After only a brief venture into New Breton, Silas soon found himself forced to leave. Yet, he wasn't entirely unprepared. He had the fragmented memories of the bandits, a certain level of self-protection and most importantly, a goal…
Silas' thoughts lingered on the mission he had accepted.
Investigate aberrant beasts near the city outskirts. Characterised by glowing red eyes and a lust for flesh.
A sardonic smirk tugged at his lips. Was this not exactly what he needed?
He made for the gates, his pace light with anticipation. The city walls loomed high above, almost as if designed to keep out the heavens themselves.
The guards at the gate gave him puzzled looks, unable to recall when he had entered. After a moment's awkward exchange, they shrugged it off as poor memory and waved him through once he presented the temporary identification card stamped with the Guild's insignia.
Stepping into the open air, Silas recalled the directions detailed in his assignment. South of the walls, he was to follow the dirt road until he came across an unmistakable marker: a solitary tree with leaves the colour of burning embers.
Sure enough, not long after he left the city's looming shadow, he saw it, the crimson foliage swaying in the wind, brighter than any autumn he remembered. Silas narrowed his eyes, muttering under his breath. "Plant life here is truly… colourful."
Despite this, a mix of furious roars and agonised cries echoed through the field, shattering the ambience.
Silas slipped into a thicket for cover, as his gaze fell upon the source: two rams locked in a feral brawl. Their grey wool was matted and coarse, streaked with sickly red patches that pulsed faintly like veins of magma.
Similar lines of crimson crawled across their horns and bodies, glowing faintly under the afternoon sun.
They collided again, horns grinding, sparks bursting with each impact.
Silas' mission surfaced in his mind with crystal clarity.
Neutralise the aberrant creature, and bring its head back as proof.
He frowned. "So the guild already knows about the red beads lodged in their skulls…?"
There was obviously much the city-states were hiding, but the answers would have to wait.
Before him, the battle reached its end as the scarred ram twisted, its horn tearing through its rival's throat in a spray of crimson.
The loser collapsed with a rasping cry, leaving the scarred beast panting, trembling with a mad fury.
Silas' eyes lit with opportunity as his form dissolved into a shimmer. He stalked closer, silently, until purple arcs of electricity began to crackle along his wound-back fist.
In an instant, he surged forward.
His knuckles crashed against the scarred ram's face with a crunch, snapping its head sideways and dazing the beast. Before it could recover, Silas seized its jagged horns. The ram thrashed wildly, muscles straining, but Silas twisted his body, hurling it into the ground.
THUMP!
The impact rattled the earth. The creature kicked feebly, disoriented, but Silas did not hesitate. His fist clenched once more, and with a savage thrust, he drove it deep into the ram's exposed underbelly.
SCHLICK!
Entrails spilt forth as he tore his arm free, blood pattering against the soil in steaming rivulets.
Silas exhaled slowly, his eyes narrowing as the beast's life guttered out before him, a white light floating out of it and merging with him.
He wiped his forearm against his clothes, then turned toward the other beast, the one lying at the forest's edge, throat split open, breath whistling raggedly as it bled out onto the forest floor.
Before it could let out another pitiful cry, Silas was upon it. His illusion rippled away, revealing his form as he drove his fist down once more. Bone splintered under the impact, the ram's head snapping sideways.
It shuddered violently, legs kicking in brief spasms before his follow-up strike rammed into its chest. With a crunch and tear, the creature gave its final death rattle.
From the ram's skull, a familiar glow began to seep forth, a pale white light, curling upward like smoke in the wind. It shimmered faintly before vanishing into Silas' body.
His eyes fluttered shut as he parsed through their memories.
At first, the rams were ordinary beasts. Breeding stock kept on a modest hillside farm. Their lives had been repetitive: eat, sleep, mate, wait for slaughter. That was all.
But then it came. The Rapture.
Then he saw them. How their horns locked. Battering each other beneath a twisted sky, fighting not for mates or territory, but for the strange black fruit that had fallen before them. Bitter and foul was its scent, yet it remained irresistible to them.
After the struggle, they each managed a bite at the fruit, with immediate effect. Their muscles grew taut, their wool bristled with manic bloodlust.
Together, they turned on the man who had raised them. Their owner's terrified shouts echoed in Silas' skull before being silenced under trampling hooves and rending horns.
The then memory lurched. Darkness. Silence.
Then, Silas saw light. No longer was he in open fields, but rather in a sterile, white chamber. Steel restraints clamped around the ram's limbs, strange needles plunged into their veins.
Silas' eyes snapped open, his breath sharp, exhilaration coursing through his veins. "This is a conspiracy," He muttered, voice low and urgent. "But why are they doing this…"
Then a thought gnawed at him. He had just felt… exhilaration? A rush of thrill? How?
If his memories had been stripped away, if his emotions were dulled into near nothingness, why did he still feel alive? By all rights, he should have been reduced to a husk, a machine of a man. Yet, here he was, pulse racing, lips curling with hunger for truth.
It wasn't joy. It wasn't grief. It was something else.
"Curiosity…?" he murmured, brows furrowing as the word hung in the air. A contemplative shadow crossed his face. "Was I left with it because even Charon couldn't strip it from me? Or is it something deeper… something more intrinsic than even my humanity?"
His lips quirked faintly as he pulled up his panel. His eyes gleamed at the data scrolling before him.
Name: Silas
Attributes:
[Constitution: 3.1 (+ 1.4)] [Spirit: 3.6 (+ 0.9)]
Talents:
[Eye of Omniscience] [Soul Absorption] [Illusion Control]
Skills:
[Basic Illusion Control (Lv.1)—Developed through repetitive practice, capable of now manipulating multiple illusions simultaneously, but still short of a breakthrough to Lv. 2]
[Raging Thunder Fist (Lv.1)—After a month of training, the host's body has been tempered by Primordial Energy, enhancing strength and forming the basis of a combat style. The host can now channel absorbed energy to produce arcs of electricity, increasing combat power]...
His recent training has given him ample results, though for illusions, simply casting illusions constantly to train seems to be giving diminishing returns.
Shaking his head, he stared at the two carcasses around him before sighing. At least his immediate concerns were met.
Shrrrk! Shffft!
The faint rustling of paper filled the quiet room as Silas sifted through a dossier in his hands. He sat slouched on a worn-out sofa, its fabric patched and threadbare, the stuffing long since lost to time.
Around him were walls of rough timber and a single wooden coffee table stood in front of him, scuffed and cracked.
There was no sign of glass, steel, or electronics, such things had long since vanished, relics of the 21st century now rarer than gold.
His eyes lingered on the title at the top of the page.
Fall of Heaven.
This was the dossier he had exchanged for, paid with the extra contribution he earned by handing over the second ram head. The words before him detailed the first tremors of the Rapture.
He read of earthquakes vast enough to split continents, only for those same continents to grind and merge together like calamitous jigsaw puzzles. Entire nations toppled, their skylines of glass and steel swallowed in moments.
With their collapse came panic. Humanity scattered, fleeing into forests, mountains, and wastelands, surviving only by clinging to the relics of the now bygone era and the newly awakened Evolvers.
Out of that chaos, city-states began to rise. Some were the remnants of old governments trying desperately to keep order. Others were theocracies built by zealous sects who claimed the Rapture to be divine punishment.
The most dangerous were those led by Evolvers, individuals whose strength dwarfed armies, carving territory with nothing but their fists.
But survival soon gave way to conflict. The dossiers spoke of wars fought not for ideals, but for resources, specifically, Heavenly Fruits. Irradiated by the tide of Primordial Energy, they could grant those who consumed a myriad of powers.
Despite their name, some were flowers whose petals dripped with glowing dew, others were herbs that pulsed like beating hearts. Each one held power, and for that reason, each one became a cause for bloodshed.
Silas turned another page. The records continued: maps of shifting borders, betrayals, fragile alliances. His eyes caught one account in particular, a war between New Breton and its neighbour, the city-state of Frankum.
The dossier spared no detail: months of siege, tens of thousands dead, the land itself scorched into ruin and Evolvers on both sides slaughtered en mass.
His hands froze on the page.
"…Some things really never change," he muttered. His lips twitched as he leaned back, letting the words hang in the air.
Thump.
The dossier landed on the coffee table. Silas sank deeper into the sagging sofa, feeling its meagre cushion embrace his tired body. For a moment, his gaze lingered on the ceiling, but as his eyes drifted down again, a familiar panel caught his attention.
[Mission Accomplished: Find Civilisation in the City-State of New Breton]
[Reward: Knowledge Unlocked—Development of Illusion Evolvers]
Silas closed his eyes as he felt a surge of information rush into his mind.
Anecdotes regarding illusions. Methods of training and using them.
By the time Silas opened his eyes, the skill on his panel had already changed.
[Basic Illusion Skill (Lvl.1)] à [External Illusion Skill (Lv.1): Host is capable of creating a manipulating illusions within a 40m radius. Currently, illusions only manifest visually.]
A trace of surprise crossed his eyes, he had already understood what he ought to do next to level up his skill.
Use his illusions to affect another sense.
Now, for Silas, everything was already laid out before him.
He only needed to continue practicing his skills, increasing his skills proficiency and learn more information about that virus.
Why was it released?
And.. by whom?
After all, he had slight feeling nagging at the back of his head. That whatever or whomever lay behind the appearance of the virus, it would allow Silas to see a grand, new world.