Nathan crouched on the rooftop, sand grinding beneath his boots.
The city stretched below—golden, sun-scorched, and bleeding at the edges.
A few tamed Fate Beasts roamed near the plazas, decorated in polished armor and chained by the wrists.
Pets for the rich. Symbols of control.
Another attack. Third this week. Nathan's brow furrowed as he scanned the news board across the square
Winter always stirred the monsters... but this?
This felt different. Hungrier.
Nathan's eyes lingered on the shattered southern wall.
The stone was still blackened from the morning fire. A few Fate Beasts had made it through—small ones.
Barely a threat.
And yet... if he hadn't signed that cursed Contract months ago, his bones would've joined the ash.
He scoffed.
Lucky, they'd called him.
But luck was just another word for surviving when you shouldn't.
On a whim, Nathan flicked open the contract interface.
A small part of him hoped—just maybe—he'd see something new.
He didn't.
Of course he didn't.
Fate Skulls weren't charity. You had to earn them—ripping them from the corpses of Fate Beasts that could gut you in seconds.
He wasn't stupid enough to believe in miracles.
☽ FATE CONTRACT: NATHAN
▶ THREADS OF FATE
▸ Primary Thread: [LOCKED]
Type: ???
Description: [Restricted by Fate]
Unlock Requirement: 200 Fate Skulls
▸ Minor Thread: Shade of the False Dawn
Tier: II | Type: Active / Stealth
You are the hush between heartbeats. The pause between footfalls.
Move like shadow — and vanish like myth.
▸ Minor Thread: Fate Runner
Tier: I | Type: Passive
Some call it instinct. Some call it luck.
Either way, it keeps you alive when you shouldn't be.
Nathan dropped from the rooftop like the night itself had dropped him.
No sound. No warning.
The power of False Dawn wrapped around him, and the world simply forgot to look.
He landed behind a row of stalls — unnoticed, as always.
That's when he spotted the kid.
Half-hidden behind a food cart, maybe ten, maybe younger.
Clutching a rusted kitchen knife like it meant something.
Eyes locked on a well-dressed merchant.
No stance. No timing. No escape route.
Pathetic.
Nathan scoffed under his breath.
If you're gonna steal, do it right.
He had no reason to get involved. Wasn't his problem.
But…
He wasn't going to let him fail, either.
Without thinking, Nathan shifted forward — just enough to step into the merchant's line of sight.
The man blinked, attention snagged.
The kid darted in, lifted the pouch clean, and vanished into the alley.
The merchant patted his side. Too late.
Nathan didn't smile.
But something in his chest stirred — a faint ember of pride.
'The Mongrel, huh? That's what they used to call him.
And yet here he was — helping some idiot brat steal a coin pouch.
Why?
He didn't know.
Maybe he hated watching someone fumble through the only thing he was ever good at.
Maybe…
Maybe he just didn't want to be the only monster left with a soul.
A memory clawed its way up:
Him — smaller, shaking, fingers locked around his sister's hand like a lifeline.
His jaw clenched.
He remembered that day too clearly — the fear. The cold.
The way the world kept walking, pretending not to see.
Nathan squinted up at the dull winter sun.
It tried to shine through the haze — just like him, failing at it.
He shook his head. Pointless thoughts.
Sentiment was just another way to freeze to death.
Time to earn his next breath.
The city whispered warnings with every gust, every shuttered shop, every silent scream between alley bricks.
This winter wasn't just cold.
It was hungry.
Then, out of the corner of his eye, he saw something—
No.
Someone.
And for a moment, he forgot to breathe.
Her eyes were red—
Not just red.
Burning. Like fire made flesh.
But the flame wasn't frightening.
It felt… warm.
Soothing, even.
The air around her was tense, like the city was holding its breath—
And yet, somehow, she felt like an invitation.
She wasn't just pretty. She was beautiful in a way that made the world around her feel lesser.
His first thought was stupid.
How can someone look like that?
Almost as if…
As if the Fate Tree itself had taken the shape of a girl and wandered into the city.
She was so pretty it pissed him off.
Like the world had the nerve to put something like that in front of him.
What was she doing here—
On the outskirts, of all places.
Nathan narrowed his eyes as she walked toward the southern wall.
The same wall that had just been attacked.
People stared. He wasn't the only one caught off guard by her.
But unlike the rest, she didn't flinch.
Their eyes didn't touch her. Their whispers didn't reach.
She just walked. Like she belonged to a different world—
One that didn't bleed.
His mood was already ruined — beyond saving.
So he decided to visit the Fate Tree.
Maybe for the last time.
As he walked, a quiet thought gnawed at him:
He was tired.
Not the kind of tired sleep could fix.
No… it was deeper.
A slow, bitter kind of exhaustion — not from pain, but from the life he'd built around it.
The kind that made him wonder…
If he was already halfway dead.
He made his way to the center where the rich lived he could see the gigantic tree from the outskirts but you couldn't take in it's sheer size if you aren't in the middle area it's branches are so big just one felt like it would take hours to fully see it
The people there gave him disgusted looks the guards had their hands on the baton like he was some sort of a criminal well he was but they had no way of knowing that the ground went from rough and getting a scar every time he walked to now being smooth and clean
As he drew closer to the Fate Tree, its blue leaves shimmered above like a canopy of frozen stars.
And the Soul Fruit…
Hanging just out of reach, each one glowed faintly—so rare, so sacred, that even dreaming of tasting one felt like a sin.
For once, he wasn't here to fight.
Not to survive.
Just… to look. To breathe. To feel something other than dread.
Maybe it was that girl.
Maybe the way she walked through death like it was nothing cracked something open in him.
Or maybe this was it.
His final breath before the world closed in.
Then came the horn.
A sound like a dying dog choking on its final scream.
Nathan froze. His jaw clenched.
"Shit…"
He hated that sound—hated every decision that had ever led him to hear it again.
It didn't take long to understand.
The castle was calling. Summoning.
Since when?
Around him, people dropped to their knees.
Even Ethan hit the ground, clutching his head.
That horn wasn't just a warning.
It was a command.
Something built to make even the monsters listen.
Guards flooded the streets, yelling at people to move toward the nearest announcement center.
But when they saw him—in rags, alone—they didn't yell.
They moved in.
No hesitation. No words. Just hands on weapons—closing in like wolves who smelled blood.
Nathan stared them down, quietly counting how many were coming.
One. Two. Five. Eight.
He gritted his teeth.
"Damn that tree," he muttered. "Always my luck."
Of course this would happen in the center of the city.
Where being poor was a crime.
Where just existing in rags was enough to be suspicious.
Nathan wasn't scared—just pissed.
Figures.
Eight guards closing in, and here he was, dead center of the city with a target on his back. All because of some stupid horn.
Still…
He had an ace up his sleeve.
Fate Runner.
It didn't make him fast. Didn't make him strong.
It just made the impossible happen.
One-in-a-million chances? Easy.
Slipping past eight trained guards without a scratch? Child's play.
…Unless fate had other plans.
Sometimes it saved his life.
Sometimes it threw him into worse hell.
As the guards approached, Nathan rolled his shoulders and smiled bitterly.
"Alright, let's see where you throw me this time…"
"Isn't it a bit unfair?"
A soft voice drifted from behind him—gentle, almost amused.
Then came the roar.
A Fate Beast.
The sound alone made the street shudder. Even the guards froze.
He turned—
and everything else stopped existing.
A spider, if you could even call it that.
Twelve legs. No face. No eyes.
It loomed six, maybe seven meters tall, casting a web of shadow across the square.
It looked wrong. Too clean.
Its shell gleamed like polished steel—smooth, unbreakable…
like some obscenely expensive sword crafted for a monster.
Nathan stared.
Not afraid. Just... pissed.
Seriously? A giant spider?
Just his luck. As if his height complex wasn't bad enough already.
The crowd didn't move.
Too terrified to even breathe.
They were right to be—that thing was easily Tier III. One twitch, and the square would be painted red.
But his thoughts were interrupted—
by a whisper inside his head. Calm and relaxed as always
[Fate Runner has pulled its strings.]
[You have successfully escaped fate.]
But something felt off.
A shiver ran down his spine—not from fear, but from memory.
This wasn't the first time Fate Runner had "helped" him.
And last time… it dropped him straight into a nightmare.
Mocked him. Like the system itself had a sense of humor.
His eyes narrowed.
"Don't screw me again," he muttered under his breath.