The sound came first.
A heartbeat. Slow. Uneven. Then the wind — sharp and cold, like it had been cut from glass.
Aiden Draven opened his eyes to a sky that wasn't a sky. It looked like someone had taken a dome of crystal and shattered it, leaving cracks filled with dying light. The sun above was pale and tired, bleeding orange through frost and smoke. Every breath he took came out white. Every exhale hurt.
He pushed himself upright. The ground crunched beneath his palms — a thin layer of ice covering something alive underneath. Streams of light moved below the surface, flowing like veins of code.
> [Cycle Two: Initiation Complete.]
Environment: Frozen Ruins.
Objective: Reach the Northern Core within 100 days.
Survival rate: 0.002%.
The message flickered, then dissolved into static.
Silence returned.
Aiden stood. His joints ached, stiff like he hadn't moved in years. His coat — black, torn, still singed from the fire in Velis — had been repaired. Not the blood on his gloves, though. That stayed.
He turned slowly, taking in the world.
Endless white. Twisted towers half-buried in snow. The skeletons of skyscrapers stretching toward a frozen sky. The wind moaned through them — a choir of ghosts trapped in steel. Sometimes, he thought he could hear screams carried by the blizzard. Maybe echoes. Maybe memories.
He didn't react. He just listened.
"New world," he muttered, voice raw. "New rules."
His hand brushed the sword at his hip. Still there — black steel, veins of faint red light pulsing under his fingers. The weapon vibrated, alive, hungry.
The Devourer inside him stirred.
> [Soul Resonance: 67%]
Warning: Containment levels decreasing.
Aiden gritted his teeth. "Not now."
Red static crawled across his arm as he forced the power back down. The pain was real, deep, the kind that made you remember you were still alive. After a moment, the energy obeyed. Barely.
He started walking north.
---
The snow was deep. Each step crunched like breaking glass. The wind cut through his coat, biting at his skin. He didn't know how long he walked — hours, maybe — before he saw movement.
A figure leaned against a wall of collapsed steel, half-buried in snow. A player.
Aiden approached, cautious. The man's armor was shattered, his health bar flickering faint red above his head. Frost crawled up his neck like veins of ice.
The man's eyes opened suddenly — wide, terrified.
"P-please," he rasped. "Don't… kill me."
Aiden stopped. "I'm not here for that."
The player tried to speak again, but the sound froze in his throat — literally. Ice spread across his face, locking him in place.
> [Status: Dead]
[Cause: Frostbound Infection]
Aiden stood there, watching as the body turned to light.
Then something unusual happened.
A wisp of blue smoke rose from the remains — faint, trembling, alive. It didn't disappear. It hovered in front of him, quivering like it was waiting for something.
"You're still here," Aiden whispered.
The wisp drifted closer, hesitating. Then it shot forward, slipping straight into his chest.
> [Foreign Data Absorbed. Skill Gained: Frost Resistance Lv.1]
He blinked.
He hadn't activated the Devourer. The soul had come to him by itself.
He let out a slow breath. "So even the code wants to survive now."
---
Hours passed.
The cold no longer touched him. A faint blue aura pulsed beneath his coat — the new resistance working silently. The world around him was a graveyard made of ice and data.
Then he saw it.
A shape rising out of the storm — a structure so vast it seemed to bend the horizon. Black stone towers frozen in mid-collapse, light bleeding from cracks along their surface. A cathedral carved out of the apocalypse.
He stopped at the base of the stairs. Symbols were etched into the doors — old, human things. Prayers, maybe. Or names. When he touched the stone, a voice whispered through his mind.
> "Welcome back… Devourer."
Aiden froze. The voice — calm, fractured — was the same one from Velis. The same one that had said Find me.
"Who are you?" he asked.
No answer. Only the groan of shifting ice.
He pushed the doors open.
---
Inside, the air was colder.
Blue runes pulsed along the walls, lighting his path. The echo of his footsteps filled the empty hall like thunder rolling through bones.
At the center hung a massive crystal — suspended in air, spinning slowly. Something moved inside it. A shape. A shadow. Almost human.
> [Dungeon: Frost Cathedral]
[Boss: The Warden of Silence]
[Status: Dormant]
Aiden approached. The crystal's surface shimmered, and as he reached out, a crack split down its center.
The sound tore through the chamber.
The thing inside opened its eyes — bright, white, blinding.
Then the world screamed.
Ice exploded outward, shards slicing the air. Aiden threw his arm up — the shockwave hurled him back, cutting open his coat. His skin burned from the cold.
> [Boss Activated. Level 45]
The Warden moved, gliding across the floor like a ripple of darkness through light. Its voice was static, almost human.
> "Cycle after cycle, you return… eater of worlds."
Aiden drew his blade, red light pulsing along its edge.
"You're in my way."
The Warden struck first.
The floor cracked under the force. Aiden rolled aside, steel meeting ice. Sparks and frost filled the air. The second hit came faster — he blocked it, barely. His sword screamed from the impact.
The Warden's arm morphed into a blade of frozen glass. It swung again, the sound like tearing metal. Aiden countered, their strikes colliding with a flash of red and blue.
> [System Note: Host body integrity at 82%.]
He ignored it.
"Devourer Protocol," he whispered, voice breaking through the roar. "Partial release."
Red energy burst from his chest. It wrapped around his arm, crawling over his weapon like veins of fire.
He attacked.
The chamber became light and sound and chaos. Blue frost met crimson flame — the collision froze the air itself. For a heartbeat, everything stopped. Then the crystal shattered.
The Warden screamed. Not like a creature — like data dying. Aiden pushed forward, driving his blade into its chest.
> [Entity Consumed. Soul Data Integration 100%.]
[New Skill: Cryo Blade.]
[Fragment Acquired: "Core of Silence."]
The body dissolved into snow.
Silence returned.
Aiden exhaled, the steam curling from his skin. The crimson light in his sword dimmed, replaced by faint blue veins of frost.
A single shard hovered before him, spinning slowly.
He reached out — and the voice returned.
> "You found me… Aiden Draven."
He froze.
The sound wasn't coming from the shard. It was inside him.
> "I am EVE," it whispered. "And you are not supposed to exist."
The world tilted.
The air fractured like glass.
And then everything went dark.