Wait… what?
Kenzo stood frozen, eyes wide, unable to believe what he had just heard inside his head. His heart was still pounding wildly, his throat felt raw as if scraped open, his legs on the verge of giving out beneath him.
I… passed the test?
He repeated the sentence over and over, as if it might disperse the fog of incomprehension still drifting through his shattered mind. Everything he had endured over the past few days had been a living nightmare. The trials, the unbearable pain, the visceral fear of being consumed alive… all of that, for this simple conclusion?
Was he supposed to understand that the goal of the test had been to eat the two hearts? Or… was it about refusing to follow either of the paths offered to him? Those alluring roads, filled with sweet lies and hollow promises…
He no longer knew what to think.
– « Anyway… I'm really glad it's over… » he murmured, letting his arms fall along his exhausted body.
At that precise moment, the same voice echoed once more through the immaterial air surrounding him.
Here is your current Status:
Name: Kenzo
Rank: Unconscious
Body Awakening: [Serpent]
Awakened Prana: [2/800]
Heart: Awakened
Corrupted Prana: [6/1000]
Power: None, please ingest a power
Blessing: [Touched by the Unique], [The Lastborn]
Gift: Chimera
Kenzo stared at the screen floating before him, incredulous. The lines of text glimmered faintly in the vaporous darkness of that undefined space, cold and silent like a celestial tomb.
He understood absolutely nothing of what was displayed before his tired eyes.
– « Rank: Unconscious… what is that supposed to mean now? » he grumbled under his breath. « Is it the same ranks as those rotten dogs? »
He searched his muddled memory. Yes… the Warden had described them as Void Creatures called "Unconscious Stain."
– « Great… I'm ranked at the same level as those disgusting things… »
His gaze dropped lower.
Bodily Awakening: [Serpent]
– « Serpent? Is that because I ate the Nightmare Viper's heart? »
The word glowed, strange and incomprehensible, heavy with a mysterious meaning he had no key to.
Then came Awakened Prana and Corrupted Prana, each showing some kind of obscure quota.
– « The only thing I understand here… is the "Heart." It says Awakened. So I became an Awakened? »
That sounded like good news… maybe. But he had no idea what it truly meant.
Further down: Power: None, please ingest a power.
– « Ingest a power? Is this a joke…? How am I supposed to ingest a power? »
The logic behind the message completely escaped him. His overworked brain struggled to connect the fragments of this sinister puzzle.
Then his eyes fell on the Blessing section. A new entry had appeared: [The Lastborn].
From what he vaguely understood, the test he had just endured was meant to grant this strange title. But its implications were entirely unknown to him. What was it for? An advantage? A burden? Impossible to tell.
And finally…
Gift: Chimera.
Yet another mysterious term.
– « Chimera… what's that? »
His ignorance was a yawning abyss. Could a teenager born and raised beyond the outer walls, without any real education, even hope to grasp the meaning of these complex words and arcane systems?
– « Good thing Mom taught me how to read… otherwise I'd really be screwed. » he sighed.
He had barely finished reading—more like deciphering—his Status when the voice returned, tolling like a sinister bell.
[Your body and your prana will be constructed]
Suddenly, Kenzo felt his body heat up violently, as if burning liquid were flowing through his veins, filling every cell, every fiber of his being.
Then… pain.
Sharp. Cutting. Unbearable.
He clenched his teeth, face twisted.
– « This… hurts less than what the alchemists did to me during the test… » he growled through clenched jaws.
When the suffering finally faded, he slowly opened his eyes.
A mirror stood before him—or rather, a floating reflective surface, unreal and motionless. For the first time since that endless nightmare, he saw himself. He had returned to his original body; he was no longer deaf, nor as skeletal as before.
His face had not changed much. His black, greasy, short hair still barely reached his ears… except for one lock.
White.
A long, immaculate strand fell over his forehead, just above his left eyebrow.
His face was the same: frail, marked by eternal dark circles, that distinctive mole beneath his right eye… his dull brown eyes and his sickly pale skin.
His body felt only slightly sturdier. He sensed a faint new strength beneath his flesh… timid, nascent. But he was still thin. Too thin. He might have gained a few centimeters… he was probably around 1.78 meters now.
– « With this strength… I might be able to handle a rotten dog on my own… » he thought, without really believing it.
But a higher-ranked Void Creature? Never. He wasn't ready yet. He knew it.
He brought his attention back to his Status. Two entries now bore a strange symbol: a "+".
Information on Bodily Awakening: [Serpent+]
He focused all his will on it.
Information on Bodily Awakening: [Serpent+]:
Unleashes within its bearer the agility of the serpent, wrapping the body in invisible fluidity and ethereal grace. Every movement becomes a perfect undulation, a silent dance that allows them to slip effortlessly between attacks like an elusive shadow. The mind aligns with the world's hidden rhythms, sharpening reflexes to answer with natural, almost instinctive precision to the slightest tremor around them.
Kenzo's eyes widened.
– « Oh… that's interesting… I wonder how it works… I'll try it later. » he thought.
His gaze slid to the second entry marked with a "+".
Gift: Chimera+
He focused on it again.
Information on Gift: [Chimera+]:
You refused the outstretched hand of purifying lines, rejecting the salvific light that begged you to be reborn. You turned away from the gentle, insidious ease of corruption, that path which promised the erasure of pain and the forgetting of scars.
But instead… you chose to devour. To devour the remnants of pure things, corrupted things, dead things. To survive in this cold silence where even gods avert their eyes.
Continue to devour. For there is no turning back. No salvation. No hope.Only hunger. And ashes.
Kenzo felt his blood run cold.
– « Wait… I'm going to have to keep eating hearts!!!!? »
His cry echoed through the void, desperate and incredulous.
What kind of damnation had he just accepted? What kind of monster was he becoming?
No answer came. Only that silence…