[Velmorra Federation – Gravepoint City]
Pain hit first.
A white-hot lance straight through the gut, twisting like a bayonet made of molten glass. Elias's spine bowed; every nerve lit up at once. He wanted to double over, vomit his insides onto the floor, scream until his throat shredded.
Then...
'Breath.'
Deep, sharp, involuntary... like surfacing after drowning in black water. Lungs inflated with air that tasted of dust and old incense.
Elias's eyes snapped open.
The sky overhead was nothing like the ash-choked hell over the Red Zone. No choking soot, no flickering orange of burning cities. Just a vast, impossible dome of gold light... sunset bleeding across high cirrus, painting the ruins in molten amber.
And the air... It was clean and crisp. There was no stench of burning metal, no rotting flesh, no cordite. Just the faint mineral tang of stone and the ghost of long-dead flowers.
"Where the fuck am I?"
He tried to sit up... and froze.
His body...
It wasn't his.
The weight was wrong. The 'power' was wrong. Muscles rolled under his skin like steel cables coiled around bone, each fiber humming with latent force. His hands which were larger, rough-knuckled, steady as stone... rose into view. Veins stood out in jagged relief, pulsing with something darker than blood.
He staggered to his feet. The world tilted, then righted itself with predatory clarity.
The place was a wreck.
Shattered pews lay like broken ribs across a cracked marble floor veined with dried black ichor. Candelabras, which were once gold, now green with verdigris... lay toppled, wax stalactites dangling from their arms. A crucifix the size of a man hung askew from the far wall, Christ's face eroded to a screaming skull.
A shattered mirror clung to the opposite wall, glass spider-webbed into dagger-sharp shards that reflected the dying light in blood-red shards.
Elias lurched toward it, boots crunching over broken stained glass that glittered like frozen fire.
He caught his reflection... and the world stopped.
'Holy fuck.'
The man staring back was a monster wearing human skin.
He was tall....had to be 6'5", maybe more. His shoulders were so wide the mirror's frame cut them off. His chest felt like a slab of granite, rising and falling with each breath. His arms were roped with muscle, veins standing out like battle scars under pale, almost metallic skin that caught the light in unnatural sheens.
He touched his square and brutal jaw.
The kind of handsome that promised to kiss you breathless or break your fucking jaw, depending on the mood. A long, jagged scar slashed down the left side of his throat, vanishing beneath the torn collar of a black combat shirt stretched tight across his frame.
His hair... black as sin... fell in messy, sweat-damp waves around his temples, framing eyes that burned a deep, unholy red. He was obviously not human. Not anymore.
And 'holy mother of fuck'...
He shifted his weight and felt something heavy shift between his thighs... thick, insistent, pressing against the inside of his ripped combat pants like a loaded weapon.
"Jesus," Elias muttered, voice deeper now, a rumble that vibrated in his chest. He grabbed himself through the fabric, fingers barely spanning the girth. The size was obscene... like something out of a fever dream or a dirty magazine hidden under a barracks mattress.
"Well... fuck. This body's built for trouble," he thought, lips curling into a wolfish grin that bared teeth too sharp to be human.
The moment the smirk formed, a clear chime echoed through his skull... 'inside' his head.
---
[System Online.]
[Host: Elias Kael Uploaded Successfully.]
[Current Vessel: Vark Draven — Sovereign-Class Zombie.]
[Initiating Status Screen...]
The words unfolded across his vision in a glowing crimson script, hovering like a HUD from some pre-Collapse VR rig.
Name: Elias Kael (Vark Draven)
Race: Sovereign-Class Zombie
Level: 1
Tier: Reaver (Unique Variant) 'Evolvable'
Health: 1500/1500
Strength: 300
Agility: 250
Intelligence: 220
Endurance: 350
Libido: 500
Corruption: 0%
Morality Sync: -2%
Abilities:
Devour Core (Active)
Regeneration (Passive)
Sovereign's Presence (Passive)
Elias blinked, stunned. The numbers pulsed like heartbeats.
A system?
Vessel?
Vark Draven?
He clenched his fists. Knuckles cracked like gunshots. He could feel raw power... thrumming through his limbs, begging to be used.
The name Vark Draven stirred something deep and ugly in the back of his skull. A flicker of memory that wasn't his: blood-slick thrones, screaming brides, cities burning under a red moon.
The name tasted like danger. Like 'conquest'.
"What the fuck did I wake up into...?" he muttered.
Another notification flickered across his vision, colder this time:
[Special Trait Detected: Berserk Potential (Locked).]
[Warning: Berserk Mode may trigger upon high Corruption or Morality Desync.]
[Recommendation: Stabilise Corruption to prevent loss of control.]
Elias narrowed his eyes at the floating text.
He wasn't stupid.
The world had ended because of monsters like the one he'd just become.
But even so...
Even trapped in a dead warlord's skin...
Even half-zombie, half-'something else'...
He was still Elias.
And he wasn't about to let this world swallow him whole.
Gritting his teeth, he stepped away from the mirror. The marble cracked under his foot with a sound like breaking bone. He scanned the ruined sanctuary... collapsed confessionals, vines thick as pythons crawling through broken windows, dust motes swirling in the golden light like slow-motion ash.
First step: survive.
Second step: figure out what the hell this body could 'do'.
Third step...
Find others.
And maybe...
Save whoever was left to save.
But first...
Another chime, softer, almost amused:
[Warning: Vessel carries lingering instincts and urges. High Libido detected.]
[Advised: Seek regular release to avoid Berserk status.]
Elias coughed out a laugh... short, sharp, disbelieving.
"Regular release, huh? Fucking hell, even the system wants me to fuck now."
He clenched his hands, feeling the pure, 'obscene' power buzzing under his skin like a live wire.
This body was a weapon.
A machine built for war.
For survival.
And... judging by the heat pooling low in his gut... for 'other very sinful things'.
And it was very, very far from where he'd died.
He stepped through a crumbling archway into the open air. The ruins of the sanctuary stretched across a hillside.
It was definitely not the Red Zone.
Not anywhere near Haven Base.
He was all alone.
No military.
No friends.
No Lira.
Just him... and a whole lot of unknown.
"This is fucked."
A shuffling sound snapped his head around.
He wasn't alone after all.
Three figures stumbled through the overgrown cloister toward him.
Zombies.
But not the mindless, rotting husks he remembered.
These wore armor pieced together from old SWAT gear... cracked ceramic plates, duct-taped kneepads, riot helmets with visors smashed out. Their eyes glowed a sickly yellow, not dead white. They moved in jerky, twitching steps—half instinct, half muscle memory.
''Evolved.''
''Ghoulspawn.''
Tier-1. Dull grey cores pulsing faintly beneath sternums. Not powerful...
But 'hungry'.
Elias's lips curled into a nasty, predatory grin.
His fingers curled into fists, knuckles popping like gunfire.
The system chimed... eager now:
---
[New Objective: Prove Dominance.]
[Optional: Devour Zombie Cores to Increase Power.]
---
Elias cracked his knuckles. The sound echoed off the stone like a starting gun.
"Time to see what this new dick-swinging body can really do."
He charged.
'Fast.'
Faster than any human had a right to move.
The first zombie barely lifted its rusted machete before Elias's hands clamped around its skull—fingers digging into temples like steel vices. He 'crushed'.
Bone gave with a wet 'pop'.
Black blood sprayed in a hot fan, steaming where it hit the ground.
The second swung a length of rebar. Elias ducked low, felt the air whistle over his head, and swept its legs out from under it with a brutal kick. Before it hit the ground, his boot came down... 'CRUNCH'... driving its chest into the broken concrete. Ribs shattered like dry kindling.
The third one... smarter... turned to run.
Elias grinned wider, teeth bared.
"Oh no, you don't."
He closed the gap in a blur. One hand snaked out, grabbed the thing by the back of the neck... fingers sinking into cold, rubbery flesh. With a savage twist, he 'ripped' its head clean off.
Spinal cord dangled like a wet rope.
He stood over the twitching corpses, blood steaming on the broken ground, chest heaving. His heart... if it still was a heart... pounded like war drums.
The system chimed again, satisfied:
[Core Fragments Detected.]
[Would you like to Devour? Y/N]
"Hell yes," Elias growled.
He knelt, palm pressing flat against the nearest corpse's chest.
A black, swirling mist rose from the body... oily, writhing, alive. It sank into his skin like ice water injected into his veins. He felt it crawling up his arm, his spine, settling behind his eyes with a 'click'.
[Core Devoured.]
[Strength +10]
[Agility +5]
[Endurance +5]
[Corruption +1%]
"Fuck yeah," he muttered, flexing his fingers. The new strength pulsed through his limbs like a second heartbeat.
He repeated the process... two more times.
Each core made the 'hunger' grow.
Each one dragged the line between man and monster a little thinner.
But he wasn't worried. He was alive.
He was powerful.
And this rotten fucking world had no idea what was coming for it.
He lifted his head as he heard a faint noise... Footsteps in the ruined halls beyond the cloister.
Someone was coming.