Its voice slithered along my body like a cold fingernail.
My whole body locked, my mind screaming—MOVE NOW!
My limbs didn't listen, the room frayed into scratched folds as my eyesight dimmed, mana overuse grinding against my head like sandpaper. The chamber twisted, melted, then snapped back into place again.
"No… not like this…" I whispered.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Resonance Shift—Forced Activation]
[Stamina Cost ×3 Due to Overuse]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
My vision tore open violently, doubling the world again, this time barely visible, like my eyes were adjusting after looking directly into a flashlight.
The Bloodwraith crouched low behind me. Its arm drawn back like a spear before thrusting straight through my throat, pinning me to the wall.
The shift ended so abruptly I nearly vomited.
MOVE MOVE MOVE—!
My body obeyed before thought did.
I shoved all the magic I had left into my heel, exploding backward with a—
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[KINETIC PUSH—CAST]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
BOOM—!!
It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. Hurts. Hurts. Hurts.
My body's every nerve screamed in protest. I flew, crashed, rolled across the stone—
—and the Bloodwraith's arms SLAMMED into the ground where my skull just been.
The floor shattered sending debris out like an explosion. Its empty voice twisted into a sound that was deeper, maybe even furious.
The Bloodwraith was done playing.
It lunged. A blue blur of rotting limbs and violent steam, glitching between the distance. One moment ten feet away—The next, inches from me.
"Shit—!"
I rolled, its nails grazing my side, tearing fabric and skin. Fire ripped through my body.
R...eson...ance... sh..ift
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Resonance Shift—Forced Activation]
[Stamina Cost ×3 Due to Overuse]
[Warning] Stamina: 9%
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
The world split one final time.
In one, it's nails dug into my heart.
In the other, it ripped my spine straight from my back.
"No..."
The word slipped out of me thin and wavering. Everything slowed in a way that felt like time had lost its grip.
The chamber wavered. Sound dulled. My body felt miles away.And in the middle of that collapse, a single, stupid thought surfaced:
What am I even doing...?
Nineteen years old, and somehow, I'd managed to float through life like I was allergic to anything difficult. Every goal I picked up, I dropped. Every chance to change, I brushed off.
Every promise I made myself—tomorrow, next week, someday—I let rot in the same place I left unfinished homework and unread messages.
College was a blur I barely participated in. Friendships slipped through my hands because I never reached back. And love… I don't even know if I'd earned the right to think about that. I always told myself there would be more time. But there was no later.
There was just this: a ruined floor, a monster that was scary as hell, and a loser with a system that loved to put me in danger.
I was always waiting for life to start. For some sign or signal to tell me "You're allowed to try." For someone to sweep me off of my feet and fix the things I never wanted to face.
I didn't hate myself for weakness, but for the countless memories I'd robbed myself of by just...
fucking quitting.
I didn't want to run anymore. To die the same person I'd always been, halfway through something that mattered.
Something steady settled in my soul—a quiet decision.
I won't give up here.
The moment that thought settled, the world snapped back into motion. I rolled with every ounce of energy I could muster. The Bloodwraith's hands tore through where I had been. My vision stuttered—bright, dark, bright, dark— glitching like a dying monitor.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[VOIDLASH — CAST ]
[STAMINA COST 3X]
[WARNING] — STAMINA 5%
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
The spell ripped out of me, a black arc carving through the air, weak and faint—but still there. Still enough.
SHRRRIPP—!!
It caught the Bloodwraith in the shoulder, tearing through its already tattered body. The creature spun, it's body convulsing as violet ichor sprayed.
Good. Now we're both bleeding badly.
CHAAAAA—!!
It shrieked, as the chamber warped with the sheer power behind its cry.
But... I didn't have much left in me.
Stamina was near 0...
Eyesight nearly broken...
Mana beyond drained.
My arm fell lifelessly to my side with a grunt, and I made no effort to stand.
The Bloodwraith staggered too—one arm hanging by lines of tissue, the gash across its torso widening with each movement. But even broken, it moved towards me with one goal.
"Not… yet…" It came out as a wheeze.
The Bloodwraith's fingers sharpened into blade-like points, each one aimed to puncture something vital—heart, throat, skull. It raised its arm with slow, deliberate cruelty, savoring the moment.
Tch-ta-ta-ta…
Its laugh skittered across the stone like sick nails being dragged across metal.
I forced my head up, meeting its hollow eyes.
"I said…"My voice cracked."…not yet."
I planted my sword into the ground, using it like a crutch. My legs trembled violently, but they held—barely.
The Bloodwraith lunged.
No more spells. Resonance shift didn't save me. No system at all.
Just me.
I angled the sword with the last ounce of instinct I had left.
Steel met flesh—
—or whatever this thing was made of.
SHKRRRKK—!!
The blade slid deep into the wound I'd carved earlier, right into the open gash where its torso had nearly split, its entire body jerking like a puppet with its strings torn out.
I screamed as I twisted the blade deeper, dragging it sideways through it's body.
"DIE—!!"
The Bloodwraith thrashed violently, claws cutting shallow lines across my ribs. The floor turned to red. My arms shook so hard I thought the sword would slip from my hands.
But it didn't.
I didn't let it.
With a final, brutal twist—
CRRRKKKKSHHHH—!!
The Bloodwraith's movements stopped all at once. Then it collapsed into itself—its body folding and unraveling like shadow sucked through a drain. A final shriek split the chamber, then faded into dust and violet smoke.
Silence crashed down like a wave.
My grip loosened. My body slumped. And the sword clattered uselessly to the floor beside me.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[LEVEL UP!]
[LEVEL 13 → LEVEL 16]
[Mana +30 | Stamina +12 | Attributes Increased]
[NEW TITLE ACQUIRED: Wraith Slayer]
+40% Magical Potency against undead creatures.
[Warning: Stamina Critically Low]
[Warning: Resonance Instability]
[Warning: Vision Failure Approaching]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
The floor tilted sideways, but I rested the blade yet again on the stone, refusing to fall again.
"Not... done yet..."
The red aura blocking the entrance faded. I stumbled toward it, with one goal.
Live.
Every step was a negotiation, my legs locking and quivering underneath me. The world refused to hold still.
"Just... get home. To Blackwell... Don't...die... please don't...die."
My voice faded into nothingness. Somewhere between the stairwell and the final landing, my vision fully blackened, but my legs kept moving.
If I hadn't leveled up just then...
Don't stop.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[EXTRACTION:] — AVAILABLE
DO YOU WISH TO EXIT... "The Dormant Maw."
YES / NO
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Yes.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[EXTRACTION COMPLETE]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
"Don't… collapse here…" My voice was thin, ragged. "…not out in the open…"
The campus was silent. It was late enough that every window was dark except for a few desktops left running inside classrooms. No students walking to vending machines. No laughter drifting across the campus.
Just the sound of my footsteps.
By the time I reached the dorm steps, my breathing was a wet rattle. My knees gave out, smashing into the cement, and for a moment everything dimmed.
I pressed an arm against the wall and dragged myself back up.
Keep going. Just keep going.
The front door to Blackwell Hall was propped open with a piece of cardboard someone had wedged under it. The soft buzz of the lobby lights washed over me.
Almost there.
I clung to the rail as I climbed the stairs, each step heavier than the last. The sword's tip scraped behind me, leaving faint streaks on the tile. My shoulder slammed the wall twice. I tasted blood on my tongue, warm and metallic.
"Just… reach the room…" Words slurred. Barely audible.
Second floor. Left hall. Third door from the end.
My hand floated desperately, resting on the wall with a smack.
The hallway swayed.
For a split second, I thought I'd imagined it. I heard a soft click from further down the hall. Then it opened slow, spilling a thin line of warm light on the floor.
Then a voice called out to me quiet and half asleep.
"'Aiden...?"
Maya.
The door swung fully open.
Her eyes widened instantly. All the fatigue, all the softness of a late-night yawn vanished the second she saw me.
"Aiden?!"
Her voice shot up an octave, the sound sharp with panic.
"Oh my God—what happened? Aiden—hey—Aiden!"
She rushed forward before I could even try to form a sentence.
I opened my mouth.
No sound came out.
My body lurched forward—gravity winning the moment my legs gave out. The world tilted. The hall spun. Maya's arms wrapped around me before I hit the floor, catching me by the shoulders, her breath stuttering.
"Hey—hey—stay awake—Aiden, look at me! Please!"
Her hands trembled as she tried to keep my weight up. She wasn't strong enough to hold me; I felt her knees dip from the strain. She pushed anyway, bracing my body against her chest, dragging me over the threshold of the room.
My head lolled against her shoulder.
Everything blurred.
Her voice cracked again.
"Aiden, you're bleeding—why didn't you call someone? What happened to you? Oh my God—"
A hot drop hit my cheek.
Tears.
Not mine.
Why the hell is she crying for me...? I don't... get it.
I wanted to say I'm fine or don't cry or literally anything to make that look on her face disappear.
But my body finally, fully shut down. The sword hit the carpet with a dull thud. My eyes rolled back. My consciousness slipped. Maya's voice followed me into the dark—shaking, desperate.
"Aiden—Aiden, stay with me! Please!"
And then—
Nothing.
Just black.