Chương 11: The Wrong Survivor

Zayn remained standing in the dark for several more seconds, unable to decide whether what was shaking most inside him was pain, exhaustion, or disgust. Around him, the ancient gallery had fallen silent again. The dead larvae lay in the black water and the rubble, little twisted masses with nothing alive left in them. And yet even now, he was no longer looking at them the same way. He was seeing something else. Not their bodies. What they had been worth. What they had given him.

The system reappeared briefly before his eyes, clearer this time, as if it had stabilized around the Downfall now unlocked. Name: Zayn Veylor Race: Human Title: Demon King Candidate Soul Strength: 11 Unique Skill: The Seven Downfalls Downfall Recognized: ENVY Derived Skill: Soul Plunder Eleven. Not some absurd rise. Only eleven. The system had clearly stabilized the part actually retained. It reassured him barely at all. Because eleven was still miserable compared to the others.

But eleven was already more than seven. And the worst part, the filthiest part, was that some part of him felt it as a victory. A finer notification formed beneath the skill line: [Soul Plunder] Effect: with each direct kill, partial absorption of the target's soul strength. Yield: low on weak targets. Secondary Effect: perception of the soul strength of living beings. The text remained long enough for him to read it all. Then another line, shorter: [Previous absorptions confirmed.] [+1] [+1] [+1] [+1] Zayn stared at the four lines. There it was. Four weak fragments stolen from things that were almost nothing, and a final stabilization that had only brought him slightly above the ordinary human average. For him, that was already enormous. And yet, compared to Elias, Lena, Jonah, or Mira... It was still pathetic. The system faded. Zayn lowered his gaze to his hand. It was still trembling, but less.

His legs were heavy, his ribs throbbed, his wounded shoulder still burned, but he was standing more firmly than he had a minute earlier. The mark on his clavicle pulsed faintly beneath the cloth. Not like a permanent burn. More like something black and alive had simply settled there, now in its proper place. He swallowed with difficulty.

"Fuck..." His voice sounded too human in that rotten gallery. And maybe that was what bothered him most in the end: he had not transformed into a monster under the effect of Envy. Not immediately. He was still himself. Just... himself with a door opened in the wrong direction. A faint scraping came from deeper in the gallery. Zayn immediately lifted his head. Two new small values trembled in the dark. 2 3 More larvae. Even weaker. Or more damaged.

They were moving slowly, drawn by blood, the smell of fresh death, and perhaps also by the abnormal vibration the unlocking of the Downfall had spread through the space. Zayn did not move right away. The simple fact of seeing those numbers gave him a deeply disturbing sensation. As if the whole world had just changed languages in front of him. Before, he would have seen: a monster, a threat, a corridor, a chance to survive. This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road.

If you spot it on Amazon, please report it. Now he also saw: a weak reserve, a low-yield target, a possible gain. He closed his eyes for a second. No. He did not want to start thinking like that. Not so fast. Not already. When he opened them again, the two values were still there, floating above the creatures' shadows like a truth that could never be erased again. 2 3 Soul Plunder. The name came back to him now with hateful clarity. It was not a copying power. Not skill theft. Not total devouring. It was simpler.

Kill directly. Rip away part of the target's soul density. Keep only a fraction. Repeat. A power of accumulation. A power of disparity. A power born from exactly what he had just felt: seeing someone else possess more... and no longer enduring the idea of remaining empty. The larvae sped up slightly. Zayn inhaled. Then he moved. This time he was not caught off guard. His dagger was already in hand, his footing a little better recovered.

The first creature jumped badly from a pile of rubble, and he caught it with a short, almost dry strike at the soft base of its body. It died quickly. The system flashed at once. [Soul Strength absorbed: +0] Zayn froze for a fraction of a second. Then clenched his teeth. Of course. Too weak a creature. Yield too low. Nothing stable enough to keep. The second larva, twitchier, was already coming from the left.

He barely avoided it, felt its filaments brush his calf, pivoted awkwardly, then pinned it against a fallen slab of stone. This time, the notification was different. [Soul Strength absorbed: +1] Something rose from the carcass into him. The same thin transfer as before. Not spectacular. Just a small but real reinforcement. Slightly more firmness in his legs. Breath settling more solidly in his chest. Zayn remained still after the kill. He did not look at the larva. He looked at the words. +0. +1.

So that was how it worked. No automatic miracle. No insane growth. No stupid shortcut to power. The gain depended on what he actually tore away. And the weaker the target, the more laughably small it could be. Good. That was almost reassuring. Almost. Because it also meant something else: if he ever wanted to progress seriously, he would need to bring down things worth more. And once that thought had been formed, it would never really leave him again. Zayn lowered his eyes.

His soul strength did not stay visible at all times, but when he focused, the value briefly returned over his own body. 12 Twelve. Still nothing. But it was the first time since the sanctuary that he felt he was rising instead of merely suffering comparison. The horror of that feeling tightened his stomach. He was not supposed to like this. He knew that. And yet it was not that simple. Because some part of him—the low, shameful, rational part—was already whispering: You were at seven. Now you're at twelve.

You're still breathing. You can finally see what the world hides under bodies. He stepped back and leaned against the nearest pillar. He needed to think. Probably a bad idea too, but better than moving blindly through ancient galleries without even understanding what he had just gained. He reconsidered the skill. Soul Plunder. The system had explained it clearly, which was almost new in itself. That secondary effect was probably even more dangerous than the theft itself. Because it changed the way he saw others.

He suddenly thought of Lena. 75 Of Jonah. 80 Of Mira. 74 Then, almost against his will, of Elias. 100 The number rose in his mind with obscene sharpness. A hundred. He had not yet seen it through Soul Plunder, not directly. But he already knew it from the soul measurement. And now that number had a new taste. More concrete. More intimate. More unbearable. A hundred. While he had to crawl through the dark to scrape a +1 out of ossuary larvae. His throat tightened. Envy had not merely unlocked a skill.

It had made comparison permanent. The whole world now risked becoming a living scale before his eyes. He clenched his jaw, then forced himself to look around differently. Not at the numbers. At the gallery. He had to get out. The main shaft he had fallen through was no longer directly accessible. Above, the crack of light was too high, and the surrounding wall too friable for a clean ascent. But the old chamber seemed to open eastward through two side passages. One was almost completely buried under rubble.

The other sloped farther down into a cleaner, older darkness, and therefore probably a worse one. But it existed. Zayn moved slowly toward the second passage. He forced himself to walk without rushing. His thigh still pulled. His shoulder too. The slight improvement from Soul Plunder did not suddenly make him well. It merely made him less pathetically close to collapse. An important difference. At the entrance to the side corridor, he stopped short. Someone had died there. Not recently.

Not so long ago that nothing remained, either. The remnants of corroded armor lay half sunk in the black mud. A split breastplate, a few links of chain, a bracer marked with an old sanctuary seal. Around it, long bones, some broken, others cleanly cut. An old member of the Ritual Corps? Maybe. Or someone sent down here long ago who had never come back up. Zayn knelt. Beside the remains, in the filthy water, a small reading stone still glimmered faintly, nearly dead. A recall marker, perhaps from some older model.

He picked it up. Nothing. Dead. No miracle there. But near the collapsed spine, he spotted something else. A knife. Not much larger than his own, but better. Better balanced. Better made for piercing. The steel was dull, but still sound. Zayn took it after a brief hesitation. Then his gaze slipped, despite himself, toward the pile of bones. No value floated above it. Of course. No longer alive. Good. Some small part of him had checked before he even realized it. He stood again with his makeshift weapon.

Two blades now. Still alone. Still lost under the sanctuary. But less naked. Then a sound rose from deeper in the corridor. Not a larva. Not a soft scraping. A footstep. Then a second. Slow. Dragging slightly. Zayn froze. At the end of the gallery, in the denser dark, a silhouette gradually emerged. Humanoid. Too thin. Too tall. Skin clinging to bone, as if something had drained it without quite finishing the work. The limbs still seemed to carry remnants of ancient ritual clothing, fused into blackened flesh.

And in the center of its chest, in the hollowed torso, an old seal glimmered faintly, split down the middle. Not an ordinary corpse. Not a full demon either. Something trapped between the two. And above it, for the first time since Envy had unlocked, Zayn saw a value that was no longer laughable. 19 His stomach clenched at once. Nineteen. Almost double his own. Not a mountain. But enough to make the balance of power very bad again. The creature slowly raised its head. Its eyes were no longer really eyes.

Just two hollows where a gray ember still survived. Then it opened its mouth. And the voice that came out was not a monster's cry. It was the remnant of human language, gnawed away by centuries of confinement.

"... re... turn..." Zayn stepped back once. The thing took another step toward him. 19 The number trembled faintly above it. And with it came an immediate thought, shameful, cold, perfectly vile: If you kill it... you'll take more. He hated the thought at once. But it stayed. Because it was true. And because from now on, the whole gallery—the whole world, maybe—risked speaking to him in that language before any other.