The room was dim, the only light coming from crystalline panels embedded in the ceiling—technology scavenged and repurposed from before the world burned. Kairis sat in the chair they offered him, posture relaxed yet unyielding, like a predator sitting in the middle of its prey's den without the slightest hint of fear.
Across from him, Kaiyara leaned forward, her eyes scanning the floating screen above the table. It displayed his stats, the fragments the system allowed outsiders to see.
[Name: Kairis]
[Title: The Sole Bearer of Dark Matter] (recently unlocked)
[Class: Hunter]
[Level: 6]
*[Affinities: ???]
*[Notable Abilities: Graviton Edge | Gyro-Telekinesis | ???]
That was all. A wall of shadows hid everything else.
Kaiyara exhaled, frustrated. "We can only see the surface—levels, stats, title. The rest is completely locked out."
Her superior, an older man draped in a tattered but neatly pressed coat, scratched his chin. "Not even our analysts can break through it. Your system… it's not like the others, boy."
Kairis's lips twitched in the faintest smile. "Of course it isn't. If it was, I'd already be dead."
The air went still. He didn't say it as arrogance, but as fact. The kind that forced everyone else to remember exactly what he was capable of.
They gave him a tour of the stronghold. Massive steel walls lined with makeshift cannons and rune-etched barriers hummed in the distance. Hundreds of survivors bustled inside—some with weapons strapped to their backs, others in worn-out uniforms, all of them trying to cling to the word civilization.
"Awakeners like us," Kaiyara explained as they walked the fortified streets, "are the last line between what's left of humanity and extinction. The stronghold shelters nearly five thousand. Without Awakeners, they'd all be corpses by now."
Kairis watched in silence. The people here lived with fear behind their eyes, yet they still moved forward. It reminded him of his siblings. If anything, that was the only reason he hadn't cut ties and walked away.
Inside the council chamber, the proposition was laid bare.
"You won't work under us. That much is clear," the elder said, his voice heavy but calm. "But humanity needs power like yours. So we propose a partnership. You keep your freedom. We won't restrict you. All we ask is this: when monsters rise that even we cannot hold back… we call you. And you answer."
Kairis leaned back, considering. His crimson-tinted eyes scanned every face in the room before he finally spoke.
"And my family?"
"Protected. Untouched. As long as they're within our walls, no harm will come to them."
The room was silent as Kairis stood. He paced slowly, hands in his pockets, then turned back to them with that same detached sharpness in his tone.
"I don't kneel. Not to you, not to anyone. But I'll give you this—" His gaze narrowed like the edge of a blade. "When you call, if the cause is worthy, I'll come. But betray me, and I'll turn this entire stronghold into a crater."
The elder met his eyes, unflinching, though his clenched jaw betrayed the tension in his stance. After a long silence, he nodded.
"So be it. Humanity survives together, or not at all."
That night, Kairis stood atop the stronghold wall, staring out into the desolate wasteland lit by the pale glow of a fractured moon. The system flickered in his mind, reminding him of the new abilities slumbering in his core—Gyro-Telekinesis refined, the embryonic pulse of a micro black hole waiting to be tested.
He smirked faintly.
For now, he would play along. Humanity wanted a savior. What they were getting was a weapon.
And when the day came… he would decide whether that weapon burned their enemies—or them.