Chapter 19: The Citadel of Origins
The door to the Citadel groaned as Rayden stepped through it, grinding open not with hinges but with the sound of stone being remembered. Runes along the archway shimmered faintly, dimming the moment he crossed the threshold. The air inside was thick—heavy not with dust, but with memory. Every breath carried fragments of a history no living soul had been allowed to know.
[You have entered: The Citadel of Origins]
System Stability: Unmeasurable
Caution: No backup systems available. Mental resistance advised.
Rayden paused at the first corridor, eyes adjusting to the gloom. The walls pulsed faintly, like veins. Not mechanical, not magical—biological. The entire structure seemed alive, as if the Citadel was less a place and more a slumbering organism.
The further he walked, the more surreal everything became.
Images appeared on the walls. Not carvings—memories. Flickering like echoes trapped in stone. He saw cities burning. Thrones collapsing. Armies kneeling before monstrous figures cloaked in red flame.
And always—that symbol.
The twisted eye. His mark.
He stopped at a great chamber lined with floating monoliths. Each one showed a different System being created. Not awakened, but forged—spliced from soul and substance by pale-robed beings with hollow eyes and hands like bone.
Rayden clenched his fists.
> "So the Systems weren't gifts," he muttered. "They were manufactured…"
And the Berserk System?
It had no monolith.
Instead, a black orb floated in the center of the room, tethered by red chains. When Rayden approached, it looked at him. Not metaphorically—the sphere had a slit that opened like an eye, red and full of hate.
> "Host acknowledged," a voice whispered. "Access granted. Proceed."
The chains fell away.
Behind the orb, a passage unsealed, leading down into the true heart of the Citadel.
Rayden hesitated for only a second.
Then descended.
The staircase went downward forever. It defied space. The deeper he walked, the louder the hum of the Berserk System became in his mind, as if he were approaching something that belonged to him.
At the end of the descent, he found it.
A hall of mirrors—but they didn't reflect him.
Each showed another version of Rayden.
One was a tyrant. One was a beast. One was rotting. One was chained.
Each turned slowly to face him as he passed. They whispered in unison.
> "You are the anomaly. You were never supposed to awaken."
He ignored them.
At the center of the hall, on a throne of shattered timelines, sat the Architect—a humanoid being draped in reality itself, his face a shifting mass of static and stars.
> "Rayden Kael," it said in a voice that wasn't a voice. "The Berserk System was sealed, not because it was evil… but because it was unfinished."
Rayden stared. "Why show me this now?"
The Architect raised a hand.
> "Because you have completed what the others could not. You stabilized corruption. You resisted madness. You found balance in wrath. The Berserk System is no longer fragmented—it is ready."
A glyph burned across Rayden's chest.
[SYSTEM EVOLUTION: BERSERK —> BERSERK ASCENDANT]
New Core Skill: [Wrath Genesis Lv.1] — Transform raw emotion into destructive physical forms.
New Limit Break Unlocked: [Soulstorm Mode]
Warning: Use at your own peril. Cooldown: 48 hours.
Rayden staggered, heart thundering.
He could feel the change. Like an ocean rising inside his chest.
The Architect stood, arms open.
> "There will be others. Now that you've awakened, the Veiled Ones will come. They remember what the Berserk Line did before. You must decide: Will you repeat the sins of the past… or rewrite them?"
Rayden stepped forward, power flickering at his fingertips.
"I'm not here to repeat anything."
He turned.
Walked away from the Architect.
And as he did, the mirrors began to shatter.
So did the chains across reality.