Blackspire—the city of iron and smoke—gasped for air. Ancient buildings huddled together, paint flaking like dead skin, revealing the grime and rot beneath.
The streets glistened with perpetual filth from leaking pipes, a stench of rust and sewage clung heavy and permanent in the air.
Most worked not for the future, but simply to survive another day, hoping meager wages would keep the biting cold at bay. It was a cycle of mechanical despair, where hope was an expense few could afford.
Among them was Ren Vallis, twenty-one. Lean, strong, with a gaze that seemed to pierce everything yet feel nothing. They called him "the man without feelings." Ren neither confirmed nor denied. Logic dictated his every move; survival was his only law.
Emotions were distractions, illogical factors, errors in the calculation of life.
That afternoon, thick factory smoke from the looming stacks blocked the sun. Ren leaned against the cold, damp wall of a warehouse, taking a brief rest. Beside him sat Jona, middle-aged, cheeks streaked with iron dust and sweat, sipping water from a dented can.
"You know, Ren? They say wages are cut again. Scrap production's down," Jona muttered.
Ren's eyes stayed fixed on the mud by his feet. He didn't bother looking up; the world above was predictably corrupt. "Scrap production is the same. What's down is the warehouse owner's morality."
Jona laughed hollowly. The sound was harsh, like grinding gears. "Always logical. Don't you ever feel anything, kid? Looking at you is like seeing a machine that can lift iron but cannot know joy—or sorrow. Do you even remember what human warmth feels like?"
"Anger wastes energy," Ren said flatly, lifting a fifty-kilo sack without a flinch. "Energy is for survival, not for feeling. Sentiment is inefficient."
Jona shook his head, sighing. He wiped a layer of grime from his forehead with the back of his hand. "Well, if I die here, at least I die full. May you live on, little machine."
Ren said nothing and continued toward the storage facility, the heavy sack resting easily on his shoulder, a predictable weight in an unpredictable life.
Then—a scream tore through the market nearby. Not of anger, but sheer, blinding desperation. Ren turned.
Jona had collapsed. Eyes wide, hands clutching his chest as if his heart had vanished into the cold air. Around him, people fell one by one. Some clutched their chests, others froze mid-step, faces locked in silent terror. It was a mass seizure, silent and total.
In seconds, dozens lay strewn across the street. Silence swallowed the panic. The air seemed to absorb the noise, leaving a void where chaos had been.
Ren approached, crouching. Eyes bulging. Mouth open. No blood. No wounds.
"…not sickness… not a physical attack… something is taking life, not destroying the body. A fundamental extraction," he murmured, voice flat. Logic strained against the impossible. This anomaly demanded analysis.
Then he saw it: black mist. Thick, curling smoke rose from each fallen mouth, twisting and turning as if alive. It coalesced, spinning faster, forming a circle of growing darkness. Shadows beneath his feet trembled and lengthened unnaturally. The temperature dropped sharply, biting through Ren's thin work clothes.
A fissure tore through the center of the mist—a black gap ripping the air itself.
Ren held his breath. The world grew quieter, darker. The scent of ozone and something ancient replaced the usual stench of rust. A voice emerged from the void: soft, clear, yet unsettling, speaking directly to him.
"Ren Vallis…"
Logic failed him. Confusion, not fear, filled his mind. How did an unknown variable acquire his name?
The rift widened into a gaping maw. Tendrils of black mist snaked outward, seizing him with terrifying force. He was pulled in before he could react. Darkness swallowed him—cold, silent, directionless. He felt the sensation of gravity cease, followed by an immediate, profound emptiness.
Voices returned. Not human. Distorted echoes, twisted and living:
"Empty… empty…"
"This body is suitable…"
"A new vessel…"
Ren tried to breathe—air did not exist. Something brushed the back of his neck—cold, sharp. Below, a reddish-black light blossomed like frozen blood.
He hit solid ground. Slowly, he rose, finding himself on an endless black plain. Stone pillars loomed like gargantuan tombstones from a nightmare. They cast long, impossible shadows. Symbols etched into the stones moved subtly, like newborn creatures aware of their own presence.
In the center, a figure stood with its back to him. Humanoid, faintly silhouetted, long black hair, shoulders rising as if breathing—but no sound.
Ren stepped closer. He refused to panic; curiosity and the need for data superseded fear. "What is this?"
The figure's head turned impossibly, silently. A face stared back—his own. Pallid, black eyes without pupils, a smile stretched too wide. Two voices merged into one distorted whisper:
"…finally."
Before he could react, the figure vanished and reappeared inches away. Its hand pierced his chest, skin intact, as if his body was no longer solid.
Ren did not resist. Something within him opened the way. A fractured part of his soul seemed to welcome the intrusion.
"Empty body… fractured soul… the most perfect vessel," the figure whispered.
The black plain trembled. Stone pillars cracked. Mist screamed as if in pain.
The figure grasped Ren's heart, pulling it slowly. The world reeled violently.
For the first time, Ren felt terror—not at death, but at the absolute, terrifying incomprehension of what was happening.
"Open… Open… Open…"
Then a single voice, overwhelming, shattered his bones and mind:
"…EMPTY VESSEL."
The world exploded into white silence.
**Something waited beyond the void, patient and calculating. Ren's chest still ached, his mind reeling from the intrusion, but a faint whisper lingered in the shadows of his thoughts: "You are not yet ready… but soon, you will belong."
The silence of the white expanse pressed against him, heavier than any stone or steel. And somewhere, far beyond his comprehension, the eyes of the Black Gate watched—and waited.