Chapter 42 – Shadows of Mortality
POV: Aric
The cold seeped into his bones before he opened his eyes. Darkness pressed against his mind, dragging him back to the moment when everything nearly ended. His chest still ached from where the system's enforcer had struck him, and the phantom sting of its power lingered like poisoned fire under his skin.
He had been reckless.
For the first time in his short life, Aric had stood at the edge of death. It wasn't the kind of danger one brushed off with a smirk. No, this had been final, absolute — the kind of power that cared nothing for his existence. If not for Daren's intervention, he would have been erased, body and soul, leaving nothing but a mark in the system's records.
Aric sat up slowly, his breaths ragged, and the room tilted around him. His father's hidden chamber was quiet, its walls lit by the glow of runes that pulsed like a slow heartbeat. He pressed his palms against the stone floor and thought of what had happened.
The system wasn't merely controlling. It was hunting.
And he was prey.
The thought sent a tremor through him. What chance did a boy like him truly have against something vast enough to drain whole nations, cold enough to erase lives without pause? He clenched his fists, nails digging into his palms until pain anchored him back to the present.
Daren had told him again and again that the system was a cage. But Aric had always thought of it as an obstacle, something he might one day outwit. Now he understood — it was death given form, waiting patiently for every mortal to collapse under its weight.
For hours, he lingered in silence, replaying every moment of the fight. He remembered the strike, the crushing despair, the sudden stillness of his mana as if the system itself had already claimed him. He remembered the fear in his chest — not just of dying, but of dying without meaning, without leaving behind more than another name in the system's endless list.
Resolve built in him slowly, like a blade being tempered in fire. Fear would not be the end of him. If the system wanted him broken, he would give it a fight unlike anything it expected. If he was nothing more than prey, then he would become prey that could bite back.
His breathing steadied. His vision cleared.
Mortality was real — more real than the stories of gods, dragons, or even Aion himself. But it would not stop him. It would sharpen him.
When Daren returned later, he found Aric awake, eyes burning with something new.
Not childish defiance. Not playful arrogance.
But the first flicker of true resolve.