The iron gallows of the Holy Dominion stood like a jagged, obsidian tooth against the bleeding sunset of Oakhaven. Rain, cold and relentless, lashed against the cobblestones of the Great Plaza, washing away the scent of cheap incense but failing to cleanse the copper tang of impending death. Thousands had gathered in a hushed, terrified reverence, their faces blurred by hoods and shadows, looking like a sea of gray ghosts waiting for a miracle or a massacre.
Sylas stood among the outer ring of the Inquisitorial guards, his posture rigid, his hand gripping the cold haft of a standard-issue halberd. To any observer, he was merely a twenty-one-year-old auxiliary, a disposable cog in the Dominion's vast machine of light and order. His face was a mask of dull, submissive obedience, the kind that survived the longest in the barracks of the Third Inquisition Unit. But behind those hollow eyes, Sylas was counting heartbeats. He was measuring the distance to the execution platform and calculating the exact angle of the wind. He was a scavenger, born in the gutters of the borderlands, and he knew that when a titan fell, the crows fed best.
At the center of the platform stood Duke Valerius. Once the "Shield of the Western Marches," he had been stripped of his titles, his honor, and his humanity. Now, he was the "Demon Duke," a monster created by the decree of the High Synod. His massive frame was bound by silver-etched chains that glowed with a sickeningly bright holy radiance, burning into his skin and leaving charred, smoking wounds. His mana veins had been severed by obsidian needles, a torture meant to ensure he died as a mortal, powerless and humiliated.
"Behold the filth that dares to defy the Divine Will!" High Inquisitor Malachi bellowed from the balcony above. His white robes remained pristine despite the lashing rain, and his voice, amplified by holy resonance, boomed like thunder over the plaza. "Valerius has traded his soul for the whispers of the Abyss! He has sought to extinguish the Eternal Flame with his pride! Today, the Light reclaims its debt!"
The crowd let out a low, practiced roar. It was a sound driven not by justice, but by a desperate need to believe that their own suffering was for a higher purpose. Sylas watched Malachi, noting the way the priest's fingers twitched with a greedy anticipation. The Dominion thrived on these spectacles. Every decade required a new villain, a new shadow for the light to conquer, reinforcing the lie of their divine protection.
Sylas shifted his weight, his eyes locking onto Valerius. The Duke raised his head. His eyes were not the eyes of a broken man. They were crimson shards of defiance, bottomless and ancient. As the heavy, silver-edged axe of the executioner caught the fading light, Valerius's gaze swept across the guards. For a fraction of a second, his eyes met Sylas's.
In that instant, the world for Sylas turned into a monochrome blur. The sound of the rain vanished, replaced by a low, vibrating hum that seemed to originate from the very center of his brain.
Inherit...
The voice was not a sound; it was an impact. It was the weight of a dying empire slamming into his consciousness.
The executioner kicked Valerius's knees, forcing him onto the block. The Duke didn't struggle. He laughed—a silent, shoulder-shaking rasp that made the priest on the balcony flinch. The axe rose. It hung at the apex of its arc, a sliver of silver against the dark clouds. Then, it fell.
A sickening thud echoed across the plaza. The head of the Demon Duke rolled across the wooden planks, but the blood that sprayed was not red. It was a violent, pulsing violet energy that defied the laws of gravity. To the thousands in the crowd, it looked like the final dissipation of a cursed soul, a flash of darkness being extinguished by the holy air. To the priests, it was a successful purge.
But to Sylas, it was a bridge.
The violet mist ignored the holy barriers. It ignored the silver wards and the chanting monks. It surged through the air like a starving predator, veering away from the platform and toward the periphery of the plaza. It ignored the High Inquisitor and the Elite Knights. It screamed toward the lowliest guard in the Third Unit.
The energy slammed into Sylas's chest with the force of a battering ram. He didn't fly backward; instead, his feet seemed to root into the cobblestones. His vision fractured into a thousand shards of memory.
[Legacy Assimilation Initiated.]
[Host Identified: Sylas (Vessel of the Void).]
[Condition Met: The Scavenger who lacks faith.]
[Inheriting First Legacy: The Demon Duke, Valerius.]
[Acquiring Core Authority: Dread Aura.]
The pain was exquisite. It felt as if his veins were being filled with molten lead, and his bones were being etched with needles made of ice. Sylas's jaw locked as he fought the urge to scream. If he made a sound now, he would be dead before the first flash of power faded. He forced his breathing to remain steady, even as his heart hammered a rhythm that felt entirely too heavy for a human chest.
Images flooded his mind—flashes of a burning throne room, the feeling of a black dragon's scales beneath his palms, the sound of a thousand knights kneeling in a terrifying, rhythmic clatter of armor. He felt the Duke's "Regret." It wasn't a regret for the people he had killed, but a cold, crystalline fury at the betrayal of the Church. Valerius hadn't been a demon; he had been a man who refused to be a slave, and the Church had rewritten his history in his own blood.
"Soldier! Eyes front! What are you staring at?"
A heavy boot struck Sylas's shin. It was Sergeant Kael, a man whose cruelty was only matched by his sycophancy. Kael leaned in, his breath smelling of stale ale and onions. "Don't tell me you're fainting over a bit of heretic blood, you pathetic gutter-rat. Stand up straight or I'll have you whipped for cowardice before the Duke's body is even cold."
Sylas didn't blink. He slowly turned his head to look at Kael.
In that moment, Sylas unconsciously allowed a fraction of the [Dread Aura] to leak out. It wasn't a physical strike, but a psychological one. To Kael, the world seemed to grow unnaturally dark. The rain felt like needles of ice, and the young recruit before him suddenly seemed to loom like a mountain. For a heartbeat, Kael didn't see Sylas; he saw a bottomless pit of shadows where a human face should be. His heart skipped a beat, and a primal, reptilian fear took hold of his spine.
Kael stumbled back, his face turning an ashen gray. He tripped over his own feet, falling onto the wet cobblestones with a humiliated splash. "I... I..." he stammered, his bravado vanishing like smoke in a gale.
"My apologies, Sergeant," Sylas said. His voice was calm, devoid of any emotion, sounding like the grinding of stones in a deep well. "The glare of the holy light was simply... overwhelming."
Kael scrambled to his feet, glancing around to see if any other guards had noticed his stumble. He hissed a curse, but he didn't dare approach Sylas again. He felt a cold sweat breaking out across his brow, a lingering sense of dread that told him his life hung by a thread he couldn't see. He barked an order to another recruit and moved away as fast as his legs would carry him.
Sylas looked back at the platform. The Duke's body was being dragged away like trash. The "miracle" was over, and the crowd was being herded out of the plaza by the Inquisition.
[Assimilation Progress: 1.2%]
[New Passive Ability: Heart of the Tyrant (Suppresses fear and empathy in favor of cold logic).]
Sylas felt a strange stillness settling over his mind. The frantic desperation of his youth, the constant fear of hunger and death that had driven him to join the army, was gone. In its place was a crystalline clarity. He was no longer a prey animal hiding in the tall grass. He was the fire that would burn the field.
"The Duke was only the beginning," Sylas whispered, his words lost in the howling wind.
He marched back toward the barracks in perfect rhythm with the other soldiers. His halberd felt lighter now. The world looked different—less like a holy kingdom and more like a slaughterhouse painted in gold. He needed to move fast. The Dominion would eventually notice that the Duke's essence hadn't dissipated into the ether. They would search for a vessel.
But by the time they realized what to look for, Sylas intended to be much more than just a vessel. He intended to be a disaster.