The ruins were silent except for the crunch of broken stone beneath Kairo's boots. Cracked pillars rose like crooked teeth against the dim horizon, shadows pooling in their fractures. Statues with hollowed eyes stared into nothingness, their faces chipped away by time or violence.
Kairo dragged his fingers across one of the statues' torsos as he passed, feeling the cold grooves of a once-proud crest.
"…What were you?" he murmured, his voice low, as if afraid to wake something sleeping beneath the rubble. "A kingdom? A fortress? A dream?"
He chuckled bitterly and adjusted his tattered coat.
"Doesn't matter now. All that's left is bones and dust."
He continued deeper, boots scraping against collapsed slabs, until he reached a jagged ledge. Below lay an open expanse of ruins choked in mist. His eyes narrowed. A strange pulse seemed to throb in the air down there, a beat his instincts couldn't ignore.
Kairo crouched, swung his legs down, and dropped. Dust rose where he landed.
The air changed at once. A vile stench clawed its way into his nostrils—rot and stagnant blood. He gagged and threw a hand over his nose.
"Gods, that reeks," he hissed, words muffled against his palm. "What in the god's good name died here?"
He pressed forward, eyes watering. But only a few steps in, something cracked beneath his heel. He froze. Slowly, he lifted his foot and looked.
His stomach clenched. White fragments, jagged and unmistakable—human bones.
"…Tch." His sweat turned cold. "So that's the kind of place this is."
The skeleton sprawled half-buried in dust, one hand still clutching the shaft of a broken spear. Kairo's throat tightened.
"What killed you?" he whispered. "Monster? Curse? Or just… time?"
His gaze lingered on the crumbling walls stretching into the mist. This was no random ruin. Something had fought here. Something terrible.
He stood there, torn. Every instinct screamed at him to turn back, to climb out of the pit and never look down again. But another voice whispered in his ear—sharp, unrelenting.
"If I leave now, I'll die later anyway. Without the relic… the monsters will tear me apart."
Kairo's fists clenched. He knelt beside the skeleton. With a slow, respectful motion, he pried the broken spear from its hand.
"…Rest easy," he said, bowing his head. "I'll put this to use."
The ruined weapon hung heavy in his grip as he walked forward again.
The further he went, the more the ground was littered with bones. Small insects writhed across the corpses, their mandibles clicking wetly. Snakes with three gleaming eyes slithered over ribcages, their tongues tasting the air.
Kairo tensed, raising the spear. But the creatures did not strike. They only followed his steps, patient shadows waiting for him to fall.
"…Scavengers," he muttered. "Just waiting for me to join the pile."
His boots carried him onward, until the mist thinned.
And then he saw it.
A mountain of corpses, stretched into the shape of a mound. Soldiers in rusted armor lay twisted together, their swords snapped, their shields splintered. They had died piled atop one another, a grotesque monument to some forgotten war.
Kairo's jaw tightened.
"Damn it all…"
At the peak of the corpse-mound stood a banner, jutting defiantly into the air. Its fabric was black as midnight, streaked with dried stains that could only be blood. It fluttered though there was no wind.
"The relic." Kairo whispered.
Kairo's chest tightened with revulsion. He had to climb.
"…Disgusting," he whispered. "Why couldn't it be on a pedestal like a normal relic?"
Still, he set one hand onto a corpse's shoulder, then another on a twisted breastplate. The bodies shifted and creaked beneath him as he climbed. Empty eye sockets stared at him.
Each step left his throat dry. He could almost hear them whispering.
"Join us… join us…"
By the time he reached the top, his breath was ragged. He wiped a line of sweat from his temple and grasped the banner's pole. The moment he touched it, the air quivered.
A voice—no, a chorus of voices—echoed faintly in his skull.
We fought. We bled. We were forgotten.
His vision shivered as glowing text burned into the air before him:
Relic Identified
Name: Blood-Stained Banner
Tier: 1
Unit Type: Scavenger Ghouls
Energy Requirement: 10
Description: The echoes of soldiers who fought in a legendary war, their names lost to time, locked within this banner. Their corpses rise as Scavenger Ghouls, feeding on the fallen to strengthen themselves, its power had long faded, turning it into a low tier relic.
Kairo swallowed.
"…So that's what you are."
The voices faded, leaving silence in their wake. He pulled the banner free, the corpses shifting as if sighing beneath him. Without a glance back, he slid down the mound.
The scavenger beasts in the ruins still circled, but none dared touch him now. Perhaps they smelled the relic's presence.
He hurried, boots striking stone, until the looming silhouette of the black spire came into view. The Nexus. His only anchor in this nightmare.
As he stepped into its shadow, the spire pulsed.
"Command Nexus, open," he ordered.
A screen of pale symbols flared before his eyes.
[Relic detected]
[Install relic into terratory core?]
[Y / N]
Kairo held his breath. Then he pressed his hand to the surface of the banner and answered, "Yes."
The spire groaned. The banner dissolved into threads of crimson light and was swallowed whole. For a moment the ground shook, then stilled.
Another screen appeared.
[Relic successfully integrated]
[New summon avaliable: Scavenger Ghouls]
Beneath it, lines of text scrolled:
Energy: 100
Unit Cost: 10 per Scavenger Ghoul
Energy Restores: +10 per day / +variable from slain monsters
Tier Advancement: Expands capacity
Kairo let out a slow breath.
"So that's how it works. Energy… monsters… daily recovery…" His lips twisted into a humorless smile. "A game of survival with rules written in blood."
He flexed his hand.
"Then let's see what you can do."
The command screen glowed again.
[Summon scavenger ghoul]
[Y / N]
"Yes."
The air around him chilled. Shadows spilled out of the spire, coiling into a form. Bones knit together with sickening cracks, scraps of armor fusing into twisted shapes. The figure rose hunched, its bones grey and slightly cracked, its eye sockets empty, like a void. Its mouth stretched open in a soundless scream.
Kairo's heart hammered. The thing dropped onto all fours, breathing raggedly, then lifted its gaze to him.
For a tense moment, neither moved. Then the ghoul bowed its head low, awaiting command.
"…So it listens," Kairo whispered. His grip tightened on the broken spear. "Good. I'll need every weapon I can get."
The spire pulsed faintly, as if satisfied.
Kairo exhaled, shoulders trembling, and muttered to himself:
"This is just the beginning."
The ruin's silence returned. Only now, he was not alone in it.