'!'
Literally, the atmosphere, which had been colorful—even in the night and under the moonlight—the darkness still gave a shade to the green leaves of the trees, the soil beneath had its own texture, and the sky above remained filled with the dots called stars. Everything seemed to have halted.
There was just simple confusion, and a blink, as Lecan, who stood in place holding the wood, looked ahead—where that wolf, its mouth wide open, lurched toward him in midair—frozen, almost as if time itself had stopped. He blinked again, trying to process what exactly had happened before this moment.
[Huh? Wh-what is happening?]
...came the sudden mechanical voice, causing Lecan to blink, looking around, only to find an orange window hovering nearby. It moved—the only thing that seemed dynamic in this otherwise static environment—making him even more confused, given everything, including this light window, was far too foreign to him.
"Who are you?" Lecan inquired, clearly confused and taken aback by the fact that he could hear that thing talking. His feet were numb, his body barely controlled, his eyes blinking.
[Oh, Host—yes, I forgot. I needed to introduce myself first. But... do you know why time stopped?]
Even the system was confused for a moment, observing how the whole world had frozen, ignoring all the will of Heaven—as if fate, destiny, everything had been gripped by something even it didn't understand.
"What? How would I—!" Lecan was slightly confused, trying to speak, but before he could finish, he suddenly felt a charge in his body, as if something had just entered him. His mind flickered. A pain or surge was born from within, as if something was trying to kill his soul and take its place in his body.
"ARGHHH!" It was a guttural, throat-wrenching scream—so sudden it didn't even give him time to react. He screamed and collapsed, the pain instantly surpassing any human limit he had previously endured—accidents, fractures, getting his limbs cut off, being burned alive—every pain he had experienced as the weakest heir of the vampire lineage faded before the pain that now tore through his soul. His very consciousness was flickering.
[H-host? What happ—ERROR]
[Intrusion detected.]
[High-alert firewalls breached.]
[Energy draining. Intruding frequency overwriting present system.]
Suddenly, one after another, the orange screens began to tremble as if glitches were occurring. The system itself was being intruded upon, its consciousness overwritten.
"KUARGH—WHO!" On his knees, Lecan felt—no, he was completely sure—that something was trying to kill him. Not him in particular, but his consciousness.
The tearing pain was beyond description, far more than anything the nervous system could translate. Everything burned—as if he was about to die a death that couldn't be avoided. His eyes rolled up, red pupils dimming—those vampire-born eyes in that chubby body. Even his fat seemed to melt.
He was melting. His body was transforming. Bones stretched from their fixed-length bounds, spines grew. Though he changed physically, something deeper was being killed—his very self.
In that flickering moment, a spark of will told him something was trying to hijack his body. Before taking over, it was transforming his physical form—while simultaneously overriding his consciousness, reshaping him as a vessel being prepared for the arrival of something piercing through time, fate, and destiny.
ALERT! ALERT!
[System's primary functions compromised!]
On the other side, just like the host, the newly-arrived system was fighting as if its very existence were at risk. Something was overriding its code—something far stronger than what was trying to kill the host.
"AAAAARRRRGGGHHHH—SYSTEM!" Lecan yelled, his voice raw as the nerve endings of his vocal cords tore apart. Blood formed beneath his skin. Without knowing what to call that flickering window, he instinctively yelled a name—as if a fragment of memory had been injected deep into him and came out reflexively.
[Using Block—ERROR—H...o...st... l..ink...ed ]
"Blerghh!" Lecan, veins bursting, fell, vomiting something black—so dense it looked like his internal organs had melted and come forth in that form. The thick fluid oozed, pooling until it reached his thighs, covering his body, drowning him in its reek of rotting flesh.
His hands instinctively reached for the pendant at his neck—the last memory of his existence. Something that had been with him since birth, the only thing to define his identity. He clutched it, but the pain took him.
The pendant broke free due to the sudden yank of his hand, his body free-falling down with the pendant flickering in the moonlight as it flew and directly landed within the jaws of the wolf, which was open—even though time had stopped—but the pendant directly landed in its mouth.
Clank
As if they were lasting, rigid, and something hard enough not to break using weapons and everything, that pendant shattered into pieces, with her red aura—made out of energy—directly infused into that wolf. Time was stopped, but that energy still entered the body of the wolf, as if recognizing the one who touched the pendant as someone favored by the heavens.
It was the moment when the energy trapped within the pendant found its true owner.
Thud.
The sound came delayed, but Lecan collapsed down into that mess.
Lecan's will to live was the only thing sustaining him. His body was fatigued, utterly exhausted. His soul had shrunk to a flicker—like a spark about to be snuffed out by the flame entering him. His will clung on like a sword suspended by a strand of hair, just enough to make him feel this moment.
He was weak.
And even as his soul began to vanish, his thoughts echoed just one sentence:
"I couldn't even kill them—"
[R...e..bate activate....d]
However, even that screen—which was flickering and on the edge of vanishing and being overtaken by another identity—rewarded him as its function automatically triggered.
Everything that had been happening in that moment—when time itself had stopped—seemed to meet with a flicker of a twist.
---
[Host's Gift to Heroine Velmira Starlight Detected — Name: Heroine's Divine Blessing Pendant
→ Original Granted Effect: "Soulguard Blessing"
→ Function Summary:
Protects the heroine's soul from death, corruption, and control (1× per day)
Grants complete resistance to Heaven's destined fate
Provides the heroine with self-identity as the daughter of Heaven]
Suddenly, a prompt—as if coming through the will of the world—resonated around. With the system still at the edge, fighting for its own existence, but due to its primary features being still intact and last hope, it protested.
As if knowing that this was the chance to protect itself and its host.
[R...eba...te T...rigg...er]
The system instantly triggered its primary feature, fighting off the other entity trying to take its place.
[Rebate Triggered — 10× Return Activated for Host]
→ Reward Granted: "Absolute Soul Engine"
→ Effect Summary:
Grants Lecan complete immunity to soul damage, corruption, and death.
Allows forced rewriting of fate, causality, or death conditions in Host's favor—every time he changes a fate, he earns a part of that fate, which enforces his growth
Converts hostile or divine power—Heaven's Will—into permanent growth
Soul growth potential exceeds infinity]