The first thing I heard wasn't silence.
It was whispers, crawling voices that slithered through my skull. They weren't words I recognized, just the shape of words, the way fear speaks before it finds a tongue.
My eyes opened to a ceiling split with black veins. They pulsed faintly, as though shadows were bleeding through the stone.
I inhaled sharply. The air tasted of rust and ashes, heavy enough to choke. Not winter's cold something colder. The cold of morgues, where even the air has given up.
"Where… am I?" My voice cracked, swallowed by the dark.
And then it appeared.
A panel of light, burning into my vision:
> [Nocturne System Online]
User: Chiel Veylen
Rank: F
Core: Fear (Dusk Variant)
Corruption Gauge: 2%
My breath caught.
Not because I didn't understand it—because I did.
System UI. Level overlays. Patch notes.
I'd spent my life designing them, building horror games no one outside the screen was supposed to suffer. I was a level designer. A world builder of nightmares.
Now I was standing inside one.
And it was standing inside me.
---
A scream split the silence.
Warped. Stretched. Like metal tortured into breaking. My body moved before thought, staggering toward a broken arch.
The city beyond was dead. Skyscrapers hunched like cadavers, their glass dripping shadows. The sky was static gray, pressing down like a weight.
People ran. Their faces weren't faces—blurred, corrupted textures, their fear visible in black vapor trailing from their skin.
And from that mist, something crawled.
Eyeless. Limbs bent wrong, flickering between frames of reality.
> [Wraith Detected]
Class: Lesser Eidolon Spawn
EN Source: Collective Fear
It screeched, jaw tearing too wide.
The civilians froze. The smell of their terror thickened the air.
And something inside me answered.
> [Fear Arena – Prototype]
Condition: Panic in Vicinity [✔]
The world shifted.
The cracked street melted into mirrored corridors. Walls rose from nowhere, endless reflections stretching into infinity.
The Wraith froze, head twitching.
I stared at my hands. I hadn't cast a spell. I'd loaded a level.
"This… is my arena."
---
The Wraith lunged, claws slashing mirrors into a hundred eyeless faces.
Terror stabbed my chest—but instead of shattering me, it poured into my veins.
> [Fear Harvest Triggered]
Source: User Fear [✔]
EN +10
My vision sharpened. My mind cleared. Fear wasn't killing me. Fear was feeding me.
I almost laughed.
The Wraith roared again. I grabbed a shard of broken glass and slashed its chest. Black ichor sprayed, sizzling. The monster reeled—yet my reflection in the shard didn't show fear.
It showed a grin I didn't remember making.
Eyes cracked with violet light.
> [Corruption Gauge +1%]
The Wraith screamed, the arena trembling.
Think, Chiel. Designers don't fight. They trap.
I slammed my palm to the mirrored floor.
> [Architect's Memory – Terrain Rewrite]
Patch: Candlefall Corridor
Every mirror lit with black candles. Their flames bled shadows like ink, serpents slithering around the Wraith, binding it.
The monster shrieked, unraveling.
"Game over," I whispered.
The corridor collapsed, shadows devoured it.
> [Enemy Neutralized]
EN +50
Corruption Gauge: 5%
When the street returned, the woman I'd saved was staring. Not thankful. Terrified.
Her voice shook. "Wh-what are you…?"
I looked down at broken glass. My reflection stared back, smiling with eyes no longer mine.
What am I?
---
Her question followed me like a curse.
Not what saved me.
What are you?
The words of the crowd blurred together.
"Nocturnes don't make nightmares."
"He feeds on fear."
"He's wrong. Wrong."
And every word sank into me as fuel.
> [Fear Harvest Complete]
EN +50
Corruption Gauge: 5%
I trembled, not from weakness, but from the rush. My old life had been lonely screens, late-night caffeine, building fake horrors for people who could turn them off.
Now I was playing with fear that had no off switch.
And it wanted me as much as I wanted it.
---
The ground shook.
A new scream rose—not one voice, but many. Shadows fused, pulling into a giant stitched together from panic. Its torso was a cavern of mouths, each wailing with the voices of the fleeing.
An Eidolon. Born not from one fear, but from all.
> [Lesser Eidolon Detected]
EN Source: Collective Panic
It grew with every terrified breath of the crowd.
And the thought should've terrified me.
Instead, I smiled.
"If fear fuels you…" I whispered, "…then fear fuels me more."
---
The air warped again, shadows bending.
> [Fear Arena – Expansion]
The city melted into an abandoned subway. Rails split the floor, broken lights buzzed overhead, and speakers hissed static: "…last train… no return…"
Faceless commuters stood frozen at the platform, twitching. Their hollow stares pinned the Eidolon into my stage.
This was no accident.
This was design.
---
The giant roared, smashing tiles. I pressed my hand to the floor.
"Let's choke you."
The rails twisted upward into jagged spikes. The tunnel collapsed into one narrow corridor.
The monster squeezed in, slowed, trapped.
> [Fear Harvest +120 EN]
New Skill: Arena Trap (Lesser)
Chains of shadow snapped up from the ground, binding its limbs. The Eidolon shrieked, dozens of mouths crying at once.
I staggered, my body screaming—but I grinned.
"This is a boss fight. And I'm the designer."
---
Then the burn hit.
A rush of heat through my veins, a crack in my vision. The glass walls showed not one me, but a dozen—each smiling wider.
> [Corruption Gauge: 12%]
The Eidolon tore free, lunging. I lifted my hand.
> [Architect's Memory – Terrain Rewrite]
Patch: Candlefall Tunnel
Every bulb shattered. Black fire dripped from sockets like wax. Phantom passengers poured from the shadows, faceless, countless. They swarmed the Eidolon, dragging it down.
Its mouths wailed. I picked up another shard of glass.
My reflection looked back with eyes glowing like cracked amethyst.
"This is my stage."
I drove the shard into its chest.
The subway howled. The mouths screamed one last time—then silence.
---
The street returned.
Ash drifted. Civilians cowered at the edges, not daring to come close.
> [Enemy Neutralized]
EN +180
Corruption Gauge: 12% – Elevated Risk
Their whispers spread like wildfire.
"That wasn't a Nocturne…"
"He didn't fight the spirit—he created it."
The words clung to me. A title. A brand. A curse.
"Fear Architect."
---
I turned away, leaving their stares behind. Their dread seeped into me, intoxicating.
In my old life, I created stages for games.
Now, I created stages for reality.
Maybe this world wasn't a punishment.
Maybe it was written for me.
The whispers in my skull chanted, louder than before:
> "More fear… more arenas… more power…"
My violet eyes glowed like cracked glass.
And I walked into the mist, no longer human, not yet monster—
but already the Architect of Fear.