I remember the screams.
Not the kind of screams that echo in nightmares—but the kind that hollow out your soul while you're still awake. Fire cracked through the marble halls of the Elarion estate, the scent of burning silk mixing with blood and fear. I was ten. Small. Helpless.
And the world I knew was ending.
My mother knelt before me in the hidden passage, her silvery hair stained with ash, one side of her face slick with blood. She pressed something cold and smooth against my chest. A crystalline shard—glass-like, veined with shifting symbols that pulsed like a heartbeat.
"Kaien," she whispered, voice trembling. "Take this. Hide it. Never show it. Never speak of it."
Outside, steel clashed. Shouts. Then silence. The kind that comes only after death.
"Mom, what's happening?" My voice cracked.
She gripped my face with blood-slicked hands. "They found the Nexus. They know what your father was hiding."
"I don't understand—"
"You don't have to. Just live. Grow. One day, it will awaken for you. And when it does…" Her voice broke. "Burn this world if you must."
A sudden crash. Wood splintered. Footsteps thundered above us.
She pushed me deeper into the tunnel. "Run, Kaien. Go!"
I wanted to scream. To cling to her. But I didn't.
I ran.
And I never saw her again.
The orphanage was a cage dressed in charity.
They called me "Stray," "Ghost," "Codexless." No system meant no future. No chance of training in cultivation, no standing in society, no clan would even look my way.
At ten, they checked me three times.
Nothing.
By thirteen, even the kindest instructors stopped pretending.
By fifteen, I learned to stop caring.
But the night I turned seventeen, fate came for me again.
The alley behind the grain market stank of piss and rotting vegetables. Moonlight barely cut through the haze as I tightened my grip on the sack of stolen bread. The shopkeeper had left the back door open—his mistake. I hadn't eaten since yesterday.
"Hey, rat."
I froze.
Three figures stepped out from the shadows. Older boys—former students from the academy, now muscle for hire. Cultivators. Each bore their Codex marks on glowing armlets.
"You think we wouldn't notice you creeping around the market again?" the leader sneered. A tall brute named Varn, once a Tier II Earthbound.
"I didn't take anything from you," I said, slowly backing away.
"But you did," Varn grinned. "You took air. Space. An existence that doesn't belong to someone Codexless."
The others laughed.
I turned to run.
Too slow.
A fist slammed into my gut, lifting me off my feet. I crashed into the wall, the breath ripped from my lungs. Pain bloomed like fire in my ribs.
They came at me again—kicks, punches, jeers.
Something inside me cracked.
Not bone.
Something deeper.
Run, and live.
That whisper again—my mother's voice, surging through the haze of pain. My hand moved without thinking, clutching the shard I had worn around my neck for seven long years, hidden beneath rags and cloth.
The moment my fingers wrapped around it—
The world stopped.
Everything—sound, breath, time—froze.
A voice, hollow and ancient, echoed inside my skull.
Genesis Nexus detected. Initiating recovery. Synchronization: 2%... 27%... 84%... Complete.
Pain lanced through my spine. A surge of light exploded behind my eyes. I screamed as thousands of glowing runes danced before me—fractured, alien, beautiful.
Welcome, Heir. Your Nexus is active. No fixed Class detected. Codex path: Undefined.
Status: Adaptive. Reactive. Sovereign.**
The air thickened. My limbs convulsed. The wounds vanished. My skin burned with shifting sigils. And when I stood, I wasn't the same.
Varn stepped back. "What the hell…"
I moved.
Fast.
Faster than I thought possible.
One punch. Varn crumpled.
I turned to the others. Raised my hand.
The Nexus pulsed.
Their Codex marks—those glowing armlets—flickered.
And then, for a breath, I *felt* them.
Their paths. Their Class matrices. Their limits.
I reached forward.
Extracting.
Their Codices screamed. Runes shattered into my palm. My body absorbed it all—raw, unfiltered data—the foundation of their strength.
I stood in the alley, heart pounding, as the last of their power bled into my Nexus.
The street was quiet.
The bodies weren't dead—just empty. Hollow.
I looked down at my hands.
They were glowing.
That night, I stood on the orphanage roof and stared at the stars. For the first time, I didn't feel weak. I didn't feel small.
I felt hunted.
But I also felt alive.
They killed my family for this. For the Genesis Nexus.
Now I have it.
Let them come.
Let them all come.
Because I remember their faces.
And I'm going to burn everything down until I find the ones who took my bloodline from me.
And when I do—
They'll know what it means to be hunted by the Heir of the Nexus.