The first thing Caelum felt was cold.
Not the honest cold of winter or stone, but something deeper—an invasive chill that seeped through flesh and bone, settling behind the eyes, clinging to thought itself. It was the kind of cold that did not numb. It watched.
He opened his eyes.
Darkness pressed close, thick and suffocating. For a moment, he thought he had gone blind. Then a torch flared to life somewhere ahead, its orange glow trembling as if afraid of what it revealed.
A stone chamber emerged from the gloom.
Circular. Sunken. Old beyond memory.
The walls were etched with symbols that hurt to look at too long—spirals within spirals, broken lines intersecting at impossible angles, prayers written in a language that scraped against the mind. The air smelled of iron, old incense, and something sweetly rotten.
Blood.
Caelum lay flat on his back, wrists bound to a slab of black stone. Cold metal bit into his skin—ritual restraints, engraved with faintly glowing sigils. He tried to move. Pain flared, sharp and immediate, warning him not to try again.
Around him, others stirred.
Twelve stone slabs formed a perfect circle. On each lay a body. Some groaned softly. Some whispered prayers. Some were silent in a way that already felt final.
A ritual.
The word surfaced slowly, reluctantly.
He remembered being led here. Hood over his head. Bare feet on damp steps. A voice murmuring that this was an honor. That he had been chosen.
A humorless thought crossed his mind.
Chosen for what?
Footsteps echoed.
Robed figures stepped into the torchlight, faces hidden behind porcelain masks painted with serene smiles. Gold thread traced the hems of their cloaks, forming symbols of the Path—the universal mark of ascension, authority, and divine favor.
At their center walked an old man with no mask.
High Initiate Veyron.
His skin was parchment-thin, stretched tight over sharp bones. His eyes burned with fervor, the kind that left no room for doubt—or mercy.
"Brothers and sisters," Veyron intoned, voice echoing unnaturally, "the hour has come."
A tremor ran through the chamber.
Caelum's heart began to pound.
"This is the Rite of Opening," Veyron continued. "Through it, the worthy shall glimpse their Path. Through it, the gods shall gaze upon us."
One of the initiates sobbed.
Another laughed hysterically.
Caelum said nothing.
He had learned, long ago, that silence was safer.
Veyron raised a gnarled hand. The robed figures moved as one, producing ceremonial knives—curved, obsidian-black, their edges shimmering faintly.
"Do not resist," Veyron said gently. "Resistance invites corruption."
The first scream tore through the chamber.
Blood spilled.
Symbols along the floor ignited, lines of crimson light racing outward from the center of the circle, connecting slab to slab, heart to heart. The air thickened. Pressure built behind Caelum's eyes, as if something massive were pressing down on his skull, testing the strength of his mind.
A presence descended.
It was not a voice. Not a thought.
It was attention.
Something vast brushed against the ritual, sifting through the participants like fingers through grain. Caelum felt it linger on each soul, weighing, judging, discarding.
One by one, the initiates convulsed.
Power surged into them—or tore them apart.
A young woman to Caelum's left arched violently, mouth open in a silent scream as golden light poured into her eyes. Symbols burned themselves into her flesh. Her body stabilized. She laughed, breathless and ecstatic.
"Path of the Saint," Veyron announced reverently.
To Caelum's right, a man screamed as his veins turned black. His skin split. Something inside him moved. Then he collapsed, twitching, eyes empty.
"Corruption," one of the robed figures muttered.
The chamber filled with death.
Caelum waited.
Seconds stretched.
Then minutes.
The pressure intensified—but nothing else happened.
No light.
No voice.
No revelation.
A murmur spread among the observers.
Veyron frowned.
"That is… strange," he said.
Caelum's pulse thudded in his ears.
The pressure shifted. Sharpened.
Pain exploded behind his eyes.
Something tried to enter him.
Not gently. Not with ceremony.
It forced its way in, probing, searching—then recoiled.
The pressure vanished.
The symbols on the floor flickered.
Then shattered.
The ritual circle imploded in a burst of light and sound.
Caelum screamed as pain unlike anything he had ever known ripped through him. Not physical pain—this was deeper, more intimate. It felt as though something fundamental had been torn loose, scraped raw.
Around him, bodies burst.
Not metaphorically.
Flesh ruptured. Bones snapped. Blood sprayed across the chamber walls as the remaining initiates were obliterated in an instant, their souls failing to contain what had been forced upon them.
Then—silence.
Caelum gasped, chest heaving. His restraints clattered loose, metal warped and useless.
He was alive.
He sat up slowly, head spinning.
The chamber was a slaughterhouse.
Every slab but his own was slick with blood and viscera. The torchlight flickered weakly, casting grotesque shadows over the remains of what had once been people.
The robed figures lay scattered, broken. Some were dead. Some were twitching.
Veyron stood alone.
The old man stared at Caelum, eyes wide—not with anger, but with fear.
"You…" Veyron whispered. "You should not exist."
Caelum slid off the slab, feet unsteady.
"What happened?" he asked hoarsely.
Veyron laughed—a thin, cracking sound. "The ritual failed."
"No," Caelum said softly. "It didn't."
The symbols on the walls were changing.
Not glowing.
Bleeding.
Lines of black seeped through the carvings, dripping downward like ink. The air vibrated with a low, distant hum.
A voice spoke.
Not aloud.
Inside Caelum's mind.
> [ERROR]
The word appeared without sound, etched directly into his thoughts.
> [PATH ASSIGNMENT FAILED]
Caelum staggered, clutching his head.
"What… is that?" he breathed.
Veyron backed away. "Impossible," he muttered. "The System never fails. It—"
The voice continued.
> [RECALIBRATING]
[SUBJECT: UNREGISTERED]
[ANOMALY DETECTED]
Pain flared again, but this time Caelum did not scream.
Images flooded his mind—broken chains, empty thrones, gods with hollow eyes. He saw Paths stretching into infinity, each ending in a towering figure crowned in light… or rot.
And beneath it all, a hunger.
Not his.
Something else's.
> [NO COMPATIBLE PATH FOUND]
The words lingered.
Then faded.
The presence withdrew.
The chamber fell still.
Caelum collapsed to his knees, breath ragged, vision swimming.
Veyron dropped to the floor, sobbing. "We're doomed," he whispered. "You've doomed us."
Caelum looked at his hands.
They were shaking.
But he was alive.
No Path. No blessing. No corruption.
Nothing.
For the first time in recorded history, the System had looked at a human soul—and found nothing it could claim.
He rose slowly.
Veyron crawled backward, eyes never leaving him. "Don't come closer," he begged. "You're wrong. You're wrong. You're—"
Caelum stopped in front of him.
"I was chosen," he said quietly.
Veyron shook his head violently. "No. You were a mistake."
Caelum considered that.
Then he reached down, picked up one of the fallen ritual knives, and weighed it in his hand.
"Then I'll have to survive as one."
The blade flashed.
Blood pooled.
As Veyron's body fell limp, a strange sensation stirred within Caelum—faint, fragile, like the echo of something breaking.
Not power.
Not yet.
But potential.
Outside the chamber, alarms began to ring.
Boots thundered on stone.
They were coming.
Caelum wiped the blade clean on his sleeve, heart steady despite the chaos closing in.
Somewhere deep inside him, something stirred—and smiled.
Unseen.
Unwritten.