When you're born in this world, the Divine Loom scans you within seconds. Most babies get a class, a threadmark, and a shiny future. I got a blank screen. No class. No skills. No threadmark. Nothing.
Just an error code blinking red, and a bunch of priests who suddenly acted like I wasn't even human. They called me unlinked.
Didn't mean much to me at the time, I was a baby, but it basically meant I was system trash. No connection, no stats, no chance of survival unless someone felt like being generous.
Spoiler: no one did.
I ended up in a run-down orphanage on the edge of the Tiered City, way past the trade walls and close to the dumping pits. It was a place for kids who didn't register on anyone's power radar. Half of us didn't make it to age ten. The ones who did learned real quick how to stay out of the way and steal without getting caught.
I wasn't strong, and I didn't have skills like the others who awakened late. But I was good at noticing things. Like how thread cores flickered before they cracked. Or how some systems took longer to respond around me.
I didn't know what that meant. Maybe it was just false hope. Then came the night of my sixteenth birthday. Everything short-circuited. Lights blew out, alarms blared, and the whole building shook like we were being raided. I was in my bunk, staring at my left arm, because something was glowing under the skin.
It burned like hell. I thought I was dying. Turns out, I was finally syncing. Only it wasn't normal.
[Threadmark: ???]
[System: Error - Classification Unknown]
[Skill Tree Access: Denied]
[Effect: System Instability - Active]
[Warning: This Threadmark should not exist.]
They came for me before I even had time to sit up. Three Lawscribes and a suppression team burst into the dorm. The Warden pointed right at me. "That's him! Shut him down before it spreads!" They tried. One of them aimed a seal gauntlet at me. Another started chanting a protocol lock. Then everything went sideways.
There was a pulse, like a thread snapping, and the floor cracked open beneath them. The seal shattered. One guy screamed. By the time the light died down, all that was left was smoke, a few broken bits of armor, and a burnt hole in the floor.
I wasn't supposed to survive that. I didn't care. I got up, coughing, bleeding, and covered in ash. My system window kept flickering, glitching like it couldn't decide what I was. But it was there.
I had a threadmark now. No class. No label. No known origin. Just power that shouldn't exist. So I walked out the front gate. Didn't look back. Didn't say goodbye. I didn't owe them anything. Let the system panic. I was finally part of it, and if it didn't know what to do with me, that wasn't my problem.
I didn't get far before the system started acting weird again. About an hour after leaving the orphanage, my threadmark pulsed like it was syncing with something. I felt it buzzing in my bones. Not painful, but definitely not normal.
I was walking through a stretch of collapsed rail channels on the edge of the slums. No patrols came out this far. Most people avoided the place after dark. It was full of unstable loot cores and derailed energy skiffs, and every now and then, some mutant crawler would come out of the tunnels to feed.
That's when I saw the scavenger. He was hunched over a broken cart, coughing up blood. Looked like something had torn into his side. His arm was messed up bad, bone sticking out through a cracked gauntlet. He saw me coming and waved.
"Hey... kid. Help me... please."
I paused a few meters away. He looked like he was dying already. No threat. No loot worth stealing either. But something about him felt off. Then I noticed the glint near his chest. A small, pulsing relic core. That's when my system flared.
[Relic Signature Detected: Soul-Linked Core]
[Warning: Interaction May Alter System Threads]
[Absorption Opportunity: High]
[Proceed? Y/N]
I didn't hit anything. The system just decided. One blink later, I felt heat rushing through my hand. My fingers moved on instinct. I grabbed the relic. He grabbed my wrist.
"Don't...!" he gasped.
And then... he died.
[Soul Fragment Consumed: Scavenger Class - Minor]
[+7 XP Acquired]
[Thread Evolution Progress: 9%]
[New Trait Available: Passive - Scrap Sense]
[Skill Tree Status: Still Locked]
I stood there for a full minute, breathing heavy. I didn't do it to kill him. I didn't mean to take anything. But the system didn't care about intent. It saw power. It took it.
Scrap Sense.
I didn't even know what that meant yet. Probably some kind of detection trait. But the fact that my threadmark could consume someone's soul fragment, that wasn't normal.
Nobody I'd ever heard of leveled up this way. I checked the body again. No ID, no faction tags. Just a busted gearbelt with some ration cubes and a cracked comm badge.
I took the food. Left the rest. He didn't need it anymore. I kept walking, still shaken, but part of me felt different, lighter, stronger.
The XP wasn't a lie. I'd killed him, and the system had rewarded me with growth, instead of gear or coins. I reached the edge of the slum wall just before the sun came up. The guards were still half-asleep in their towers, not expecting anyone to be out here. I kept my hood low and moved fast.
By the time the first city chime rang out, I had slipped into an old ventilation shaft that ran under the lower marketplace. It wasn't the safest place to rest, but it would do for now. Lying there in the dark, I opened the system panel again. It was still flickering. Still incomplete. But something had changed.
[Host: Vaelric]
[Threadmark: ???]
[XP to Next Tier: 43]
[Available Trait: 1]
[Note: Soul-Taken Traits are unstable and temporary unless reinforced]
Soul-taken traits. So that's what this was. I didn't have a normal class. I didn't get skills from training or rank-ups. I stole them.
The city was waking up, but I felt like I was already on the run. The moment my threadmark glitched, something changed. My system window kept flickering, throwing warnings I didn't understand.
[Warning: Rogue Thread Detected]
[Observation Requested: Entity Vaelric]
[System Response: Adaptive]
[Compliance: Unknown]
I didn't know what "adaptive" meant, but it didn't sound good. I kept my hood low and moved through the alleys of the Border Slums. Nobody cared much about the slums, except the scavengers and the gangs. I knew the system was watching. I could feel it in my bones. Suddenly, a voice called out behind me.
"You there! Stop!"
I froze. Not because I was scared, but because my system froze too.
[Thread Access: Blocked]
[Suppressive Field Detected: Law Domain - Rank A]
[Defensive Protocols: None]
[Reaper Trait Incompatible With Law Anchor]
A man stepped into the dim light. He wore white and gold armor with a badge that glowed bright. His eyes were sharp, cold. A Lawbringer.
He looked me over and said, "Rogue thread. You're not supposed to exist."
I kept quiet. The system was telling me to run, fight, or die. But something about this guy made me hesitate. He reached for his gauntlet. I barely had time to react.
The system took over. A pulse shot from my hand. It slammed into his chest, breaking his defense. He stumbled back, stunned.
"You... threadless monster!" he hissed.
I didn't want to hurt him. But my system had other plans.
[Soul Fragment Consumed: Rank A Law Enforcer]
[+41 XP Gained]
[New Trait Available: Echo Restraint]
[Warning: Thread Stability Decreasing]
I turned and ran before he could recover. Behind me, I heard shouts and the clatter of armor. The system wasn't just watching anymore. It was hunting. I ducked into a narrow alley, heart pounding.
"They'll come for me now."
But I wasn't going down without a fight. I didn't have a normal threadmark. I didn't belong in their system. And that gave me an edge. The world could try to erase me, but I was already rewriting the rules.
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