The sound came again.
Not a growl. Not a screech.
A breath.
Ragged, wet, and close.
Caelus pressed his back to the canyon wall, crouched low behind a crumbling ridge. The shadows shifted ahead, too fast and too heavy, and then stilled. Something had just died nearby. He could feel it. Like a change in air pressure that made the world pause and listen.
Then the voice arrived.
Not from outside.
From inside.
[Death Imprint Detected] Name: Leri. Species: Human. Age: 19 Cause of Death: Arterial rupture due to mauling by Category D Predator (Chitinback Ravager) Final Echo Available: Skill Fragment "Blind Dash" Type: Mobility | Tier: F Would you like to Archive this memory?
Caelus didn't answer immediately.
A human. One of the 314. Someone like him. And they were already gone.
He closed his eyes. Not out of guilt. Out of necessity. He couldn't afford the luxury of feeling right now.
Yes, he whispered.
The sensation came quick and sharp. Like turning a page that was never meant for you.
Suddenly, he understood something he shouldn't have.
The lean-forward motion. The angle of the foot. The snap of the ankle to shift weight sideways without losing speed. A trick born from fear, refined in panic, now embedded in his bones.
[Blind Dash acquired] Archive Slots Used: 1 of 100
Something moved up ahead. Heavy steps. A low hiss.
The predator hadn't left yet.
Caelus froze.
His new instinct pulsed behind his ribs. The echo of Leri's last run.
Blind Dash, he whispered again.
And his body moved.
A blur of shadow. He shot from cover with a speed his muscles shouldn't have managed. It wasn't teleportation. Just the shortest line between terror and survival.
The beast shrieked as it turned. Six red eyes locked onto him but it was too late. Caelus ducked into a crack in the wall just wide enough for a man, scraping his shoulder raw as he slipped through.
He hit the ground hard on the other side, rolled, and stayed down.
The Ravager slammed into the cliff with bone-cracking force but didn't follow. It hissed, frustrated, then stomped off into the deeper canyon.
Caelus lay in silence, staring at the red sky.
He should be dead. Again.
But something, something broken in the system, had let him cheat.
He reached up and touched his chest, half-expecting to feel blood. There was none. Just fast breathing, shaking fingers, and the whisper of someone else's memory still echoing behind his eyes.
He looked at his hand. Then clenched it.
I don't have to fight, he said softly. I just have to listen.
The Archivist class wasn't about strength.
It was about story.
Every death was a record. Every fallen body a page.
And he was the one reading them all.
He sat there until the silence settled again.
Then he moved.
Climbing out of the rock fissure took effort. The canyon wall was dry and jagged, the stone hot under his hands. But he climbed anyway. Slow. Careful. Measured.
Once he reached the ridge above, he crawled to a vantage point.
Below, the predator lingered near a corpse. Human. Limbs splayed. Dust stained with dark blood.
Another participant, already lost.
Caelus swallowed hard and took stock. The Ravager wasn't feeding. It was pacing. Like it was waiting for something.
[System Alert: Passive Recording Active] [Memory Residue: Moderate] [Skill Fragment Available: "Dust Veil"] [Camouflage Technique | Tier: E]
Caelus blinked. He hadn't gotten near the body. But the Archivist trait was responding to proximity.
Maybe this was how he survived. By watching the aftermath. By staying where no one else wanted to be.
Yes, he whispered again.
The memory took hold, this one more subtle. It wasn't a movement. It was a stillness. The way a dying soldier had once dropped low, stirred dust just so, and disappeared.
It wasn't perfect invisibility. Just misdirection. But to Caelus, it was better than any armor.
[Dust Veil acquired] Archive Slots Used: 2 of 100
His breathing calmed. His thoughts didn't.
This world, this "tutorial," it wasn't just a challenge. It was a graveyard. One he could read like a map.
And he was starting to think that was the point.
He slid down the back side of the ridge and moved east, away from the predator. His body remembered the two skills now. Blind Dash for sudden movement. Dust Veil for hiding.
Each death gave him a little more.
Each failure taught him what to avoid.
Somewhere behind him, another scream echoed through the canyon.
Caelus didn't flinch. He just turned his head slightly, listening. Not to the sound itself, but to the space it came from.
Three ridges over. Too far to reach in time. But the system was faster.
[Death Imprint Detected] Name: Zava. Species: Orak'thul. Age: 61 Cause of Death: Blunt trauma and systemic collapse from environmental hazard Memory Fragment: "Heat Pulse Control" Type: Environmental Adaptation | Tier: E Would you like to Archive?
Yes.
It hit him like heat under skin. Not just endurance, but technique. How to breathe slower. How to shift blood flow. How to make heat your ally instead of your enemy.
[Heat Pulse Control acquired] Archive Slots Used: 3 of 100
Caelus crouched beneath a sloped ridge, eyes scanning the red sky.
A thought gnawed at the back of his skull.
Why was he seeing so many?
Why were they dying so fast?
Then the system answered a question he hadn't asked.
[Live Update: Participant Count - 314 to 276 in 17 minutes] [Probability Recalibration in Progress]
He let out a low breath.
Too many were dying. Too quickly.
And no one was coming to help.
That's when he felt the shift.
Like static on his skin. Pressure. Not heat. Not gravity. But attention.
Far above him, in a place beyond the canyon and the sky and the rules, something was watching.
[Unaligned Entity Detected: Spectator Connection Inbound] [Request: Audience Acknowledgment]
He stared up at the flickering red sky.
What does that mean?
Another message appeared.
[You have been marked as a Low-Odds Participant. Audience Interest: Anomalous.]
A moment later, another line.
[First Gift Offered: Unknown Origin. Accept?]
He paused.
No sponsor. No guide. No backup. And now the void wanted to give him something?
No.
He didn't trust them.
Decline, he said aloud.
The message blinked out.
And somewhere, far beyond the veil, something laughed.
But it was not mocking.
It was amused.
Caelus narrowed his eyes.
Let them watch.
He wasn't here for their entertainment.
He was here because someone had forgotten to delete him.
And he was going to make that their biggest mistake.