I woke to the taste of iron and rain. The ceiling above me was cracked. A single bulb swung and breathed in the dark. My hands felt wrong — larger, callused, warm. I blinked and smelled lemon and blood.
A name pushed into my head like a moth to light. Riley. The boy's thin memories came like scraps: a thin mattress, a crumpled photo, hard voices. I felt the bruise on my ribs. Shame hit me like a fist. Someone small had ended here.
Light split the air. A tone rang like a small bell. A glass panel folded out before me, letters hovering in the dust. Four bright words read: [All Out] SYSTEM ACTIVATED.
"Congratulations on transferring into Blue Star," the voice said, clean and cold. The wall behind the panel showed a map and a star emblem. Words scrolled like a book I had no right to read.
Orientation was sharp and quick. Blue Star measured life by power. Ranks decided who ate and who died. The system listed ranks: F, E, D, C, B, A, S, SS, SSS, and the hidden EX above them all. The rules were simple: the strong take more; the weak pay the price.
A small box glowed on the panel: WELCOME GIFT. My throat felt strange. The panel listed the items: [EX-Copy Power] — copy enemy abilities after defeating them. [TRANSFORMATION CARD] — permanent evolution. Then a warning blinked.
Warning: This will change you completely. Proceed? Y / N
Without thought I hit Y. My finger moved like a coin flipped. The panel pulsed. Time hiccupped.
There was a snap. Not a sound so much as a fall in the world. The bulb stopped swinging. Dust hung like suspended moths. A horn froze mid-call. Motion slid from the room and the city like a page held between fingers.
Pressure filled my chest. Heat crawled up my spine. I felt threads tying me to this body, and then — silent — the threads broke. My skin fizzled. Light pushed from my arms. The whole room pulsed in a colour that had no name.
Below, people froze. A boy with a stone paused. A taxi hung like a beetle in midair. A dog mid-leap stopped as if held. The pause felt like a tide pulled by the moon.
Energy climbed from me and burst from the roof. It spun in a spiral and pulled like a rope. Clouds answered. Lightning braided gold and white. The air carved into a long shape.
Something older than fear grew inside me. A laugh rose that was not mine at first — it came from the system, the storm, and something older. It filled my bones until I took it in with breath. My vision filled with the shape of a dragon stretching toward a sky that had stopped being empty.
Agents came running, tried to bind the light with ropes of force. Their bindings snapped. The dragon formed — a body of storm and crackling brightness — and then it pushed upward, biting the sky.
When the dragon screamed, sound folded the city. Windows shattered across blocks. The roar felt like every small thing that claimed safety being scrubbed away. People mouthed screams with no sound. The dragon's head pierced the clouds and detonated in a plume so bright night turned, for a breath, to noon.
Screens caught the light. Cafes, mountain lookouts, ships at sea — the flash reached anywhere with sight. The world would not ignore this. They would name it. They would call it Dragon Sky.
On the roof the system polished its final lines. You accepted the Transformation Card. You will undergo a permanent shift. Hold still.
Darkness took me then. I felt myself spread thin and gather. The city came back like a slow machine. The bulb began to swing. Voices returned.
When I opened my eyes my body had a new edge. It felt tight and hard, wrapped in muscle. I looked at my hands: larger, with small pale scars. I stood and the room looked cheap. I touched my face. Jaw stronger. Cheek warm.
Clothes sat on a chair — a dark coat that fit like it had been waiting. My breath was deeper. The hollow shame that had lived inside felt filled, or replaced with a cold clarity.
At the window the city looked like strings. People moved again, bright and frantic. The sky where the dragon had roared still smoked. News vans screamed toward the center. Soldiers and rank-hunters moved fast. I felt only focus.
My reflection in the cracked glass wasn't the boy who had died. The face was sharp and balanced. The eyes held a quiet light that could soften or cut. I smiled without meaning to — a small, pleasant thing that sounded like a crack. Something inside me approved.
The system chimed. New Skill Unlocked: EX-Copy Power. Transformation Complete. Memory Sync in progress.
Riley's life slid into my head like pages turned quick. The taste of cheap bread, the sting of being shoved. I felt the photo's weight. Then other memories layered over them: other streets, other hunts, a voice that trained by strict lines and laughed when things broke. Predator memory. A ledger of names, cold and exact.
When the sync finished a file opened: [Personality Mod] — Temperament adjusted to improve survival. Module: Cold Efficiency applied.
Thoughts moved differently now. Emotions no longer landed like stones. Shame became fuel. Fear a scent to follow. Mercy an odd coin I set aside.
A laugh left my throat — low and clean. Iron and satisfaction. It was mine.
I crossed to the small desk where the photo had been. The paper was warm in my hand. The back read: "For one day, be brave." Salt rose in me. Sadness hardened into focus.
Out on the street the faces that mocked him were small and busy. The classmate who had pushed him might show on the news. The parents who left would move in their small lives. I saw them like racks on a wall — objects to be sorted.
The panel reminded me: You have one trait: EX-Copy. Copy requires defeat. Defeat requires fight. Fight requires action.
I clenched my fist until knuckles cracked. The sound pleased me. The city felt small now. Sirens wailed. Dragon Sky flashed on a hundred screens. Agents would come. Enforcers would scan for anomalies. Someone would find the point of origin and follow the light.
Outside, neighbours looked up. They saw a man where a boy had been. Questions hissed like smoke. I said nothing. I walked with the slow, steady pace of someone who measures life in breaths.
The system pinged quietly. Memory Sync complete. Notes: Parentage confirmed. Valen Clan lineage detected. Hidden Trait: Copy Affinity — rare. Advice: Avoid immediate detection. High-tier clans will react.
The word Valen hit me like a stone. The Valens were one of five clans in the world that stand at the pinnacle. They bowed to strength and crushed the weak. The five clans kept the world tilted — each clan a market, a watch, a law. They raised heirs to hurt before they were hurt. The clans served the strong and punished the weak. For them a failed child was a stain. My parents had not simply left me; they had turned me out because a weak heir was bad for business and honour. They lived on high terraces where wind never smelled like rain. They ate in rooms where rank decided who spoke.
Ranks formed caste. F and E were gutter-work — mocked and shoved off trains. D was acceptable. C and B ruled districts like kings. A were near gods, treated with reverence. S were preserved in temples and guarded as demigods. Above them stood the SSS — the Sovereign. He was not called a man but a god. When the Sovereign moved, nations leaned. He had the topmost rank and a rule that no one dared touch.
People were born with gifts too. A child could be born with hands that lit flame or lungs that called wind. Talent shaped fate before rank confirmed it. The Academy and its tests looked for talent and trained it into rank. To join the hunters you had to pass school trials, win district contests, brave rifts and dungeons, and climb the Tower of Trials. The Tower was a mouth: you entered, fought, and either rose with new rank or disappeared into its floors forever. Hunters were the teeth that fed the city's mouths — they hunted rifts and brought trophies, names, and power back to the streets.
I moved toward the Academy out of muscle memory. The plaza was a stage for heirs and rookies. Clan banners hung. The Valen standard flew above a group of tall kids in bright armour. One of them — scar-wide, A-ranked — watched me and sneered. Recognition would spread: a Valen son who failed once could not be ignored. The clans would either reclaim or crush.
At the registration desk an official scanned my face. "Name?" he asked.
"Riley. From Valen." My voice was steady.
A quiet shift went through the crowd. A drone slipped closer, its lens biting shallow. The system stamped me and flashed a small icon on my shoulder: Origin — Valen. Alert — flagged.
That small flag would call attention. Clan servants, enforcers, and the Sovereign's men would trace the mark. The city could not let a Valen fail and vanish. Either they would make me a show or make an example. For now the flag burned like a coin in the dark.
I signed the papers for the basic talent test. The system whispered: Objective — Register for District Trial. Reward — Rift license and trial entry. Secondary: Tower of Trials application.
District trials were public. They measured talent and hunger. Winners earned a license to clear rifts, a certificate to enter dungeons, and a chance to climb the Tower. For clans the trials were a market to buy fame. For me the trials were a road I must force myself onto.
A poster caught my eye: the Sovereign's face — pale, perfect — across a hundred screens. Headline: SSS SOVEREIGN DECLARES: RIFTS EXPAND. HUNTERS NEEDED. REWARDS FOR FIRST RESPONDERS. The city's hunger answered. Rewards made people move like wolves.
I stepped from the plaza and felt eyes track me. A man in A armour who had once shoved the boy into trash spotted me and spat. I remembered the younger Riley being pushed and left. The ledger of names began to write itself in my head.
The system pulsed at my ear: EX-Copy ready. Memory: Copy triggers after defeating an opponent. Warning: High visibility will provoke clan response. Suggestion: Low profile until capabilities are understood.
I let the suggestions sit like a map. The transformation had given me a body and a hunger. It had given me a ticket into a world that ate the weak. I had one path: move fast, get rank, take power, and make the ledger balance.
At the Academy gates someone whispered, "Valen bastard." Another laughed. I kept my pace. A cloaked figure watched from a high balcony and then turned away. Their silhouette was flat and still, a presence that carried command. The system flagged them: Unknown high-tier observer.
Six hours to district registration. The city smelled of rain and iron and a coming storm. Dragon Sky was the new song on everyone's tongue, but for me it was a door that had opened in the dark.
I thought of the photo in my pocket and the words on the back: "For one day, be brave." The boy's plea landed like a bell. I folded it and put it back. Then the voice inside — cold, precise — whispered: Find them all.
Outside, the crowd closed and life moved like teeth. I stepped forward into the ring of ranks.
Alone.
© 2025 Kael Virell. All rights reserved. This original work is the sole property of Kael Virell and may not be copied, reproduced, translated, adapted, or distributed without written permission. Unauthorized use will result in legal action and platform takedown to enforce the author's rights.