The moment the final notification flickered across his dying mind—
[Skill 2: Unknown (Need further analysis) (Passive)]
[Description: A curse born from agony. It transforms physical and mental suffering into latent power, accelerating growth the deeper the pain. The more you endure, the stronger you become.]
—Bittu felt himself unravel.
His consciousness slipped from his body like smoke from a dying flame. The river, the rot, the crushing weight of oblivion—it all fell away. He was floating now. Drifting. Not toward light, but into a vast, silent dark.
He was gone.
Or so he thought.
Then—
A hand.
Cold. Certain.
It caught his.
Fingers closed around his wrist like iron forged in stillness. A grip that defied all order.
Bittu turned his head—or tried to. His vision was blurred, fractured, like looking through shattered glass. But he saw him.
A man.
Tall. Impossibly still.
Dressed in a suit of purest black, as if woven from the void between stars. White gloves. Immaculate. And a mask—smooth, featureless, reflecting nothing. Not the water, not the sky, not even Bittu's fading face.
He said nothing at first.
Then, a whisper cut through the silence like a blade through fog.
"…Where are you going?"
The voice wasn't loud. But the world heard it.
Above the city, the sky roared.
Dark clouds erupted from nothing—boiling, churning, spiraling down like a vortex centered on Bittu. They swallowed the moon, blotted out the stars, and cast the entire city into a suffocating twilight.
Bittu tried to speak. To ask who this man was. But the masked figure glanced at the sky for a bit and only laughed—a low, echoing sound that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere.
"Hehehehe… "
And said, "...You can go later."
He raised a gloved hand.
And from the air itself, twenty-four cards materialized—floating in a perfect ring around them, glowing faintly with inner fire. They were unlike any playing cards in the world: richly illustrated, pulsing with strange symbols, their surfaces alive with shifting colors—gold, crimson, indigo—like stained glass lit from within. Yet their shape was ordinary. Simple. Deceptively so.
"But first…" the man said, his voice soft now, almost gentle. "Live the life you always wanted to live."
He snapped his fingers.
Eighteen of the cards shot upward like arrows, vanishing into the storm. The remaining six darted toward Bittu—swift, silent—and pushed him back to his body.
With a jolt, his soul was yanked backward—ripped from the void and hurled toward his body.
BANG. BANG. BANG.
The sky exploded.
Twelve bolts of lightning—thunder made visible—crashed down in perfect unison, striking the river where Bittu lay half-drowned, half-dead.
But before the strikes could consume him—
SNAP.
The masked man flicked his wrist.
The eighteen cards in the sky spun—faster, faster—until they became a blur, invisible to the human eye. Then, like a storm of razors, they intercepted the lightning.
CLANK! CLANK! CLANK!
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
The sky rang like a shattered bell. Each thunderbolt was cut, shattered, repelled by the spinning cards. The force of the collisions sent shockwaves rippling through the city—windows cracked, birds took flight, and people fell to their knees.
And they knew.
This wasn't natural.
This wasn't human.
Above them, the heavens warred with something unseen.
Fear turned to terror. Terror turned to prayer.
On the streets, people collapsed where they stood.
"Oh God… save us!"
"Please, I'll serve you forever—just spare us!"
"Destroy the evil! Save your children!"
They wept. They screamed. They knelt in the mud, in the rubble, in the blood.
And the zombies—those mindless, ravenous things—froze. Every last one. Mid-step, mid-snarl. As if the very concept of hunger had been silenced by the storm.
Even the dead held their breath.
On rooftops, in shadows, watchers observed.
A man with glowing eyes—his own system humming silently.
A gang of thugs in wedding suits, their laughter choked by awe.
Two girls in long coats, standing side by side, one smiling faintly, the other frowning.
None of them spoke.
None of them dared.
Only the masked man moved.
He tilted his head up, the storm swirling above him like an angry god.
"Hahahahaha… You want to play?"
"Then let's play."
Another snap.
The eighteen cards reformed—stacking, rotating, sharpening—until they became a single, blazing ring of blades. A spinning disc of arcane force. Like a myth made real.
Like the Sudarshan Chakra.
But darker.
Angrier.
It burned with every thunderbolt it deflected.
"Go."
He threw it—not with his hand, but with a thought.
The disc vanished—then reappeared in the heart of the storm.
RUMBLE—
CLANK—BOOOOOOM!!!
The final thunder—condensed, furious, carrying the weight of fourteen strikes—collided with the disc.
And lost.
The disc cut through it like water through fire.
Then, like a blade through smoke, it sliced the cloud apart.
The storm dissolved.
Vanished.
As if it had never existed.
The people below stared at the sky—now empty, now calm—and wept with relief.
But the masked man didn't celebrate.
He looked down at Bittu—still lifeless, still sinking.
"Now that I have a moment…" he murmured, "Let me take you somewhere it can't reach you."
He stepped forward—into the river.
And then, into Bittu's body.
For a heartbeat, the world held its breath.
Then—
"Oh… and here's a gift."
"For giving me life."
One by one, the twenty-four cards shot toward Bittu—each piercing his body like needles of light. His limbs, his chest, his skull—they absorbed them all.
His descent accelerated.
He plunged deeper—faster—toward the riverbed.
And there, hidden beneath centuries of silt and silence, was a portal.
A perfect circle of swirling blue light. Tiny motes of starlight spiraled outward, like breath from a sleeping god.
But the moment Bittu approached—
It changed.
The blue turned to black.
The light died.
The air around it warped.
He shot through it.
And the sky, as if in rage, sent one final, colossal bolt of lightning—crashing into the river.
But it struck nothing.
Bittu was gone.
The portal healed—its color returning to blue, its light steady once more. As if it had never been touched.
Above, the clouds faded.
Moonlight returned.
The city exhaled.
"Wooo… yess…"
"Praise the Lord!"
"God saved us!"
"We're free…"
They didn't know.
They never would.
And deep below—beyond the world, beyond time—Bittu floated in darkness.
Not dead.
Not alive.
Changing.
...
drip… drip… drip…
Water fell from an unseen ceiling.
Hours passed.
A day.
Then—
His eyes opened.
Slow. Heavy. But aware.
And before he could even move, two words burned in the air before him:
[Spirit: G → F]
Then another:
[You have entered a dungeon.]