"Wait---" he started to shout, but the void collapsed.
CRACK.
The sound of a heavy-caliber rifle firing echoed in his ears.
The man, now Vale Carro, gasped, his eyes snapping open. He wasn't in a void anymore. He was face-down in the mud of a rain-slicked trench. The air was thick with the scent of blood and the acrid stench of cheap tobacco and gunpowder.
Faint memories of who Vale was were coming in but by bit but we're interrupted by the gunshots.
"Carro! Get your head down unless you want it removed!"
A woman's voice. Sharp. Authoritative.
Vale rolled over, his hand instinctively reaching for a sidearm he didn't know he had. He was wearing a grey tactical duster over a suit. Beside him, a woman with short-cropped dark hair and a cigarette dangling from her lips was reloading a boxy submachine gun.
Ottina Bresch. The name surfaced in his mind instantly, a gift from the vessel's memories.
Did I transmigrate into this guy?!
"Status!" Ottina barked, ducking as a spray of dirt erupted from the trench lip.
Vale looked up. Fifty yards away, past the barbed wire and the screaming Valdessan soldiers in their crimson coats, a thing was rising. It looked like a tripod made of rusted iron and human limbs, radiating a sickly yellow fog.
The Valdessans were screaming, not in pain, but in madness. They were gouging their own eyes out, clawing at their ears to stop the sound the entity was making.
Even Ottina was shaking, her eyes bloodshot, her knuckles white as she fought the urge to vomit. "It's... it's a Class 3 manifestation," she wheezed. "We can't... we can't look at it..."
What is all this? Who are the Valedessans… what the hell is a class 3 manifestation?!
But he knew one thing. His life was at stake here.
Vale stood up. He felt like a psychic pressure washing over him. It felt like a light breeze. Nothing more.
He looked the monster straight in its central, weeping eye.
But for now… I know that whatever the fuck that thing is… it needs to go.
"I've got it," Vale said, his voice calm enough to make Ottina freeze.
[MISSION UPDATED: PACIFY THE CLASS 3 ENTITY]
[WOULD YOU LIKE TO INITIALIZE YOUR FIRST BLESSING?]
Holy shit. A system. If I remember from all the Webnovels I've read… it's my ally, no one else can see it except me.
And accepting whatever a first blessing is feels like it's going to help. I mean… it literally says blessing.
Vale cracked his neck, the mud sliding off his coat. "Initialize."
Vale didn't wait for Ottina's permission. He didn't need it. He stepped out of the muck and onto the open field, his silhouette sharp against the grey, churning sky.
The wind howled, carrying the discordant, metallic shrieking of the tripod entity. Every other human in a five-mile radius felt like their brain was being scrubbed with sandpaper.
Instinctively, Vale already knew what to do.
He just adjusted his collar.
[INITIALIZING BLESSING: VOID STEP]
[SOURCE: GATEKEEPER PACT]
[EFFECT: TEMPORAL PHASE SHIFT (3 SECONDS)]
As the tripod's central eye locked onto him, it let out a beam of shimmering, oily light, a concentrated dose of madness meant to vaporize a man's consciousness before it even touched his skin.
Vale didn't dodge. He walked.
The beam hit him and simply... slid through. For three seconds, Vale existed half an inch out of phase with reality. He was a ghost in the machine.
"What the hell is he doing?!" Ottina screamed from the trench, her hands over her ears. She watched as Vale closed the distance, his pace casual, almost bored.
The entity shifted, its rusted human-limb legs clicking in a frantic rhythm. It wasn't used to being approached. It thrived on the terror of its prey. But as Vale reached the shadow of its towering form, it didn't feel terror.
It felt a void.
Vale reached into his duster and pulled out a heavy-duty incendiary charge. He reached up, his hand passing through the entity's shimmering defensive aura, which would have fried any other person's nervous system, and jammed the device directly into the weeping, central eye.
"Eye to eye," Vale whispered.
He turned his back and walked away.
BOOM.
The explosion was violet-white flash that sucked the sound out of the air. The tripod collapsed, its limbs dissolving into black sludge before they even hit the ground.
The psychic pressure on the battlefield vanished instantly.
Vale reached the edge of the trench and hopped down, landing softly in the mud next to a stunned, trembling Ottina.
"You..." she stammered, her cigarette finally falling from her lips. "You looked at it. You touched it. Why aren't you screaming?"
Vale wiped a fleck of black ichor from his lapel. "I've seen worse. Besides, screaming is bad for the throat."
[MISSION ACCOMPLISHED]
[PERFORMANCE: S-RANK]
[REWARD: 50 SYSTEM POINTS / STAT BOOST: PERCEPTION +2]
[NOTICE: THE DIRECTOR IS WATCHING. PREPARE FOR DEBRIEFING.]
The director huh?
***
After returning back to more safer territories along with some other men who were dragging their fallen comrades in stretchers…those were the lucky ones.
The unlucky ones had already gone mad. It seems eldritch stuff was the norm here.
All because of the war between Valdessa and Lurrenne have been at each other's throats for eight months. Because of something about resources.
The Valdessans were the ones that value 'Ferrata'. Which is the idea that suffering makes you strong.
Now having more time to allow 'Vale Carro' to settle in. It seemed like he was an officer that belonged to a secret organization called Convenant.
They contain or neutralize Hollowed, which they call the eldritch beings here. They're also funded by all the world governments in secret because they're the only thing keeping reality from unraveling.
But in almost honesty… they're desperate. They use science to try and fight what could only be explained as magic, and they're losing.
Until Vale showed up here
Now his next stop was the underloft, a massive, multi-level bunker hidden deep beneath Marvos, a neutral city-state.
It contains containment cells for monsters, research labs, and the living quarters where agents such as Vale try to forget what they saw in the field.
***
Two hours later, Vale sat in a sterile, dimly lit interrogation room. Across from him sat Director Halveth Croon, the air around him thick with the scent of cheap tobacco.
The Director didn't speak for a long time. He just stared at the reel-to-reel recorder spinning on the table, playing back the audio of the mission.
"Twenty-four men went into permanent catatonia today, Carro," Croon finally said, his voice like gravel. "Six others tore their own throats out. And then there's you. You walked up to a Class 3 Hollowed like it owed you money."
Class 3… The Convenant had their way of classifying eldritch beings.
A Class 3 is defined as a Reality-Warping Combatant. Unlike Class 1 which are minor ghosts/echoes or Class 2 which are dangerous but animalistic predators, a Class 3 has a high degree of "Density."
That explains why they see it as a big deal. But for Vale it was light work, literally.
"It didn't have a wallet, Director," Vale said, leaning back. "I checked."
Croon slammed a folder onto the table. "I don't care about your jokes. I care about the fact that according to our sensors, your brain waves didn't even flicker. No fear. No Warp. Nothing."
He leaned in, his eyes narrowed. "What are you? Because my analysts are telling me you shouldn't exist."
Vale smiled. It was a cold, confident look that made the veteran Director blink. "I'm the solution to your problem, Director. You're fighting a war against gods with paper shields. I'm the only one who can actually hit back."
[SYSTEM NOTIFICATION]
[SUCCESSFUL: DIRECTOR CROON IS INTERNALLY RE-EVALUATING YOUR VALUE]
So the system has hidden objectives huh…
[UNLOCKED: ACCESS TO COVENANT ARMORY (LEVEL 1)]
Sounds good.
Croon exhaled a long cloud of smoke. "Fine. If you're so eager to hit back, I have a mission. Valdessa is moving something through the mountain passes. Something the Red Sovereign blessed. We lost two teams trying to even get a photograph of it."
He pushed a fresh file across the table.
"Ottina is already prepping the transport. You're going in. If you survive... we'll talk about your 'price'."
Vale stood up, grabbing the file. "My price is already set, Director. You just haven't realized you're paying it yet."