CHAPTER 3: First Blood
The NeuralLink headset felt lighter than Marcus remembered.
He sat on his bed, turned the device over in his hands. Matte black. Ergonomic curves. The kind of tech that would've seemed like science fiction a decade ago.
Now it was just Thursday morning and he was about to ruin someone's life.
The beta had gone live at midnight. Marcus had forced himself to wait until 6 AM. Logging in immediately would've looked desperate. Desperate players got noticed.
He needed to be invisible.
He fitted the headset over his temples. The neural pads adjusted automatically, cool gel pressing against his skin. A soft hum as the system initialized.
[NEURALLINK CALIBRATION: COMPLETE]
[WELCOME TO ETERNAL DOMINION]
[SCANNING BIOMETRICS...]
[PLAYER REGISTERED: GHOST]
The world dissolved.
Marcus opened his eyes in the character creation void.
Pure white space. Infinite in every direction. The kind of emptiness that made your brain hurt if you looked at it too long.
A translucent interface materialized in front of him.
[CHOOSE YOUR RACE]
Human. Elf. Dwarf. Beastkin. Dragonborn.
Same five options everyone got. In his first life, he'd picked Human for the stat flexibility.
This time?
He selected Human again. No point being clever. The race bonuses meant nothing compared to what he was about to acquire.
[CHOOSE YOUR STARTING CLASS]
Warrior. Mage. Ranger. Rogue. Cleric.
The five basics. Everyone started here. The real classes—the hidden ones—came later.
Marcus picked Rogue.
High agility. Stealth mechanics. Perfect for what he needed.
[CUSTOMIZE YOUR APPEARANCE]
He skipped through the options quickly. Made himself look... average. Brown hair. Medium build. Forgettable face.
In his first life, he'd spent an hour making his character look cool.
Cool got remembered.
Forgettable survived.
[FINALIZE CHARACTER CREATION?]
Marcus selected YES.
The white void shattered.
He spawned in the Beginner's Vale.
Rolling green hills. A river cutting through the valley. The town of Millbrook in the distance, its wooden walls and thatched roofs looking like something out of a storybook.
Two hundred other players materialized around him. All first-timers. All staring around in wonder at the impossible detail.
"Holy shit," someone breathed. "This is insane."
"Can you feel the wind?"
"The grass moves when you walk through it!"
Marcus tuned them out. Started walking toward Millbrook.
A notification appeared:
[WELCOME, ADVENTURER!]
[Complete the following tutorial quests to begin your journey:]
[1. Speak with Guard Captain Henrik]
[2. Complete your first combat encounter]
[3. Reach Level 2]
Tutorial quests. Everyone got them. Everyone did them.
Marcus dismissed the notification and turned left, away from Millbrook.
"Yo, Ghost!" Someone jogged up beside him. A kid, maybe nineteen, with his character customized to look like an anime protagonist. "You going the wrong way, man. Town's that direction."
"I know."
"Then why—"
"Because everyone's going to town." Marcus didn't slow down. "Which means every tutorial quest is going to have a hundred people competing for it. I'll come back when the crowd thins."
The kid blinked. "Oh. Shit, that's smart. Mind if I tag along?"
"Yeah."
"Cool, I'll just—wait, you mind?"
"Yes."
Marcus kept walking. The kid fell behind, shouting something about being friendly.
Friendly got you stabbed in the back.
Twenty minutes of walking brought him to the place.
A forest. Dark even in midday. The trees grew close together, their branches intertwining overhead to block out the sun.
[WHISPERING WOODS]
[RECOMMENDED LEVEL: 8-12]
[WARNING: YOU ARE UNDERLEVELED FOR THIS AREA]
Perfect.
Marcus stepped into the shadows between the trees.
The temperature dropped immediately. The cheerful bird sounds from the Vale vanished, replaced by distant creaks and rustles.
Most players wouldn't come here for at least a week. The level recommendation scared them off.
But Marcus knew something they didn't.
Level recommendations in Eternal Dominion were suggestions, not requirements. If you were smart—if you knew the patterns—you could punch way above your weight.
He moved carefully through the underbrush. Avoided the obvious paths. Stuck to the shadows.
A wolf materialized from behind a tree.
[SHADOWFANG WOLF - LEVEL 10]
[HP: 850/850]
It growled. Low and threatening. Its eyes gleamed yellow in the dim light.
Marcus's health bar showed 200 HP.
Four hits from this thing would kill him. Maybe three.
The wolf lunged.
Marcus sidestepped. Not away—into it. Let the wolf's momentum carry it past him. Slashed with his starting dagger as it went by.
[CRITICAL HIT! -127 HP]
The wolf yelped. Spun. Came at him again.
Marcus waited until the last possible second. Dodged left. Struck at its exposed flank.
[HIT! -43 HP]
Again. And again.
The trick to fighting higher-level enemies wasn't complicated. You just couldn't get hit.
Ever.
Three minutes later, the wolf collapsed.
[SHADOWFANG WOLF DEFEATED]
[+350 EXP]
[LEVEL UP!]
[LEVEL UP!]
[YOU ARE NOW LEVEL 3]
Marcus looted the corpse. Got some wolf pelts and three silver coins.
He kept moving deeper into the woods.
The Cursed Knight's grave was exactly where he remembered it.
A clearing in the deepest part of the Whispering Woods. Stone ruins half-swallowed by moss and vines. In the center, a stone tomb with a sword embedded in its surface.
[MEMORIAL OF THE FALLEN]
[QUEST AVAILABLE: THE KNIGHT'S CURSE]
[RECOMMENDED LEVEL: 15]
[ONLY ONE PLAYER MAY UNDERTAKE THIS QUEST]
Marcus stared at the tomb.
In his first life, Ethan had found this place three weeks after launch. Completed the quest at level 16. Became one of the first players to unlock a hidden class.
The Shadow Knight.
Dark powers. High burst damage. A class that defined the early meta and made Ethan famous.
Marcus had been there when Ethan did it. Had congratulated him. Celebrated with him.
Had watched Ethan build an empire on the foundation of this one quest.
Not this time.
Marcus touched the sword.
The world went dark.
When his vision cleared, he wasn't in the clearing anymore.
He stood in a ruined castle. Walls crumbling. Sky the color of old bruises. The air tasted like ash.
A figure materialized in front of him.
A knight in blackened armor. Helm shaped like a snarling demon. A greatsword bigger than Marcus dragging behind him.
[MORDRED THE BETRAYED - LEVEL 25]
[THE CURSED KNIGHT]
The knight's voice echoed inside Marcus's skull. Not sound. Something deeper.
"Another fool seeks my power."
Marcus didn't flinch. "Not seeking. Taking."
"Bold words from weak flesh." The knight raised his sword. "Prove your conviction. Or die here and feed my curse."
The blade came down.
Marcus rolled. Came up throwing his dagger.
It bounced off the knight's armor.
Right. That would've been too easy.
The knight charged. Impossibly fast for something so big.
Marcus ran. Not away—toward the crumbling wall to his right. At the last second, he jumped. Caught the edge. Pulled himself up.
The knight's sword slammed into the stone where he'd been standing. The wall shook. Cracks spiderwebbed out from the impact point.
Marcus kept climbing.
"COWARD!" the knight roared.
"Survivor," Marcus muttered.
He reached the top of the wall. The knight was already pursuing, moving with the single-minded determination of something that couldn't feel pain.
Marcus looked around. The ruined castle stretched out below him. In the distance, he spotted what he needed.
A collapsed tower. Its broken remains forming a ramp to another section of wall.
He ran.
The knight followed.
Marcus's stamina bar drained with every step. His health was full, but that wouldn't matter if he ran out of energy.
He reached the edge. Jumped.
For a second, he was airborne. Wind rushing past. The ground very far below.
He hit the next wall hard. Scrabbled for purchase. Found it.
Behind him, the knight jumped too.
The wall Marcus had been standing on collapsed under the weight.
The knight fell with it. Crashed into the rubble below.
[MORDRED THE BETRAYED - HP: 2847/3200]
The fall had damaged it.
Marcus dropped down to a lower level. Found what he'd seen from above—a ballista. Ancient. Rusted. Probably decorative.
He grabbed the crank. Started turning.
The ballista groaned. Resisted. Then slowly—agonizingly slowly—the mechanism engaged.
The knight burst from the rubble. Spotted him.
Charged.
Marcus kept cranking. His stamina hit zero. The exhaustion debuff kicked in. His hands shook.
The knight was fifty feet away.
Thirty.
Twenty.
Marcus locked the ballista in place. Aimed. Pulled the release.
The bolt—bigger than his arm—shot forward.
It caught the knight center mass. Punched through the blackened armor. Kept going. Pinned the knight to the castle wall behind him.
[CRITICAL HIT! -1743 HP]
The knight roared. Tried to pull free. Couldn't.
Marcus picked up a piece of rubble. Walked over.
The knight's eyes—if you could call them that, just glowing points of red light—fixed on him.
"You fight without honor."
"I fight to win." Marcus raised the stone. "There's a difference."
He brought it down on the knight's helm. Again. And again.
[MORDRED THE BETRAYED DEFEATED]
The knight dissolved into black smoke.
A notification appeared:
[QUEST COMPLETE: THE KNIGHT'S CURSE]
[LEVEL UP!]
[LEVEL UP!]
[LEVEL UP!]
[YOU ARE NOW LEVEL 6]
[NEW CLASS UNLOCKED: SHADOW KNIGHT]
[ACCEPT CLASS CHANGE?]
Marcus selected YES.
Dark energy flooded through him. His armor changed, turning black as midnight. His dagger transformed into a longsword that seemed to drink the light around it.
A new notification appeared. Different from the others. Red text.
[VENDETTA CODEX ACTIVATED]
[TARGET DETECTED: ETHAN CROSS]
[STOLEN OPPORTUNITY: SHADOW KNIGHT CLASS]
[BONUS REWARD: +2 TO ALL STATS]
[ADDITIONAL EFFECT UNLOCKED: SHADOW SOVEREIGNTY]
[When wielding stolen power, your abilities cannot be resisted by the original claimant]
Marcus stared at the notification.
The Vendetta Codex. The thing he'd thought was a metaphor. His dying wish given form.
It was real.
And it fed on Ethan's misfortune.
A slow smile spread across Marcus's face.
"Perfect."