The second night passed in whispers and blood.
Chris had freed himself from the bone crucifix one painful inch at a time, his body a trembling wreck by the time he collapsed behind a pillar of jagged rock. His muscles screamed. His lips were split and bleeding. The stench of scorched flesh clung to him like guilt.
He was a ghost crawling through the wake of hell.
The sun had vanished again. The screams had dulled to soft groans and broken sobs. Somewhere in the distance, bone cracked. The harvest pits never fully rested.
Chris had no weapon. No potion. No allies.
Just pain—and a sliver of purpose.
That's when he felt it.
At first, he thought it was another echo—one of the phantoms that haunted this place.
But it wasn't a cry. It was a pulse.
A slow, steady thrum in the earth beneath him… in his chest… in his soul.
Come.
He extended his echolocation instinctively, and beneath the towering throne of the half-god, buried in the battlefield of bones and ash, he sensed it:
A weapon.
He found it just before sunrise.
It stood among shattered relics like a grave marker—surrounded by broken blades, warped steel, and rusted handles long since given to time.
But this one still stood.
A sword. Silver-black, veined in crimson. Curved with a deadly grace. The air around it shimmered, like reality itself feared the edge.
The Insta Kill Sword.
The cursed, soul-bound weapon that boy had become.
Chris approached, hand trembling. His Death Echo didn't warn him of danger—only sorrow.
The sword remembered.
Not a master. Not a wielder.
A witness. A vessel of vengeance.
Chris's fingers brushed the hilt, and a flash of memory surged into his mind—
A young boy laughing.
Then screaming.
Then begging as his body warped into something inhuman.
The sword's soul was nearly gone.
But what was left wanted one last thing:
To kill the god that had damned it.
Chris waited near the throne, cloaked in shadow.
Time crawled. The god's minions moved with ritualistic calm—dragging corpses, moaning captives, and shrieking half-breeds into darkened corridors. Chris clutched the sword, slick with sweat. He wasn't a hero. He wasn't a killer.
He was a survivor—holding onto another's pain, hoping to weaponize it.
Then, the god returned.
Swathed in shadow, face obscured by an obsidian mask. He floated rather than walked, draped in robes that whispered madness. The very ground bent under his presence.
Chris didn't breathe.
But the god turned. Looked.
And smiled.
"Still alive," the entity mused. "How inconvenient."
With a flick of his hand, a black spike of energy shimmered into being—sharp, humming.
Chris couldn't move. Gravity crushed his limbs. The weight of divinity pinned him down.
The spike floated forward, slow, certain.
"This little joke ends now."
Then, the sword moved.
Not by Chris's will—by its own.
It twisted in his grip, spun, and stabbed into Chris's chest.
But it didn't cut.
It merged.
A pulse of power exploded outward. The black spike shattered in midair. Veins of silver light lit Chris's arms, racing to his eyes, which flared with white-hot power.
The god faltered, the first sign of surprise on his perfect face.
"You—"
Chris didn't wait for the second word.
He charged.
Faster than he thought possible. His body moved with instinct carved from pain and sharpened by survival.
The god summoned a wall of black flame.
Chris screamed through it. Skin charred, eyes burning—but he endured.
The fire would not consume him.
At the throne's base, their blades met—divine energy against cursed steel. The air cracked. Stones shattered.
Chris pushed.
And stabbed.
The blade pierced the god's side. Not a fatal blow—but it was enough.
The god screamed—not in pain, but rage.
"I am eternal!"
Black tendrils erupted from his torso, lashing the walls, the floor. One snapped around Chris's throat.
The god chanted something ancient, eyes gleaming with hatred.
Then he leaned in—just inches from Chris's face—and whispered:
"You'll carry me now… my little heir."
Something cold, dark, and hidden slipped into Chris's chest.
He gasped.
The sword—silent until now—flared one last time.
Its dying soul burned bright.
Its last act.
Chris roared and decapitated the god.
Silence.
A silence so deep it pressed into his bones.
The body crumbled to ash.
The throne cracked.
The chamber shook.
The god's army froze in disbelief.
Then—
Light.
A beam of white light consumed Chris and every living survivor.
A reward.
A teleportation.
A mercy.
Chris awoke beneath an open sky.
Air. Grass. Wind.
He coughed once, tasting earth and life.
Beside him, the sword lay dull—its glow gone, its will extinguished. But the connection remained. It had bound to his soul.
A message hovered in the air:
[Soul Consumption – Evolved]
50% chance to absorb skill or memory from a slain enemy.
Rarely, select a skill.
[System Unlocked – Ascension Protocol v0.1]
Let us grow stronger… together.
Chris blinked.
That second one… it wasn't the Tower. It didn't feel mechanical or impartial.
It felt personal.
Intimate.
Something in his chest shifted.
Watching.
Waiting.
Around him, survivors stirred—maybe two dozen in total. Human. Demi-human. No one spoke.
They looked at him with caution. Reverence.
Fear.
He wasn't the forgotten wallflower anymore.
He was something else.
But in the quiet of his mind…
A voice whispered.
"We are one now."
And it wasn't his voice.