The world didn't end with a bang, but with the sickening groan of tectonic plates grinding against concrete.
One moment, Sebastian was staring at a chalkboard, the mundane drone of his teacher's voice competing with the distant rattle of windowpanes. The next, the floor turned to liquid. The scream of the earth was a deafening, bass-heavy roar that swallowed the school whole. As the ceiling pancaked down, a final, jagged thought flickered through his mind: I never finished my playthrough.
Then, silence. A silence so heavy it felt like being buried in cold velvet.
Sebastian opened his eyes. He wasn't under rubble. He was lying on a bed of damp pine needles, staring up at a sky choked with grey, oppressive clouds that felt uncomfortably close. He scrambled to sit up, expecting the sharp sting of broken bones or the weight of a desk, but there was only a strange, humming warmth.
He looked down and gasped. His school uniform was gone. In its place were heavy, ink-stained robes of charcoal silk that smelled of old parchment and metallic incense. Across his vision, a translucent script began to bloom like a drop of ink in water.
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[SYSTEM INITIALIZED: MISSION - SPREAD THE TRUE FAITH]
[STATUS: INITIAL AFFINITY RECOGNIZED — THE THREE TIERS]
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A flood of knowledge hit him—not as memories, but as animal instincts. He knew how to twist the air into a Red Arc of lightning; he felt the spectral Chains of Torment rattling in his own shadow, eager to be summoned.
"The Gods are good," Sebastian whispered. The words felt right on his tongue, though they tasted of iron and ancient dust. "The world is just... broken."
A guttural growl broke the silence. From the thicket, three Nekkers emerged—hairless, grey-skinned scavengers with claws designed for digging through graves. They saw a boy in robes; they saw a meal.
Sebastian didn't run. The System pulsed, guiding his hand toward a jagged river stone at his feet. He picked it up and, biting his thumb, traced a bleeding sigil onto its rough surface.
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[RITUAL COMPLETE: EMPTY SOUL STONE CREATED]
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The rock shivered in his palm, its grey surface turning into a hollow, translucent crystalline vessel.
The lead Nekker lunged. Sebastian raised his hand, his fingers twitching with a power that felt like a coiled, electric snake. "Red Arc!"
A jagged bolt of crimson energy leapt from his palm. It didn't just strike the monster; it judged it. The Nekker's nervous system exploded in a shower of sparks, sending it into a violent convulsion before it hit the dirt, dead before its heart stopped.
Sebastian held the stone aloft. A faint, glowing mist—a mere fragment of the creature's essence—was pulled into the crystal. The rest of the Nekker's dim spirit flickered and rose, drifting away into the trees, whole and unburdened.
t's still there, Sebastian realized, watching the spirit depart. The soul isn't gone. I'm just taking the tithe needed to fix this place.
Two more growls echoed. He turned, the Blood Sword beginning to manifest in his right hand, a blade of solidified, holy hemoglobin. The forest was dark, the war-torn land of Temeria was bleeding, and Sebastian Johnson was finally ready to start his work.
He would prune the rot. He would save the people. He would put the Continent on the right track, one fragment at a time.
The journey toward White Orchard was not a trek of survival, but a methodical reaping. With every step through the sodden Temerian brush, Sebastian felt the Reveal Aura pulsing behind his eyes. The forest, once a wall of dark silhouettes, was now a map of glowing heat signatures. He saw the dim, sickly yellow flickers of Drowners lurking by the riverbanks and the frantic, jagged pulses of Wolves circling in the distance.
He didn't hunt with the desperation of a survivor; he hunted with the efficiency of a priest purifying a temple.
When a water-bloated Drowner lunged from the reeds, its skin slick with river muck, Sebastian didn't flinch. He simply pointed a pale finger toward its center. "Rot." The air around the creature curdled. In an instant, the monster's grey, rubbery flesh began to liquefy, its joints turning to mush as the divine decay took hold. As it collapsed, whimpering and weakened, Sebastian finished the work with a single, humming stroke of his Blood Sword or a focused burst of Red Arc.
The Soul Stone in his pocket grew heavier, warmer. Another fragment harvested. Another spirit sent, unburdened, to the beyond.
By the time the wooden palisades of White Orchard appeared through the mist, Sebastian had gathered a dozen shards. He looked like a nightmare—ink-black robes splattered with monster ichor—but his mind was eerily calm. The "Right Track" was becoming visible.
He entered the village square to the sound of screaming and the sharp scent of dry dust.
A mob of peasants, faces twisted by hunger and the heat of a failed season, had cornered a small group of Elves near the village well. A stout man with a pitchfork was shoving an elven woman, her ears ragged and her clothes torn.
"You pointed-eared bastards brought this!" the man roared, his voice cracking with desperate rage. "The Eternal Fire is punishing us because you breathe our air! No rain for a month, the crops are turning to dust, and you lot are still fat on forest berries!"
"We have done nothing!" the elf hissed, clutching a terrified child to her side, her eyes darting for an escape that wasn't there. "The sky is dry for everyone, human! Your 'Fire' is just a name for your own hate!"
Sebastian stood at the edge of the crowd, his dark robes catching the wind as he witnessed the cycle of ignorance. The humans clung to their fake fire, the elves to their fading pride, and neither saw the True Gods watching from the shadows of the world. This was the opportunity he had been waiting for.