Arin's death was embarrassingly mundane.
There was no truck, no lightning bolt from a vengeful god, no dramatic sacrifice. There was only
a faulty wire, a puddle of water from a leaky apartment ceiling, and a single, convulsive jolt that
sent his world into silent, static-filled darkness.
His last thought was one of profound annoyance. All that planning... wasted.
He had lived his twenty-eight years on Earth by a simple, cold-blooded creed: life was a game
of inputs and outputs. Emotions were noise. People were tools. Morality was a handicap
invented by the weak to restrain the strong. He had been strong, a genius-level sociopath
climbing the corporate ladder with terrifying, calculated precision. He'd been two moves away
from a hostile takeover that would have made him a millionaire.
And now, a faulty wire. The sheer, banal stupidity of it was the only thing that truly angered him.
He floated in a void. There was no pain. No light. No pearly gates or fiery pits. There was only...
accounting.
[SOUL DETECTED. BINDING... 1%... 54%... 99%... BINDING COMPLETE.] [HOST
DESIGNATION: 734.] [SYSTEM INTEGRATION: THE ABYSSAL LEDGER. BOOTING...]
The cold, sans-serif text scrolled across his non-existent vision. Arin—or Host 734—did not
panic. He analyzed. This was new data. An unexpected variable.
[WELCOME, HOST. THE ABYSSAL LEDGER IS A TOOL OF ABSOLUTE QUANTIFICATION.]
[THERE ARE NO QUESTS. THERE ARE NO REWARDS. THERE IS ONLY DATA.] [ANALYZE.
EXPLOIT. CONSUME.] [BEGINNING REINCARNATION SEQUENCE...]
Sensation returned like a thousand icy needles. It was a horrifying, claustrophobic symphony of
unwanted input. He was wet. He was cold. He was weak. He tried to scream, but the sound that
escaped was a pathetic, gurgling wail.
A new set of data flooded his vision.
[BIOLOGICAL STATUS: INFANT (MALE)] [RACE: ASHEN-KIN (SHADOW-DESCENDANT)]
Same [PHYSIQUE: 1 (MALNOURISHED)] [MANA: 12 (LATENT)] [AFFINITY: SHADOW
(DORMANT), VOID (LOCKED)]
He was being held. Rough, calloused hands, yet they were trembling. A thin, reedy voice was
whispering in a language he shouldn't have understood, but the System was translating in
real-time.
"My... my son. Kaelen. You must live. Please, live..."
He forced his new, useless eyes to focus. A woman. No, a creature. Her skin was a pale,
unsettling grey, like old ash. Her eyes were a luminous, cat-like yellow, wide with terror and
exhaustion. Her hair was a matted tangle of black. She was skeletal, wrapped in rags, and
shivering in the damp, subterranean air.
This was his mother.
Kaelen's genius-level, sociopathic mind processed this with chilling clarity. This was his new
reality. He was weak. He was non-human. He was, judging by the smell of mold and waste, in a
slum.
This was a terrible starting position.
He instinctively activated his System, focusing his intent on the woman holding him.
[TARGET: ELARA (ASHEN-KIN)] [STATUS: EXHAUSTED, STARVING (2%), ANXIOUS,
FEARFUL (88%)] [LOYALTY (TOWARD HOST): 70 (MATERNAL INSTINCT - DEGRADING)]
[VALUE: 2/100 (TEMPORARY SHELTER)]
Kaelen almost smiled. It would have been a horrifying expression on an infant's face.
Loyalty: 70.
Even a mother's love was quantifiable. It was a resource. And a degrading one at that. If he
didn't provide a return on her investment—if he was just another screaming mouth to feed—that
70 would drop to zero. Then he would be discarded.
This was not a world for the weak. This was not a world for heroes. This was a world of
numbers.
The woman, Elara, flinched as a heavy boot kicked the rotten wood of their shack. A harsh,
drunken voice slurred from outside. "Pipe down in there, shadow-trash, or I'll silence that new
rat myself!"
Elara's fear spiked to [99%]. She held Kaelen tighter, stifling his cries against her own chest.
Kaelen stopped wailing. He didn't need the System to tell him that noise equaled death. He lay
perfectly still, his mind, the mind of Arin, already scheming.
He was a "rat." He was "shadow-trash." He was a weak, non-human infant born in a sewer.
But he had two things no one else did. A cold, calculating mind that felt no empathy.
And the Abyssal Ledger.
Analyze. Exploit. Consume.
This was not a second chance. This was a new ledger, and he would ensure that this time, he
owned the book, the bank, and the world itself. He closed his eyes, not to sleep, but to plan.