Crossing the threshold didn't feel like stepping into another world—it felt like letting go of the last one. The universe unraveled me thread by thread, only to weave me back together in the form it had always intended. There was no light. No pain. No ground. Just silence. Then came breath—sharp, cold, and saturated with the scent of wet stone and smoke.
My boots met real earth. Mud clung to my soles. Fog rolled across the landscape like a living entity, thick and slow, as if it held memory. The sky was pale, drowning in clouds. In the distance, I heard the hiss of steam, the grind of military engines, the low thrum of early war. When I opened my eyes, I saw cobbled streets, sandbagged checkpoints, ration posters on brick walls, and the skeletal rise of factories on the horizon. The air stank of coal and iron—a world already burning beneath its ambition.
This wasn't the Marvel Universe I had imagined. This was 1942—Europe. The year before Steve Rogers would meet Peggy Carter. Before the serum. Before the shield. A year of tension and silence before the storm. And I had arrived ahead of it all.
[System transfer complete.]
[World: Marvel Earth-1991. Year: 1942. Status: Dreamer-Class Integration: Stable.]
[Host status: Baseline human. Evolution opportunity detected.]
I didn't speak. I didn't need to. The system was no longer something I heard—it was something I was. Woven into instinct. Carved into the marrow.
[Tier-One Evolution Paths – Dreamer access granted.]
The first path: Half-Kree. A warrior race hardened by celestial war. Heightened strength, stamina, and poison resistance—but frail against Earth's atmosphere. Their perfection came at the cost of compatibility. They were too clean for this world.
Second: Half-Asgardian. Divine blood. Durability, longevity, and elemental alignment. But Asgardians aged in the soul, if not in flesh. Their minds eroded without a battle. Eternity without war bred madness.
Third: Half-Mutant. The unpredictable mutation. Power is shaped by trauma and emotion. A gift or a curse, irreversible and absolute. The X-Gene didn't ask. It imposed.
And then came the fourth.
Half-Symbiote / Half-Human.
No sales pitch. No ability list. Just truth.
[You are not the host. You are the origin.]
[You are not merging. You are becoming.]
Something ancient coiled beneath my skin. I didn't understand it—I remembered it. Like the void itself had just exhaled through my bones.
[You are the first. The Core. The Prime Symbiote.]
[No weaknesses. Fire: Immune. Sound: ineffective. Control override: impossible. You are perfection before corruption.]
But even perfection has a function.
[Craving core activated.]
[Your existence was never meant to be solitary. You were made to connect—not once, but infinitely. You may form multiple bonds. Craving is not romantic. It is instinctual. You were designed to tether, to spread, to evolve. Without connection, you will stagnate. Without bonds, your hunger will grow. Power increases with every partner. Completion demands many.]
The craving wasn't emotional. It was structural. I wasn't designed to walk alone. I was made to connect, to amplify through others. One bond would never be enough. Every connection would multiply me. Every absence would erode me.
I wasn't afraid. I was certain.
"I choose Symbiote," I said.
[Selection confirmed. Initiating core rewrite.]
It started with heat—not flame, but bloom. Pressure pulsed through my spine, coursing through my veins like liquid starlight. My bones cracked—not from damage, but evolution. I dropped to my knees, fingers sinking into the earth as darkness erupted from within me. My body unraveled and rewove itself in silence.
I didn't gain power. I remembered what I was.
When I stood, I was no longer the same.
I towered over the fog, nearly nine feet tall, wrapped in a black bodysuit that pulsed like a living shadow. My skin had turned a deathly, ashen white, smooth and cold, yet radiant like polished stone. Crimson sigils, etched like the crest of a forgotten house, glowed faintly across my chest—half-dragon, half-web, ancient. Tendrils of living darkness flowed across my limbs, shifting and curling like serpents that obeyed my thoughts. My hair, long and silver-white, spilled over my shoulders, soft yet wild, like a banner from a war that hadn't yet begun. My face was sharp and inhumanly symmetrical. And my eyes—my eyes were glowing crimson suns that burned from within, twin sparks of hunger and divinity.
This was no armor. No suit. No disguise. This was what I truly was.
[Symbiote core stabilized.]
[You are no longer human. You are Knull—the Prime.]
The name didn't feel invented. It felt ancient. It felt like truth carved from shadow.
[Unlocked traits:]
[Instinct armor — reacts before thought, forms automatically, living and indestructible.]
[Predator's reach — arms, legs, spine, any part of me can become weaponry, evolving with use.]
[Shadow merge — full camouflage in darkness or fog, enhanced with each bond formed.]
[Craving core — I may bond with any number of compatible beings. The craving intensifies with time. The more I connect, the more I grow.]
[Wall-crawling — I can cling to any surface, no matter the angle.]
[Shape-shifting — my appearance, clothing, and voice can be altered at will.]
[Enhanced strength and durability — my blows can shatter metal, my body endures forces no man could survive.]
[Symbiote weaponry — I generate swords, whips, and shields from my flesh.]
[Healing factor — I regenerate from wounds instantly. Even decapitation would not end me.]
[Host empowerment — I can empower others with fragments of my being. They become mine.]
[Hive awareness — I feel every bonded mind, no matter how far they run.]
[Void dominion — locked. Awaiting full awakening.]
I rose, slow and steady. My every step left an impression, not just on the ground, but in the air. My shadow twitched beside me, moving just a beat behind like it was still adjusting to being alive.
This wasn't transformation. This was a reawakening.
"…Knull."
The name rippled out of me like prophecy remembered.
[Name registered. Identity anchored. Symbiote craving: dormant. Progression: level one.]
The world hadn't changed. But I had. The war was beginning. The serum would rise. The shields would fly. But before the legends walked, I was already among them. Not as a savior. Not as a tyrant.
But as the Core.
The first hunger.
The last shadow.
Knull.