Hesitant, he reached for the cage latch and opened it carefully. The rat immediately erupted into frantic chittering, scrambling to the back of the trap.
Kael ignored it for the moment and reached for the object instead. His left hand closed around it as he drew it free. After shutting the cage again, he turned his full attention to what he'd taken.
It was made of a dark material reminiscent of black glass or obsidian, its surface perfectly smooth and etched with strange geometric patterns.
I've never seen this before…
He stared at it with a quiet curiosity, turning it slowly in his hands. The material was cool to the touch, impossibly smooth, and far lighter than it should have been. One side was perfectly flat; the other bore a shallow indentation at its center, like a small, incomplete bowl.
His gaze drifted back to the rat trap as he wondered how the creature had come across it.
For reasons he'd never quite understood, the rats in this city had a habit of dragging off strange objects—valuable or worthless alike. With that in mind, he could think of several possible explanations.
Expeditions to Primordis often returned with odd artifacts meant for sale, and travelers from countless lands passed through Last Light for that very reason. It wouldn't be surprising if this were one of them.
The only question is what it does.
If it was valuable, Kael had no intention of selling it. Without knowing its origin, doing so could put him in serious danger. There was also the very real possibility that it was worthless—in which case, he would likely just throw it away.
As he shifted his grip to examine it more closely, warmth suddenly bloomed at the center of his palm and spread outward. Alarm spiked through his chest.
Instinctively, he tried to let go of the item, but what happened instead was that his fingers tightened involuntarily as though they no longer belonged to him.
"What the—"
The object was moving.
Not in his hand—into it.
Panic seized him.
The disc sank into his skin, the obsidian surface pressing against his palm and flowing as if it had turned to liquid. He felt a cold pressure pushing inward, spreading beneath the flesh like ink dispersing through water.
Wait! I'm too poor to give you anything—don't parasitize me!
He tried to shake it off, scraping his palm against the crate's rough edge and clawing at it with his other hand, but nothing worked. The object continued to sink, silent and relentless, its edges blurring as the center pressed flush against his skin, until there was nothing left to grasp.
Gone.
No…
Horror washed over his face.
For a fleeting, irrational moment, the urge to cut his hand off seized him. Maybe that would stop whatever this was, halt its advance before it spread any further. But the thought died as quickly as it came. He had no blade. And even if he did, he realized with sickening clarity that he was far too afraid to go through with it.
Instead, Kael raised his left hand toward the moonlight, his breath coming faster than he liked as he forced it back under control.
At first glance, his palm looked normal. The familiar calluses were still there, along with the faint scars earned from years of manual labor. Dirt was still embedded beneath his nails, stubborn as ever, no matter how much he scrubbed. Yet at the center of his palm—visible only when the light struck it at just the right angle—a mark had appeared.
It was circular and unnaturally dark, as though inked into his flesh with the deepest black imaginable. Fine geometric patterns radiated outward from a central point, too precise to be accidental and too deliberate to be decorative.
There was no pain. No burning, no pressure, not even the dull ache he would have expected from something forcing its way into his body. If anything, it felt disturbingly ordinary, as though the mark had always been there.
That unsettled him more than pain ever could.
He flexed his fingers slowly. They moved without resistance. He pressed his thumb against the center of the mark and felt nothing but warm skin and familiar sensation.
"What the hell…?"
The words came out rougher than intended, dragged from his throat rather than spoken.
For a brief moment, nothing else happened.
Something shifted behind his eyes—not his vision nor his hearing, but his awareness itself. It felt like a door opening somewhere deep inside him, revealing a space he hadn't known existed until now.
Information flooded in his mind.
Lists unfolded in rapid succession, organized with an inhuman precision that made no immediate sense. Categories, classifications, and scrolling data arranged themselves instinctively, as though responding to his presence. The words were written in languages he didn't recognize, yet he understood them regardless. Images formed without truly appearing, impressions rather than pictures, knowledge that felt both foreign and uncomfortably intimate.
[ Archive of Extinction
Status: Integrated
Catalog Initializing...
Species Database: Accessible
Resurrection Protocols: Active
Current Specimens Available: [ERROR - Recalculating]
User Biological Data: Analyzing… ]
Kael stumbled backward, his left leg striking the bed behind him hard enough to force him down onto it. Dust drifted from the mattress as his heart hammered against his ribs, his thoughts struggling to keep pace with what was unfolding inside his head.
The flow of information didn't stop. It continued to shift and reorganize itself, numbers and names cycling through categories that meant nothing to him and yet carried the terrifying certainty that every single one of them mattered.
Then, as suddenly as it had begun, it stopped.
The presence vanished, leaving behind a hollow silence that felt louder than the flood of information had been. Kael stood there, stunned to the point where his thoughts refused to line up into anything coherent.
"…What just happened?"
The question escaped him after a long moment. Others followed close behind.
What was that thing? What did I see? Was it a curse? Did something just attach itself to me?
The questions piled up faster than he could track, tumbling over one another until the sheer volume made his head throb. Frustration followed close behind—sharp, biting, and inwardly directed. Anger at himself for not understanding. For having no answers when he needed them most.
With a conscious effort, he drew in a slow breath, held it, then let it out. He repeated the motion again, and then again. It was a simple technique—embarrassingly so, but it worked—just as it had when the widow hunter had first drilled it into him years ago. Back then, he'd thought it pointless. Now, he silently thanked her for it.
Once his heartbeat steadied, he finally looked around the room again.
He raised his left hand again and grimaced faintly.
I must've triggered whatever mechanism it had by holding it the wrong way. Or the right way. Either way, I panicked before noticing something that obvious… embarrassing.
Still, he forced himself to be fair. Anyone would have reacted badly to something so far outside their experience. He had almost no exposure to artifacts, let alone ones that fused themselves into your body. Panic, under the circumstances, was hardly unreasonable.
And what does the artifact actually do?
He clearly remembered seeing something—some kind of strange interface—mentioning an Archive of Extinction. If it had appeared once, then in theory, it should be possible to call it up again.
Probably.
How do mages do this…?
He tried to picture it the way Aldermarch spellcasters supposedly did: concentrating on intent, focusing on the palm of his hand as an anchor.
Something answered.
This time, it didn't appear as lists or cascading symbols.
"A book…?" Kael murmured.
Hovering just above his palm was a translucent volume, its edges faintly luminous, as though cut from glass and light rather than matter. It was roughly the size of a large notebook—small enough to rest comfortably between both hands—yet it possessed a presence that ordinary illusions never did.
The book was already open.
Across the facing pages were illustrations rendered with impossible clarity. Each page displayed a different creature, accompanied by fine lines of text that shifted and rearranged themselves as his focus moved.
On the left page was a bird—slender and delicate, its feathers shimmering with iridescent hues, like sunlight refracted through oil. Its belly was pearl-white, its back a cascade of chromatic color, and a tiny crystalline crest crowned its head. Long tail feathers trailed behind it, light as mist.
On the right page was a deer. Its fur resembled flowing liquid silver, smooth and reflective even in stillness. Branching antlers of clear crystalline material rose proudly from its skull, and its eyes were translucent, almost glasslike.
Slowly, cautiously, he focused on the bird.
The text beneath its image sharpened, the lines resolving into clarity as if responding to his attention alone.
[ Designation: Dawn Chorus Bird
True Name: Aeri'lhys
Rank: F (Swarm)
Status: Complete Information
Extinct: 127 years ago
DESCRIPTION
Small iridescent songbird, 15 centimeters long. Lived in massive flocks of thousands. When 100+ birds sang together, their harmonics calmed emotions and healed minor wounds within a kilometer.
Critical pollinator for magical plants. Final population of 50,000 died in Jade Forest fire 127 years ago.
RESURRECTION DATA
Material: 40 grams organic matter per bird
Mana: 1,000 units per bird
Soul Slots: 0.1 per bird
Current capacity: Can maintain 30 birds maximum.
Resurrection method directly affects quality.
— Dead biomass results in a temporary resurrection lasting thirty days.
— A living songbird yields a permanent, stable specimen.
— Original genetic material produces an enhanced, perfect resurrection.
Note: With your current compatibility, resurrected specimens will enter an immediately tamed state.
ECOLOGICAL IMPACT
Low to moderate disruption. Beneficial pollinator but requires ancient trees for nesting.
HISTORICAL NOTE
Domesticated 2,400 years ago. Symbol of peace in Tianxian culture. Imperial Palace maintained flock of 8,000. Extinction mourned as cultural tragedy.
Witness account: "Fifty thousand voices singing as one as the flames consumed them. The song brought such peace, even as everything died."
Speak True Name Aeri'lhys while channeling mana to resurrect.
DETAIL | RESURRECT | BOOKMARK | BACK
Kael stared at the page, astonishment freezing his expression.
This is…
He didn't recognize the language—he couldn't even begin to guess what script it belonged to—yet the meaning settled into his mind as naturally as his native tongue.
This artifact holds information on extinct creatures?
True Name… I've heard that term before. Or at least, it feels like I have.
His thoughts stalled for a second as another realization surfaced.
And more importantly—resurrection!
***
A/N: FYI, the Archive Interface won't be included in the word count.
Speaking of word count, I enjoy keeping track of it—it gives me a small sense of achievement.
I'm a pretty ungrateful person, after all, lol. I'm hard to please.
Rate it from 1 to 10, and include your reasoning if possible. That would really help me identify what's still lacking in the story.