The "Fragment of Pure Light" in Kaelen's hand was not warm. It was scorching.
It wasn't the heat of a bonfire, but the burn of something that did not belong in this place. In the absolute darkness of the Abyss, the crystal shone with an intensity that hurt the eyes. For Kaelen, whose pupils had dilated to absorb the essence of shadows, the light was like glass needles stabbing into his retina.
[COMPATIBILITY ALERT]
[THE OBJECT "FRAGMENT OF PURE LIGHT" REACTS NEGATIVELY WITH YOUR "SHADOW ESSENCE" CULTIVATION]
[REJECTION LEVEL: 88%]
[STATUS: YOUR BODY IS BEING "PURIFIED" (ERODED) BY THE LIGHT]
Kaelen let out a choked scream. The arm holding the crystal began to smoke. His skin, already marked by the scars of the previous battle, started to blister. The light was trying to "heal" the darkness the Codex had implanted in him, but in this world, that healing was equivalent to destruction.
—Damn… it… —Kaelen tried to store the crystal in the Codex's space, but the system threw an error.
[INSUFFICIENT STORAGE SPACE FOR CELESTIAL-GRADE OBJECTS]
[SUGGESTION: CONSUME THE OBJECT TO PAY THE DEBT OR USE IT AS BAIT]
—Consume it? —Kaelen gritted his teeth, his vision turning white from the pain—. It cost me my life to get it. I'm not just going to… give it away.
The metallic sounds of the Guardian had been replaced by something far worse: the sound of static. As if reality itself was being tuned incorrectly.
In the distance, among the remains of the giant machines, a figure appeared.
It didn't walk. It glided. It had no defined physical form; instead, it looked like a hole in space, a human silhouette made of visual "noise" and broken lines of code. It was the Auditor of the Void.
Kaelen felt his survival instinct — the one that had sharpened after the betrayal — screaming at full volume: Run. No fighting. You cannot win.
[IDENTIFICATION: MINOR-RANK AUDITOR]
[AUDITOR MISSION: ELIMINATE ANOMALIES AND RECOVER LOST ASSETS]
[VICTORY PROBABILITY: 0.0004%]
Kaelen had never seen such a low number in his life. Not even when Alaric pushed him into the void had he felt this kind of hopelessness. The Auditor emitted no combat aura, no blood seed. It was simply… a law of nature come to correct an error. And the error was Kaelen.
—System… —Kaelen whispered, retreating while his arm continued to burn from the crystal—. Give me something. A loan. Anything.
[THE SYSTEM CANNOT INTERFERE IN A DIRECT AUDIT]
[ADVICE: IF THE DEBTOR DIES NOW, THE DEBT WILL BE TRANSFERRED TO HIS BLOODLINE]
—I have no bloodline! I'm the last one! —Kaelen roared.
The Auditor stopped fifty meters away. It raised a hand that seemed made of gray static. The air around Kaelen became heavy, as if the oxygen had turned to lead. His knees buckled. The pressure was so immense that blood began to ooze from the pores of his skin.
This was not an intense fight like the one with the Guardian. This was an execution.
The Auditor spoke, not with words, but with a vibration that shook Kaelen's bones:
—Asset 009… Fragment of Light… Detected in possession of… Error. Unregistered entity. Proceeding to format.
Kaelen watched as the Auditor extended a finger. A small sphere of absolute nothingness began to form at its tip. Kaelen knew that if that sphere touched him, he wouldn't simply die; he would cease to have ever existed. His achievements, his pain, his desire for revenge… everything would be "formatted".
In that moment of absolute terror, Kaelen didn't think about magical power. He thought about his debt.
—Listen, you damned book! —he shouted at the Codex in his mind—. If I disappear, no one will pay you! I'm your only investment in this hole! If you let me die, you lose!
There was a millisecond of silence. The Codex, a purely logical and usurious entity, seemed to process the statement.
[FINAL RISK CALCULATION COMPLETED]
[STATUS: THE DEBTOR IS CORRECT. LOSS OF CAPITAL IS UNACCEPTABLE]
[ACTIVATING EMERGENCY PROTOCOL: "TEMPORARY BANKRUPTCY"]
[WARNING: THIS IS NOT A GIFT. THE COST WILL BE COLLECTED IN THE FUTURE]
Suddenly, the Fragment of Light in Kaelen's hand was violently absorbed — not into storage, but into his own veins. The crystal melted into his shadow blood.
Kaelen did not become stronger. On the contrary, he collapsed. His body could not withstand the union of pure light and abyssal shadow. But the chemical reaction created a "smoke curtain" of chaotic energy.
When the Auditor's sphere of nothingness touched the position where Kaelen had been, it did not find an "error" to delete. It found a void within the void.
Kaelen, taking advantage of the entity's second of confusion, crawled toward a crack in the ground — an ancient pipe from the giant machines that descended even deeper into the bowels of the world. It was not a heroic escape. It was a wounded animal dragging itself through the mud to avoid being devoured.
The Auditor remained still, processing the disappearance of the trace.
—Anomaly… concealed. Relocating…
Kaelen fell through the pipe for what felt like minutes. His body slammed against the rusted metal walls, breaking what little had healed. When he finally landed, it was onto a soft, crunchy pile.
It took him a while to regain his vision. When he did, he wished he hadn't.
He was lying on a mountain of bones. But not monster bones. They were human bones, miles of them, all wearing the tattered remains of robes from different surface sects. There were broken shields, rusted swords, and pendants of noble families from Aethelgard.
—I am… not the first —he whispered, voice cracked.
He had survived the Auditor, but at a terrible price. He looked at his right arm. It was black, charred by the fragment's light, and he couldn't move it. The System sent him a cold notification.
[STATUS: BODY IN ELEMENTAL CONFLICT]
[THE FRAGMENT OF LIGHT IS "FIGHTING" AGAINST YOUR CULTIVATION CENTER]
[PENALTY: YOUR "SHADOW" ABILITIES ARE BLOCKED BY 50% UNTIL THE ENERGIES ARE HARMONIZED]
[ADDITIONAL DEBT FROM EMERGENCY PROTOCOL: 2,000 CREDITS]
Kaelen let out a dry laugh that ended in a bloody cough.
—You save my life and quadruple my debt… You're an efficient bastard, Codex.
He sat among the bones, trying to steady his breathing. He was weak, wounded, half-blocked, and hunted by entities he couldn't even comprehend. Reality hit him head-on: winning a fight against a low-level monster meant nothing.
At that moment, from the darkness of the bone cavern, a sound was heard.
Tap… Tap… Tap…
It wasn't metal. It was the sound of a wooden staff striking the ground.
—A new tenant? —A hoarse, old, tired voice emerged from the shadows—. It's been thirty years since anything fell here smelling so strongly of fear.
Kaelen tried to stand, but his body collapsed. He could only watch as a hunched figure, dressed in rags that had once been expensive silk, approached. The man had a single eye, and where the other should have been, a blue crystal was embedded directly into the skull.
—Don't bother fighting, boy —said the old man, observing Kaelen's burned arm—. Down here, the only currency that matters is patience. And you look like someone who spent all their credit on one stupid move.
Kaelen gritted his teeth, keeping his left hand (the one that didn't hurt) ready to strike.
—Who are you?
—Nobody. An error the Auditor didn't finish erasing —the old man smiled, revealing iron teeth—. But if you want to survive the "Purge" that's coming… you're going to have to learn that the Codex you carry in your soul is not a user manual. It's a slavery contract.
Kaelen realized something that chilled his blood: the old man could "see" the Codex.
Kaelen tried to back away, but his fingers sank into the eye socket of a human skull that cracked under his weight. The old man approached slowly, his wooden staff making a rhythmic sound that seemed to synchronize with Kaelen's heartbeat.
—How can you see my Codex? —Kaelen asked, his voice a thread of suspicion.
The old man stopped one meter away. The blue crystal in his eye glowed with a dim light, scanning the crippled body of the young man.
—Because I had one too, boy. Sixty years ago, I was the "Hero of the Storm" in the third ring of Aethelgard. I had a system that promised me the throne of the gods —the old man let out a dry laugh that turned into a violent cough—. Now look at me. I'm the fertilizer for this garden of bones. My Codex fed on my memories, on my eyes, and when there was nothing left to devour, it discarded me here like an empty husk.
Kaelen looked at his own hand, black and smoking from the Fragment of Light.
[WARNING: SUBJECT "ZENON THE WANDERER" IS A DEPRECATED UNIT]
[AVOID PROLONGED CONTACT. RISK OF DATA CONTAMINATION]
—The System is afraid of you, old man —Kaelen said, narrowing his eyes.
—It's not afraid of me. It finds me disgusting —Zenon corrected—. I'm an error it couldn't delete.
Listen well, debtor. That crystal you stole… it's not a treasure. It's an Auditor Anchor. As long as that light is in your body, you're like a beacon in the middle of a wolf night. The System didn't give it to you to help you; it gave it to you so the Auditors would have a reason to hunt you. The Codex is a moneylender, and it loves collecting life insurance.
Kaelen felt a shiver. The old man's logic was impeccable and cruel. The System hadn't saved him out of kindness, but to turn him into a "high-value prey" that would generate more conflict and, therefore, more energy to harvest.
—How do I turn it off? —Kaelen pointed to his burned arm—. If I don't control it, I'll die before I leave this cave.
—You can't turn off the light, boy —Zenon sat on a pile of rusted femurs—. But you can corrupt it. Down here, at the bottom of the Abyss, there is something called the Root of Oblivion. It's a substance that grows where the Mist is thickest. If you manage to infuse that darkness into your crystal, the light will turn gray. The Auditors will no longer see you… but you will stop seeing the world as a human.
Kaelen looked toward the deepest darkness of the cavern.
—Tell me where it is.
—Heh… you're impatient. I like that. But first —Zenon pointed at Kaelen's neck—, look up. The world you knew is celebrating your death.
Floating City of Aethelgard - Sector 1 (The Golden Ring)
Unlike the horror of the Abyss, Sector 1 was a paradise of white marble and cascades of purified water that fell from the edges of the island toward the lower sectors. The air smelled of jasmine and expensive incense.
Alaric, the man who had pushed Kaelen, was kneeling before a crystal throne. He wore polished silver armor, and his handsome, serene face showed no trace of guilt.
—You have done well, Alaric —said a deep voice that seemed to come from everywhere. It was the Grand Master of the Silver Edge Sect—. The sacrifice of the "Marked Debtor" has calmed the Spirit of the Island for another cycle. The people of the Lower Sector will be able to breathe clean air for one more month thanks to your… determination.
—It was an honor, Grand Master —Alaric replied, though his eyes shone with a different ambition—. But… are we sure that the Codex he carried has been destroyed? My spies say the energy trace did not fade immediately after the fall.
The Grand Master made a dismissive gesture with his gloved hand.
—No one survives Erebus. If his Codex is still active, it will have become part of the Mist. Now, about your reward. You have been granted access to the Second Gate of Ascension. Prepare yourself. Next month, we go to war against the City of Orix for the soul deposits. We will need your sword.
Alaric bowed and withdrew. However, as he left the throne room, he encountered a young woman with silver hair and sad eyes: Valeria.
—You did it, didn't you? —she whispered, intercepting him in the hallway—. You really pushed him.
Alaric stopped, his expression turning icy.
—He was a defect, Valeria. He had no talent for traditional cultivation. His "Debt System" was an aberration that endangered the entire sect. I did what any leader would do.
—He was your oath-brother, Alaric —Valeria clenched her fists, and a small spark of white light danced on her fingers—. One day, the balance you defend so much will demand you as a sacrifice. And I hope to be there to see it.
Alaric laughed, a sound carefully stripped of any real emotion.
—By then, Valeria, I will be the one dictating the laws of sacrifice. Don't look for me. I have a world to lead.
Back in the bone cave, Kaelen stood up, using the staff Zenon had lent him. His right arm was still dead weight, but his eyes now carried a determination that was no longer human.
—Old man —Kaelen said without looking back—. If I survive that "Root of Oblivion" and manage to corrupt the light… what will happen to me?
Zenon, who was already melting back into the shadows of the cave, let out a final whisper:
—You will become an Eclipse, boy. Neither pure shadow nor divine light. You will be something that should not exist. The System will try to give you more power to control you, and the world will try to kill you because it will fear you. But if you manage to reach the final chapter of your debt… maybe, just maybe, you will discover who the bastard was that wrote this world.
Kaelen walked into the darkness. The System sent one last notification before entering the Root zone.
[NEW UNIQUE-RANK MISSION: "THE PATH OF THE ECLIPSE"]
[OBJECTIVE: CORRUPT THE FRAGMENT OF PURE LIGHT]
[DIFFICULTY: MORTAL]
[REWARD: UNLOCKING OF THE "REFORMED SOUL GATE"]
[WARNING: PROBABILITY OF MAINTAINING SANITY IS 15%]
—Fifteen percent… —Kaelen muttered, and for the first time, his shadow on the wall seemed to move on its own, stretching like a hungry monster—. I've never had better odds.