"For exactly a century, the name of Vyke was not whispered, spoken, or shouted within the halls of House Centuri. The man was banished for his sins, stripped of his titles and grace, cursed to wander a land he was never meant to tread. For a hundred years, his name did not appear…until my brother was born."
— [Excerpt from the personal Journal of Artorias Regulus Fe Mávros, Marquess of House Mávros]
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|| [You have slept in a comfortable bed. Your [HP], [MP], and [EP] have been restored to their maximum capacity. All ailments and negative status effects have been cured] ||
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Thaddeus awoke with a strangled gasp.
His throat constricted and he choked on—what? He didn't know what he was choking on. Was it despair, anger, fear, anguish? It felt like all of them at once, layered and crushing.
Tears streamed freely down his cheeks as his breath came out in shallow bursts, his lungs convulsed for air, and his chest trembled as if they'd forgotten how to breathe.
His heart thundered like a war drum. He could hear it echoing in his skull, feel it throbbing through his fingertips, and taste its rhythm on his tongue.
It pulsed, and mixed with the salt from his tears, and the metallic tang of blood as he bit down hard on his lip to hold back the scream clawing—rising—its way up his throat.
Because he remembered. Because he knew—he was no longer just one person.
Whatever the Outer Immortal had done to Asael—to him, to them—it had done so with purpose. With intent he couldn't grasp, with a design he was not privy to.
He was no longer just Thaddeus Vyke. Nor was he just Asael, as well.
He—they!—were now more.
Two separate souls merged, bound, forced into one vessel, into one flesh.
It was wrong—wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong!
The desecration of something so sacred! It was—it was blasphemy! To defile the laws of creation wasn't just a violation, it was sacrilege!
'But what does an Outer Immortal care for such things?'
A bitter, broken, laugh slipped free from his lips before he could stop it—raw, cracked, hollow. It was the kind of laugh that belonged to a madman, to someone who had glimpsed the void like Asael did and returned…not whole but changed.
What was he supposed to do now?
He had been cursed thrice from birth—and now he was cursed again, a fourth time. Already, he felt his identity fraying, his self-unravelling, becoming something else, something new.
Neither Thaddeus nor Asael, but something in-between the two beings.
Anger bled into hatred.
Sadness curdled into despair.
It was only one thing which remained. Their dreams of life…those remained unchanged. Both Thaddeus and Asael longed for death, for silence, for peace.
But peace was not for him—them.
He needed to move. To do something.
Thaddeus—Asael—pushed himself upright and shoved himself from the bed. His legs trembled violently beneath him, barely obeying him. He tried to stand and almost fell—he might have cracked his skull on the floor—had instinct not caught him.
His hands gripped the carved wooden frame of his bed. It creaked under his white-knuckled grip, then groan and protested as he tried to push himself up.
He couldn't breathe. He felt like he was suffocating—drowning in emotion and pain that pressed down on him like a tide.
Every breath tasted of ash. Flames seared across his mind—hungry, ravenous—and his skin prickled, as if something was crawling beneath it. He felt the phantom fire which licked at his skin. Pain which shouldn't exist burned through his nerves.
He remembered that feeling, of being devoured alive.
He knew that fire. He had seen it in his dreams, read of it in myths and books and scrolls.
The Living Flame. The Primordial Fire. The Crucible of Life.
But what had once consumed him was wrong. It was twisted, defiled, turned and mutated into something it was never meant to be.
A shiver racked through his body, that had nothing to do with the winter cold.
"I have to get up," he rasped, his voice rough and trembling. "Come on—get up, you stupid, useless legs—move!"
He slammed his palms into his quivering thighs, gripping and squeezing them hard enough to make his teeth bare in pain. His nails broke skin, thin trails of blood welled beneath them, and the sting brought sensation back.
It was barely enough.
But it was enough.
Thaddeus—Asael—shakily stood, swaying on trembling legs, and wiped his tears with the back of his hand. He clung to the bedpost, taking one quivering step at a time.
He did not dare to look toward the door, nor to step beyond his room and call for help. He couldn't. Facing his family on a good day was hard enough. In this state—it would be unbearable.
It would be a nightmare worse than the dream he'd just crawled out of.
He wished this was a problem that could be solved, that it was something fixable. But there was no fixing what had been done to him, no magical cure for him.
From the very moment the Outer Immortal had thought of their union, Thaddeus and Asael had merged to become one.
One body. One mind. One soul.
There would be no separation, no salvation, no undoing of what was now done.
"What the hell am I supposed to do now?" he whispered, his voice cracking as he buried his face into his hands. He felt his shoulders trembling, as a quiet, desperate sob broke free.
It was a miracle that he hadn't simply collapsed—or gone mad—outright. That he hadn't simply shut down under the flood of two lifetimes' worth of memory. Every moment, every scent, every sensation pricked at his mind like a silver needle.
Every single one of his senses was distorted. They felt off. The whole world felt off.
The colors in his room looked slightly wrong, the shades too bright or too dim. The smells, they felt familiar, right, yet also wrong, foreign. Textures were unfamiliar under his fingertips, as if he was feeling them all over again for the first time.
Existence itself felt misaligned.
Truly, it was a miracle that his body hadn't torn itself apart.
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|| [That would be due to me, user] ||
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He froze.
As a translucent black screen, ornate with veins of gold, shimmered into existence and hovered before his eyes. On any other day, he might have panicked. But right now? He was exhausted and only felt a weary kind of curiosity.
"What in Hades…" He muttered, rubbing his eyes that still felt wet with tears. "What are you?"
The screen flickered once, then expanded.
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|| [I am The System] ||
|| [To be exact, I am The System of Alloys] ||
|| [To go further—I am your System] ||
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The words sank in—and with them, memories from Asael—Thaddeus—stirred within him. His knowledge whispered through his mind of what a System was.
They came from stories, from tales of fictional worlds that existed solely in fantasy. Where the Systems guided heroes, and all others, to achieve their goals.
Asael—Thaddeus—had read about them once, back when he still lived with his mother and had the time to dream.
Back then, it was only fiction, fantasy. Now, in a world where Celestial Spirits walked the earth, where the Fallen Spawn devoured the living and the Risen endured between them to survive, a System was strange—but not impossible.
It was merely improbable.
Still, it didn't stop the creeping unease that curled through his chest.
"Did I die in my sleep?" he asked, the calmness in his own voice being unsettling even for his own ears to hear.
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|| [No. You are still as human as you have always been] ||
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"One can only hope," he muttered, dragging a hand through his hair. His head felt heavy, as though the invisible weight of both his lives were pressing down on his skull.
"What are you, then?" he asked aloud.
The screen shimmered again.
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|| [I am a creation of the Primordial Fire. Imprinted upon your soul, and molded by *******] ||
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Thaddeus—Asael—grimaced. "I hope you know that doesn't actually explain anything, right?"
He leaned back on the bed, exhaling slowly as his pulse began to settle. Everything was born of the Primordial Fire in some way. Even he—they—were products of its will that were shaped by it.
The redacted name made him pause. He knew what that meant, and he knew better than to ask. He knew why it was hidden.
To even think the name of an Ancient One was to risk inviting its gaze, and Thaddeus—Asael—had no wish to meet the thing that had rewritten his—their—existence.
Some names were not meant to be known. To gain the attention of an Outer Immortal was something that no mortal could endure. It begat a death far crueler than any torture might.
The only reason Asael—Thaddeus—had survived such contact, was by sheer, impossible luck. Not power, never power. Unlike Asael—Thaddeus—whose soul had endured the void, Thaddeus—Asael—still had flesh to break,
"I need a distraction," he murmured, collapsing backwards onto the bed. He wanted to do anything but think. Sleep tempted him, but dawn was already creeping in through the curtains.
He glanced at the clock on his wall. Morning training was close. Because of course it was. The universe had no sense of mercy, especially for those who were as damned as him.
"How am I supposed to survive the day without losing my mind?" He whispered with a pained groan. He was beginning to feel a headache building from within.
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|| [If I may offer you some assistance in that regard, user] ||
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He eyed the glowing letters for a long moment, considered refusing it, or ignoring them, then let out a defeated sigh. "Sure. Why not."
The translucent screen shimmered once more, pulsed with gold light that bloomed across its surface.
Then, before his eyes, it shifted. Lines rearranged themselves, reshaping until something new appeared.
[-]END[-]
If you wish to read up to five chapters in advance for this story, check out my pa/t reon* / Verbane. I hope you enjoy, and I appreciate any and all support. Ta!