The harbor was silent. The tide of corpses had fallen still, lifeless once more. The water, blackened by blood and ash, lapped quietly against the docks as if nothing had happened. But the air still carried that faint electric hum—the aftertaste of bending reality too far.
Kairis staggered to his feet. Every nerve screamed. His body felt like broken glass wrapped in fire, but his grip stayed tight on the Graviton Edge. He spat blood, coughed, then laughed under his breath.
"Still here. Still standing." His voice was hoarse, but that grin was carved deep into his face. "Ugly bastard didn't have shit on me."
He turned his eyes upward. The moon was veiled by smoke, pale and sickly through the haze. For a moment, it looked like an eye staring back at him.
That was when the system pulsed.
[Quest Complete: Harbor Cleansing]
[Processing…]
[Warning: Anomalous Data Detected]
Kairis frowned. "The hell now?"
His vision blurred. Not from blood loss this time—but from the system itself. The familiar blue-black interface warped, collapsing inward until it wasn't words anymore, but a voice.
Cold. Vast. It wasn't the system he knew—it was something older, something watching.
> "You bleed. You fight. You consume. But you do not break."
Kairis' chest tightened. His heart hammered. He tried to speak, but the words died in his throat.
The voice rolled on, swallowing the silence.
> "You have opened the wound between worlds. You have fed the void with your own marrow. For this, the chains loosen."
The docks dissolved. The world cracked like glass, and suddenly he was standing in nothing. No harbor. No blood. Just black infinity.
At the center of that void, a throne. And on it—Lucien Dreamveil himself. The God of the Void. Eyes of endless galaxies locked onto Kairis, heavy enough to make his bones ache.
Kairis clenched his jaw. He'd seen gods before in stories, in half-forgotten scriptures. But none of that compared to the crushing presence before him. He wanted to kneel, but he forced himself to stand. His arrogance burned through the pain.
"You've been watching me," Kairis said, his voice ragged but steady. "Figures. You don't strike me as the silent type."
Lucien's lips curved into something that might have been a smile—or just a predator showing teeth.
> "And you don't strike me as prey. That is why you are here."
The void itself shifted. Chains of light snapped apart, dissolving into nothing. The system pulsed one final time.
[Title Gained: Apostle of the Void]
[Effect: Authority Over Lesser Shadows]
[Effect: Reality Fracture – Partial]
[Warning: Sanity Drain Increased]
The words carved themselves into Kairis' mind, searing hot. His body convulsed, black veins crawling across his skin for a heartbeat before sinking back beneath the flesh. His eyes burned—not red, not black, but something deeper. Like the abyss had chosen him.
Kairis fell to one knee, gasping, then laughed—sharp, bitter, alive.
"Apostle of the Void, huh?" He looked up at Lucien, teeth bared in defiance. "Guess that makes me your bastard now."
Lucien chuckled softly, the sound like cracks in glass.
> "No, boy. You are not mine. You are void's. And that… is far worse."
The throne dissolved. The void cracked apart, pulling Kairis back into the world of ash and corpses.
He collapsed against a broken container, chest heaving. His body was wrecked, his blood painting the ground—but the grin was still there.
"Void's apostle, huh…" He let out a shaky breath, eyes staring at the dead horizon. "Let's see how far this ride goes before it kills me."
Above him, the smoke parted just enough to reveal the moon again. This time, it didn't look pale—it looked hungry.