Manny’s smug face. He charged at Manny, fists clenched tightly. "You can’t treat me like this!" he shouted, throwing a punch with all his strength.

Manny dodged effortlessly and countered with a single blow. Klein flew backward, landing hard on the rocky ground. "You're dead," Manny sneered, his voice dripping with disdain. 

The other System Bearers gathered around, their laughter echoing in the cave. They kicked and punched Klein, their cruelty clear as they overwhelmed him.

As the Dungeon Gate's closure approached, Manny stood over Klein's battered body, the shadows from the cave looming behind him. 

"I'm doing you a favor," he said, grinning with satisfaction. "You won’t have to live this pathetic life anymore." With that, Manny and the other System Bearers vanished, leaving Klein alone in the desolate land.

Klein lay there for hours, staring at the red sun hanging low in the sky. 

Exhaustion weighed heavily on him, and hunger gnawed at his insides. His mind drifted to his life, filled with pain and hardship. 

He remembered the day his parents died, leaving him and his baby sister, Mara, in their grandfather's care. 

He had tried so hard to give Mara a better life, working countless odd jobs, but now he felt abandoned and beaten in this barren wasteland.

"Mara, Gramps... I'm sorry," he whispered, tears welling in his eyes as the reality of his situation sank in.

As despair tightened its grip, the sky above began to darken ominously. Storm clouds gathered, swirling in a chaotic dance. The once-red sky transformed into a violent Storm, the wind howling as it picked up speed. 

Suddenly, one of the clouds descended lower, revealing a massive figure that sent chills down Klein’s spine. 

It wasn’t just a storm; a colossal Archfiend emerged from the swirling clouds, its scales glistening like obsidian in the dim light.

Klein, beaten and broken, could only watch in shock as the giant Archfiend approached, its wings casting dark shadows over the land. 

The creature's eyes burned like molten gold, its presence overwhelming and terrifying. Klein’s heart raced with fear, but a flicker of something else stirred within him.

Klein’s body ached with every movement. His four broken ribs, swollen lips, and multiple bruises reminded him of the beating he had taken from the System Bearers.

Despite the searing pain, he forced himself to stand. Lying down was not an option. Above him hovered the most terrifying being he had ever seen: a Divine Archfiend. 

With its golden and black scales, it was exactly as his grandfather had described in stories. Fear gripped him, but he couldn’t help but marvel at the Archfiend’s majestic aura.

As Klein locked eyes with the Archfiend’s glowing, sun-like gaze, his fear faded. 

He accepted his fate, knowing he was as good as dead in this barren land without food or water. Spreading his arms wide, Klein closed his eyes and prepared to embrace his end.

"This is the end for me, I guess… I'm ready, great one," he whispered, resigned to his fate.

But nothing happened. Klein stood there, waiting for the Archfiend to end it all, but the creature remained still, as if deep in thought. Sarcasm crept into Klein’s voice as he muttered, 

"Take your time; I’m not going anywhere." He crossed his arms, growing impatient. Minutes passed in silence, and the tension began to play tricks on his mind. 

Half an hour went by with no sign of the Divine Archfiend doing anything at all. The stillness of the cavern made every second feel like an eternity.

"Divine Archfiend?" 

Klein called out, feeling ridiculous as his voice echoed in the empty cavern. Silence stretched on, and with no response, Klein began pacing, his footsteps echoing through the space. 

Alone with his thoughts and unsure of what to do, he felt the weight of the quiet gnawing at him.