The beast lay broken.
Its corpse sprawled across the plaza like a fallen mountain, wings twisted and torn, scales cracked where shadows had burned through them. Black veins still writhed across its body, drinking from wounds that glowed molten gold. Smoke hissed from its ruined chest, each exhale sounding like the dying wheeze of a furnace.
I drove the Inkblade into the cracked stone just to stay upright. My lungs felt shredded, every breath dragging fire through me. Shadows still pulsed up my arm, veins glowing faintly, feeding on what lingered inside the carcass.
The survivors watched from behind broken walls, caught between awe and terror.
The boy, still leaning on his battered crutch, spoke first. His voice was trembling, but it carried across the silence."He… he killed it."
The girl shook her head slowly, clutching her bent crowbar like a lifeline. "No. Not him. His sword did."
The old man barked a laugh that sounded more like despair. His thin shoulders trembled. "Don't fool yourselves. That wasn't victory. That was something else wearing a man's skin."
Dev staggered forward, blood on his lips. His burned arm hung limp, but his good hand clenched his sword. "Shut it. He's the reason we're still breathing. Without him, we'd all be ash."
The mother didn't join in. She stood slightly apart, her son pressed against her hip. Her grip on him was white-knuckled, but her gaze never left me. She didn't look away in fear. She measured me. Weighed me. Like a merchant deciding if I was worth the bargain.
And the system chose that moment to intrude.
[ Trust Value Fractured. ]
A split. Half with me. Half against.
The cold voice hummed in my skull, too satisfied with the fracture. I almost wondered if it had engineered the argument just to see the break.
✦
The corpse twitched.
Not alive, not anymore, but the molten blood still dripped in rivers, carving trenches into the plaza. The air burned with a stench like iron and rot. Ash drifted over us like mock snow.
The boy coughed, eyes watering. The girl tried to cover her mouth with her sleeve. Dev glanced up at the rift still burning above and swore under his breath.
Because it wasn't closing.
Instead, it twisted wider. Light bled through, not golden sunlight but something fractured—silver, crimson, shadow. Shapes pressed against the wound.
I saw them clearly.
Claws. Horns. Wings.
Not one. Not a single calamity. But many.
The boy whimpered. "N-no… there's more?"
The girl swore, shaking. "We can't—how do we—?"
Dev grit his teeth, sword shaking in his grip. "Reed… we can't fight another one. Not like this."
"Then we don't," I said flatly.
The Inkblade pulsed in my hand. Shadows slithered up my shoulder, tightening around my throat like a collar.
"…yes… let them come… devour them all… nothing left… nothing spared…"
The survivors heard it too. The whispers weren't private anymore.
The old man's eyes bulged. He stumbled back. "You see? You see it? The sword speaks! The sword leads him! We're following a monster!"
The girl snapped, voice breaking. "He saved us! If it wasn't for him, we'd be dead already!"
The old man jabbed a shaking finger at me. "For now. But what happens when he stops fighting for us? What happens when he turns?"
[ Survivor Cohesion Critical. ]
The system's voice was sharp, pleased. It fed on fracture. It measured doubt as easily as blood.
The mother finally spoke. Her voice was steady, colder than stone. "If he turns, then we'll deal with it."
Her son stared up at her in shock, but she squeezed his hand. "Until then… we stand."
[ Trust Value Stabilized. ]
The old man's jaw clenched. He didn't argue again, but the fear in his eyes didn't fade.
✦
The rift above boiled. A beast's muzzle pressed through, massive and snarling, smoke curling from its fangs. The plaza shook. Survivors dropped to their knees, sobbing.
And then—stopped.
The muzzle withdrew. The light flickered. The shapes faded back into the storm.
The wound still burned, but it didn't open further.
[ Rift Expansion Halted. ][ Remaining Time: 27 minutes until dawn. ]
It wasn't mercy. Just a pause.
The survivors sagged where they stood, trembling with exhaustion. Dev all but collapsed onto broken stone, panting ragged. The girl let her crowbar drop and pressed her forehead to her knees. The boy gripped his crutch so tight his knuckles turned white.
The old man whispered prayers, rocking on his heels.
Relief. Fear. Both at once.
But I couldn't share it.
Because my arm still pulsed black. The Inkblade hummed like a furnace in my bones. And its whispers didn't stop.
"…not finished… never finished… one beast is a morsel… the feast is still waiting…"
I clenched my teeth until blood filled my mouth.
✦
Then a new voice slid into my skull. Smooth. Sharp. Familiar in its weight though I had never heard it before.
[ You are beginning to see. Dawn is not an end. It is a pause. ]
The plaza vanished. My sight drowned in shadow. Chains dangled across the void. Broken. Whole. Twisting.
And in the center—a single, vast red eye. It blinked once, and I thought my heart would stop.
"…Anchor…"
I forced words out through clenched teeth. "Who are you?"
[ Someone the gods erased. Someone who remembers what the Anchor was meant to be. ]
The Inkblade trembled violently, as though it recognized the voice.
[ Dawn will come. And with it, another script. You have a choice, Ishaan Reed. Bend to it… or break it. ]
The eye stared into me. Through me. And then the vision shattered.
I gasped, stumbling back into the broken plaza. The survivors hadn't moved. They hadn't seen what I'd seen. Only me.
The rift still burned.
The Inkblade still whispered.
And dawn was crawling closer.
The horizon stirred.
At first, it was only a thin smear of pale light crawling across the jagged edge of the world. But in that moment, every survivor froze as if chained, staring eastward as though dawn itself was some mythical salvation.
Dev was the first to speak, voice hoarse. "We made it…"
The girl's shoulders sagged. She buried her face in her hands, trembling. The boy half-laughed, half-sobbed, clutching his crutch. Even the old man fell to his knees, muttering prayers to gods I doubted still listened.
The mother didn't cry. She stood tall, her son's small hand wrapped in hers, her gaze still on me. Her silence weighed heavier than all their words.
And then the system's voice cut through.
[ Survival Condition Cleared. ][ Reward Pending. ]
The survivors exhaled as though the voice itself had declared them saved. But my breath hitched. Because the system never gave without taking.
The Inkblade pulsed in my hand, shadows tightening around my wrist like shackles.
"…no reward… only bait… you know this…"
I pressed the blade deeper into the broken stone, trying to anchor myself.
✦
The light grew. Not warmth, not mercy—just cold illumination spilling over the ruins. The beast's corpse looked uglier in daylight, its molten wounds hardening into brittle black stone. The blood, once radiant, dulled into something like tar.
Dawn didn't cleanse. It revealed.
And the plaza, our so-called battlefield, looked like nothing but a graveyard.
The girl whispered, "We… we really survived the night."
The old man snapped back, "Because of him—or because of the thing in his hand?" His eyes cut toward me like knives. "Tell me—what happens tomorrow night? Do we keep gambling our lives on whether the sword devours us before the beasts do?"
[ Survivor Cohesion Faltering. ]
The system seemed to savor the fracture.
Dev staggered up, his burned arm still limp, but his good hand gripped his sword. "You want to throw him out? Then you fight the next one without him." His voice was raw, furious. "I don't care what that sword is. I saw him bleed for us."
The boy, voice small but steady, added, "He's not a monster. He… he saved me."
The mother finally spoke, her voice calm as steel. "Enough. Argue later. Right now, we move."
She looked at me directly. No fear, no awe. Just calculation. "If dawn is only a pause, then we don't waste it."
[ Trust Value Stabilized. ]
✦
The system's reward finally descended. Cold, inevitable.
[ Reward Granted: Title Progression – The One Who Breaks the Script. ][ Effect: Scenario deviations will be… observed. ][ Additional Reward: Trait Fragment Acquired – "Temporal Fracture." ]
A searing pain shot through my skull. Images flickered across my vision—broken chains, shattered clocks, fractured reflections of myself. One screaming. One kneeling. One laughing with a voice that wasn't mine.
"…Anchor… fracture… break it all…"
The Inkblade shivered violently, feeding on the images. I nearly collapsed. My knees hit stone. Shadows writhed around me like a storm.
The survivors recoiled. The old man shouted, "Look! Look at him! The sword is eating him alive!"
The boy cried out, "Stop it! Don't—don't say that!"
The girl looked ready to step forward, then froze, paralyzed between fear and loyalty.
Dev raised his sword, teeth bared—not at me, but at the old man. "Say one more word, and it'll be your throat, not his!"
The mother's voice cut through, cold and commanding. "Enough!"
Her son clung to her, shaking. She didn't waver. She watched me—not with fear, but with the same look I'd seen on battlefield commanders facing a weapon they couldn't control but couldn't afford to discard.
"Reed," she said quietly. "Can you stand?"
I forced breath into my lungs. Forced the shadows back into the blade. My arm throbbed, veins burning black. But I stood.
Barely.
"…yeah."
✦
The rift above had sealed slightly, but it didn't vanish. The wound lingered like a scar across the sky, pulsing faintly as if waiting to tear open again.
The system whispered one last time.
[ Cycle Complete. ][ Next Scenario Pending. ]
It was never over.
And dawn wasn't mercy. It was a reset.
✦
The survivors began to move, scavenging what little they could from the plaza. Broken weapons. Shards of beast-scale. Crates cracked open from the impact of falling rubble.
Dev dropped beside me, sword across his knees. His voice was low. "You're burning out."
"I know."
He studied me for a long moment, then spat blood into the dirt. "Doesn't matter. You're still all we've got."
The girl joined him, holding out a dented canteen with trembling hands. "Drink. Before you collapse."
I took it, the water tasting like metal and ash.
The boy limped closer, clutching his crutch like a shield. His eyes were wide, fearful, but he whispered, "Don't… don't leave us. Please."
And for a moment, the Inkblade went quiet.
Not silent. Never silent. But quieter.
✦
The old man didn't speak again. He sat alone by the broken fountain, muttering to himself, never looking at me.
The mother gathered supplies, her movements efficient, cold. But every so often, her gaze flicked back to me—measuring again. Weighing again.
Trust. Fear. Doubt. Hope.
All tangled.
And I realized then that the system didn't need to kill us.
It only needed to watch us break.