"Run! It's him—he's gone mad!"
"Who? That bookworm from the chapel? What's he going to do, quote scripture at us?"
"No, you don't understand—he's not human anymore. He's—"
A whisper of silver tore through the man's chest. His scream never came. The blade carved upward in one smooth motion, slicing him open like parchment. Blood sprayed wide across the cobblestone square, splashing warm against a second man's face.
The scholar stood behind the body. Robes once white now dripped crimson. He held a thin longsword, its edge glinting like moonlight through fog. His expression was serene, even polite.
"Jeremiah Cobbler," he said, almost gently, "I'd say you're worth... five points."
The blood-slicked man fell to his knees. "Lord Mercer—please! The widow, that wasn't me! It was the magistrate's idea—Master Bram, it was all him, I swear it!"
The scholar tilted his head, as if pondering the weight of the plea.
"Curious," he said, and smiled. "That's exactly what Master Bram said about you."
The blade moved like thought.
A single, clean arc. A gurgle. Silence.
Draco Mercer—once a no-name acolyte, now something else entirely—stood alone among corpses. His robes hung loosely on his frame, dark with blood. But his grip on the sword was perfect. He sheathed it with a flick and exhaled, not with exertion, but boredom.
Then, the voice arrived—not from the world, but from inside him.
System Notification:
Dungeon Mission CompleteMain Objective: ASubplot Resolution: AMap Coverage: BSin Quotient: COverall Grade: B+
Total Points: 35Sin Value Earned: 2
Choose Exit Method:
Immediate Return
Return Within 72 Hours
Draco didn't hesitate. "Immediate," he said aloud, though no one remained alive to hear it.
His body dissolved into light.
The world returned slowly.
Not with a gasp or scream, but with stillness. A cracked ceiling. Dust motes suspended in stale air. Faint lamplight filtered through yellowed curtains.
Draco opened his eyes.
He was back.
Back in the rotting attic room he called home. Back in the body he'd woken in months ago, when fate—or something more twisted—had yanked him out of death and into this world.
He sat up on the creaking mattress, fingers twitching. They still remembered the blade. The blood. The calm.
"Sixty-four members of the Bram lineage," he murmured. "All gutted. And for that, I get… two Sin?"
He squinted upward as if expecting the heavens to explain themselves.
"One point from the dungeon itself," he muttered, "so really, just one for the massacre. What a stingy system. Becoming a god clearly doesn't pay what it used to."
His voice was dry, sardonic.
This world was not his own. He'd been born somewhere else—Earth, maybe. Or something like it. But ever since that glitch of a reincarnation, he'd lived inside a system that treated his life like a game. A particularly cruel one.
At the center of it all: the Temple of the Black God.
His personal system interface, nested deep inside his soul like a parasite in a spine. Others couldn't see it. Couldn't hear the disembodied voice. But it was always there. Feeding. Logging. Judging.
Draco focused.
The world flickered.
His body remained motionless in the room. But his mind—his core—slipped into the Temple.
The interior was vast and ancient. A cathedral carved from obsidian and bone. Vaulted ceilings stretched into an endless void. Black fire danced in sconces along the walls. And at the center of it all—
A throne.
Empty no longer.
Draco sat upon it, as he always did when he entered. He leaned back like a man inspecting his empire.
Temple StatusAccrued Points: 506Sin Value: 11
Not bad. Not enough.
His gaze swept to the next prompt.
Unlock Advancement Tier?Cost: 300 PointsSin Requirement: 10Status: Requirements Met
Draco let out a low chuckle. "Finally."
He confirmed the selection.
Immediately, a force rushed into him. Cold. Violent. Hungry. It filled his chest, pressed against his spine, forced itself into the gaps of his soul like liquid shadow. His vision blurred. His thoughts fractured.
It hurt. Not physically—but cosmically.
Advancement Complete.Tier 2: Awakened.Choose Specialization Path:
[1] Strength[2] Agility[3] Endurance[4] Mind
He didn't even look.
"Agility," he said flatly. "Always agility."
He'd learned that the hard way in his first life—brute force was useless if you couldn't reach your enemy in time. Or escape them.
Path Selected: AgilitySkill Unlocked: Phantom Step— Movement speed +30%— Attack speed +50%
He stood slowly from the throne. His movements felt lighter. His frame more refined. The body had changed.
So had the rules.
And so had the game.
Draco blinked.
The Temple faded from his mind like mist under flame, and reality reclaimed him—threadbare sheets, crumbling wood beams, the faint scent of mold and blood in the attic air.
But something was different now.
His muscles buzzed. Every breath felt measured, exact. His balance, even while standing still, was… too perfect. A step forward barely disturbed the floorboards beneath him. A second step—silent. This wasn't speed. It was elegance.
Agility-class Tier Two.He could feel it etching itself into every movement he made.
His lips curled. Not a smile. Not quite.
"With this physique," he muttered, "let's see who stops me now."
Then, as if answering his mood, the system chimed in with its usual ghostly detachment.
New Event Unlocked: Sin OpportunityEvent Type: ExplorationTitle: The Sister's WeddingMaximum Sin Gain: 5 Points
Draco stared at the floating message for a moment. And then he laughed.
Not the mad, cackling kind. Just a soft, tired sound. Equal parts disbelief and nostalgia.
Of course. That event.
He remembered this one. In his old life—back when this had just been a game—players had memed it to hell. It was one of the earliest sandbox-style Sin Events. No clear objective. Just a scenario:
Your older sister is getting married. You feel… something.Your options? Endless. Sin? Optional. Outcome? Up to you.
Back then, the joke was always the same: climb the roof, kill the groom, confess to the bride. Maximum Sin. Maximum edge.
Now?
It was real.
Draco paced slowly. He still wasn't used to that part. The feeling that the scenario he was about to crash wasn't just code anymore. The NPCs had faces. Families. He'd spoken to them. Once.
Now they were just numbers on a board.
Objective: None.Guidance: None.Outcome: Calculated post-event.
Perfect. No rules.
He cracked his neck.
"Jump from the rafters. Take out the groom. Turn to her with blood on my sleeves and say—'I only came to stop you from making a mistake.'"
A beat. Then a shrug.
"…then dump her. Obviously."
This was what the Temple wanted. Not random cruelty—but style. Narrative. The system didn't reward pain. It rewarded aesthetic malice.
That's what made it so fun.
Draco moved toward the door.
Each step felt more like a ripple than a footfall. Even gravity seemed reluctant to press against him now. Deceitful Steps, the system had called it. Speed without the spectacle. Perfect for murder.
But he wasn't rushing. Not yet.
He passed the dusty mirror nailed crooked to the wall and glanced at himself. The reflection blinked back—same face, same frame. But his eyes…
They were wrong.
Too calm. Too focused. Like someone who'd already decided.
It should've scared him. The things he was planning. The things he wasn't planning to avoid. But instead, there was only a kind of stillness. Like blood before it boils.
The system whispered again.
Reminder:Event Window Active – Elder Sister's Wedding.Location: Southern Ridge EstateTime Limit: 48 hours real-timeMax Sin Reward: 5 Points
Draco closed his eyes briefly.
Southern Ridge.
She'd raised him. Once. In the early fragments of this life he barely remembered—before the Temple, before the missions, before the bleed between game and self collapsed entirely—his sister had fed him, clothed him, lied for him.
And now she was marrying some local noble clown for "security."
He ran a hand through his hair, half-laughing.
"Security."
Security didn't exist. Not in a world where you could earn godhood by slitting enough throats with artistic timing.
"Let's make this one count," he muttered.
He didn't know if he'd punch the groom on arrival or burn the estate down and confess in the ashes. It depended on the mood. And the music. These things needed rhythm.
Because that was the difference between monsters and gods.
Monsters kill. Gods curate.