Chapter 2 – Predator
Ken was emptied to the core. His muscles screamed at every attempt at movement, a throbbing burn settling deep into his fibres. He collapsed on the burning sand that cooked his skin, his hoarse and jerky breath escaping from his chest like an agonising rattle. The thirst shorned his throat to the point that even his own saliva seemed to him a foreign and rough substance. Each breath was a dry torture, a sharp pain that tore his lungs. Wavy mirages danced at the edge of his vision, blurred and illusory forms that cruelly mocked his distress, promising him a non-existent water.
As he closed his eyes, hoping for a brief respite in this waking nightmare where reality was diluting, a strange anomaly caught his attention despite his extreme fatigue. A small luminous square floated stubbornly in his field of vision, persisting with surprising tenacity even when his heavy eyelids were closed. He blinked several times, incredulous, wondering if fatigue was not playing tricks on him. But no, the square was still there, translucent and vibrant with a soft light, like a tiny window open to another reality. Instinctively, he held out a trembling hand, wanting to touch this strange appearance, check its tangibility, but his fingers crossed it without meeting the slightest resistance, as if it did not exist in the tangible world he knew. A feeling of confusion and vertigo, more intense than simple dehydration, invades him. Was it the fever that rose, the lack of water that painted absurd pictures in his mind?
Suddenly, the small square stretched, the edges fading until they occupied all his vision. Countless fine lines and complex symbols appeared, dancing before his eyes, forming what looked like a strange map, studded with points and enigmatic plots. Words began to float above this unreal mapping, written in a language that he had never learned but that he understood instinctively, as if it resonated in the depths of his soul. Then, a table with clear contours appeared, emerged from nowhere, as real as a thought taking tangible form. At the top of this table, his own name was inscribed, floating in a simple but clear calligraphy:
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Name Ken
Age: 17
Height: 1.63 m
Weight: 46 kg
Single capacity: Closed
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Under this personal information, a question flashed gently, as if it patiently waited for an urgent but thoughtful answer:
A dependent table in Ken.
Would you like to open your capacity?
Yes / No
Ken was speechless, his tongue glued to his dry palate like sandpaper. What... what was this absolute delirium? Was he dreaming with his eyes open, his brain fogted by fatigue? Despite his exhaustion that led him to unconsciousness, and the confusion that blured his thoughts, an irrepressible curiosity, a visceral need to understand this strange phenomenon, pushed him to answer mentally, with the strength of his will: Yes.
Immediately, the words on the board blurred for a moment before reorganising, displaying new information:
Your ability will be assigned according to your deep essence and with a share of chance. Destiny weaves its web unpredictably.
Then, a brief moment of floating, a pause suspended in the burning air like a retained breath, and a new line appeared, haloed with a slightly brighter glow:
Acquired capacity: PREDATORY
Ken stared at the painting, his burning and dry eyes widening in shock. It absolutely had to be a bad dream, a complex and cruel hallucination orchestrated by his body in need of water and his exhausted mind. However, the clarity of the information, the way it was displayed, organised and logical, had something terribly, inexplicably real. With a palpable hesitation, his heart beating weakly in his chest, he looked at the painting again, his statistics seeming to mock him in their cold objectivity:
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Name: Ken
Age: 17
Height: 1.63 m
Weight: 46 kg
Unique capacity: PREDATOR
Level: 1
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Immediately below, a detailed description of his new ability was displayed, the words being imprinted in his mind with anguishing clarity:
Description of the competence:
This ability is the result of an unnatural union of two species that should never have met. A transgression of the fundamental laws of the living. From this forbidden union was born an entity so dangerous, so fundamentally unbalanced, that even the gods themselves, in their infinite wisdom and terrible power, have relentlessly hunted it down to eradicate it from the very fabric of existence. Does this unnatural existence represent an unexpected blessing for the world, capable of overthrowing the established order, or an unclean curse capable of consuming it entirely, plunging it into irreversible chaos? Only time, a ruthless judge, will be able to decide.
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First ability acquired:
Absorbing a dead body makes it possible to steal the ability, to appropriate the unique capacity of the person.
Mission to increase capacity:
Absorb 0 / 100 bodies to reach level 10. The road will be long and macabre.
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- "What the hell is this? Ken whispered, his voice barely audible in the silent and oppressive immensity of the desert. A total disbelief was painted on his drawn features.
"I'm dying of thirst and fatigue... that's why I imagine completely crazy things like that. His rationality desperately tried to cling to a logical explanation, to reject this appearance as the fruit of his failing mind.
He mechanically brought his hand to his dry and painful throat, the feeling of roughness of the sand stuck to his fingers reminding him with chilling brutality of the harsh reality of his situation. The thirst was very real, fatigue nailed him to the ground, and yet... this painting before his eyes seemed just as tangible, in a strange and inexplicable way.
Suddenly, a voice, clear and assured, broke the heavy silence that enveloped the desert. It seemed to emerge out of nowhere, amplified by the surrounding void.
A young man, barely twenty years old, dressed in a tunic with bright and shimmering colours that seemed strangely displaced, almost unreal, in this austere and monochrome environment, stood a few metres from him, his thin and elongated shadow projected on the sand. His fine and delicate features, almost androgynous, contrasted violently with the piercing and cold look he placed on Ken, a look that seemed to pierce him from side to side.
- "What are you doing in such a sorry place? " asked the stranger, his voice melodious but tinged with a distant coldness, his tone imprinted with a suspicious curiosity, as if he expected a wrong answer.
Ken blinked several times, surprised and bevelled. Had he spoken out loud about his hallucinations? Had he gone crazy?
- "I... I lost my memory," he stammered, his sore throat tightened by apprehension. His voice was hoarse and weak, barely a whisper.
"That's why I'm here..." The explanation sounded hollow, even to his own ears.
- "And you, who are you? Ken added, suddenly feeling terribly vulnerable under the scrutinising and intense gaze of the other. His naked body and weakness were an invitation to the threat.
"What are you doing in this desert? "
The young man straightened up more, his posture becoming more rigid, an undisguised pride painted on his fine features. His dark eyes shone with a strange intensity.
- "I am Zian, Prince of the Celestial Court of the Vermillon Bird. "
He paused, letting his title resonate in the motionless air, his gaze intensifying, analysing every reaction on Ken's face.
- "I am an Exorcist, sent here by the Court to purify this cursed desert of any abnormal presence. His eyes slowly travelled through Ken's naked and fragile body, without the slightest trace of compassion or human warmth, but with a clinical coldness that chilled the young man's blood more than the thought of his own imminent death.
Ken felt a wave of irrational and visceral fear invade him by meeting Zian's gaze. An inner alarm sounded with unexpected violence, a primal instinct, stronger than reason, shouting at him to be wary of this individual, of this Exorcist with the look of ice. Without understanding the precise threat he represented, without having the slightest idea of what an Exorcist was, his legs instinctively contracted, ready to jump to flee this man who inspired him a deaf and inexplicable terror.
His instinct screamed in his fogged mind: Run!
And without a second of hesitation, drawing on his last reserves of energy, Ken began to run, his feet hammering the burning sand that lacerated his skin, the throbbing pain of thirst and fatigue momentarily forgotten in the blind panic of the escape. He didn't know what he was fleeing from, but his body screamed in danger.
Zian, motionless in the middle of the sandy expanse, let out a slight sigh, as if this reaction was predictable and unimportant. With a fluid movement of his hand, he also opened a translucent interface in front of him, showing his own statistics, information floating in the hot air of the desert.
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Name: Zian
Titles: Prince of the Celestial Court of the Vermillon Bird
Title description: The Prince who erased all traces of life in the cursed desert
Effect of the title: Omniscient in the cursed desert (sees all)
Age: 16
Parents: Jia Zhou (Uncle)
Profession: Exorcist
Description: Every Exorcist has the sacred duty to protect our world against foreigners from other worlds and cursed spirits. Their mission is to eradicate any supernatural threat.
Exorcist ability: when an exorcist kills a stranger from another world or cursed mind he can want more It is resurrected in no world is the ultimate end for them.
Species: Yao half-peacon
Description: There was an ancient and mysterious species that had refined avian characteristics, but was neither completely a fox nor completely a beast-man. They were called the Yao half-peacocks, famous for their grace and power.
Species Abilities: Disappear without a trace, blend into the environment as if they had never existed, a valuable ability for espionage and infiltration.
Gender: Male
Height: 170 cm
Hair: Brown and pink, with shimmering reflections under the light.
Unique ability: Teleportation of objects
Description: A rare and powerful gift. Zian, from his young age, possessed a unique ability and a deep desire to travel with everything that was dear to him; he then decided to master the complex art of his unique ability to create and manipulate an invisible dimensional bag, allowing him to carry objects at will.
Level: 10
First acquired ability: Teleports small objects with amazing precision.
Second acquired capacity: Teleports large objects, even imposing structures.
Teleported mission: A three-story house (500 / 100,000 units of energy recomposed to reach level 25).
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What Ken did not know in his desperate effort to distance his pursuer was that in this strange and hostile world, everyone, without exception, possessed a unique ability, a tangible manifestation of their essence, which was revealed through this mysterious interface. Whether it was children barely able to walk, old men holding their canes, or women going about their business, everyone had access to this personal table of statistics.
This table of statistics was a banal, almost insignificant reality for the inhabitants of this world governed by invisible rules. Ken had just entered a universe filled with unsuspected powers and dangers that he was just beginning to glimpse, a world where his survival might depend on this strange ability of PREDATOR that he had just acquired.
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End of Chapter 2.