The End of the Sixteenth Year – Thelha Ra'tha
Anthony sat atop a mound of Pyre Dog corpses, their charred flesh still radiating warmth beneath him. Mixed among them were a few Superior ones — their larger forms twisted, clawed, and far more difficult to bring down. But they fell all the same.
He didn't look tired. He didn't look proud. He just looked up — at the same sky that hadn't changed in sixteen years. Ash still drifted lazily downward, painting the world in a constant gray. The clouds above were the same torn blood-red, stretched across a sunless sky.
His eyes were dull. Not dead, not defeated. Just dulled — like a blade that had been used for too long without sharpening.
He took a deep breath and summoned the screen with a single thought.
Status
It wasn't a spoken word. Just a mental nudge — a learned reflex. After more than a decade, Anthony had finally figured out how to interact with the system more efficiently. Not through voice, or commands, but through focused intent. Think the right thing, and the system would respond.
If he thought of skills, it would list the names of his abilities — not their descriptions, just the labels. If he thought details, then it would show the effects. Health, combat logs — all of it, sectioned by intention. A strange, minimal logic to it.
It might've seemed ridiculous how long it took him to reach that point, but it wasn't his fault. For years, Anthony hadn't had the luxury of time or curiosity. He wasn't experimenting or testing system mechanics. He was surviving — day by day, blood fight by blood fight. The system only mattered when it made itself known.
As the status screen appeared, he took a good moment to look at his stats.
[ STATUS – {Chosen One} ]
[ Name: Anthony Cloyne
Level: 20
Class: Warrior
Health: 95% / 100%
Stamina: 82% / 100%
Strength: 1,250
Agility: 1,143
Endurance: 2,567
Vitality: 2,305
Perception: 832
Skill Points Available: 0 ]
"As I thought..." Anthony muttered, flicking the screen away with a faint glow of his fingers. The translucent panel dissolved into sparks. "Level twenty seems to be the hard cap. I've been stuck on it for... what, two years now?"
He exhaled slowly through his nose and hopped down from the pile of Pyre Dog corpses with a dull thud. The ground beneath him cracked faintly under the weight of his conditioned body — thickened muscle and burning endurance compressed into one form after sixteen years of surviving.
"No new skill today either..." he muttered, expression unreadable.
He looked around the barren expanse of Thelha Ra'tha — the blood-swept plains, the blackened crags, the ever-present haze that dulled the sun into something more like an old, dying lantern. His eyes — eyes that could now pick out movement through flame and ash — caught something descending from the sky.
Not falling. Descending.
It looked like a small sun, a glowing yellow orb breaking through the blood-hued clouds above. Unlike meteors, it didn't burn or tumble. It pulsed, steady and deliberate, moving with unnatural purpose.
Anthony tensed immediately, his body reacting before his mind caught up. His hand drifted to the hilt of his blade, instinct tightening his grip. Something was wrong — deeply wrong. The air felt heavier, the sky quieter.
Then the system flared again, brighter than usual, almost urgent. Not a notification. A declaration.
[ NOTICE: A Stellaron has entered Thelha Ra'tha! ]
[ WARNING: The Stellaron is classified as a high-risk anomaly. Known as the "Cancer of All Worlds" by the Interastral Peace Corporation. ]
[ Response Protocol: This region is now considered unstable. System boundaries will be established around the closure zone. Entry by the {Chosen One} is strictly forbidden. Exposure or interference will result in irreversible Fragmentum corruption. ]
Anthony's eyes narrowed at the name — Interastral Peace Corporation.. It meant absolutely nothing to him. Not a whisper of that name in sixteen years. "Peace Corporation…?" he muttered.
He looked up again toward the sky, watching as the orb descended — slow, ominous, glowing gold with streaks of something like black lightning threading around its shell. The clouds above it swirled unnaturally, like the sky itself was rejecting the thing that had entered it.
Anthony watched for another moment, silent, the low hum of the sky's resistance vibrating faintly in his bones.
"...First time in sixteen years — no, seventeen almost — that the system actually tried to protect me," he muttered.
His gaze fell to the corpses below — still-warm Pyre Dogs and the few superior variants he'd taken down that morning. Blood soaked the ground, blackened and steaming.
"I'll take a few of them back to the cave," he said to himself, voice quiet but certain. "The meat should last through whatever this is."
He knelt beside one of the larger bodies, hoisting it effortlessly over his shoulder. His body had long since adapted to carrying far more than this, muscle and stamina forged through relentless repetition.
Still, his mind lingered on the sky.
Something had changed. And for the first time in years, Anthony wasn't sure if surviving day by day would be enough anymore.
_________________________________
The first month of the seventeenth year - Thelha Ra'tha
Anthony still thought about the Stellaron. That golden, crackling thing that had descended through the sky. The system's warning, its interference, the strange boundaries it had imposed — all of it sat uneasily in his mind.
And yet… nothing had happened.
No earthquakes. No distortions. No monsters. No system messages.The sky had returned to its usual stillness, and the land remained quiet — too quiet.
He sat by the cave mouth, sharpening his blade with long, practiced strokes. Teh rhythmic scrape of steel on stone was the only sound. Behind him, cleaned Pyre Dog meat smoked over a fire, the scent thick in the air.
"Still nothing," Anthony muttered, eyes scanning the horizon.
The plains stretched on in their usual silence — dry wind, scorched stone, and distant heat rippling against the dead landscape.
Then… movement.
Something shifted far off, low and prowling. Dog-shaped. A silhouette he knew all too well.
But there was something off about it. The posture was jagged, and teh way it walked was uneven. And the closer it crept, the more Anthony's gut twisted.
The system reacted before he did.
[ ALERT! A Pyre Dog corrupted by {Fragmentum} has appeared! ]
Anthony's expression darkened.
He had never seen that word before — Fragmentum.
But the signs were clear. The Pyre Dog's body pulsed with faint, unnatural light. Its bones looked strained, as if pushing against its own skin. Parts of it shimmered with black-glass veins that had yellow dots, like something inside was trying to break free.
It didn't move like a beast anymore. It twitched. Shifted. Stared.
Anthony slowly reached for his blade.
"...That's not just evolution." He took a step back, eyes never leaving the creature.
Its eyes glowed with a sick, distorted hue — flickering like static behind a veil of smoke. Its flesh rippled in places it shouldn't, as if something underneath was still squirming to get out.
"Corrupted..." Anthony muttered, brow furrowed. "Did it go to that Stellaron? But then again, the system mentioned Fragmentum..."[1]
His words hung in the air like ash.
It would explain the twisting aura. The wrongness in the thing's body. The system's panic.
That thing in the sky hadn't just been dangerous — it was infectious. It had touched the Pyre Dog he saw now. Warped it.
And now it was standing in front of him. Still drooling. Still snarling. But no longer a Pyre Dog.
Not really.
Then his eyes widened.
Behind the first corrupted Pyre Dog, the smoke parted — revealing more. A dozen. Then two dozen. Then more than he could count. Twisted shapes with warped limbs and glowing, broken eyes emerged one by one from the thickening haze. The very air behind them shimmered with static, like the world itself had been contaminated.
Not once in all his years — not once — had he seen Pyre Dogs group like this. Even at their worst, even at their most desperate, they fought each other as much as he did. Pack behavior was rare.
This wasn't a pack.
This was a swarm.
All of them wrong.
"...This isn't natural," Anthony whispered as his instincts screamed at him to move. But he stayed still. Calculating. Staring.
"Should I just... use Excidium?" he muttered aloud, licking his dry lips. "I've only used it a few times... but this — this seems worth it."
A deep thrum pulsed through his hand, like his blade was answering the question for him.
[ Excidium: Trinity Line ]
His most devastating attack. His... Ultimate, you could say.
However, Excidium wasn't a normal skill. As a Synergy Skill, it wasn't built for casual use. It wasn't a single strike, or even a combo in the traditional sense. It was a chain — a ruthless sequence of actions, each linked with machine-like precision, executed in under a hundred milliseconds, the time it takes to blink. Performing it wasn't just a matter of motion. It was cognition, precision, and timing compressed into a single act.
Something that no normal human could ever do unaided. It was too fast for a normal human to process. Too complex to perform instinctively.
That's why the System made it possible.
It bent the limits of his mind — treated the combination of movements as one action, allowing Anthony to think the word and act, near-instantaneously. No delays. No decision-making mid-move.
Just execution.
But even so, it strained him.
Hard.
Because even with the System's aid, the toll was real. Mentally and physically.
It would carve a path through the enemy — but using it drained stamina and left him wide open afterward. And with this many enemies... even one mistake could mean the end.
But if he didn't do something fast, he'd be overrun.
Anthony's eyes narrowed again, steady now. Focused.
He had survived this world for sixteen years.
One more fight. One more slaughter.
His foot slid back. "Fine."
He raised his blade. "Let's see if whatever that Stellaron is made you into is strong enough to survive this."
The corrupted horde snarled and advanced, twitching like broken marionettes.
Anthony's eyes didn't waver.
The word wasn't shouted. It wasn't even spoken. It pulsed in his mind like a trigger — and the world moved.
His body launched forward — no wind-up, no warning — just velocity.
The entire horde collapsed mid-charge.
Dozens of corrupted bodies dropped to the ground in perfect silence, their movements severed mid-twitch. Split torsos. Skulls cleaved. Limbs no longer attached where they should be.
Only the wind remained, whistling through the field where the corrupted once stood.
Anthony stood at the center of it all — his blade dripping, shoulders heaving with the effort.His breath was steady, but behind it was exhaustion.
Then… the corpses began to dissolve.
One by one, the twisted bodies of the corrupted Pyre Dogs broke down into shimmering particles — not ash, not blood — something else entirely. A faint gold shimmer tinged with a strange, oily blackness. Almost like they were being reclaimed.
Anthony straightened slightly, brow furrowing. That wasn't normal.
He waited.
One second. Two. Then five.
No ping.
No kill count.
No System notification.
No EXP gain.
Nothing.
"...No logs?" he muttered, eyes narrowing. "That's new..."
He stared for a moment longer, as if expecting the System to catch up — to blink and realize what had happened. But it didn't. The particles were gone, scattered into the wind. And so was the certainty that had followed every kill before.
Anthony turned away.
He moved back toward the mouth of the cave — the one he had claimed years ago, hollowed and shaped into something livable. A place that had, until today, kept him safe. But even as he walked, his mind churned. The image of that Stellaron hovering in the sky. The corrupted Pyre Dogs. The missing log.
Everything had changed.
Reaching the entrance, he looked out across the scorched fields once more. Then, without hesitation, he gripped the boulder he had long set aside for emergencies and dragged it into place, sealing the cave shut with a low grind of stone.
No light. No opening.
Just silence.
He let out a breath. His shoulders slumped.
He was tired. Not just physically — though the Excidium had drained him — but something deeper. A bone-deep fatigue. He had lived like this for sixteen years. Every day a hunt. Every hour a calculation. But now, for the first time, he didn't know what came next.
Anthony turned and walked deeper into the darkness of the cave.A few steps more, and he dropped to the cold stone floor.
He needed rest.
_________________________________
The Twenty-Second Year - Outerspace - Astral Express:
Above an unnamed, recently-trailblazed world, the Astral Express glided silently in low orbit. From the wide observation deck, March 7th leaned against the glass, her breath fogging the lower edge as she stared down at the planet's surface.
"That was a tough one..." she muttered to herself, flipping open her camera. "Who knew the Relic would be protected by some kind of—" she paused, searching for the right word, "—golem-plant-rock... thingy."
She scrolled through the pictures she'd taken. Blurry mid-battle shots. A dramatic photo of Dan Heng mid-swing. Welt frowning at some terminal. One accidental part of her own face mid-yell.
March smiled. "Still… the plant life was really pretty." She zoomed in on a glowing violet blossom poking out from between cracked stone. "...Even if it almost ate me."
Footsteps echoed behind her. The sound of someone coming from the express hallway.
"Still talking to your camera?" came Dan Heng's calm voice.
March spun, unbothered. "Hey! These are important documentation logs! I'm making a full album once we're done with this whole trailblaze mission... Title pending."
"Uh-huh..." Dan Heng replied, glancing down just as Pom-Pom waddled excitedly toward them.
"Hey, hey! You two! We're getting ready to make the Jump to Herta Space Station! I've come over to tell Miss March 7th not to try and challenge herself to withstand the jump... again." Pom-Pom looked up at March with a deadpan stare, tiny arms crossed.
March flashed a peace sign, grinning wide. "C'mon, it builds character!"
Dan Heng sighed. "It builds concussions."
Pom-Pom waddled to the nearest speaker panel and cleared his throat. "All passengers, this is your conductor speaking! Astral Engine calibration is complete. Coordinates locked. Preparing to Jump in 60 seconds! Please remain seated — and March, that's not optional!"
March pouted and buckled in beside Dan Heng, her camera already resting in her lap. "Fine, fine. But I'm taking notes on how to tank a jump like a pro."
From the forward command lounge, Welt Yang stood beside the observation console, arms crossed, his expression thoughtful.
"I've been monitoring the Jump path," Welt said, directing his voice toward the center of the car. "Unusual gravitational anomalies. Fluctuations that shouldn't be there."
Himeko, seated at the side control interface, spoke up as she finished her cup of coffee. "But nothing that would block the Jump?"
Welt shook his head slowly as he adjusted his glasses. "No. Just... odd static. Might be worth reporting to Herta when we arrive. Could because of the Relic"
Pom-Pom's voice returned, now from the main speaker with a cheerful chime. "Alrighty! Ten seconds till Jump. Eyes forward, seatbelts tight!"
The energy field of the Astral Express shimmered around the windows as golden threads of light stretched across the void. The whole train vibrated softly as the Astral Engine charged.
"Three… two… one—Jump!"
The stars bent around them.
And then—
Impact.
[1] Anthony doesn't know that Fragmentum is a byproduct of the Stellaron, as the system didn't mention it until now.