The Black File finally sees it — the "man with no soul." He walks without presence. Casts no shadow. A machine can't see him. A psyker can't feel him. Elias is the only one who can fight him — but not because he's immune… because the thing wants him to.
In the battle that follows, Elias loses part of himself… and gains something else.
----
The team regrouped in silence.
No one mentioned the flicker.
The static.
The seconds that vanished.
Even Lirae stopped scanning. Her cogitator's logic engine had crashed, and she didn't want to reboot it down here.
They moved faster now.
Weapons raised. No banter. No questions.
Only Elias looked back.
He watched the shadows behind them. Watched them stretch longer than they should. Watched one of them stop moving when the others did.
Volst held up a fist.
They froze.
She knelt and pointed.
A door — half-open — flickering with low-red emergency light. Inside: a mess hall. Long-abandoned.
And sitting in the middle of it—
Was a man.
He wasn't hunched.
Wasn't hiding.
Just… sitting.
In a chair. Facing away from them. Perfectly still.
Bit immediately hissed and backed up.
"That's him," he whispered. "That's the one I saw in the wall."
Malk flicked the safety off.
"Should I—?"
"No," Volst said.
She was staring hard now.
"Where's his shadow?"
They moved closer. Step by step.
The man didn't react.
Didn't turn.
Didn't breathe.
Elias's chakra flickered weakly in his blood — like a pilot light waiting to reignite.
The System pulsed.
> Unknown Entity Detected
> Status: Presence – Incomplete
> No Heat Signature
> No Psychic Output
> [!] Target is NOT registered in reality lattice
> Target is NOT supposed to exist
Volst raised her gun.
"On my mark."
Elias moved beside her, heart slow, body cold.
Malk lined up his shot.
"Three—"
The man turned.
No face.
Just smooth, blank skin.
No mouth.
No eyes.
No nose.
Just the suggestion of a head.
And in place of a shadow—
A thin, black void that crawled like oil across the floor.
"FIRE—!"
Malk unloaded first.
Heavy slugs tore through the chair — but the man didn't flinch.
Didn't fall.
Didn't move.
Lirae's servo-skull screeched and imploded mid-scan, burning out in a whisper of sparks.
Bit vanished into the ceiling.
Volst dropped into cover and kept shooting.
Elias stood still.
He could feel it now.
The man wasn't resisting damage.
He was unaffected by it.
Until Elias moved.
The figure's head snapped toward him.
Though faceless, Elias felt seen.
And the moment their eyes would have met—
The thing charged.
It moved in a blink — fast, gliding, arms dragging behind it like broken limbs.
Malk shouted, tried to shield Elias—
Too late.
The creature slammed into him, shoulder first, and Elias flew backward into a steel table, crashing through it.
He tasted blood.
And then — silence.
Time skipped.
Memory Fragment: Lost
System Disconnect: 2.6 seconds
Cognitive Slippage: Detected
The figure stood above him now.
Its arm stretched.
Hand open.
Reaching.
Not for his body.
But for his mind.
Elias gritted his teeth.
The System pulsed.
A spark.
A warning.
> Activating Ability:
> Chakra Reinforcement – MIND (Rank F)
> Duration: 3 seconds
> Protection: Partial
And suddenly — he could think again.
The black hand touched his forehead—
And couldn't get in.
Elias pushed upward with everything in him.
His body didn't move.
But his mind screamed:
NO.
Chakra burst across his skull like wildfire — not in strength, not in power, but in clarity.
And the figure reeled.
Volst fired again.
This time, the bullet caught the figure in the neck — not harming it, but pushing it off balance.
Elias rolled.
Drew his knife.
The chakra flared dimly — enough to ignite the blade.
He lunged.
And slashed.
The knife passed through the figure's side.
It made no sound.
But the shadow it cast — the oily, crawling thing — ripped open like paper.
A hole.
A tear.
And then—
It was gone.
The room fell still.
No corpse.
No blood.
Just chairs. Dust.
And the System.
Alive again.
> Combat Survived
> Entity Response Logged
> [NEW DATA]: Entity is not warp-born
> Memory Defense Skill: Stabilized
> Memory Integrity: 93%
> System Sync Restored
Elias collapsed.
Malk pulled him up.
Volst was breathing heavy, bleeding from her temple.
Bit dropped from the ceiling.
"…is it gone?"
Elias nodded.
But whispered:
"No. It's just… waiting for another page."
He opened the journal.
And beneath the page where he wrote "It knew me"—
A new line had appeared, written in ink not his own:
"We are alike, you and I.
Neither of us are supposed to be here."
[END OF CHAPTER 7]
Up next:
Chapter 8: The Price of Remembering
They survived Silph-9. But not everything left with them. Elias begins losing time. Conversations he doesn't remember. Dreams that leave marks. And back in the fleet, people start remembering things that didn't happen. The Black File returns home — but reality doesn't follow.