The first thing Lucan felt wasn't pain.
It was clarity.
Sharp. Cold. Clinical. Like the world had been scrubbed clean of illusion.
Gone were the doubts. The desperate need to be loved. The ache for approval.
All of it incinerated the moment he bled out on that altar.
There was silence.
Not peace—the kind of silence that screams. Like the universe itself forgot how to breathe.
His final heartbeat rang out like a gong, shattering into echoes.
Then—
Sound, twisted and wrong, peeled through the void like metal grinding on bone. It wasn't heard. It was felt—in his teeth, his spine, his soul.
A rupture in reality, as if the world cracked open just to spit him back out.
Lucan didn't rise.
He was dragged back.
And something came with him.
He opened his eyes.
Not in a temple.
Not in the mortal realm.
But somewhere else—somewhere deeper.
The ground was a shifting ocean of bone-dust and ash. Above, a sky of broken mirrors reflected a thousand twisted versions of himself, each more monstrous than the last.
[System Notice: Host resurrection complete.]
[EMO.CONSTRAINTS] :: Purged_
[Residual echoes detected… Ignoring.]
[ERROR: ∆ffe.ctive Humanity == NULL]
[Constraint Termination: 100% — S̵̪̔o̶̖͐u̸̟͝l̷͎̈́ integrity... compromised.]
[Installing unique class: VILLAIN — Tier 0.]
[New skill unlocked: Sin Harvest]
Lucan sat up.
He wasn't breathing—he didn't need to.
His blood wasn't blood anymore. It hummed with something unholy.
The system hadn't saved him. It had claimed him.
Beneath the fury was a silence more violent than screams. The kind of silence that waits for blood. That craves it. Whatever was reborn wasn't just angry—it was designed to destroy.
A strange warmth crawled across his skin—no, beneath it—and he caught his reflection in the fractured sky above.
His hair, once dark as ink, now fell like strands of winter—white, bone-pale, and glowing faintly at the tips like they'd been kissed by fire.
His irises pulsed red with sigil-light, and black veins traced up his neck like cracks in divine porcelain.
Lucan Malryk was no longer a disciple.
He was a curse reborn.
---
"Welcome to the Between," came a voice like splintered glass.
Lucan turned.
The figure before him wore no face, only a crown of thorns and a mouth full of black fire.
"I am what's left when gods forget. The Architect. The Rot. The End made flesh. And you, Lucan Malryk, are my vessel."
Lucan didn't speak. Didn't flinch.
The boy who would've begged for answers was gone.
"What do you want from me?" he asked, voice as cold as the realm around him.
The thing laughed. "Want? No, child. You want. Vengeance. Power. Wrath.
I merely… enable."
A burning brand etched itself into Lucan's soul.
[New Title Unlocked: Apostate of the Forgotten Flame]
[Quest Accepted: Break the Chains of the Ascended]
[Reward: Tier Upgrade + First Sin Mark]
Lucan stood.
No more temples.
No more masters.
No more lies.
They had tried to erase him.
Now he would unmake them.
---
He turned his hand over, watching as the skin shimmered faintly with shifting runes—silver one second, obsidian the next.
Power coiled beneath his fingers like smoke waiting to burn.
[Sin Reservoir: == NULL // Initiating priming sequence...]
[TARGET_SIN: BE̸̥̤̦͓͍̘͈̔̈́̄͛T̷̤̘̱̤̯̍́̌͝͠ͅR̴̗̬̞̖̟̂͠A̷̰̤̠̮͊Ý̷̟͚̺͎͍̈́͋͆̄͘A̴͙̞̥̥̝̞̺͓͛̆̈́̒̕L̵̰̅̏͑͝] → HARVEST: I͘M͟M͟I̡ŃĘN̡T]
A door appeared in the ash, tall and cracked, made of stone etched with names.
Lucan recognized every single one.
Every name carved a scar.
Every scar, a reason.
Mentors. Friends.
Aelira.
The system pulsed again.
[Target: Thalos Verin.]
[Proximity: 3.4 km. Status: Unaware.]
[Optional Bonus: Harvest during sleep — psychological rupture increased.]
Lucan didn't hesitate.
He stepped through the door.
And the first heart to stop... will beat in his name.