The glass of the subway window was cold against Zylas's forehead, vibrating with the rhythmic screech of the train hurtling through the dark tunnels of the city.
In the reflection, he could see the red emergency text flickering across the overhead screens, painting the tired faces of the passengers in a bloody, artificial hue.
"Authorities have issued an urgent warning regarding an Unbent Drowned wreaking havoc in the Sector. Immediate Assistance is required from any Hallows of the same rank or above."
The text was utterly disconnected from the reality of the people sitting beneath it.
"Must be great" Zylas muttered, the words barely a breath against the glass.
His reflection looked back at him—dark circles under his eyes, a jaw tight with a resentment he had carried since he was old enough to understand the "The Grandeur." Beside him, a corporate salaryman in a sweat-stained suit didn't even look up from his phone. To these people, a Drowned was just a weather report. It was a storm that happened to someone else, handled by people who lived in a different world.
"It's all luck anyways" Zylas whispered, his voice rising just enough to earn a side-eye from a nearby student.
"These Apostles… they just showcase their spoon-fed powers while the rest of us rot. They enjoy The Grandeur while I'm stuck preparing a 5000 word essay on the socio-economics of a world that doesn't even want me in it."
He tried to shift his position, but the subway was a sardine can of human misery. People stood shoulder-to-shoulder, a collective mass of 9-5 slaves and students crushed by the weight of peer pressure and dwindling hope.
It was a bubble of silence, broken only by the hum of the train and the occasional cough.
Suddenly, a sharp, cold flutter erupted in his stomach.
Zylas stiffened. His heart hammered against his ribs for a fleeting, ecstatic second.
'Is this it?' he thought, his breath catching. Is the Nausea from The Grandeur finally coming?
He waited. He braced himself for the divine weight to crush his lungs, for the Window to open. But the sensation faded as quickly as it had arrived, leaving behind nothing but the dull, acidic burn of an unbalanced diet and a lack of sleep.
"Seriously? A false alarm?" He let out a dry, mocking laugh at his own expense. "I guess I just have too much hope. More than is healthy anyway."
He looked up, realizing he'd spoken louder than intended. The people around him weren't just looking in disgust and fear, they were backing away.
A bubble of isolation had formed in the crowded subway, a circle of empty floor with Zylas at the center.
In this world, a stomach ache wasn't just a stomach ache—it was a death warrant. If you looked sick, you were a ticking time bomb.
"It's not what it seems!" Zylas held up his hands, his face flushing with embarrassment.
"Trust me, it's just hunger. Look, I'm completely conscious. No red eyes, no static. I'm just… hungry."
The tension in the subway ebbed, but it was just merely replaced by cold discomfort. As the train screeched to a halt at his station, Zylas rushed out the doors before the silence could swallow him again.
"Suffer the consequences without the benefits, won't you, Zylas?" he mocked himself and the Universe as he climbed the stairs to the surface.
"Of course it just has to be me. Whatever. I'll just go home and drown my sorrows in a WebNovel."
The walk home was a gauntlet of reminders. He passed a sleek, obsidian-black car idling at a red light. Inside sat a man with a Silver Badge pinned to his suit which signified his power as being an Unbent (On the 2nd level of Hallow Apostles.)
Zylas stopped dead in his tracks. Seeing a Rank 2 in the flesh was different than seeing one on a screen.
The air around the car felt heavy, pressurized, as if the man was carrying a mountain inside his chest. The Apostle didn't just look at the area outside, his gaze was fixed on a horizon Zylas couldn't see.
'A real Hallow' Zylas thought, his envy turning into a physical weight.
'He's… different. He's not even made of the same atoms I am.'
As the car drove away, the pressure lifted, leaving Zylas feeling small and hollow. He kept walking, passing a towering holographic poster of one of the Two Paragons—the 5th Rank, the peak of human existence. To a Paragon, an Unbent was a dying ant. And to an Unbent, Zylas didn't even exist.
"Why not me?" he hissed at the poster.
"I'd take the risk even if it meant I could be stuck in The Divine Lake forever if it meant that I could have an ability. I want Power. Overwhelming enough to erase this pathetic, boring life."
He was so deep in his own resentment that he didn't notice the change in the air. The screams were faint at first, drifting on the wind like distant birds. He was zoned out, his mind a loop of his own failures, until he turned left into an alley and his foot stepped into something wet.
He looked down. A pool of dark, thick blood was spreading across the pavement, hugging the edge of a brick wall.
Zylas froze. His eyes trailed the red smear to a pile of torn clothing... and the flesh beneath it. Multiple bodies lay scattered in the alleyway, their limbs twisted at impossible angles.
"No… no, this can't be real," he stammered, his mind reeling.
"I just… I saw them yesterday. They were fine."
He tried to tell himself it was a hallucination. Maybe this was a symptom of The Grandeur? Maybe he finally got the disease? Maybe he was finally losing his mind? But the smell—the metallic tang of fresh blood and was too real.
Then, the "hallucination" moved.
A bloodied, humanoid figure rose from the pile of corpses. It didn't have a face—just a jagged maw and eyes that glowed with a sick, dying red light. An Unbent Drowned.
It locked onto Zylas.
Zylas felt fear but more than that, he al so felt a surge of… excitement. He had heard the stories. The Window often opened in moments of near-death as well, triggered by the presence of an active Drowned specifically. This was it. This was his Lottery Ticket.
"Is this it?" He whispered as the monster rushed towards him.
Its bone-claws extend from its fingers with a sickening shink.
"Holy shit… I didn't think it would feel this uneasy."
The Drowned took a predatory leap, Zylas watched as the claws accelerated towards his eyes but just before contact, Time itself seemed to fracture.
The world didn't go black. It went Silent.
He wasn't in the alley anymore. He was falling through the pavement as if it were liquid.
He landed in a pitch-black space, but it wasn't empty. It was filled with a crushing, deep pressure. Every movement felt like he was fighting against the weight of a mile of ocean water.
"The Divine Lake" Zylas breathed, bubbles of dark light rising from his mouth. "I finally got it. I got The Grandeur!"
He looked around, expecting to see a welcoming God or a radiant Hallow spark. Instead, he saw the Impossible.
A figure loomed in the distance, so massive it made Zylas feel like a speck of dust. It had no skin—it was a silhouette woven from the very fabric of the cosmos.
Galaxies swirled across its entirety, and its eyes… they weren't eyes. They were two Black Holes, bordered by the blinding, blue-white light of Quasars.
It was a source of infinite light, yet it radiated an absolute, terrifying darkness.
As Zylas stared, paralyzed by the sheer scale of the being, a second figure appeared. This one was tiny—a red, jagged phantom that looked like a perfected version of the Drowned in the alley. It snarled, its crimson aura flickering in the presence of the Cosmic Entity.
"Two beings?" Zylas's thoughts were a frantic scramble.
"That… that doesn't happen. There's only one God per Purification based on what I know."
The Cosmic Entity didn't look at Zylas. It looked at the Red Phantom, a 2nd ranked God.
"How Pathetic" the Entity's voice vibrated through Zylas's soul, a sound like grinding tectonic plates.
"I have never seen such a weak fragment, and you call yourself a God?"
The Cosmic Entity raised a single, long finger. Dark, liquid tentacles erupted from the void, lashing out with the speed of a closing trap. They wrapped around the Red Phantom, which let out a silent, flickering scream before being dragged into The Cosmic Entity's chest and consumed.
Then, a vortex opened beneath Zylas. The last thing he saw before being sucked back to Earth was the Quasar-eyes of the Entity finally turning to look at him.
"Mirror" the voice commanded.
Zylas's world inverted. The Grandeur was gone. The Divine Lake vanished. He was falling back into the alley, back to the claws, but he wasn't the same Zylas who had fallen in.