The last thing Kai Ren remembered was blood.His own blood—warm, sticky, spilling across cracked concrete as neon signs flickered above him. A knife had been buried in his ribs, twisted once for cruelty, and then left there.
He remembered the laughter, too. The boys from the rival block, their sneakers flashing as they ran. To them, he wasn't even worth finishing. Just another trash rat left to die in an alley.
Pathetic, he thought bitterly, staring up at a polluted night sky. This is how I go? Not even fighting for something. Just… forgotten.
His vision blurred, and in the dark haze, he thought he saw a light—a silver flame flickering between the stars.
Then everything cracked.
Kai gasped awake, lungs burning, eyes stinging. He was no longer lying on hard asphalt. He was sprawled across ash-colored soil, the taste of metal heavy on his tongue.
The world was broken.
Above him stretched a twilight sky, split by colossal chains of fire, glowing crimson as they snaked endlessly from horizon to horizon. Fragments of floating stone drifted in the air, ruins of towers and temples embedded within them like shattered teeth. The land itself was warped—forests grew from the husks of skyscrapers, rivers glowed faintly with liquid silver, and in the distance, a mountain floated upside down, bleeding waterfalls into the void.
Kai scrambled to his feet, chest heaving. His clothes were the same ratty jeans and blood-soaked hoodie from before. The knife wound was gone. His body, weak and scarred on Earth, now felt… sharper, harder. Alive.
And then the voice came.
[Welcome, Challenger.][The Nightmare Trial has begun.][Failure Condition: Death.]
Kai froze, the words echoing directly in his skull. They weren't spoken, yet they thundered through him like a god's decree.
Around him, he realized he wasn't alone.
A hundred figures had appeared across the ashen field, men and women of all ages, some in casual clothes like him, others in uniforms or strange armor. Confusion buzzed through the air. People shouted, cursed, cried.
"What the hell is this?!""Is this a game?!""No… this isn't VR. I can feel the air—!"
A boy barely older than sixteen clutched his head and screamed. "I didn't sign up for this!"
His panic ended abruptly as something crawled from the mist.
A beast, tall as a horse, its body forged of bone and smoke. Its jaw unhinged unnaturally wide, dripping with black ichor. The ground trembled as it lunged forward.
The boy's scream cut short with a wet crunch. His body was torn in half, blood spraying across the ash.
The field erupted in chaos. People scattered, tripping over each other, summoning strange weapons out of thin air. A woman conjured fire into her palms. A man pulled a glowing blade from his chest like it had been waiting inside him all along.
Kai stumbled back, heart hammering. His instincts screamed at him to run, but his feet locked to the ground.
[System Activation Complete.][Eclipse Path Chosen: Shadow Sovereign.][Initializing First Ability…]
Kai's vision darkened. Shadows rippled at his feet, coiling like living snakes. His palm burned cold.
[Summon: Little Wraith.]
Black smoke poured from his hand, condensing into bone. A skeletal creature, no taller than his knee, staggered into existence. Its ribs rattled, its arms ended in jagged claws, and two faint blue embers glowed in its empty sockets.
It tilted its skull, looked up at him… and let out a rasping chuckle.
The nearest survivors stared.
"That's it?" one sneered, summoning a flaming wolf beside him. "That pathetic thing? You're dead, kid."
Laughter rippled among the braver Awakened. Some already had weapons that glowed with runes, others armor that shimmered like steel spun from light. And Kai? He had a wobbling skeleton barely taller than a toddler.
Of course, Kai thought bitterly. Even here, I'm the weakest.
The bone beast roared again, charging toward him now. His body locked up.
The Little Wraith stepped forward.
It didn't look strong, but as the monster lunged, the skeleton moved faster than his eyes could follow. Its claws shot up, scraping against the beast's skull. Bone against bone. Sparks screamed through the air.
The impact flung Kai backward, dust filling his lungs. He coughed, eyes wide. The Wraith clung to the beast's face like a parasite, tearing and clawing with manic laughter.
The Awakened stared.
The flaming wolf lunged to help its master, the fire-wielding woman hurled a burning spear, but it was the Little Wraith's claws that dug deepest. With a final shriek, the beast's skull cracked, its body dissolving into mist.
Silence fell.
Then a voice, colder than death, whispered in Kai's ear:
[Enemy slain.][Shadow Assimilation: +1.][Little Wraith has evolved.]
The skeleton's body twisted, its spine stretching, claws lengthening. It grew taller, its ember eyes flaring brighter.
Kai staggered to his feet, heart racing. His pathetic summon had just… evolved.
Gasps spread among the survivors. A few looked impressed. More looked envious.
Kai didn't have time to breathe.
The mist around them thickened, and a dozen more bone beasts emerged from the fog, jaws snapping, eyes burning.
The trial wasn't over.
It had only just begun.