There was no warning before the crash, just the brief glint of headlights on wet asphalt and the sound of metal twisting into itself.
Kaelen Ajayi had only just closed his eyes.
One second, he was in a keke napep, headed home from another twelve-hour shift in Lagos tech hell. The next, everything was upside down, glass, blood, motion, and then silence. The kind of silence that swallowed you.
Then… darkness.
He expected pain. Or oblivion.
Instead, he opened his eyes.
And the world he woke into… was not Earth.
---
His lungs filled with air that buzzed with energy, cold, crisp, and unnaturally clean. He coughed and rolled over, muscles screaming. Something felt wrong, about his body, like a jacket a size too big in some places, too tight in others. There was blood everywhere. His hand throbbed. His vision swam.
The sky above him was torn violet, streaked with glowing cracks. Floating isles drifted in the air like shattered continents. A massive spire rose in the distance, black and crowned in lightning.
"Where… am I?" he whispered.
And then it came.
A sharp pulse inside his skull.
Like a bell tolling in his bones.
A glowing interface appeared before his eyes, translucent and humming:
---
[SYSTEM INITIALIZED]
[Welcome, Host]
[You have been bound to the "Oathforged System"]
[Transmigration Confirmed]
[Previous soul: Kaelen Ajayi (Earth Origin)]
[Current vessel: Kaelen Vire (Virelith Origin)]
[Status: Critical]
[Oathbreaker Signature Detected]
[System recommends caution]
[Initializing soul sync… 47]
[Warning: Memories fragmented]
[Void corruption… 12% contained]
[Path Assigned: VOIDBOUND VOWKEEPER]
Kaelen staggered to his feet.
Transmigration? Oathforged System? Path assigned?
He looked down at his hands. They were calloused, broader than his old ones. A deep scar ran down his left wrist fresh. He flexed his fingers, feeling a faint trace of strength, but his body was weak, wounded, and half-dead.
Nearby, he saw a pool of dried blood and shattered stone. The remains of a ritual circle, still glowing faintly. Charred corpses surrounded it, hooded figures. Some bore crests of flame, others of wolves. But at the center was a massive crack in the ground, pulsing with violet energy.
A chasm. Endless. Void.
He remembered falling.
No Kaelen Vire remembered falling.
A battle. A collapsing bridge. And a hand, Darian's hand, gripping his as the world crumbled.
A brother.
A promise.
"I'll never let go," Darian had sworn.
But he had.
He'd looked Kaelen Vire in the eye and let him fall.
Kaelen staggered back, breath ragged. Two sets of memories fought for space in his mind: one from Lagos, the other from this broken realm called Virelith.
And now they were one.
[You were betrayed]
[You were cast into the void]
[But you lived. And you were not alone in the dark]
The ground beneath him pulsed again.
And the system whispered:
---
[SYSTEM UPDATE: PRIMARY OBJECTIVE SET]
[Uncover the truth behind Kaelen Vire's betrayal]
[Exact vengeance on the Oathbreaker]
[System Perks Unlocked:]
[Void Memory Echo (Lv. 1): Access fractured memories tied to betrayal]
[Oathbinding (Locked): Swear oaths that empower or curse]
[Void Affinity: Minor]
[Soul Sync: 49%]
---
He looked at his reflection in a shard of glass.
His new face was sharp, with ash-streaked hair and eyes like violet embers. Haunted. Hardened.
He looked like someone who had died, and wasn't sure if he came back as the same man.
Footsteps echoed through the ruins.
Kaelen turned sharply, instinct flaring. He ducked behind a broken pillar as figures moved into view, armored soldiers with cloaks bearing a new crest:
Three masks in a triangle.
"Secure the site," a woman's voice ordered. "Lord Darian wants the body confirmed."
Kaelen's blood froze.
Darian.
Still alive. Still in power.
And hunting the place where Kaelen Vire died.
He gritted his teeth and crouched lower.
The system chimed again:
---
[QUEST TRIGGERED: FIRST SHADOWS]
[Evade the Triune Enforcers]
[Locate a safehouse or ally]
[System Sync: Reach 60% to unlock combat subroutines]
[Failure: Permanent death. Soul deletion risk: HIGH]
---
He crept through the shadows of the ruin, moving from broken stone to shattered columns. His body hurt with every motion, but the memories of Kaelen Vire guided him. Sword forms, pressure points, even the rhythm of Spireguard patrols it was all there, buried in the part of him that had once worn this face.
And this time, he would not be betrayed.
He slipped past the final wall and bolted into the wilderness, into the fractured wilds of Virelith.
---
Night fell fast in this world.
Kaelen stumbled through a forest of stone trees, their leaves humming with trapped magic. Strange beasts roared in the distance. The air was heavy with mana and memory.
Eventually, he found a cave small, hidden, and barely dry.
He collapsed inside it and exhaled.
And then,
The memories surged.
Images. Pain. Rage. Flashbacks from Kaelen Vire's last day:
Darian smiling as he took command of the mission.
A shattered oathstone, cracked by blood magic.
A whispered deal in a dark chamber.
The feel of fingers loosening… letting him fall.
Kaelen opened his eyes, shaking, his heartbeat pounding.
This wasn't just vengeance.
This was something bigger.
And the system knew it.
---
[MEMORY SYNCHRONIZATION INCREASED]
[59% Complete]
[Void Corruption... Stabilized]
[Skill Unlocked: Oathsense (Lv. 1) Detect truth or deception in spoken vows]
---
Suddenly, a soft voice whispered from the darkness of the cave:
"You're not supposed to be alive."
Kaelen jumped to his feet, eyes scanning.
A figure emerged from the shadows.
A girl barefoot, wearing a mask of bone and light. Her presence bent the air. She wasn't fully real, half in this world, half elsewhere.
"Who are you?" he demanded.
She tilted her head.
"I'm your system's watcher, Kaelen Vire. Or Kaelen Ajayi. Or whatever's left of you."
Kaelen tensed.
"You're not part of the system interface."
She smiled. "No. I'm what it's keeping out."
Lightning flashed in the distance.
"The void didn't just change you," she said, stepping closer. "It marked you. Tied you to something older than this world. Older than the Oathforged."
Kaelen gritted his teeth. Then tell me what it is.
The girl leaned in, close enough that her eyes glowed violet.
"I will… but only if you swear an oath."
To what?
She grinned, " to survive long enough… to betray yourself".