Sylar trembled as he heard the voice, faint, cracked, but unmistakably familiar.
He turned toward the collapsed remains of a nearby building, his heart lurching. Without hesitation, he ran forward, shoving aside shattered beams and slabs of concrete. Dust and ash filled the air, stinging his lungs, but he didn't stop until he saw him.
"Grandpa Oliver…"
The words came out as a whisper, choked with disbelief and grief.
By some miracle, the old man was still alive. Half his body was buried under the wreckage, a length of metal pipe piercing through his abdomen. His breathing was shallow, his face pale, yet his eyes were open. It defied reason that he lived at all. But Sylar's mind could not comprehend miracles.
He only saw his family, what little of it remained.
His small hands clawed at the debris, desperate to free the man beneath. His thoughts were a storm of panic and pain. But before he could act further, Oliver's trembling hand rose and settled gently on his shoulder.
"It's all right," the old man said softly, his voice barely audible. "This is not your fault, Sylar. You didn't do this."
The boy froze.
The words pierced deeper than any blade.
His shoulders shook, and for the first time since the nightmare began, the tears came—hot and endless. Until now, he hadn't cried. He couldn't. Because deep down, he had blamed himself.
If I'd been here sooner.
If I hadn't blacked out.
If I were stronger.
The thoughts had been gnawing at him, whispering that he was cursed, that wherever he went, destruction followed. But hearing those words from the one who had protected him since he was a baby broke through that darkness.
Oliver's eyes softened. Despite the agony twisting his body, he smiled and reached up, cupping the boy's face in one trembling hand.
"The man you'll become," he said, his voice faltering, "will never be dictated by anyone but yourself. No plan, no prophecy, no power, nothing can define you but you, Sylar."
His breathing grew ragged, each word costing him more strength. Yet his gaze never wavered, filled with pride and love.
"Be good… be kind," he whispered. "Protect those you can. Don't let the pain of the past bind you. Remember, you are a good person."
His fingers loosened.
The warmth left his hand.
Oliver's eyes fluttered closed, a peaceful smile lingering on his lips.
Sylar stared, unmoving, as the hand that had guided him through every hardship fell lifeless to the ground. For a moment, he couldn't breathe. Then the sound tore out of him, a final, heart-wrenching cry that emptied every shred of grief left in his soul.
The yellow light that had filled his eyes faded. His body trembled, then steadied. Slowly, he bowed his head.
"Goodbye, Grandpa."
He turned away, wiping his face with bloodstained hands. His tears still fell, but they no longer blinded him. They cleansed him, washed away the rage, the guilt, the despair.
Sylar ran.
Through the ruins, past the burning streets, and into the forest where the flames could not reach. He didn't look back until he was deep among the trees, where the night air cooled the fire that still burned inside him.
Unseen behind him, the man he had left behind stirred.
The old body that should have been lifeless opened its eyes, and they glowed a brilliant yellow.
A smile curved Oliver's lips, though there was no madness in it this time, unlike previous incarnations. Only peace. As he gazed toward the distant figure of the boy disappearing into the woods, his expression was one of contentment.
"Go," he murmured. "Live."
Then he turned his eyes upward to the swirling white storm clouds forming in the sky. Lightning crackled across their surface, reflecting in his yellow irises.
A quiet chuckle escaped him, growing louder until it became a joyous laugh.
"Hahahahahah! I won, brother!"
The words rang out just as a bolt of lightning struck the gas line beside him.
The explosion came like a sunrise, white, blinding, absolute. Fire surged through the ruins, consuming the town in a storm of flame. Even as the inferno swallowed him whole, Oliver's laughter did not cease. It echoed long after his body turned to ash.
Far away, Sylar stumbled as the shockwave rippled through the forest behind him. He turned just long enough to see the glow on the horizon, a final funeral pyre for everything he had ever known.
Everyone he loved was gone. Nothing remained but the silence of the wild.
So he kept running.
Hours later, he found a pond hidden deep within the forest. Kneeling by the edge, he washed his face and hands, scrubbing away the blood and grime until the water turned red. His reflection stared back at him, pale, weary, but alive.
The tears had stopped, though the ache remained. Yet beneath the pain, a spark of something else began to grow.
Determination.
He would not forget. But he would learn to forgive himself.
Taking a deep breath, Sylar steadied his thoughts. The world had changed. The monsters that destroyed his town weren't isolated; he could feel it. Something vast and sinister was moving across the earth.
But before he could face it, he needed to understand what he had become.
He whispered the word that had appeared in his mind since the first battle.
"System."
The air shimmered before him, and a translucent blue screen unfolded from nothing.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
NEMESIS SYSTEM INTERFACE
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[HOST STATUS]
───────────────────────────────────────
• Designation: Sylar Bright
• Species Line: Homo Evolutus
• Rank : 0 – NOVICE
• Level : 4
• Vault Capacity: N/A (Seed Dormant)
• Entropy Debt : 0 % (Stable)
• System Access: Basic – Status | Quests | Log
───────────────────────────────────────
[CORE ATTRIBUTES]
───────────────────────────────────────
STRENGTH (STR) 58
AGILITY (AGI) 21
VITALITY (VIT) 25
COGNITION (COG) 19
INTEGRATION (INTG) 15
WILL (WIL) 19
ADAPTABILITY (ADP) 16
Derived Values:
• Combat Efficiency Rating (CER): 98
• Evolutionary Potential (EP): 31
• Survival Index (SI): 44
• Cognitive Feedback Threshold (CFT): 38
───────────────────────────────────────
[INNATE ABILITIES]
───────────────────────────────────────
• Mutations: - Super Strength (Grade 4)
───────────────────────────────────────
[VAULT DATA]
───────────────────────────────────────
Vault Tier : 0 – Seed Stage
Capacity : 0 TP (Inactive)
─ Stored Entities ─
▫ None – Vault not yet awakened.
[NOTATION]
> "Dimensional seed detected. Awaiting trigger event. Evolve to Rank 1."
───────────────────────────────────────
[MUTATION SLOTS] 0 / 0
───────────────────────────────────────
• Mutation system locked until Vault Tier I.
───────────────────────────────────────
[FUSION SLOT]
───────────────────────────────────────
• Fusion system locked until Vault Tier II.
───────────────────────────────────────
[SUMMONING SLOT]
───────────────────────────────────────
• Summoning system locked until Vault Tier II.
───────────────────────────────────────
[ENERGY RESERVES]
───────────────────────────────────────
• Bio-Energy (BE): 94 % (Recovery +2.4 %/h)
• Vault-Energy (VE): N/A
───────────────────────────────────────
[MISSION LOG]
───────────────────────────────────────
▫ Quest #001: Kill fifteen Apostles of Necrasys
Reward: 3500 XP
Missing Grade: 4+
Status: ACTIVE (8/15)
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
The amount of information streaming from the interface was staggering, but Sylar refused to be overwhelmed. He breathed once, hard, and told himself, one step at a time. Then he began.
"First, I need to understand Rank. What did it mean, and how did I raise it?" The screen highlighted the Vault as a core component—yet it stayed dormant until the Host reached Rank 1, so it was clear to Sylar that it was very important.
A robotic voice answered him, cold and precise.
[Each Rank measures how completely the host has integrated with the Nemesis's organic and metaphysical systems. It gauges fusion between host and system.]
[RANK defines CAPACITY:
• the amount of power the host can contain,
• the number of mutations sustainable without collapse,
• the depth of fusion the host can endure,
• the scale of entities the VAULT may archive or manifest.
Higher RANK = greater adaptation speed, wider evolution window,
and improved resistance to entropy corruption.]
[Rank must be earned through survival and assimilation. To reach Rank 1, the Host must attain Level 10. A mission to advance will appear at that moment.]
A cold light crossed Sylar's vision. Level 10. He'd just hit Level 4. The climb would be steep and dangerous.
His eyes went to the note beside his mutation. It was clear that Grade was important, so he needed to understand more.
[GRADE = OBJECTIVE POWER MAGNITUDE.]
[For life forms, it quantifies destructive scale, energy tolerance, and dimensional weight on reality. For mutations, it quantifies potency, stability, and entropy load.]
[Grades range from -5 to +1:
Grade 5 — Wall Level
Grade 4 — Room / Building Level
Grade 3 — Block Level
Grade 2 — Town / Fortress Level
Grade 1 — City / Region Level]
[To defeat a Grade 5 life form, a metal pipe could be enough; to defeat a Grade 1, a small nuclear device might be required.]
Sylar's eyes flicked over the data. His understanding of the world was shifting faster than he could process, and the idea that a single being could raze a city struck him dumb. He remembered the monstrous thing that had fallen from the sky; its impact had leveled half the town.
"If that's a Grade 2," he thought, "what nightmare is Grade 1? Maybe there were grades beyond those listed." The possibilities were terrifying. Still, he forced himself not to panic and scrolled to the next entry.
Bio-Energy was straightforward, an organic power source that fuels physical and mutation functions.
Then finally came the mission log. The abominations were called Apostles, and their patron was named Necrasys. The interface grouped them as targets.
Quest #001: Eliminate fifteen Apostles of Necrasys — Reward: 3,500 XP — Missing Grade: 4+ — Status: ACTIVE (8/15)
Sylar's jaw tightened. He had already killed eight, driven by grief, not duty, but the system framed it as a mission now. He breathed in, steadied himself, and set his sights on the nearest town across the forest.