The air in the boardroom was stale, recycled and thick with the unspoken language of corporate warfare. Silas Croft found it as easy to read as a children's book. He sat, the picture of unassuming competence in his tailored but understated suit, his hands steepled before him. His expression was one of attentive concern.
"We can't just slash the marketing budget, it's suicidal!" David Rogers, head of sales, slammed a hand on the table. His face was flushed.
"And we can't afford to be stagnant!" Anya Sharma shot back, her voice sharp with ambition. "This digital transformation isn't an indulgence, David, it's critical for our survival in five years!"
Silas let them volley. He listened, cataloging the tells. Rogers's white-knuckled grip on his pen spoke of a man terrified of being seen as weak. Sharma's relentless eye contact and clipped sentences betrayed a desperation to justify her recent promotion. So simple. They were open books, and he was the only one who knew how to read.
Amateurs. Playing checkers with live pieces and thinking they're grandmasters. The sheer, staggering waste of it all.
After ten minutes, he finally leaned forward, a conciliatory gesture that immediately drew the room's focus. "David," he began, his voice a calm, resonant baritone, "you're absolutely right to protect the company's stability. It's the bedrock upon which everything is built." He turned slightly. "And Anya, your push for growth is the only thing that will keep us relevant in five years. This isn't a question of 'either/or.' It's about sequencing."
He paused, letting the silence work for him. "What if we re-allocated a portion of the Q3 innovation fund to shore up David's core stability metrics? That gives us the safety net to be far more aggressive with a streamlined, high-impact project in Q4. A calculated risk, instead of a reckless one."
And by the time Q4 arrives, Sharma's pet project will be strangled by the very 'streamlining' I'm suggesting. Rogers gets his short-term win, Sharma gets the blame for the eventual failure, and I will have quietly redirected the real resources to the project I designed. Two birds, one stone, and neither sees the hand that throws it.
The meeting dissolved into grateful murmurs. Two rivals, expertly maneuvered into a compromise that served only him. They thanked him. He offered a benign, weary smile.
An hour later, he stood in his corner office, looking out at the steel-and-glass skyline of a city he held in contempt. The silence here was different, a vacuum filled with the hum of the HVAC and the distant wail of sirens.
'Forty-three years. Forty-three years of smiling at the mediocre, of whispering sense into the ears of the wilfully stupid. This world is a cage of their own making, and they're too dull to even feel the bars.'
The thought was a cold, hard stone in his gut. His arrogance wasn't a flame; it was permafrost, deep and enduring.
Then, the world changed.
The hum of the HVAC died. Not with a sputter, but as if it had never existed. The city lights outside didn't flicker; they were simply extinguished, all at once, plunging the skyline into an impossible, pre-dawn gloom. An absolute, profound silence fell, so heavy it felt like a physical pressure. Then came the sensation not of pain, but of unmaking—a dizzying, vertiginous pull as the fabric of reality itself seemed to unravel around him.
A spike of primal fear shot through his system, an animal instinct for self-preservation. He crushed it instantly, his intellect rising to the fore like a steel trap. His final thought before the void took him wasn't What's happening? or Am I dying?
It was, Finally. A change in the game.
—
He awoke to the smell of blood and ozone.
The sterile office was gone. He was on his back, staring up at a violet sky through a canopy of alien, spiraling leaves. The air was warm, thick, and humid. He sat up, his body protesting, his suit now grimy and torn.
The scene was one of visceral, surreal horror. The glade was sun-dappled and beautiful, filled with bioluminescent fungi and strange, sweet-scented flowers. This beauty was brutally undercut by the carnage. A few feet away lay a body—or what was left of it. It looked less like it had been torn apart and more like it had been unraveled, flesh and bone separated into grisly threads. The coppery tang of blood was overwhelming.
A choked sob to his left. A woman in a ripped business suit—Sarah—was curled into a ball, rocking back and forth. A teenager, Lily, clutched a bleeding gash on her arm, her eyes wide with shock. A quiet man, Leo, simply stared at his hands, catatonic. A woman with a practical, athletic build—Chloe—was already on her feet, scanning the treeline with a grim focus.
And then there was the large one. Mark. He had a construction worker's build, thick neck, and heavy hands. He wasn't panicking. He was fuming, his fear manifesting as aggression. He strode over to the catatonic Leo and grabbed him by the arm, hauling him to his feet.
"You!" Mark growled, his voice low and threatening. "Stop your whimpering. We need to find water. You're coming with me to scout." It wasn't a suggestion. It was an intimidation tactic, a brute establishing dominance through fear.
Sarah flinched. Lily whimpered. The group's fear, which had been diffuse, now had a focal point: Mark.
Silas observed it all, his mind, blessedly, terrifyingly clear. He didn't see people. He saw variables. Assets and liabilities. Mark was an asset of pure force, but a liability of control. He needed to be… managed.
He didn't engage Mark directly. Instead, he moved, placing himself subtly between Mark and the terrified Sarah. He knelt, ignoring the damp soil soaking into his trousers.
"It's alright," he said to her, his voice calm and low, a stark contrast to Mark's growl. "The fear is a chemical reaction. It will pass. Breathe. In through the nose, out through the mouth. Good. My name is Silas."
He didn't look at Mark, but he felt the big man's gaze on him. He turned his head, addressing the group as a whole, his tone reasonable, inclusive.
"We're all disoriented. Acting out of fear is natural," he said, with a slight, almost imperceptible emphasis on the word, "but it's dangerous. We don't know the rules here. The first rule of any crisis is to assess, not assume."
He saw the slight relaxation in Chloe's shoulders. He saw Sarah latch onto his words like a lifeline. Mark scowled, but said nothing, releasing Leo's arm with a shove.
Next, Silas moved to Lily. The girl's wound was clean but deep. Mark had glanced at it and dismissed it. A liability.
Silas saw an opportunity.
"Let me see," he said, his voice shifting to a gentle, paternal tone. He ripped a clean strip from the tail of his own shirt. He found a broad leaf holding beads of morning dew, carefully soaking the cloth. "This looks painful, but it's clean. You're brave. Braver than I was at your age." He began cleaning the wound with a surprising, practiced efficiency. "We're going to need that bravery."
The girl is a point of vulnerability. By tending to her, I become the group's caregiver. The foundation of trust. The big man sees her as a liability. I see her as an asset. We are not the same.
"Sarah," he said, not looking up, his voice firm. "I need you to hold this for Lily. Press here. You're doing well."
It was just as he finished tying a makeshift bandage that the world shifted again. A cold, alien presence manifested in their minds, not as a voice, but as a direct, unforgiving data stream.
[The Crucible of Weeping Stars is active.]
[Mortality parameters engaged.]
[The Law of Inheritance is in effect.]
[Prove your worth or become fuel.]
A translucent, blood-red screen materialized before each of them. It was brutally minimalist.
[Silas Croft]
[Status: Unassigned]
[???]
The same message hung before the others. The horror on their faces was a fresh wave. The System's name alone was a poem of despair.
Before anyone could speak, a chittering sound echoed from the treeline. Something emerged. It was the size of a large dog, with a segmented, chitinous body the color of dried blood. Six multi-jointed legs carried it with a skittering, predatory grace. It had no eyes, just a mass of twitching, needle-like mouthparts.
[A Gore-Scuttler]
Panic returned, sharp and immediate.
"Oh god, what is that thing?!" Mark yelled, his bravado cracking. He grabbed a heavy, fallen branch, holding it like a club. His hands were shaking.
Silas's mind, however, was already working, analyzing. It moved with a skittish rhythm, its focus shifting between them. It saw Mark as the primary threat.
It's just an animal. A problem of applied force.
"Mark!" Silas's voice cut through the terror, low and intense, meant only for him. "It's an animal. It sees you as the biggest threat. It's your job to be that threat. We will distract it." He then raised his voice, directing the others with calm authority. "Chloe, Leo, when it charges Mark, you go for its legs. Try to unbalance it. Lily, find rocks. Sarah, get behind me. Mark… this is what a leader does."
He appealed to the man's ego, framing the suicide mission as a moment of destiny. Mark, galvanized, gave a grim nod.
The creature charged. It was a blur of chitin and claws. Mark roared, meeting it with a wild swing of his branch. The fight was a brutal, chaotic ballet of violence. Chloe and Leo, spurred by Silas's command, darted in, kicking and grabbing at its spindly legs. A rock from Lily bounced harmlessly off its carapace, but it was a distraction.
Mark, with a final, desperate heave, brought the branch down on the creature's head. There was a sickening crunch. The Gore-Scuttler twitched once and went still.
For a second, there was only the sound of heavy breathing. Then, the creature's body began to dissolve into a faint, crimson light. Most of it flowed into Mark, and the group watched, mesmerized and horrified, as the deep gash on his chest knitted itself shut, leaving shiny, new pink skin.
A notification flashed before everyone.
[Inheritance Available. Claim? Y/N]
The horror was now absolute. They understood. This was the Law of Inheritance.
But Silas saw something else. As the crimson light flowed into Mark, a single, silvery wisp of energy, faint as a moonbeam, detached from the dissolving corpse and flowed into him.
A private, crystalline message chimed in his mind.
[Insight Gained: Analysis of 'Gore-Scuttler' behavior patterns logged.]
[Passive Skill Fragment Acquired: Low-Grade Threat Assessment.]
The group was staring at Mark, then at the prompts, their faces a mask of revulsion and fear. Mark looked at his hands, the hands that had just absorbed the creature's essence, with a kind of terrified awe.
Silas turned away from them, looking at his own status screen. The mask of the concerned leader fell away, leaving his face a calm, blank slate. The seed was sown. The first move was made. And he had just learned the most important rule of all: this Crucible rewarded not just strength, but intellect.
The Law of Inheritance. Not just strength, but knowledge. They see a curse. I see a curriculum. This 'Crucible' doesn't want mindless brutes. It wants architects. And I have just been handed the first brick.
He looked at the group—the shaken brute, the wounded girl, the terrified woman, the pragmatic one, the broken man. They were no longer people. They were a set of specialized instruments for his own survival and ascent.
A small, cold, utterly genuine smile touched Silas Croft's lips. It did not reach his eyes.
"Finally," he whispered, his voice lost in the sighing of the strange, alien wind, "a world worthy of my design."