Chương 10: Envy

The two black beads in the darkness did not move at first. They stayed there. At human height? No. Lower. Much lower. Zayn forced his breathing to slow. The black water around his hand was freezing. His right hip throbbed with every heartbeat. His shoulder, already torn higher up by the vermin, still burned where Lena had closed the wound just enough to keep him standing. Now that he had fallen, that makeshift healing felt as fragile as everything else. He moved his left hand slowly toward his belt.

The dagger was still there. Thank God. A pathetic little miracle in a very bad day. He drew it without a sound—or at least as soundlessly as anyone could while breathing like a wounded animal in a dead gallery beneath a cathedral. At last, the two black beads moved forward. Then more lit up behind them. Not a great horde like above. Not yet. Just a few presences. Crawling. Careful.

Drawn by the noise of the fall, the smell of blood, or simply because this depth already belonged more to them than to any summoned hero. Zayn straightened as much as he could. The gallery where he had landed was not completely collapsed. It was some kind of old drainage or containment chamber, something between the two, broad but low-ceilinged, cut through by black grooves and pillars eaten by centuries of damp.

Ancient chains still hung from the ceiling, some drowned in rust, others embedded in the stone as if the sanctuary had grown over them cycle after cycle. The place smelled of: mildew, old magic, and something organic that should never have remained alive. At last, one shape peeled itself out of the dark. An ossuary larva. Smaller than the vermin above, but even more disturbing. Its body had something unfinished about it, as if several pieces of dead creatures had been held together by nothing but ritual malice.

No true head. Just a pale growth split down the middle, ringed by trembling filaments. Its belly dragged almost against the floor, pushed along by limbs too many and too thin. It did not attack at once. It tasted the air. Zayn understood immediately. It can smell my blood. A second one arrived on the left. Then a third, farther off, perched on a block of collapsed stone. He was alone. The thought came back with a different kind of brutality now that the eyes were real, now that they were here, in front of him.

Alone. Not separated for five minutes in a corridor. Not delayed. Not being watched by priests. Alone in the way that if you die here, the world above will go on for a while before it learns your name in the proper tone of regret. His thoughts went to them at once. To Elias most of all. To the way he had still opened the path in the collapsing chamber. To the way the group had literally re-formed around him while the ceiling fell.

To the way his power made him stronger precisely when he kept other people from dying. Even there, at the bottom of the dark, the memory alone made something filthy rise in Zayn's chest. Why him? The question was old. Tiring. Stupid, even. And yet it always came back. Why is there always someone like him? Someone the world chooses before it even asks? Someone who doesn't look like he has to beg to exist? The first larva sprang. Not very fast. Fast enough that a normal human, terrified, would miss.

Zayn struck sideways. The dagger went in badly, slid across some soft bony structure, and the creature slammed into his thigh before dropping back to the floor with a wet sound. He nearly crushed it, but his right leg buckled too soon under the pain from the fall. Shit. The second one was already coming. He stepped back, heel in the black water, almost fell, caught himself against a rotted pillar. The larva nearly clung to the stone itself, climbed in a grotesque motion, then hurled itself at his throat.

This time Zayn raised the dagger with both hands. The impact tore a breath from him. The blade went in. Not deep enough. The thing convulsed a few centimeters from his face, its filaments lashing his cheek. He had to shove it away by twisting his wrist, stab again, lower, until he finally felt something give inside it. When it dropped, he stumbled back two steps, panting. One. At least two left. Maybe more. Something was still scraping in the darkness behind them. Fine, he thought. Fine. So here he was.

At the bottom. Injured. Exhausted. At seven. With a dagger, three malformed monsters, and an entire section of sanctuary between him and the others. And them, up there? Maybe they were already moving on. Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author's preferred platform and support their work! Grouping together. Holding. They had Elias. They had real powers. Lena was probably already trying to find a way to reach him. Mira was probably figuring out the collapse.

Jonah was probably offering the most brutally logical version of events. And Elias… Elias was probably still the one everyone looked at to know what to do next. The thought made him want to vomit. Not because it was false. Because it was true right down to its light. Zayn straightened a little more. A fourth larva appeared to the right. Then the third one from before finally moved as well. They were coming closer together now. Not intelligent enough for a real strategy.

But drawn enough to his weakness to understand he was the easiest option. Of course. Even here, he thought with a lucidity so dry it almost hurt his teeth, even monsters can tell who matters least to the world. Then he thought of the fire. Not on purpose. The memory came the way it always came when something in him got too close to that same point. The building corridor. The heat. The smoke. The screams farther up. The hesitation. And above all, that precise moment when he had known he could try…

and had chosen something else. Survive first. Let someone else carry the weight. Then live afterward with the ugliest inner version of that choice. Someone else had gone back up. Someone else had become necessary. He had lived. And ever since, every time he met an Elias—or even someone merely upright—that scene rose again from the bottom. Not because they reminded him of the dead. Because they reminded him of his own absence. The third larva leapt. He barely dodged it, but the fourth one reached his forearm.

Its filaments sank into his skin through the already torn cloth. Zayn shouted, more from rage than pain, slammed the creature against the pillar, and drove the dagger in so hard his knuckles cracked. At last the monster collapsed. Two. But the other one was already back. He stepped back again, his boot slipping in the black groove, and crashed against an old circle carved into the floor, half buried under rubble. The dagger nearly slipped from his hand. This time, the larva approached without jumping. Slowly.

As if it had understood there was no longer any need to hurry. Zayn raised the blade. His arm was trembling. Somewhere far above, a dull noise reached him—or maybe he imagined it. A shifted stone. A muffled voice. Maybe nothing. But it was enough. Somewhere up there, they still exist together. They're still moving. They're still four heroes coherent with this world. And me? What am I, at the bottom? The larva sprang. He struck too early. The dagger cut empty air.

The creature slammed into his chest, and he fell backward against the carved circle. The impact drove the breath from him. The larva's filaments searched for his throat, his mouth, his eyes. Zayn shoved it away with both hands. Barely. Too barely. It was lighter than a man, obviously. But it clung, slid, came back, with the disgusting persistence of things that do not have enough consciousness to know when to give up. Then he saw his own reflection in the black water of a groove beside him. Not clearly.

Clearly enough. Pale face. Filthy. Ridiculous. And behind that, the memory of Elias in the sanctuary light returned with a violence that was no longer simple jealousy. Elias at 100. Lena at 75. Jonah at 80. Mira at 74. The world had numbered them. Validated them. Placed them. And him? Seven. A mistake. A leftover. A thing too weak even to be properly heroic. Something broke. Not in the circle. Not in the gallery. In him. Not some noble explosion. A dirtier rupture. More intimate. More exact.

He no longer wanted simply to survive. He no longer wanted simply to catch up with the others. He wanted the gap to end. Not a little. Not later. Not cleanly. He wanted to take. Take something from the world. Take something from those who received without begging for it. Take enough not to be the one at the bottom while someone else held the light in his place. The feeling rose so high it almost became pure. Shame. Lack. Rage. Emptiness. Then, suddenly, the system answered. Not with the clear light of heroes.

Not with the softness of a blessing. With black writing, sharp and cold, cutting across his vision as if someone were engraving the words directly into the inside of his skull. [Condition fulfilled.] The larva was still writhing on top of him. He could barely feel it anymore. [Downfall recognized: ENVY] The lock appeared. Suspended before him. Immense. Black. One of the seven dark lines trembled. Then cracked. The sound was not metallic. It was something deeper.

Like a lock giving way in a room that should never have been opened. [One line of the lock has broken.] Pain lanced through his left clavicle. Not a surface burn. An inscription. As if black ink heated white-hot were writing itself slowly under his skin, seeking its exact place beside his heart. He screamed. The larva hesitated for a fraction of a second. Enough. Zayn drove the dagger in. Once. Then twice. Then three times. At last the creature stopped moving.

And at the exact moment it died, something rose inside him. Not warmth. Not a wave of heroic energy. A theft. A pull. Fine, almost ridiculous. But undeniable. Something it possessed—something meager, filthy, alive—was torn from its body and passed into his. Zayn stayed motionless for a second. The change was tiny. But real. His fingers stopped trembling so much. His breathing returned a little more firmly. His whole body seemed to remember an extra weight it had not possessed one second earlier.

And with that came the final line. [Derived Skill obtained: Soul Plunder] The text did not vanish at once. It stayed long enough for him to read it. To understand it. Then something else happened. The world around him shifted slightly. Not visually as a whole. More as if certain existences suddenly carried visible density. At the far end of the gallery, where before he had seen only shadows, several shapes were still alive. And beside them—or rather through them—values appeared. Weak. Unstable. 3 4 2 The larvae.

Zayn jerked his eyes down toward his own hand. For an instant, very faintly, a ghostly value overlaid itself on him. 8 He froze. One. Just one more. But it was enough to tighten his throat. Because now he had seen. Not guessed. Not estimated. Seen. The soul strength of the living beings around him. The power of Envy. Not only to take. To compare. To measure. To know where the gap begins. Something low, very low, was born in his chest. Not madness yet. Not ecstasy yet. But a dangerous understanding. Elias is at 100.

And now I can see that. The thought was so violent he had to clench the dagger until his fingers went white. The remaining larvae were still approaching. Three. Maybe four. Their weakness floated before them like a mockery. 3 4 3 And him… Eight. Only eight. Still miserable. Still at the bottom. But no longer seven. Not quite anymore. One of the larvae leapt. This time, Zayn was waiting for it. Not with calm. Not with control. With something worse. He saw its soul strength before it even entered his range.

He saw its trajectory. And above all, he saw what it possessed beyond nothing. Not much. Almost nothing. But something. And this time, when he stabbed it mid-leap, he did not feel only the need to survive. He felt clearly the moment he took from it. The moment that weak piece of density left another living being and entered him. The relief that followed was the most disturbing part. Not because it was great. Because it was real. The second larva died the same way. Then the third.

Zayn was breathing harder now, not from fatigue alone, but from that new, shameful, vibrating tension that mixed the pain in his body with the monstrous certainty that he could become less weak by tearing from others what they had. It was vile. It was ugly. It was small. And it worked. When the last creature collapsed into the black water of the groove, his window reappeared briefly.

Name: Zayn Veylor Race: Human Title: Demon King Candidate Soul Strength: 11 Unique Skill: The Seven Downfalls Then below that: Downfall recognized: ENVY Derived Skill: Soul Plunder And above all, on his left clavicle, the pain finally ended. Zayn instinctively brought his fingers to his skin. He felt the mark beneath the cloth. Thin. Black. Drawn toward the heart like a sucking fracture. He snatched his hand away. Silence returned around him. Denser than before.

At the far end of the gallery, other small values were still trembling. Not immediate threats. Beings. Lives. Reserves. Numbers he could now see. The disgust rose so fast it nearly made him dizzy. Not because of the blood. Not because of the dead larvae. Because of himself. Because some part of him, now that he could see those numbers, was no longer thinking the way it had before. It no longer saw mere creatures. It saw what they could add to him. He leaned against the pillar, breathing too fast.

The mark on his clavicle still pulsed faintly. The system had gone silent again. No congratulations. No guidance. Only the proof that a path had opened. Ugly. Functional. Demonic. Zayn stared into the dark ahead. Then, very slowly, despite the horror, despite the shame, despite everything in him that understood perfectly well what this already said about where he was headed… he stood up again. Because up there, they still existed. Because Elias was still worth a hundred. Because he was no longer at seven.

And because, for the first time since the sanctuary, he was no longer surviving only by enduring. He had taken. And the worst part—the most dangerous part, the most unadmittable part— was that some part of him had just understood he could do it again.