Consciousness returned to Jade not as a gentle dawn, but as a blade of pure, white-hot agony being dragged through every nerve ending. A groan, raw and involuntary, escaped his lips. His body felt like a shattered vase hastily glued back together—whole, but fundamentally fragile. The memory was a chaotic slideshow of hell: a crimson sky, a screaming Tyrant of crystal and light, the scythe's ravenous hunger, and the cataclysmic cost of wielding a power that was never meant for mortals.
Zero.
The thought was a cold spike of alarm. The last thing he remembered with any clarity was the portal's light, the sterile floor of the Sanctuary rushing up to meet them, and the simultaneous, bone-deep certainty that they were dying. He had felt his own heart stutter. He had seen Zero's form hit the ground, unnaturally still.
He tried to sit up, muscles screaming in protest. That's when he felt it.
A weight. Beside him. Warm, soft, and breathing steadily.
His blood ran cold, a sensation sharper than any pain. His glacial gaze, still hazy with agony, snapped to the side.
She was there. Seraphina.
She wasn't perched on his bed like a predator this time. She was in it. Dressed not in her usual dark, regal gown, but in a sheer, delicate nightgown of black silk that did little to conceal the alluring, slender curves of her body. Her hair, a river of silver, was splayed across his pillow. One of her arms was draped possessively over his chest, her cool skin a stark contrast to his fevered heat. She was asleep, her features serene, the terrifying ancient vampire replaced by a picture of vulnerable, breathtaking beauty.
For a single, suspended moment, Jade's perfectly ordered mind shattered into static. The variables did not compute. The threat assessment was incoherent. The Obsidian Core within him, usually a source of cold clarity, was silent.
Then, the pieces clicked into place with damning, horrifying clarity.
She was here when I was unconscious. Helpless.
The violation of it was absolute. It was a different kind of battle, one his scythe couldn't win. His fingers twitched, craving the weapon's familiar weight, but his body was too broken to summon it.
As if sensing the shift in his energy, Seraphina's eyelids fluttered open. Her crimson eyes, deep and ancient, met his. There was no surprise in them. Only a slow, smoldering satisfaction.
"Welcome back, my dear vessel," she purred, her voice a sleepy, intimate murmur. Her fingers traced a slow, deliberate line across his chest, over the spot where the Curator's power had mended his flesh. "You were so very... broken. I couldn't simply leave you to the cold, uncaring floor, now could I? Not after the magnificent, terrible power you displayed."
Jade's expression was a mask of ice, but a storm raged beneath. "Get. Out." The words were shards of frozen malice.
She only smiled, a predator's smile, and leaned closer. Her scent of frost and roses filled his senses, intoxicating and threatening.
"Or what?" she whispered, her lips inches from his. "You will unleash that beautiful annihilation upon me? I can still feel its echo clinging to your soul... a hunger that calls to my own."
Before he could respond, she closed the final distance.
Her kiss was not warm. It was like being kissed by a winter storm—electrifying, dangerous, and utterly consuming.
And for Jade, who had never known such intimate contact, it was a system shock worse than any battle. His mind, usually a fortress of cold logic, was breached. A cascade of alien sensations flooded him—the shocking softness of her lips, the cool scent that filled his lungs, the disorienting proximity of another being in a space he considered his own. For one terrifying heartbeat, his defenses crumbled, and he was just a young man, wounded and vulnerable, being claimed by something ancient and powerful.
She pulled back, her eyes glowing with triumphant hunger at the brief, unguarded shock she'd seen in his eyes.
"Rest," she commanded softly, her thumb brushing his cheek in a mockery of tenderness. "We will speak of your... new potential... when you are stronger."
She rose from the bed in a fluid motion and glided out.
The moment the door hissed shut, Jade's fist clenched in the sheets. Shame, rage, and a confusing, residual thrill warred within him. He violently suppressed it all, forcing his mind into its familiar, analytical patterns. Data. I need data.
With a mental snarl, he summoned his status screen.
{CONQUEST BONUS: Floors 3 & 4 cleared in single ascent. }
{ Attribute points from Floor 3 conquest: +5}
{Attribute points from Floor 4 conquest: +5}
{Total attribute points available: 10}
NAME: Jade
TITLE: Self-Conqueror
LEVEL: 7 -> 9
EXP: 500 / 5,000
RACE: Perfected Human (Evolving)
ATTRIBUTES (Base -> Auto-allocated from Conquest)
VITALITY: 23 -> 26 (+3)
STRENGTH: 21 -> 24 (+3)
DEXTERITY: 20
AGILITY: 22 -> 24 (+2)
MENTAL: 25
DIVINE AFFINITY: 1 -> 2 (+1)
◊◊ Unallocated Points: 1 ◊◊
SKILLS
[RARE] Obliterate Lv. 3 -> Lv. 4
A concentrated wave of destructive crimson energy.Effect (Lv. 4): Increased control. Can now shape the energy into a lance or a wider cone. Mana cost slightly reduced.
[EPIC] Observer's Eye Lv. 3 -> Lv. 4
Heightens perception and predicts enemy movements.Effect (Lv. 4): Can now perceive the flow of mana in a 50-meter radius. Grants a brief glimpse (0.7 sec) into immediate future probabilities.
[UNCOMMON] Pain Tolerance Lv. 4 -> Numbed Existence Lv. Max
Suppresses neurological response to trauma.Effect (Max): Pain is completely registered as spatial data. No emotional or physical impairment from injuries.
[DIVINE] Neon Heart Lv. 1 -> [EVOLVED] Obsidian Core Lv. 1
Core system shattered and reforged. Operates on [Frozen Malice].Effect: +200% Mana Regeneration in cold/negative energy environments. Actively drains ambient heat. Stabilizes mental attributes at the cost of emotional dampening.Note: Further functionalities locked.
[DIVINE] God's Essence Manipulation Lv. 1
Limited access to divine energy matrix granted.Effect: Imbue weapons with armor-piercing and soul-chill properties.Note: Usable once per 24-hour cycle.
[DIVINE] World-Ender's Thirst - [LOCKED: System Quarantine]
A symbiotic divine skill. Manifests the user's and their weapon's combined hunger for annihilation.Effect: [DATA EXPUNGED]Warning: Skill locked due to reality instability risk.
WEAPON STATUS:
[SYMBIOTIC ENTITY: World-Eater]
[STATUS: Dormant. Contained within dedicated System subspace.]
SYSTEM BONDS:
[Soul-Bound: Alter-Jade]
[Partnership: Zero - Status: Critical Recovery]
Jade's analytical mind immediately processed the data. The auto-allocation was a survival reflex from the System itself, buffing his physicality to keep his mortal frame from disintegrating. But his eyes locked on the final entries. World-Eater. The name was a System classification, not his own. A designation that spoke of consumption on a cosmic scale.
The psychotic grin that spread across his face was cold, calculated, and utterly terrifying. His crimson eyes bled to violet.
"So the System itself names you," he whispered. "Not a tool for breaking, but for devouring reality itself."
He allocated the final point to MENTAL: 25 -> 26.
Perfect. The foundation is set. The weapon has a true name.
And she kissed a god in the making.
He closed his eyes, plunging inward.
In the throne room of his mind, Jade and his other self stood before the pulsating, ethereal cage of the System subspace. Within it, the World-Eater rested, a slumbering beast of star-iron and silent hunger.
"Observe," Jade commanded, his voice echoing with cold focus. His Observer's Eye flared to life, not as a simple skill, but as an extension of his will. The world dissolved into a tapestry of flowing energy lines, mathematical constants, and the shimmering, divine code that constituted reality itself. The Quarantine was a brilliant, complex lattice of golden light—beautiful and formidable.
"It's not a wall," Jade analyzed, his mind processing variables at an inhuman speed. "It's a symbiotic algorithm. It doesn't just block the skill; it feeds on any attempt to break it, growing stronger. A perfect trap."
"PERFECT?" Alter-Jade sneered, stepping forward and running a spectral hand over the golden lattice. It reacted, sending a shock of corrosive energy back at him. He laughed as it dissipated against his form. "It fears us! It reacts! Anything that can fear can be broken. We do not smash the lattice. We find the single, golden thread that, when pulled, will make the entire tapestry unravel."
They worked in tandem, a terrifying symbiosis of cold analysis and chaotic intuition. Jade identified the flow of energy, the patterns of the code. Alter-Jade probed its edges with raw malice, testing its reactions, searching for a flaw, a stress point, a—
KNOCK. KNOCK. KNOCK.
The sound was like a gunshot in the sacred silence of the mindscape.
Jade's focus shattered. The intricate web of energy lines vanished. He was violently wrenched back into his physical body, into the sterile white room, his body protesting the sudden return with fresh waves of agony.
His head snapped towards the door. His Observer's Eye, still active from his mental exertions, automatically assessed the presence on the other side. It wasn't Seraphina's ancient, icy signature. It wasn't an automaton's sterile aura.
It was Lyra.
Her energy signature was a storm of conflicting frequencies—anger, yes, a sharp, hot spike of it. But beneath it, thrumming like a distressed heart, was worry. And something else... a resolute, grim determination.
Variable has returned, his analytical mind supplied. Motivations: complex. Unresolved sentiment persists. New variable: determination. Objective: unknown.
The knocking came again, more insistent this time.
Jade's psychotic grin was long gone, replaced by the cold, impenetrable mask of the Self-Conqueror. The god of annihilation was gone, hidden away. The anomaly was present, calculating.
He had just begun to dissect the divine. Now, he had to deal with the all-too-human.