Darkness.
It was all he felt until a faint burning sensation enveloped his eyes, making him snap them open, and what he saw made his eyes widen even further.
It was a crescent moon, but it did not glow white.
Instead, pitch-black light spilled from it, casting dark rays across Emrys's face.
"Where… where am I?"
He looked down at himself and realized he was in an ethereal form, composed of dots of white light.
However, at the center where his heart should be, the lights were dark instead of white, forming veins that gradually stretched across the rest of his body.
He turned away from it, looking at the silhouette of the crescent moon, and then at the black void around him.
Silence enveloped him for a long time before the realization dawned on him.
'So this is death, huh? A pitch void of eternal darkness?
He thought, and the rage he felt reappeared.
'After I did everything as they wanted, good, honest, hardworking, and this is how I am repaid…'
He raised his eyes to the crescent moon in the void.
How could he not recognize it?
The so-called reward that he ought to have received for his good deeds, his broken halo.
"To hell with Halos!"
His angered roar burst out through the void, his hands reaching out wanting nothing more than to grab the moon and crush it to dust.
But it was exactly that will that forced the next sequence of events:
From the void of darkness surrounding the crescent moon,
CRAAACK
CRAAACK
CRAAACK
Cracks tore out the entire void, which began quivering madly.
'What's happening?'
BAAAAAAAANG!
An ear-defining explosion echoed out in the next moment, and Emrys's eyes widened in shock and horror as the void crumbled and a gigantic claw tore from beneath the crescent moon in the sky.
Thousands of runes covered every single finger, brimming with a primordial aura, yet none of them radiated power.
They devoured it!
The primordial presence around the claw hollowed reality, draining meaning, substance, and even fear.
In the next moment, it folded inwardly, and Emrys watched his own crescent Halo mark crushed into nothing.
The instant it happened, he felt as if something had been ripped away from him, and he turned to his body to find the last bit of white light that made him quietly fade away.
With the white gone, the darkness from his heart rapidly spread to the rest of his body until he became wholly black.
But the darkness could not endure.
Quietly, he began fading away into ashes.
'At least that bastard mark is gotten rid of…'
He mused with a sickening grin, resigning himself to his death, but before it did.
The gigantic claw that had crushed his Halo slowly spread out once more, and quietly, a single claw stretched toward Emrys.
It was so huge it was like a world upon him, but he witnessed a single runic mark upon one of the fingers:
An abyssal black-coloured crescent mark.
It quietly exited the finger, and just before Emrys's head turned to ashes, it rushed outward, disappearing into his forehead, the force of its entrance knocking him unconscious.
_____
[Heart of Despair Fulfilled]
[Heart of Hatred Awakened]
[You have fulfilled requirements for fusion.]
[Congratulations, you have now awakened the SSS-grade Oblivion Overlord Gene.]
[First Essence Roll: Oblivion Heir Class Chosen!]
The pitch-black panel with crimson-red words was the first thing he saw upon opening his eyes.
Quietly, he stretched his hands, only to witness them shifting straight through the panel as if it didn't exist.
He blinked twice to make sure, but even with his eyes closed, he could still see the panel as clear as day.
'A dream?'
[A Rebirth.]
The panel answered.
Emrys tried to rise but failed.
With pain, he raised his hands to his face, and what he saw shocked him.
Pitch black.
His hands, which he knew to be white and skinny, were now pitch black, covered in some form of ash.
[First Quest Generated]
[Get Rid of Your Dark Shell!]
[Rewards: Full Rebirth!]
The system panel lingered as Emrys looked at it quietly for a while, though his brain quickly tried to process it.
It sounded too unreal.
He had been reborn!?
The last thing he could remember was dying, and the anger he felt from it.
And now, all of a sudden, there was a blinking panel of crimson before him, making mention of a rebirth.
He didn't know how that was possible, but it was something he could use in this moment, and looking at the quest, to get rid of his dark shell.
He turned back to his ashy black hands, and he understood.
It seemed like some layer had formed on him.
But how was he to get rid of it?
His hands moved to his left, trying to scratch it off, but it did nothing at all.
Either it was as hard as iron, or he was simply too weak. After all, he could barely move.
In the end, it left him with one thing.
'What are you?'
If the panel before him had given him the quest, then it must have a way of fulfilling it.
[I am the Overseer Intelligence of the Oblivion Overlord System.]
[The current limit of your power restricts you to only this information about me.]
[If you wish to access the full power of the system, you must fulfil the quest.]
The system panel flashed, then quickly disappeared as it came.
After it left, something struck Emrys.
A smell, the nicest smell he had ever encountered, which was an irony, judging from where he was.
Jerking his head to the side to see what it was, the sight before him made his heart violently lurch within his chest:
Before him lay a half-severed leg, still dripping with fresh red blood!