The air in the **Rust-Quarter** didn't carry life. It carried the weight of a billion forgotten deaths.
In the **Ashen Grave**—the first and lowest universe, a cosmic basement where reality's trash settled—even the oxygen felt exhausted.
It was heavy, laden with the scent of oxidized iron and the cloying, sweet rot of organic waste. To breathe here was to consume the remnants of a world that had already been chewed up and spat out by the ***higher realms***.
**Khai** lay on a mat made of shredded industrial tarp.
The plastic was cold against his skin, slick with a thin layer of condensation that smelled like machine oil. Every time he shifted, the tarp crinkled with a sound like breaking glass, echoing in the hollow silence of the shack.
Where his bones pressed against the mat, raw bedsores had formed—crusty, yellowing patches that wept a thin, clear fluid. They didn't just hurt; they throbbed in sync with his weak heartbeat, a constant reminder of his decaying physical form.
Every breath was an act of violence against his own throat.
**Marrow-Burn** wasn't just a planet; it was the rusted corpse of a ***Level-S Civilization*** from the ***Second Epoch***.
**Khai's** mind, still sharp with the royal education of a ***Sovereign***, remembered the scrolls. This place was once the crown jewel of the ***multiverse***, a world of floating gardens and liquid light. Now, it was a sewer.
Ten thousand years of mining had hollowed out the planet until it was more machine than rock. Below his mat, miles of rusted gears and empty ore-veins groaned under the tectonic pressure. It was a planetary cage designed to squeeze out the last drops of energy from the wretched souls trapped within it.
A dry, rhythmic scraping echoed in **Khai's** chest—the sound of sandpaper lungs struggling to filter the grit.
Each inhale felt like swallowing micro-shards of glass that stayed, festering, in the depths of his bronchi. The "***Marrow-Dust***" was everywhere. It was in the walls, in the water, and now, it was becoming a part of his very biology.
He was twenty-three years old.
In the ***High Heavens***, twenty-three was the age of ***Ascension***.
He remembered his cousins at that age—radiant beings who could command the weather with a flick of their wrists. They drank ***Star-Phoenix Marrow*** from chalices carved from the cores of moons. They lived under a sky that didn't scream.
Here, on the planet **Marrow-Burn**, twenty-three was a myth.
His body was a cage of brittle calcium—a 16-year-old's frame that had stopped growing the moment the '***Aether***' died in his veins.
His skin was translucent, draped over his ribs like wet, decaying parchment. Through the thin layer of flesh, he could see the dark, sluggish flow of his own blood. It was a pale, sickly red, lacking the golden shimmer of his lineage.
He could see the pulse of his heart through his chest. It was a weak, stuttering thing.
It beat not with strength, but with a desperate, pathetic apology for still being alive. Every beat felt like a clock ticking in an empty room, counting down to a silence he couldn't avoid.
**[SYSTEM 0: NULL-LINK]**
**[SYNC STATUS: 0.00%]**
**[VITALITY: 1.42%]**
**[STATUS: STABILIZED DECAY / CHRONIC STARVATION]**
**[TIME TO TOTAL BIOLOGICAL COLLAPSE: 178 HOURS]**
The blue holographic text flickered in his peripheral vision, casting a cold, ghostly glow on his gaunt face.
178 hours.
Seven days.
A timer set by a machine that didn't know the meaning of mercy.
The ***System*** wasn't a gift; it was a ***cosmic parasite***. It had burrowed into his soul seven years ago, claiming his royal bloodline as its fuel, yet giving nothing back. It was a black hole in the shape of a menu, watching him rot while it remained at a perfect, frustrating zero.
***
The silence of the shack was suddenly shattered.
The rusted metal door groaned—a high-pitched, metallic shriek that vibrated through **Khai's** raw nerves. The sound was so sharp it felt like a physical needle piercing his eardrums.
Heavy, dragging footsteps entered.
They were the steps of someone who carried the weight of the mines in their very bones. They were the steps of the exhausted.
**Tian**.
His younger brother was sixteen now.
He should have been a prince of the sword, his hair smelling of ozone and victory. He should have been leading armies across the ***Star-Bridge***.
Instead, he was a ghost draped in soot and misery.
**Tian's** face was a mask of black, oily dust—the '***Marrow-Dust***' that never truly left the pores. It stained the creases of his eyes and the corners of his mouth.
His hands were a map of scars; his fingernails were jagged, stained permanently dark by the acidic soil of the lower pits.
**Tian** knelt. His knees made a hollow 'thud' against the dirt floor.
The impact sent a small puff of ash into the air, which **Khai** watched settle on his own withered hand.
As **Tian** leaned forward, a small object dangled from beneath his soot-stained tunic.
It was a copper coin, tied to a frayed string of industrial fiber.
**Tian** still wore it—a forbidden relic of the '**Sun-Gatherers**'.
They were a cult of desperate fools who believed that one day, the light would be stolen back from the ***Higher Heavens***.
To the **Guards**, the coin was treason. To **Tian**, it was the only thing that kept him from walking into a crushing-machine.
The coin caught the dim, flickering light of the shack. Its surface was worn smooth by **Tian's** desperate, dirty fingers.
To **Khai**, it was a reminder of a hope that was as rusted as the planet they lived on. A relic of a dead past.
**Tian** pulled a small, dented canister from his tunic with the reverence of a priest handling a holy relic.
Inside was a grey, viscous sludge—**Nutrient Paste**.
It smelled like burnt plastic, old grease, and a hint of something chemical that made **Khai's** stomach churn.
"Eat," **Tian** whispered.
His voice was a jagged rasp, shredded by years of breathing sulfur fumes in the dark.
Every word seemed to cost him a piece of his throat, a sacrifice made of vocal cords and effort.
**Khai** stared at the canister.
His mind, still sharp with the royal vocabulary and economic training of the **Li Clan**, recognized the brutal cost of this sludge.
This canister cost **60 Rust-Credits**.
In **Sector 10**, sixty credits was a death sentence for most.
It was sixty hours of **Tian's** life in the sulfur-pits, standing knee-deep in acidic water.
It was the price of five minutes of '**Filter-Air**' from the District's central vents.
It was a week's worth of calories for a healthy man, all condensed into a single, foul-tasting meal for a dying one.
Every swallow **Khai** took was a debt he was carving into his brother's future.
He remembered the taste of '***Ambrosia Mist***'—the way it felt like drinking liquid starlight.
This sludge tasted like recycled misery.
But as the first drop touched his tongue, his shriveled stomach cramped in a twisted, shameful joy. His body didn't care about dignity; it only cared about the next minute of survival.
"I... am not hungry," **Khai** forced out.
The words were sandpaper. He tried to turn his head away, but the effort made his vision swim with black spots.
**Tian** didn't flinch.
He didn't get angry. Anger was a waste of calories.
He simply dipped a trembling, scarred finger into the paste and pressed it against **Khai's** lips.
"If you die," **Tian's** eyes met his.
They were the only part of him that still held their mother's fierce, unyielding light. They were deep, dark, and filled with a terrifying resolve.
"I stop digging. We go together. Choose."
The logic of **Marrow-Burn** was simple: You feed the weak so they can watch you die.
**Khai** swallowed. The paste burned his throat like lye.
He closed his eyes, his 23-year-old mind screaming at the indignity of being a burden, a royal leech.
His 16-year-old body, however, begged for the poison to keep his heart beating for one more hour.
***
Outside, the '**Hollow Hum**' of **Marrow-Burn** grew louder.
It was the sound of the wind screaming through the rusted skeletons of ancient, abandoned mining rigs.
There were no birds here. No trees. No green.
The planet didn't have a biosphere; it had a scrap-yard.
Suddenly, the ground beneath the shack didn't just vibrate. It shuddered.
It wasn't a machine. It wasn't the planet's core.
It was a footfall.
Heavy. Deliberate. Arrogant.
Each step felt like a drum made of human skin being struck by a mallet of lead.
The air inside the cramped shack suddenly felt ten degrees colder.
The dim, flickering bulb overhead—powered by a dying battery—turned a sickly yellow, the filament buzzing in a panic.
The electricity was being sucked away by a superior presence, a larger '***Vessel***' demanding all the ambient energy for itself.
**Khai** felt a familiar, crawling terror up his spine.
It was the "***Aura-Pressure***."
Someone with a '***Vessel***' was nearby—someone who had enough refined energy to actually warp the low-density laws of ***Universe 1***.
**Tian** stood up.
His thin frame tensed like a cornered beast.
He moved instinctively, stepping between the door and **Khai's** broken body.
His hand gripped the copper coin for a split second—a reflex of prayer—before reaching for a sharpened piece of **scrap metal** hidden in his belt.
*THUD.*
The footsteps stopped right outside.
"**Sector 10, Block 4**," a voice boomed.
It was a wet, heavy sound, thick with the smell of cheap alcohol and raw, unrefined power.
"I smell something... 'Clean' in this rat-hole."
The voice felt like a physical weight pressing down on **Khai's** chest, making his bedsores scream in pain.
"A scent of the ***Higher Universes***. A scent of prey that hasn't been properly salted by the soot of the pits."
**Khai's** breath hitched.
Through the gaps in the rusted wall, he saw a shadow.
It didn't just block the light; it seemed to consume it.
The shadow was massive, a mountain of flesh and refined energy that made the very air hum with a predatory frequency.
**Grog**.
The **Head Guard** of the **10th Sector**. A ***Rank 4 Vessel-Refined*** brute.
In the ***High Heavens***, a man like **Grog** would be a common slave, fit only for lifting stones or cleaning stables for the nobility.
But here, in the gutter of the **Ashen Grave**, **Grog** was an **Unstoppable Disaster**.
He had '**Weight**.' He had '**Presence**.'
He had the power to decide who ate and who became fertilizer for the **Scavenger Beetles**.
**Khai's** twig-like fingers clawed uselessly at the tarp.
He wanted to tell this insect to kneel.
He wanted to summon the fire of the **Li Clan** and turn this brute into ash.
But the **Null-Link** only flickered in his vision, its cold, mechanical timer ticking down his remaining seconds.
**[TIME TO TOTAL BIOLOGICAL COLLAPSE: 177 HOURS]**
He could only watch as the rusted door began to buckle inward.
The metal groaned under the casual, crushing pressure of the man standing behind it.
The predator had finally found the nest.
And the prince had nothing but his hatred and a shriveled soul to keep him warm.
**[Vitality: 1.41%]**