My arms felt like lead. The dagger's weight dragged at my wrist, sticky with blood that wasn't mine.
I couldn't tear my eyes away from the bodies, from the way they just… stopped. One moment, they were moving. Breathing. Fighting. The next, gone. Dead
A cold shiver worked its way up my spine, but my skin burned at the same time, like my body couldn't decide what to feel. My stomach lurched. My hands trembled. I could taste something bitter making its way up my throat.
I bent down, hands on my knees, and threw up.
"I killed them . . . I killed someone."
I told myself it was them or me. That I had no choice. But the truth was, I'd crossed a line I couldn't uncross, and there was no pretending otherwise.
I could still hear the cultist scream as I cut his throat. Still covered in their blood, my mind was replaying the same scene over and over, me killing 3 men.
I wanted to throw up again, but held it in. Some things were of much more importance to me than the death of three lunatics.
With shaking hands, I forced my eyes away from the corpses and took a deep breath. I needed information, any information.
"Status," I muttered.
The familiar blackish-purple screen popped up in front of me, and what I saw displayed on it was truly shocking.
[Status Window]
Name: Zane Blessborne
Rank: F (Novice)(87%)
Soul Integrity: 63%
Oath Capacity: Two Lesser Oaths
Active Oaths: None
Passive Oaths: Equilibrium Eternal
Soul Forge Access: [Unlocked]
Attributes
Strength: 87
Agility: 87
Endurance: 87
Perception: 87
Willpower: 87
Luck:unpredictable
—
Unique Skill:Oathsmith's Authority
Allows the user to enter their Soul Forge, reforge and evolve existing Oaths, and combine them into new, unique variants. May bypass certain capacity limits at the risk of Soul Integrity.
Title:
-Anomaly
Oaths
-Equilibrium Eternal: An Oath forged at the cost of a significant portion of the bearer's Soul Integrity. Equilibrium Eternal binds all physical and mental attributes to match the bearer's highest stat, ensuring complete balance between body and mind. The effect is constant and does not degrade over time, but cannot be removed without destroying the soul.
———
I stared at the numbers, my mind struggling to process them.
Before the Soul Forge, my Strength was barely enough to carry a bag of groceries for over 5 minutes. Now… eighty-seven. Across each stat.
It wasn't raw training or some cheat item. It was the Oath. Equilibrium Eternal. I'd meant to create an Oath that could send me home, but something had twisted it. Instead, it had torn apart every limitation my body had and rebuilt it into perfect symmetry.
At the cost of thirty-four percent of my soul.
I wasn't sure if I felt lucky, powerful… or like a walking corpse waiting for the bill to come due. But if there was something I was sure of, it was that this Oath is fucking broken.
---
It started without warning.
One second, I was staring at my status screen in the middle of the ruined temple, the next, something invisible dug into my skull and pulled.
Searing pain ripped through my head. It was like someone was pouring molten steel into my brain while pounding my head from the inside with a sledgehammer. My jaw locked so tight it hurt. My knees gave out, and I barely caught myself on my hands before my face hit the cracked stone floor.
The pain didn't just stay there; it moved, burning through every thought, ripping them apart before shoving in something else.
Memories that weren't mine.
A name, Zane Blessborne.Not Ethan. Not me.
I saw him, saw myself standing on the balcony of a small, rusting apartment complex, staring at the sprawling skyline of the Imperial Capital, Solara.
Towering skyscrapers pierced the clouds, their surfaces alive with neon lights that shimmered like living ink. Mana-powered billboards cast light across the streets below, where sleek hover cars glided silently between steel-and-glass towers. Somewhere far away, glowing rails carried levitating trains, their speed marked by streaks of blue mana that cut across the sky like lightning.
And in the distance, dominating the horizon, stood the Grand Portal Spire, a colossal obsidian needle wrapped in rings of spinning runes, each opening to gateways that shimmered with worlds beyond.
The city was alive with magic and machinery, woven together in perfect, blinding excess. Street vendors sold enchanted trinkets beneath digital banners. Mana drones zipped between buildings, carrying parcels and messages. Soldiers in white and gold armor patrolled the streets and skies armed with various medieval weapons.
But none of that brilliance drew my eyes in those memories.
She did.
Lyra, my twin sister. Same violet eyes, same stubborn jaw, but with a smile that could cut through the coldest day. She stood beside me on that balcony, her presence grounding me in a way nothing else could. We weren't just siblings; she was my other half, my anchor when the world tried to tear me apart.
And then… him.
Anakin, my little brother. Barely reaching my waist back then, always hiding behind my legs when strangers came near. His laugh, small, bright, and unguarded, carried more warmth than any fire spell ever could.
We were poor. Forgotten. Living in a city that would crush you if you couldn't keep up. But with them… the world didn't feel so heavy.
Every cent I earned, every night I went without sleep, it was for them. Always for them.
The pain clawed harder, dragging me through birthdays in cramped apartments, the taste of cheap fried bread, winter mornings huddled under one blanket, Lyra quietly giving her share of food to Anakin when she thought no one noticed.
My love for them burned so fiercely it hurt more than the molten agony in my head.
When the pain finally began to end, my breathing was ragged. My thoughts were jumbled. My emotions were a storm of relief, sadness, joy, grief, and confusion, all tangled together in a knot so tight it felt like my heart might burst.
Faces swam in the haze. Lyra's smile. Anakin's laugh. The old apartment balcony. The metallic tang of blood from minutes ago.
I no longer knew which memories belonged to Ethan and which to Zane.
But it didn't matter.
Because under the chaos, something solid had taken root.
A truth that burned steadily through the static in my head: They are mine to protect.
And God help anyone who tries to take them from me.
---
The molten agony of getting 17 years of memories forcefully shoved into my head finally faded to a dull, manageable throb, but something in me had changed.
Before, the pain from my Soul Forge collapsing had left me on edge, brittle, just trying to keep myself together. Now… there was only clarity.
And underneath all of it, one truth burned so deep it was more than just a thought. It was instinct.
Protect them.
Lyra. Anakin.
Everything else is expendable.
Fear didn't claw at me anymore; it was just another variable to manage. Mercy? Hesitation? Those were luxuries for someone who didn't have people worth killing for.
The me from before would have flinched at the blood still drying on my hands. The me now? I only wondered why I'd wasted time leaving the last cultist alive.
The shift wasn't gentle. It was like someone had scraped away the dull edge, leaving only the blade underneath.