Soon Kevin found a sturdy tree not far from where he'd landed. He slumped down beside it, lowered himself to the ground, and leaned his back against the bark.
His body ached from head to toe. Falling from the sky wasn't supposed to be survivable, yet here he was—sore, bruised, exhausted, but alive.
"Damn," he muttered, rubbing his chest. "I need a minute."
He closed his eyes and took a few steadying breaths, letting the forest sounds settle around him—rustling leaves, distant calls, the faint hum of life that felt different from Earth.
He murmured, "What kind of world are you, Atlas?"
After resting for a while and trying to catch his breath, Kevin eventually opened his eyes.
"Progression status on."
A familiar chime answered. The transparent screen materialized in front of him again, its soft glow cutting through the forest shade.
Name: Kevin Morrell
Age: 19
Gender: Male
Mark: Misfit
SoulLink: 0 / 13 (Beggar)
Soul Fragments: 0 / 10
Soul Origin: Unknown
He frowned hard.
He reread the lines slowly. Very slowly. Something was wrong. Something didn't add up.
His finger hovered over the "SoulLink" for a moment. SoulLink? That wasn't right. That wasn't what they taught. He narrowed his eyes.
"SoulLink? Isn't it supposed to be Core soul? And Beggar for god sake."
The government orientation had drilled the fundamentals into the heads of every eighteen-year-old on the planet. This is to prepare them for the eclipse. The briefing had been mandatory.
Kevin remembered sitting in that auditorium with hundreds of others, staring at the holographic explanation projected by the instructors.
Four aspects of the Eclipse System.
Mark,
Core Soul,
Soul Fragments,
Soul Origin.
Marks determined a Moonchild's class. Warriors, mages, beasts, hunters.
Core Souls were power. Plain and simple. The more core souls an individual possessed, the stronger they were—physically, magically, spiritually. Also the darker your Core soul is, the stronger you are. From white as the weakest to purple as the strongest.
Soul Fragments were the stepping stones to obtaining more core souls. Absorb enough fragments, the counter fills, and one more core soul is added.
And Soul Origin… the foundation of every Moonchild's abilities. Booster, Manipulator, Creator—those were the three universal classifications, the pillars on which all abilities were built.
Kevin stared hard at his screen.
"Mark: Misfit… okay, still bullshit, but whatever," he grumbled.
His eyes drifted downward.
"SoulLink? Not Core Soul? What even is that supposed to mean? And Beggar instead of color? What the hell."
Then the line beneath it:
Soul Origin: Unknown
He blinked.
"What the hell does unknown mean?!"
He pushed himself up, standing with his hands on his hips as if the extra height would intimidate the system into making more sense. It didn't.
"Am I a joke to you? What kind of retarded system is this?! Even a primal category Soulborne could beat me! Probably with one hit!"
His voice echoed off the trees.
"I got no core soul," he said aloud, pointing accusingly at the screen. "None. Zero. But I have… SoulLink? Does that mean I can't improve? Can't get stronger? Am I stuck as a weakling forever?!"
"And unknown? What kind of soul origin is that? The only ones that exist are empower, manipulation, and creator. Unknown isn't a thing!"
He paced in a small circle, dragging a hand through his hair.
The screen floated calmly in front of him, indifferent to his rage.
Kevin groaned, tilting his head back toward the sky.
"How am I supposed to get stronger if I don't even have a Core Soul?! This is so—"
He caught the motion out of the corner of his eye, just a flicker of dark mass cutting through sunlight.
His instincts screamed.
He barely had time to turn.
A giant wild boar. Massive, bristling with coarse fur, tusks longer than his forearm. Charging through the trees toward him. Its hooves tore up the forest floor, its body shaking the ground with each thunderous stride.
Kevin's blood ran cold.
"Crap—!"
He ran.
He ran harder than he ever had in his life, dodging trees, leaping over fallen logs, branches slapping his face as he sprinted. The boar gained on him fast—too fast for something so huge.
Its enraged squeal echoed through the forest.
Kevin's lungs burned. The ground shook behind him. He didn't dare look back.
Then he saw it.
The cliff.
A sheer drop stretching into open air, the forest ending abruptly at the precipice.
The boar shrieked again, closer now.
Kevin skidded, nearly losing his footing. He could feel its breath on his back.
No time to think.
He jumped.
"For god's sake—WHY am I always falling?!"
Wind tore at him again, but this time not from the sky—only from the cliffside. He plummeted down the rock face, branches whipping against him.
The boar followed.
It didn't hesitate. It flung itself off the cliff with mindless fury, tusks gleaming as it twisted mid-air.
Kevin was about to panic again when something slammed into his side.
A tree branch. Thick. Crooked.
He crashed into it chest-first, the impact knocking the wind from him. The branch bent dangerously under his weight, creaking, threatening to snap.
The boar's tusk grazed his shoulder as its massive body tumbled past him, roaring as it disappeared farther down the ravine.
Kevin clung desperately to the tree.
"Shit—shit—that was close—!"
He dared a look downward.
The boar hit the bottom with a bone-crunching thud.
It didn't move again.
Kevin's breath caught in his throat. Sweat lined his brow.
"That… was lucky. Way too lucky." His voice shook, but only barely.
He carefully climbed down, gripping roots and rocky edges with trembling fingers. About halfway down, the same disembodied voice echoed across the ravine:
"Congratulations. You killed a Helion Boar."
Kevin blinked.
"I—I killed it? Really? I didn't even touch it!"
Another line followed:
"You obtained: Helion Dagger."
A faint shimmer materialized beside him—an item floating in the air. He grabbed it cautiously. It was a small blackened knife formed from the boar's energy, crude but sharp, its hilt warm to the touch.
"Okay," Kevin muttered. "That's at least something."
When he finally reached the ground, he approached the fallen boar carefully. Its body lay twisted against the rocks, eyes glazed, chest unmoving.
He poked it with the dagger.
No response.
"Good. Stay dead."
Biting back his disgust, he crouched over the corpse and began cutting into it—slowly, awkwardly. The dagger moved easily, slicing through hide and muscle even with Kevin's inexperience.
After a while, something glimmered inside the torn flesh.
A small orb. Round. Slightly warm. Pulsing faintly with white light.
"A White Soul Crystal, huh?"
He picked it up, holding it between his fingers. It looked like a pearl made of moonlight.
This was it.
His first fragment.
He laughed, "At last."
He crushed it in his hand.
The orb shattered like brittle glass—light flaring between his fingers.
Kevin waited.
He waited for strength to fill his limbs. For energy to surge into his body. For the fragment counter on his status to tick up even by one.
Nothing happened.
Not one change.
"What the hell?" He stared at his hand, fingers coated in sparkling dust. "No increase? Zero? Nothing?"
His expression darkened.
"What kind of broken-ass system did I get stuck with?!"
The forest didn't answer.
The status screen floated blankly in front of him.