The fire refused to die.
Even though dawn painted the horizon with soft hues of pink and orange, the ritual flames still burned in the circle where Sky-Torn had whispered his first forbidden prayers. Smoke curled upward into the sky like black serpents, staining the morning light. The ground around the circle was etched with symbols carved in desperation during the night's ritual—crooked lines and spirals that pulsed faintly as though they were alive. Some of the children who had snuck close swore they heard the earth humming, like the growl of a wounded beast.
The elders of the Hawk Clan gathered in tense silence. They stood in a half-circle beyond the flames, wrapped in heavy cloaks despite the warmth of the season, their lined faces lit by flickering orange. Their eyes—wary, sharp, and burdened with the weight of memory—fixed not on the fire, but on the man who had summoned it.
Sky-Torn.
The whispers of his name passed through the crowd like a curse.
"You called upon something that does not belong to our people," spat Elder Ash-Tooth, his hand trembling around the carved ashwood staff he leaned upon. "Do you even know what you have invited into our lodges? Into our blood?"
His words carried like stones striking still water.
Sky-Torn stood apart from them, his bare chest streaked with ritual paint now half-burned away, his raven hair loose around his shoulders. His shadow stretched long against the morning light, too long, as though the fire cast more than one man's outline. His eyes glowed faintly—not with firelight, but with something deeper, something that did not belong in this world.
And only he could see the truth behind it.
Villain System Notification:
You have completed [First Ritual of Blood and Smoke].
Reward: +30 Villain Points.
Unlock: [Corruption Sight] – See threads of destiny bound in others.
The text burned across his vision, then dissolved like ash on the wind. His breath caught as the new sight unfurled. Suddenly the world was layered with more than flesh and bone. Every person in the circle stood bound by luminous strands.
Threads of light tangled around the elders: crimson cords of grief, gold strands of hope, black wires coiling with fear. Some threads knotted together, binding one elder to another in loyalty or rivalry. Some stretched thin toward the horizon, whispering of futures waiting to be claimed.
Sky-Torn blinked, his throat dry. The sight was intoxicating. Here were the hidden truths of the world, the unseen ropes that fate used to pull men like cattle toward their doom. And now, with a single thought, he felt he could pluck them. Twist them. Snap them.
He almost laughed.
Power was no longer a whisper in his dreams. It was a promise carved into the marrow of his bones.
But the air around him stank of accusation.
"You sought answers in shadows," Ash-Tooth said again, voice hardening as he struck his staff against the earth. "That fire should have burned you first, Shaman. That it did not only proves your treachery."
Murmurs rose among the gathered warriors and hunters. Some nodded in grim agreement. Others looked away, torn by unease. Children clutched their mothers' legs, staring at Sky-Torn as though he were a stranger.
Sky-Torn's jaw tightened.
And then, like oil dripping into water, a new voice stirred in his heart—the voice of the System itself, smooth and merciless.
System Suggestion:
Accept the role they thrust upon you. A villain is feared, but fear bends fate.
Task: Twist the council's judgment. Outcome determines Tribe Alignment.
Reward: +50 Villain Points if successful.
His pulse quickened. The temptation was heavy, sweet as fermented honey. The elders thought they saw rebellion in him, corruption in his blood. The System urged him to wear that mask proudly. To turn their judgment into chains that bound them to his will.
Sky-Torn raised his arms. The fire hissed as if answering.
"I saw what the others would not," he said, his voice carrying across the circle. "The pale men who drift upon water—they come with thundersticks that spit death, with iron teeth that bite deeper than our strongest arrows. They will trample the soil, take the rivers, break the sky. If we cling to the old ways blindly, we will be swallowed. But with the knowledge I bring, with the power I wield—we can steer their storm against them."
The crowd shifted uneasily. Some hunters exchanged glances, their knuckles white against the hafts of their spears. Among the younger warriors, Sky-Torn saw flickers of awe, the same hunger for survival that gnawed at his own belly.
But Ash-Tooth snarled in disgust.
"You would barter with curses!"
His voice cracked like thunder. "No people who embrace such things endure. You would lead us not to safety but into the jaws of the abyss."
Sky-Torn's gaze sharpened. With his new sight, he watched the elder's fate unravel before him. He saw the golden strand of loyalty that tied Ash-Tooth to the Hawk Clan, thick and strong, yet beneath it writhed a thin, brittle cord of fear that coiled around his throat. Fear of change. Fear of losing his place. Fear of the storm that was already coming.
Sky-Torn whispered a forbidden word beneath his breath. The ritual fire surged higher, tongues of flame leaping like predators.
Ash-Tooth's eyes widened. He stumbled back, his hand clawing at his chest as though unseen fingers were strangling him. His staff clattered against the earth.
Gasps erupted from the crowd.
"Elder!" cried one of the council.
But Sky-Torn held his hand steady, letting the elder writhe a heartbeat longer before lowering it. The invisible grip released. Ash-Tooth collapsed to his knees, coughing, clutching at the threadbare cord of his life.
The fire dimmed, but its message remained burned into every witness's heart.
Sky-Torn's voice was cold as the river in winter. "Fear is the only tongue the coming storm will understand. Better I wield it now, against one of our own, than watch our children drowned in the tide."
The silence that followed was thick enough to smother.
Then the System chimed again:
Villain System Update:
You have executed [Demonstration of Power].
Villain Points Earned: +50.
Reputation Change: [Hawk Clan] –50 Trust, +40 Fear.
The balance shifted before his eyes. No longer a council of equals—Sky-Torn had forced them into orbit around him. Fear had become the rope binding them, fear and the certainty that he alone held knowledge of the storm to come.
But even as the System rewarded him, he felt the mockery of the fire. Its crackle was like laughter, dry and merciless, as if it alone understood the truth: this victory was the first stone in the wall of infamy that history would one day build around his name.
The younger hunters outside the circle had seen everything. Their eyes were wide, their whispers spreading like wildfire: Shaman or monster? Savior or destroyer?
Ash-Tooth still knelt, breathing hard. His eyes were red with fury and shame. "You will break us," he rasped. "You will damn us."
Sky-Torn turned away, refusing to answer.
The flames sputtered, hissing as dawn's wind pressed against them. Smoke rose in a single column to the sky, carrying with it the scent of blood that had been spilled in secret hours before.
Sky-Torn's gaze drifted to the horizon. Beyond the treeline, past the river that gleamed like molten copper in the early light, pale sails already cut across the water.
Like the wings of carrion birds.
The storm he had warned of was no longer a vision, no longer a distant threat. It was here.
And the fire's laughter grew louder in his mind.