Alex's mind cursed his existence.
All he had ever wanted was a quiet, forgettable life. The horror of what he'd done lingered only in fragments now, details smeared and indistinct, as if the void itself had decided his sanity was worth preserving.
The system, however, remembered perfectly.
[ SYSTEM MESSAGE ]
Void Entity Slain: Stone Infant
Void Scale: 0–5–0
Elimination Credit: Full
[ RUNES DETECTED ]
Tempus (V) ×1
Chaos (II) ×1
Lux (I) ×1
His heart stuttered.
Tier V. Tier II. Tier I.
Even among awakened elites, rewards like this were unheard of.
Tempus embedded itself first — not painfully, but insistently — a whisper of time brushing the edges of his thoughts. Chaos followed, raw and restless, stirring possibilities he refused to examine too closely. Lux settled last, steady and familiar, a thin thread anchoring him to something human.
For one fragile moment, exhilaration drowned out everything else.
He had survived.
Not escaped. Not endured.
Survived.
The void receded to the edges of his awareness as ambition crept in, uninvited. Magic. Runes. Battle arts. The path forward unfolded in his mind with terrifying clarity.
Then memory caught up.
He accepted the runes quickly, breath tight in his chest. Training drilled into every academy student made the risk clear: absorbing runes from a Void Entity whose Karma exceeded one's Revolution was an invitation to madness.
He checked again.
Low.
Catastrophically powerful — but karmically light.
He would live.
[ RUNES INTEGRATED ]
Affinities Activated:
Temporal Chaos Lux
Reality sharpened.
Colors bent at the edges. Sounds stretched just a fraction too long. For an instant, he swore he saw shadows move before their sources did.
Alex clenched his fists until the sensations dulled.
Relief came slowly, settling into his bones.
He had passed.
If the system's judgment meant anything at all… then whatever came next, he would face it.
Time felt wrong — like a door left ajar — but he pushed the thought aside.
For now, he slept.