The sky above Erebos looked like old parchment: cracked, faded, and sick with smoke. Ash rained lightly on the rooftops, turning everything a shade of grey, and the air stank of sewage, iron, and something older than rot.
Kael moved through the alleys with his head low. His boots, held together by wire, made soft squelching sounds in the mud. He kept his right hand near the hilt of the rusted sword on his back. It wasn't sharp anymore, but in the Wastes, intimidation mattered more than steel.
He passed a dead man slumped against a wall, flies swarming his mouth. No one stopped. No one even looked.
This was Erebos. The city where the poor weren't people. Just shadows in someone else's light.
The Spires rose high above him, glowing with artificial suns and banners of silk. That was where the Enlightened lived. They were the ones who had conquered dungeons and returned changed. They had grace. They had power. They ruled everything.
Kael was just another orphan in the filth. No lineage. No coin. No hope.
But not for much longer.
He stopped at the edge of the slums where broken earth gave way to sinkholes and collapsed ruins. There, hidden beneath old scaffolding and layers of soot, was a stairway descending into the dark.
The opening wasn't sanctioned. The Guild didn't mark it. That made it illegal, and more importantly, unguarded.
Kael lit a rusted lantern and took a breath.
Once he went down, there was no turning back.
He descended.
The dungeon walls were tight and wet, covered in roots that pulsed faintly with light. The deeper he went, the more distorted everything became. Stone turned to bone. Air turned cold. The silence thickened.
Kael gripped his sword tighter.
He didn't come here expecting to survive. He came to change. He wanted to be more than a starving ghost.
They said dungeons tested your soul. They showed you what you truly were.
Kael had nothing left to hide.
The corridor widened into a chamber. It was empty at first.
Then something stirred.
It rose from the ground in pieces, like armor assembling itself around a skeleton of smoke. A creature shaped like a man, but wrong in every way. No face. No eyes. Just a mouth on its chest filled with jagged teeth.
Kael moved on instinct. His sword came up just as the creature lunged. Sparks flew. The blade held, but only barely.
It screamed. The sound rattled the lantern glass and clawed at his brain.
He struck low. Metal scraped something brittle. The creature twisted and raked across his side. Blood spilled. Kael staggered, vision flickering.
It came again. Fast. Too fast.
His body slammed into the wall.
The sword clattered away.
The creature hovered above him, breathless and hungry.
Kael reached for the blade, but his arm wouldn't move.
His chest burned.
He was going to die.
Not like this.
Not worthless.
Not forgotten.
And then, something cracked inside him.
Not a bone. Something deeper.
The world blurred. The air trembled.
From his wound, black smoke began to pour. It was not like blood, but like shadow given form.
The creature paused.
The smoke curled upward. It wrapped around Kael's fingers and surged into his chest like lightning.
Then came the pain.
He screamed. His veins turned black. His eyes rolled back.
And in that agony, something inside him opened.
He saw fire. Chains. A throne made of glass and screaming teeth.
A name echoed in his skull, not his own.
Parasite.
Kael stood. Slowly. Shaking.
The creature lunged again, shrieking.
Kael didn't dodge.
He caught it.
The black smoke burst from his palm and wrapped around the creature like tendrils. They dug in. Fed.
The monster began to dissolve, like flesh melting from bone.
Kael's breathing turned ragged.
The shadows receded. The room fell silent.
The sword lay at his feet, smoking.
He picked it up with trembling fingers.
Something was inside him now. Not grace. Not holy.
Something ancient. Hungry.
He left the chamber with a hollow stare. His side still bled. His muscles twitched with aftershocks. But he walked upright.
He had survived.
And in doing so, he had changed.
Not Enlightened.
Not blessed.
Cursed.