The sky over the Bastion of Thorns wasn't blue; it was the color of a fresh bruise. Heavy, purple-grey clouds churned with the "Abyss-rot," a magical smog that had choked the borderlands for decades.
Cian wiped a mixture of sweat and coal dust from his forehead, leaving a dark smear across his brow. At nineteen, his body was lean—not from athletic training, but from years of caloric deficit and back-breaking labor. In the eyes of the Kingdom of Oakhaven, he was a "Dross." A Tier 1 nobody born without a spark of Aether in his veins.
"Keep moving, Dross! Those mana-crystals won't haul themselves!"
A whip cracked in the air, the sound echoing off the jagged stone walls of the mining pit. The man holding the whip was a Tier 2 Overseer named Hargon. He was barely a step above Cian in the grand scheme of things, but in this pit, he was a god. Hargon's skin had a faint, metallic sheen—the sign of Iron-Blood resonance.
Cian didn't look up. Looking up got you lashed. He gripped the handles of the rusted cart, his knuckles white. Inside were raw mana-shards, pulsing with a faint, volatile light. These stones would eventually power the shimmering barriers of the capital, protecting the "real" citizens from the monsters in the mist.
The Divine Ledger is a lie, Cian thought, his jaw tightening. It's not a record of worth.
It's a cage.
He felt it again—the dull ache in his chest that had been growing for weeks. It felt like something was trying to claw its way out of his ribcage. The doctors at the infirmary called it "Dust-Lung," a common death sentence for miners. But Cian knew better. This wasn't a disease. It was a hunger.
Suddenly, the ground groaned.
It wasn't the sound of shifting earth, but a high-pitched scream of tearing reality. From the purple clouds above, a rift opened—a jagged black tear in the sky.
"Rift! We have a Breach!" someone screamed.
Panic erupted. The Tier 2 guards, usually so arrogant with their whips, turned pale. They knew the protocol. In the event of a Breach, the Overseers retreated to the inner sanctum. The Dross? They were the speed bumps meant to slow the monsters down.
"Get to the gates!" Hargon roared, already sprinting toward the elevator.
"Wait!" Cian shouted, his voice hoarse. "The elevator won't hold everyone! Open the emergency bunker!"
Hargon didn't even turn around. He kicked a young girl out of his way, sending her sprawling toward the mana-carts. "Die well for your King, Dross!"
The elevator rose, the iron grates clanging shut. Cian was left in the pit with fifty other laborers. And then, the first Shadow-Wolf dropped from the sky.
It was a Tier 3 horror, a mass of smoke and teeth. It landed on a nearby cart, its claws shattering the mana-stones. The explosion of raw energy threw Cian backward. His head hit the jagged rock, and the world went dark.
Is this it? he wondered as the coldness of the pit seeped into his bones. To die in the dirt so some noble can have a warm bath?
Then, a sound broke through the ringing in his ears. It wasn't a scream. It was a
[Ding].
[System Initialization: Detecting Soul-Resonance...]
[Status: Desperate. Compatibility: 99.9%.]
[The Divine Ledger is Corrupt. Initializing 'The Valkyrie Core'...]
A surge of heat, violent and intoxicating, exploded from Cian's chest. The "ache" finally broke free.
[Host Confirmed: Cian of the Thorns.]
[Current Tier: 1 (Dross)]
[Condition: Critical. Life Force: 12%]
[Emergency Protocol: The First Tie must be forged. Nearby Valkyrie-Soul detected in distress.]
Cian's eyes snapped open. The world was frozen. The Shadow-Wolf was mid-leap, its jaws inches from the girl Hargon had kicked. But Cian saw more than just the monster. He saw a trail of silver light leading out of the pit, toward the battlefield above the fortress.
[Quest Triggered: The Knight in the Ruins.]
[Objective: Save the Fallen Valkyrie. Reward: Survival and Evolution.]
Cian felt his muscles knit together. The mana-shards he had been hauling began to glow, their energy flowing not into the capital's barriers, but into him.
"I'm not dying here," Cian whispered, his voice vibrating with a power that shook the stones.
[Skill Unlocked: Heart-Seeker (Passive). You can now sense the 'resonance' of those destined to stand by your side.]
He stood up, his gaze fixed on the silver light above. For the first time in his life, the Dross wasn't looking at the dirt. He was looking at the throne.
The mana-dust in the pit didn't just smell like ozone anymore; it tasted like copper and old blood. As the silver trail burned into Cian's vision, the frozen world shattered back into motion.
The Shadow-Wolf snapped its jaws shut—but Cian was no longer where he had been.
[Agility Boost: +50% (Duration: 30 Seconds)]
[System Note: First-time users experience 'Adrenaline Overload'. Enjoy the rush.]
Cian didn't run away from the beast; he ran at it. He grabbed a heavy, discarded iron pickaxe, his muscles screaming as the System forced them to perform beyond their natural limits. The Wolf lunged, a blur of shadowy fur and teeth, but the Heart-Seeker skill pulsed in Cian's mind. He saw a faint, red glowing dot on the wolf's throat—the "Resonance Point."
"Down!" he roared at the girl huddled on the ground.
As the beast leapt, Cian slid through the mud and coal dust, passing directly beneath the monster's underbelly. With a guttural shout, he slammed the pickaxe upward. The iron point sank deep into the red dot.
The Shadow-Wolf didn't bleed red; it erupted into black smoke. The force of the kill sent a shockwave through the pit, knocking the other laborers flat.
[Enemy Defeated: Tier 3 Shadow-Wolf]
[Experience Gained: Level 1 \rightarrow Level 3]
[Stat Points Unallocated: 10]
Cian didn't stop to look at the screen. He grabbed the girl by her tunic and hauled her toward the service ladder—the one the Overseers had deemed too "dangerous" to use because it was falling apart.
"Go! Get to the upper ventilation ducts!" he commanded.
"What about you?" she sobbed, looking at the chaos of the pit.
"I have someone to find," Cian said, his eyes tracking the silver thread of light that snaked up the rock wall.
He began to climb. Usually, the three-hundred-foot ascent would have taken him twenty minutes of grueling effort. Now, he hauled himself up with one arm, his fingers digging into the stone as if it were soft clay.
Above him, the screams of the laborers were being drowned out by something much louder: the sound of a Tier 4 battle.
He crested the lip of the pit and rolled onto the scorched grass of the surface.
The Bastion of Thorns was a graveyard. The great stone towers, built to stand for centuries, were being sliced apart by beams of black light. Knights in gleaming Tier 3 Steel-Heart armor were being tossed aside like ragdolls by Greater Abyss Horrors.
"Hold the line!" a voice cried out, cracked and desperate.
Cian looked toward the source. The silver light was blinding now. There, in the center of the courtyard, stood a woman. Even from a distance, she radiated a different kind of power. Her armor was silver, etched with sapphire runes that flickered like dying stars. She wielded a massive claymore, each swing carving a path through the shadows, but she was limping.
A Tier 4 Abyssal Executioner—a towering monstrosity with a rusted cleaver—was closing in on her.
[Status Identification: Elara von Astrea]
[Role: The First Valkyrie]
[Condition: Mana Exhaustion / Fractured Soul-Core]
[Affinity: 0/100 (Stranger)]
"The Knight-Captain..." Cian whispered. He had seen her once during a parade in the capital. She had been a symbol of the Kingdom's strength. Now, she was a symbol of its collapse.
She swung her blade, but the Executioner caught the steel in its bare hand. With a sickening crack, the claymore—a Tier 4 masterpiece—shattered into a dozen pieces. Elara fell to her knees, her blonde hair spilling over her shoulders, her head bowed in waiting for the final blow.
The knights around her were too far away. The Overseers were gone. Only the "Dross" remained.
[System Emergency: Valkyrie Core Synchronization at 10%.]
[Warning: If the First Valkyrie falls, the Core will self-destruct.]
[Quest Update: Intervene. Use 'Heart-Link' to bridge the gap!]
Cian felt a surge of heat that made the mine-fire feel like ice. He didn't have a weapon. He didn't have armor. But as he sprinted across the blood-soaked courtyard, the shattered shards of her blade began to vibrate.
"Elara!" he screamed.
She looked up, her blue eyes wide with shock and a touch of pity as she saw a common miner charging toward certain death. "Run, boy!" she coughed, blood staining her lips. "Save yourself!"
Cian didn't run. He dove over her, his hands reaching for the broken hilt of her sword that still lay in the dirt.
[System: Would you like to forge an Unbreakable Tie?]
[Requirement: Shared Blood.]
As the Executioner's cleaver came whistling down, Cian gripped the broken blade so hard the jagged steel sliced into his palm. He reached out with his other hand, grabbing Elara's gauntlet, his blood smearing against her armor.
"I'm not saving myself," Cian hissed through gritted teeth. "I'm saving us."
[Synchronization Initialized!]
[First Tie: FORGED.]
A pillar of silver and gold light erupted from the point where their hands met, slamming into the Executioner and sending the Tier 4 monster flying back fifty feet.
The System screen turned a brilliant, pulsing red.
[Valkyrie 'Elara' has been Linked!]
[Skill Unlocked: Shield of Devotion (Level 1)]
[New Status: The Hero and His First Blade.]
Cian felt Elara's heartbeat inside his own chest. It was fast, terrified, and then—suddenly—warm. She looked at him, the silver light reflecting in her tear-filled eyes, and for the first time, the "Dross" and the "Knight-Captain" were gone. There was only the Link.