The Dead Zone Sovereign

Chapter 1: The Edge of the Abyss

The summoning circle flashed with a bright golden light that burned through Valens closed eyes. He felt the hard stone beneath him. A moment before he was sitting at his classroom desk. A collective gasp echoed around him. People started coughing and whispering in panic.

Valen opened his eyes. He blinked away the afterimages of the flash. He was kneeling in a cathedral. The walls were made of marble. Stained glass windows showed winged warriors fighting horned shadows. Armored knights surrounded the runic circle. Their faces were hidden behind silver visors.

An old man in flowing robes stood on a raised dais. He held a staff with a glowing crystal on top. A man on a gilded throne wore a crown and looked bored.

Valen stood up. His whole senior class was there. Thirty students looked scared, confused or shocked.

The man on the throne said, "Silence." His voice was heavy. It forced some students back to their knees.

The old man tapped his staff on the marble floor. A resonant chime filled the cathedral. "Welcome chosen ones from another world " he said. "I am High Priest Alaric. You are in the presence of King Cedric of the Solarian Empire. The Goddess brought you here for a purpose. Our world is under attack by darkness. The Demon Lord Malakor wants to destroy our light. You are our salvation. You are the Heroes of the New Age."

Students started panicking. They shouted about kidnapping. Demanded to see their parents. Valen stayed quiet. He looked at the knights and their sharp weapons. He saw the iron doors at the end of the hall. This was not a prank. The air felt heavy. It had a static that made his skin prickle. Magic.

The old man said, "Silence!" again. A wave of energy stopped the students from talking.

"You have been given a gift by the Goddess " Alaric said. "Each of you has a Class and a core Skill. You will put your hand on the Awakening Crystal. It will show you your destiny and rank."

King Cedric leaned forward. "Lets hope we did not waste our mana on people this time. Proceed."

The magic stopped. Knights pushed the students forward. They lined up before a floating diamond on the dais. Valen was near the back behind Kael, the schools star athlete.

The first student, Sarah touched the crystal. It flashed blue. "Class: Mage. Rarity: Rare. Core Skill: Flame Manipulation " it said.

One by one students stepped up. The crystal flashed in colors. A green for a Ranger, silver for a Cleric, bronze for a Shield Bearer. The Kings expression changed from boredom to interest. The students looked at their hands in awe.

Then it was Kaels turn. He slammed his palm on the diamond. The crystal erupted. A blinding pure golden light filled the cathedral. The stained glass windows rattled.

The letters that formed above the crystal were huge and golden. "Class: Holy Avenger. Rarity: Legendary. Core Skill: Divine Smite " it said.

The cathedral cheered. Knights saluted. High Priest Alaric bowed his head. "Praise the Goddess! A Legendary tier! The true champion has arrived!"

Kael laughed. He looked at his classmates, Valen with a superior gaze.

The King said, "Come, Champion. Stand by my side. You will lead our vanguard."

There was one student left. Valen.

The room was electric. Valen stepped forward. He didn't feel excited. He felt a knot in his stomach. He approached the crystal.

"Let us see what the final seed bears " Alaric said.

Valen placed his hand on the crystal. Nothing happened.

The cheering stopped. The knights stopped saluting. The silence was deafening.

Slowly words appeared. "Class: Utility. Rarity: Defective. Core Skill: Concept Extraction."

Alarics face twisted in disgust. The Kings face darkened. "Explain this, High Priest " he said. "You assured me the summoning circle would only pull those with combat potential."

Alaric stammered. "I-I do not know, Your Majesty. The ritual is perfect. The Goddess does not make mistakes.. This... This is a non-combat class. Concept Extraction? It sounds like a scavengers skill. He has no mana capacity."

The King spat, "He is a waste of the empires resources."

Valen said, "You brought me here. I didn't ask for this. If I'm not what you want send me back."

Alaric snapped, "Silence, defect. The ritual is a one-way bridge. You consume our mana simply by existing in our realm. You are a leech."

Kael laughed. "Looks like you're just as useless here as you were home, Valen. Sorry, man. Guess you're not cut out for the hero business."

The other students looked away. None of them spoke up.

The captain of the guard asked, "What should we do with him Sire? Shall we send him to the labor camps?"

The King said, "No. He is a summoned being. If the public learns we pulled an utility class it will lower morale and cast doubt on the churchs absolute authority. He cannot exist within the empires borders. Throw him into the Dead Zone."

A murmur of horror rippled through the knights. Even Alaric looked taken aback.

Two massive knights lunged forward. Valen. Fought back.. They were too strong. They dragged him backward across the marble floor.

Valen shouted, "Get your hands off me!" He struggled fiercely kicking out trying to break their grip.

Kael watched from the raised platform his smile fading into a look of pity but he said nothing. He simply turned his back as Valen was dragged through the iron doors of the cathedral.

The transition from the glowing hall to the outside world was jarring. Valen was hauled through cobblestone courtyards past spires of white stone and gold. The sky above was a unnatural blue.

The knights did not take him into the city. They dragged him toward the back of the royal citadel up a winding flight of stone stairs that seemed to go on

Valen fought the way his muscles burning, his breath coming in ragged gasps but the knights were impossibly strong. Their grip was like a steel vise.

Finally they reached the top of the stairs emerging onto a flat stone wall that stretched out of sight in both directions.

This was the Great Wall of Solaria.

Valen was thrown to the ground roughly. He scrambled to his knees. Looked over the edge.

His heart stopped.

Beyond the wall there was no city, no fields, no forests. There was a huge endless abyss of swirling sickly purple fog.

The sky above the wall was blue. The sky beyond the wall was a bruised rotting violet.

The landscape below was hidden entirely by the churning clouds of miasma.

From this height the smell was bad—a mixture of rotting meat, sulfur and burning copper.

This was the Dead Zone.

Stand him up the captain of the guard ordered, stepping up behind Valen.

Valen was yanked to his feet his toes resting on the edge of the stone wall. The drop was easily a thousand feet down into the toxic fog.

Listen to me Valen said, breathing heavily turning his head to look at the captain. You do not have to do this. I do not care about your empire. I will not cause trouble. Just let me go into the wilderness.

There is no wilderness, boy, the captain said, his voice muffled behind his visor. There is the Empire and there is the Dead Zone. You were judged defective. This is the law.

The captain placed a boot squarely against Valens chest.

May the Goddess find use for your soul in the life.

The captain kicked.

Valen was launched backward off the wall. The wind instantly rushed past his ears in a roar. He tumbled through the air looking up to see the edge of the Great Wall shrinking rapidly above him the silver figures of the knights turning into specks.

Panic, pure and primal seized him. He thrashed in the air trying to find purchase on nothing.

The sky turned from blue to violet as he breached the layer of the miasma.

Instantly his skin began to burn. It felt like he had been plunged into a vat of boiling acid. He opened his mouth to scream. The purple fog rushed into his lungs. It was like breathing in ground glass and fire. He choked, blood instantly bubbling up his throat and out of his nose. His vision blurred dark spots dancing across his eyes. The pain was absolute. He was dissolving from the inside out.

The wind roared the fog choked him and the ground was rushing up to meet him.

This was it. He had been in this world for than an hour and he was going to die a meaningless agonizing death.

Then as the edges of his vision faded to black a sound pierced through the rushing wind and his own gurgling breaths. It was not a voice from the outside. It was a mechanical emotionless tone ringing directly inside his skull.

System initializing...

Host biological functions failing.

Toxicity level: Fatal.

Estimated time until cellular collapse: 4 seconds.

Warning: Host entering high-toxicity zone. Survival probability: 0.01%.

Activating class skill: Concept Extraction.

Target detected: Airborne Lethal Miasma.

The world seemed to slow down. Valen was still falling the ground still rushing up his lungs still burning,. His mind snapped into a hyper-focused clarity. A translucent blue screen floated in his vision hovering steadily despite his descent.

Would you like to extract the concept of 'Toxicity' from the environment and internal organs?

Cost: 0 Mana.

Yield: 1 Unit of Condensed Lethal Poison.

Valen could not speak. His vocal cords were practically melted.. The system did not need him to speak aloud. It needed his will.

With the last shred of his conscious mind Valen screamed the command internally.

Extract!

A pulse of energy exploded from Valens body.

The purple fog immediately surrounding him lost its color turning into breathable oxygen.

The burning in his lungs ceased instantly leaving behind an ache.

A small solid sphere of purple crystal materialized in the palm of his hand.

Host successfully extracted 'Toxicity'.

Warning: Impact with ground imminent. Survival probability: 0.00%.

Valen looked down. The ground, a landscape of blackened stone and twisted dead trees was only a hundred feet away. He had solved the poison problem. Gravity was still going to turn him into a smear on the rocks.

Target detected: Kinetic Energy (Falling).

Would you like to extract the concept of 'Momentum' from Hosts body?

Extract! Valen commanded again squeezing his eyes shut.

The rushing wind stopped.

Valen opened his eyes. He was hovering two inches above a jagged spire of black rock. He hung suspended in the air for a fraction of a second entirely stripped of his velocity.

Then gravity reasserted itself.

He dropped the two inches his boots hitting the rock with a soft thud.

He lost his balance. Fell backward onto the hard stone gasping for the purified air he had just created around himself.

He lay there for a time staring up at the churning purple sky. His chest heaved. He was covered in sweat and his own blood clutching a glowing purple marble in his right hand and another clear marble in his left that pulsed with the captured kinetic energy of a thousand-foot fall.

He had not died.

The system chimed again in his head.

Environment hostile. Dead Zone established as a location.

Welcome, Host Valen.

Your journey begins now.