Chương 12: What He Takes

The thing took another step forward. The old corridor let it appear in pieces. First the gaunt height. Then the arms too long. Then the remnants of ritual cloth stuck to the blackened flesh like a second skin gone moldy. Finally the split seal in its chest, still lodged in bone and dead meat, faintly gleaming like a wound no century had managed to close. 19 The number floated above it with almost obscene stability. Zayn was no longer seeing only a monster. He was seeing a reserve.

The thought made him hate himself immediately. Not enough for it to go away. The creature opened its mouth again.

"... re... turn..." Its voice rasped like old parchment dragged across stone. Zayn did not answer. His right hand gripped the sanctuary dagger. His left now held the knife he had found beside the old corpse. Two blades. Two hands not steady enough. A shoulder still half reopened. A soul strength of 12 against 19. Fine. Not invincible. Not impossible either. He took one measured step back. The thing followed. Not fast. Not like the larvae. It had none of that animal haste.

It advanced like a forgotten warden still obeying an order it no longer fully understood, but had never stopped carrying out. The old body creaked as it raised its right arm. The forearm still bore a fragment of sacred metal bracer, fused to the flesh by time and broken seals. An old sanctuary man, Zayn thought. Or what was left of one. The most logical thing would have been to run. The corridor behind him was not blocked.

He could retreat, try to circle around, search for another path, avoid the fight until he found the others again. The most logical. He stayed. Because 19 shone above the dead thing like a sick promise. Because he had only just discovered Soul Plunder, and some part of him already wanted to know what it would do with prey less pathetic than an ossuary larva. Because that part was quicker to speak than disgust. And because somewhere far away, in another corridor of the world, Elias was growing denser by saving.

The thought struck him with icy clarity. Standard of Dawn. He understood it better now. Elias's power was not just some beautiful hero skill. It was the obscene mirror of his own. Where Soul Plunder tore a fragment of soul strength from a direct kill and fixed it into himself, Standard of Dawn did the opposite: every life preserved, every death prevented, every person kept from the abyss densified Elias's soul and confirmed his function. He grew by keeping. Zayn grew by taking. The world had given them two roads.

One bright. One black. One admirable. One shameful. And the worst, most unbearable part was that neither of them was symbolic. They truly worked. The creature moved more sharply. Not a vermin leap. A dry acceleration. Zayn had barely enough time to shift his torso aside as the old warden's armed arm cut through the air in front of him. The metal bracer scored the wall with a cry of stone. Stronger than expected. Much stronger. Zayn stepped back again, too fast, his boot skidding in dark water.

He caught his balance against a pillar, and the monster was already coming again. He crossed both blades. Bad instinct. The impact shot up into his wounded shoulder and nearly tore the weapons from his hands. He understood immediately that he would lose a frontal duel. The warden was not fast like the living. It was worse than that: it was economical. No wasted movements. No pain. No fear. Nothing that truly bent the line of its attack unless the structure carrying it was broken.

Mira, he thought without wanting to. If she were here, she would already see where to cut. Not him. He had to find another way. The monster raised its arm again. Zayn dove sideways instead of backward. The strike came down behind him, pulverizing the stone where he had stood a second earlier. He rolled through black water, half rose, and struck back at the warden's flank with the knife he had taken from the old corpse. The blade went in two fingers deep. No more. The dead flesh resisted like old soaked leather.

The monster turned its torso with horrible slowness, as if the wound did not matter at all, and Zayn had to let go of the weapon or risk having his wrist caught. Shit. The creature did not scream. It did not get angry. It just kept coming. That total absence of human reaction made the fight filthier still. You could not make it hesitate. Could not feint it with fear. Could not surprise it with pain. You simply had to break it. The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

Zayn backed up until he reached the skeleton he had found earlier. The old corpse was still there, half caught in mud and stone. An idea came to him immediately. Ugly. Simple. Possibly effective. He accepted it almost at once, and that speed itself should have scared him more. The warden was coming. Zayn ducked abruptly, grabbed whatever he could from the old mess of bones and armor, and flung it crookedly into the monster's path. Not to injure it. To disrupt it. The remains burst against its legs with a dry crack.

A tibia rolled away. The split breastplate jammed for an instant between its steps. The creature lost a single beat. One beat. Enough. Zayn lunged, snatched up the knife still stuck in its flank as he passed, and this time drove both blades into the broken seal in its chest. The sacred metal cracked. The monster stepped back once. First real reaction. Good. The seal. He did not fully understand what he was facing, but enough to see that it was not just a walking corpse.

Something was still holding it together around that old mark. Not a proper soul. A remnant of function. A leftover of guarding, oath, confinement. That had to be cut. The warden came again. Faster. Its dead arm caught him by the collar before he could leave its reach. Zayn was hurled into the wall so brutally his vision whited out for a second. The impact tore an animal sound from him and left him half folded over. The monster advanced to finish him. At that distance, Zayn saw something else. Not just the 19.

A structure. Not with Mira's eyes. Not that finely. More crudely. As if Soul Plunder, by showing him soul density, also showed him where it held most strongly. The number was not floating evenly above the body. It vibrated more intensely near the fractured seal. There. That was where it had to be torn out. The warden raised its arm. Zayn no longer had time to stand up properly. So he did what he did best. Not a noble move. Not the prettiest. The most useful to his immediate survival.

He scooped up a double handful of black water and hurled it into the creature's face. The motion had nothing magical about it. But the old ritual residue rotting in that drainage water must still have carried something corrosive to the warden's sacred remains. The liquid splashed across its eye sockets and its split seal at the same time. The monster spasmed. A real one. Tiny. Enough.

Zayn threw himself forward, closer instead of away, and drove both blades into the split in the seal with all the dirty force fear, pain, and the still-burning Envy in his chest could give him. The metal gave first. Then something behind it. Not flesh. Not entirely. A core. A fixation point. The creature arched. Its mouth opened. This time, the sound that came out had nothing human left in it. Zayn pushed harder. Harder.

Until he felt beneath the blades that exact rupture that resembled less a killing blow than something being violently deactivated. The body emptied all at once. Like a structure from which the single screw still holding it together had just been removed. The warden collapsed on top of him with all its weight. They crashed together into the black water. Zayn was pinned beneath it for one awful second, suffocating, convinced he had only brought it halfway down. Then it happened. Stronger than with the larvae.

Much stronger. The sensation of theft rose from the warden's body like a vein ripped from the world. The system opened at once. [Soul Strength absorbed: +2] Not nineteen. Not even five. Two. Only two. But those two entered him like white-hot metal. His breath came back wider. His legs stopped shaking so much. His back straightened beneath the dead weight of the warden's corpse with enough new force that he could finally shove it aside. Zayn rolled onto his knees, panting, soaked in black water, mud, and icy sweat.

The system returned a second time. [Current Soul Strength: 14] Fourteen. The number pulsed before him. Still ridiculous compared to the others. Still far from Jonah. Far from Lena. Far from Mira. Ridiculously far from Elias. But fourteen was already twice what he had been when he arrived in this world. Twice. That thought frightened him more than it should have. Because it did not come with gratitude. It came with another idea. How many deaths like that would it take to reach twenty-five? To reach fifty?

To stop being the weakest in every room he entered? He wanted to hit himself. Not hard enough to make the thought disappear. He understood it too well already. The system had shown him something else too, for a fragment of a second. Not a full secondary skill. Not a new text. More like an implied clarification. The warden's gain had been +2 despite its 19. So yes. The retention was highly incomplete. The power was not some grotesque shortcut.

He would have to kill many, or kill denser things, or perhaps later unlock other Downfalls to improve the yield. Very good. Very bad. Both at once. He forced himself to breathe more slowly. Then looked at the warden's corpse. No value floated above it anymore. Nothing more to take. The system did not allow him to milk the dead twice. Good. Again, almost reassuring. Almost. Something glimmered faintly in the opened chest of the warden. Zayn approached carefully.

Deep in the split seal, caught between fragments of sacred metal and dried flesh, rested a small blackened crystal core threaded with a half-extinguished white filament. A sealing residue. Or a control fragment. He did not know exactly. But the moment he touched it, his window reopened. Not fully. Only one short, cold line. [Ritual residue detected.] A pause. Then: [Incompatible with Soul Plunder.] All right. So not everything could be devoured. Good to know. Very good to know, actually.

Zayn pocketed the fragment anyway, slipping it into an inner fold of his clothes. Not out of heroism. Not for the sanctuary. Because leaving things behind without knowing whether they have value is a reflex for people nobler or stupider than he is. The corridor fell silent again. And in that silence, he realized he was already thinking differently about what he had to do next. Before, he would have looked only for: an exit, the sound of voices, a way back up.

Now he was also looking for: presences, values, targets, gaps. He hated that extra layer inside his mind. But it was there. At bottom, he thought while staring into the darkness ahead, the Demonic Throne did not recognize me because I was strong. It had recognized him because the moment the path opened, he began to understand this power not as a horror to flee, but as a logic to exploit. Maybe that was the real filth in his soul. Not the anger. Not the suffering. Not even the jealousy.

The speed with which he adapted to the worst the moment he saw a concrete benefit. He thought of Lena. If she had been here, she would first have seen: an old sanctuary warden, an ancient tragedy, the remains of someone this place still owed something to. Mira would have seen: a structure to understand, a broken seal, a fixation mechanism. Jonah would have seen: a threat to neutralize quickly, a risk line. Elias…

Elias would have seen: someone to stop from reaching the others, a life to save, if any life were still left to save, or at the very least a danger to meet head-on so no one else died. And him? He had seen: 19 then +2 The rest came afterward. That thought left him colder than the black water. The system said nothing. It did not need to. Zayn started walking again. Deeper into the corridor first, because climbing blind through the collapse was impossible for now.

He needed to find a secondary gallery or an old conduit linking back to the upper levels. His perception of soul strength was already helping him. Far off in the dark, he could sometimes see tiny numbers: 1 2 3 small presences hidden in the walls, under the water, behind the stone. Living carrion. Minor remnants. Nothing he wanted to fight unnecessarily for the moment. Then, later, much farther away... something else. Not visible yet. Only a presence. 31 Zayn stopped dead. Thirty-one.

The number floated very far off in the dark, unstable but real. Too much for him. Much too much in the state he was in, even at fourteen. Fine. The world had already reminded him that he had not suddenly become important. So he changed direction, taking instead a narrower corridor to the right where only two weak presences glimmered: 2 and 1 Better. Much better. As he moved, he finally heard something else. Very far away. Not a distinct voice. But a human sound. Maybe a call muffled by stone.

Maybe metal striking a seal. Maybe Elias, Jonah, Voss, any of them. Zayn stopped. His first inner movement was immediate. Not: I have to reach them. But: If I rejoin them too soon, I become the weakest in the group again, with nothing to show except a hidden mark and a dirtier gaze than before. The thought kept him motionless for one second too long. There. That was what he needed to see. Not some grand blazing evil. Not a demon lord's monologue.

Just this: even while the others might be risking their lives to find him, some part of him was already calculating what he would gain or lose by reappearing now. He closed his eyes briefly. Then opened them again in irritation. He had to go back up. Not for them. Not only. Because he was still caught inside their story, their group, the cover their presence provided as long as his title remained hidden. Alone, deeper down, with a newly opened Downfall, he would not last long. The calculation was filthy.

But correct. So he quickened his pace. Not heroically. Not with the nobility of a savior returning to his own. Like someone who still understood perfectly how to take advantage of a structure as long as it still existed around him. And in the darkness, far above in the galleries, the echoes of the others kept striking the stone, still not knowing that deep below, something had already changed. Not only in power. In nature.