[Status Screen — Seth Virel]
Race: Human (Unstable)
Class: None
Level: 1
Relic Absorbed: Bloodlight Shard
Corruption Strain: 3%
Vitality: 9
Strength: 11
Agility: 10
Mana: 8
Traits Gained:
— Devourer's Instinct (Passive): Absorbing relics grants unique traits. Relic memory and compatibility increase with each devouring.
— Red Vein (Active): Release stored blood mana for a burst of power
— Burning Memory (???): Locked
Seth stared at the hovering screen.
Words burned into the air with crimson light, etched in shapes older than any written tongue he knew. He wasn't hallucinating. The relic hadn't killed him — it had awakened something. A system. A path.
A system not made by gods or kings. Not one granted by some bishop or scribe.
This was his.
"Unstable," he muttered, narrowing his eyes.
He didn't like the sound of that. His fingers twitched involuntarily. The Corruption Strain gauge made his stomach churn — it sat at just three percent, but every instinct in his body told him it was going to climb. Slowly, or all at once.
He lowered the screen and rubbed his face.
"I need to get out of here…"
But the cave was no longer silent.
A crunch echoed through the dark behind him.
Then another.
Seth turned, breath catching in his throat.
From the deeper shadows came a wet hiss, low and sharp, like boiling blood inside a throat. He grabbed his worn dagger from the ground — a short, rusted blade with no enchantment, no relic etching, just iron and desperation.
The shadows moved.
Yellow eyes blinked open from the black.
A long, twisted body slid forward — sinew wrapped in bone armor. It looked like a hound once, but now its spine twisted mid-length into a second head, the lower jaw split down the chest to form a maw that gaped wider than its skull.
Mana beast.
A corrupted creature. Born where relic magic soaked too deep into flesh and earth. It shouldn't have survived. Shouldn't even exist. But the world was full of things that shouldn't anymore.
Seth's legs tensed to run.
Too late.
The thing lunged.
He dove backward. Claws raked the stone where his chest had been, ripping three long gouges through the altar itself. Sparks flew. Seth rolled and scrambled behind a fallen slab as the beast shrieked — high-pitched, deafening, like a chorus of knives scraping metal.
His ears rang. Blood trickled from one nostril.
It followed.
He ran.
Boots slammed into stone. His breathing turned ragged. The beast chased, its grotesque limbs hammering the ground in uneven patterns. The stone walls blurred past as Seth ducked low, weaving between broken columns and jagged ruins.
A narrow crevice came into view — one he'd squeezed through earlier.
He didn't hesitate.
He dove into the gap just as the beast lunged again.
It hit the stone with bone-cracking force. The cave shook. Dust and pebbles rained down. Seth kept crawling forward, scraping his arms and chest, lungs burning. Behind him, the beast began to force its bulk through the gap.
It's too big, he thought. It won't fit—
The stone cracked louder.
It's breaking through.
He turned and saw its second mouth opening, jaw distending with a wet, squelching pop. It was going to eat its way through.
"No," he growled. "Not like this."
He scrambled to his feet, vision swimming.
The warmth inside his chest flared again.
[Activating Trait: Red Vein]
A pulse of molten heat surged from his heart outward, flooding his limbs with raw force. His veins glowed faintly beneath his skin — red like coals beneath flesh.
His speed tripled.
In a blink, he closed the gap.
The beast's head snapped toward him.
Seth drove his blade into its exposed flank.
It shrieked and twisted — far faster than anything that size should move. A claw lashed out. He ducked under it, grabbed a broken stone shard, and hurled it at the creature's eye.
It flinched.
He drove forward, slashing low across its leg.
Black blood sizzled as it hit the ground.
Then came the counterattack — the beast spun in a blur, slamming Seth across the cavern with its shoulder. He crashed into a wall and fell, breath knocked from his lungs.
His ribs screamed. Something cracked.
But the blood… it pulsed again.
The cut on his cheek sealed itself. His vision cleared.
The beast charged, roaring.
He stood.
No time to think. Just act.
He ducked under the incoming leap and stabbed upward — straight into its lower jaw. The dagger cracked but held, buried to the hilt. The creature shrieked, blood spewing from its maw. It staggered and threw itself backward, dislodging the blade.
But Seth was already on it.
He leapt, landing on its back, grabbed the exposed bone ridge at its neck, and drove the snapped end of his dagger into the creature's skull with both hands.
It bucked once.
Twice.
Then dropped.
Dead.
Seth fell with it, rolling off its side and landing hard on his back, gasping for breath.
For a moment, he just lay there, the sound of his heartbeat pounding louder than anything else.
Then—
[You have defeated: Lesser Mana-Twisted Hound]
[Experience Gained: +5]
[Progress: 5/20 to Level 2]
[First Kill Achieved — Unique Class Path Triggered]
[System Reward: Skill Tree Unlocked — Devourer's Path]
[New Feature: Trait Tree Available]
A new screen bloomed in the air, glowing red with branching lines and pulsing nodes — like a tree grown from veins and bone.
Devourer's Path:
The path of those who consume the divine, the cursed, and the forbidden. Each kill feeds your system. Each relic shapes your form.
— Choose One:
• Ravenous Core (Passive): Gain energy and reduce Corruption Strain by feeding on mana-beast corpses.
• Resonance Pulse (Active): Send out a pulse to detect nearby relics and mana activity within 100 meters.
• Threshold Wound (Passive): Relic-infused strikes cause wounds that grow worse over time.
Seth stared.
This wasn't a blessing.
This was a weapon. A living system. Something that wasn't supposed to exist.
He looked down at his bloodied hands. They were steady. Too steady.
His lips curled into a crooked grin.
"I'm not just prey anymore."