On the other side of the world, deep within the suffocating dark of the Cave of Desires, Aryan stood face-to-face with something he thought would be just another trial.
He had faced Greed, Desire, Anger, Delusion, Envy, Pride. Each emotion, stripped bare and defeated, had bent to his will.
He thought Despair would be the same.
He was wrong.
It didn't roar or lash out.
It simply… stepped forward.
And it embraced him.
The contact was cold, endless, and heavy — not like ice, but like the weight of a thousand unspoken farewells. Its arms didn't crush him… they dissolved into him. Threads of black and grey seeped into his veins, crawling upward into his eyes, burrowing into his mind.
No voice.
No scream.
Just a quiet truth: "We are the same."
The System hesitated.
It didn't understand what it was sensing. The heartbeat was irregular. Chakra flow collapsing and surging all at once. Warnings blinked across its interface faster than it could read.
[WARNING] Unclassified Phenomenon Detected
[ALERT] Unknown Soul Merging Detected
[CRITICAL] PRIMARY HOST MIND CONTROL COMPROMISED
Panic wasn't something the System was designed for…
But now, it felt it.
Because Despair didn't take half of Aryan.
It took all of him.
And then—
The illusions shattered.
The walls of the Cave of Desires rippled, folding in on themselves like collapsing parchment. Golden light bled into the darkness, and for the first time in decades, the exit opened.
A figure stepped through.
It looked like Aryan.
But it wasn't.
As he crossed the threshold, an unseen barrier passed over him. Energy snapped across his skin, rewriting his very being — reducing his body from a battle-worn 26-year-old man to a boy no older than six. His gauntlets reformed, smooth and perfect. His cloak mended itself, the fabric whispering as it settled on his shoulders.
The burns, the cracks, the scars from years of overusing the Skin of Void — gone.
The force had healed him… not out of mercy, but as reward.
Because Aryan — or the thing wearing his skin — had completed a task even the gods had failed.
By the river — the same pond he once saw as a place of beauty — two soldiers sat on their haunches, armor dull and cheap. They didn't see him at first.
One spat into the water.
"Execution's today, right?"
The other grinned, chewing a piece of bark between his teeth.
"Yeah. Old man's finally gonna hang. Traitor's blood. Should've happened sooner."
They laughed.
The boy stopped.
The stillness around him was suffocating, the kind that only comes before a storm. His eyes — now flecked with shifting grey — locked onto them with something that wasn't hatred… but pity.
The soldiers frowned.
A ringing sound filled their heads, sharp and invasive, like metal grinding bone. They turned—
Too slow.
A small fist blurred into existence.
Impact.
Their bodies snapped back, weightless for an instant before slamming into the trunk of a tree. The wood groaned. Their necks didn't.
Aryan looked at his hand.
"ohh... I am back to start"
"Chakra One… Stage one."
A faint smile.
"I need to level up, this body is too weak and have no power"
He clenched his fists and starts gathering energy without stopping it.
The air trembled. The ground beneath him cracked. Chakra poured into him like an endless flood, pulled from the very marrow of the world.
Stage Two
Stage Three
Stage Four.
Stage Five.
Stage Six.
Stage Seven.
The System froze.
Because this powerhouse is now an overload generator which is increasing its level by brute pushing chakra into him.
SYSTEM:
"Oh… gods. The monster's loose."
What rose from that meditation wasn't the Aryan who fought for family, or the Aryan who clung to promises.
This one… only knew one fuel.
One instinct.
Despair.
And the world had no idea he was walking toward it.