The fall was not a clean descent. It was a chaotic, bone-rattling tumble through layers of thick, acidic smog and jagged metallic outcroppings.
Cyrus felt the air screaming past his ears, cold and biting. His internal System flickered red, warnings flashing across his vision like dying embers.
[WARNING: Rapid Descent Detected.]
[Estimated Impact in 12 Seconds.]
[Initiating Emergency Stabilization...]
His fingers clawed at the air, catching on a heavy, rusted power cable that spanned the abyss. The friction burned through his skin, the smell of singed flesh rising, but Cyrus felt no pain—only the jarring vibration of his skeleton. He swung wildly, his momentum slamming him into the side of a massive, derelict ventilation turbine.
With a grunt, he rolled onto a platform made of corrugated scrap metal. It groaned under his weight, swaying precariously over the infinite dark of the "Under-Abyss."
Cyrus lay there for a moment, his chest heaving. The blue hourglass was erratic, the sand swirling in a violent miniature storm.
"Still... alive," he wheezed.
[Life Support Active.]
[Integrity: 42%.]
[Internal Bleeding Detected. System suppressing pain receptors...]
He stood up, his legs shaking. He was now in the "Scavenger's Graveyard," a sub-level of the Rust Sector where the sunlight never reached, even in its artificial form. Here, the only light came from the bio-luminescent fungi growing on leaking chemical pipes and the orange glow of distant, illegal smelting fires.
This was the home of the "Dregs"—those too broken to work in the factories and too stubborn to die.
Cyrus looked up. The spire of the detention center was a needle of light lost in the smog above. They would be coming for him. The Seekers didn't lose targets; they just recalibrated.
"I need to hide," Cyrus muttered. "And I need to trade."
He checked his stats. The fight with the Warden and the recovery of the memory fragment had drained him, but his Fate Points had increased.
[Fate Points: 25]
[Lifespan: 22:45:10]
The sand was his currency, but it was also his blood. Every second he spent breathing was a second he was moving closer to the void.
As he navigated the maze of rusted shipping containers and makeshift shacks, a shadow moved to his left. Then another to his right. The Scavengers had smelled fresh meat. In this part of the world, a young man with a glowing heart wasn't a person—he was a jackpot of high-grade parts.
"Look at that heart," a raspy voice emerged from the darkness. "The gears... they're pure brass. High-tier."
A group of five men stepped into the faint green light of a nearby pipe. They were hodgepodges of humanity, their limbs replaced with clunky, hydraulic pistons and rusted claws. Their leader was a massive man with a visor fused into his skull, hiding his eyes.
"Hand it over, boy," the leader growled, his mechanical arm hissing as steam escaped a leaky valve. "Make it easy, and we might leave you enough skin to crawl with."
Cyrus didn't move. He felt the Void-Heart pulsing. The coldness was returning, spreading from his chest to his fingertips.
"You want to trade?" Cyrus asked, his voice hauntingly calm.
The scavengers laughed, a sound like grinding metal. "We don't trade with rats. We scavenge."
[Combat Mode: Initiated]
[Analyzing Targets...]
[Weakness Found: Exposed hydraulic lines in Target 1 (Leader).]
Cyrus didn't wait for them to lunge. He activated Ghost-Step.
To the scavengers, it looked like the boy simply blurred. One moment he was standing ten feet away, and the next, he was a smudge of shadow in their peripheral
vision.
Cyrus appeared behind the leader. He didn't use a weapon; he used the edge of his hand, imbued with the System's kinetic boost. He struck the hissing valve on the leader's arm.
Hiss!
Superheated steam erupted, blinding the leader. Cyrus didn't stop. He swept the man's legs, his movement fluid and unnatural. As the giant fell, Cyrus gripped the man's mechanical throat.
"Wait!" the leader choked out, the steam searing his face.
The other scavengers hesitated, their rusted blades trembling. They had never seen a Dreg move like that.
"I have twenty-two hours to live," Cyrus whispered into the leader's ear, his blue eyes glowing inches away from the man's visor. "Every second you waste of mine is a debt you can't pay. Do you want to settle the bill now?"
"No! Please!" the man gasped. "We... we have a camp. We have a tech-doc. You're hurt... I can see the cracks in your chest!"
Cyrus paused. The man was right. The impact from the fall had caused hairline fractures in the glass of the hourglass. If the glass broke, the sand would leak out instantly. Death would be immediate.
"Lead the way," Cyrus commanded, releasing his grip. "But if you look at me the wrong way, I'll take your eyes for my next deal."
The scavengers complied, their predatory instincts replaced by sheer terror. They led him deeper into the graveyard, through tunnels lined with the bones of old machinery, until they reached a cavernous hall that had once been a subway station.
In the center of the station sat an old woman surrounded by piles of discarded chips and glowing wires. Her hands were entirely robotic, hundreds of tiny, needle-like fingers moving with terrifying speed as she repaired a broken drone.
"Wrench," the scavenger leader called out. "We found a... client."
The old woman, Wrench, didn't look up. "He's not a client. He's a dead man walking. I can hear his clock from here."
She finally turned her head. Her eyes were magnifying lenses that zoomed in on Cyrus's chest. She gasped, her needle-fingers stopping mid-air.
"A Fate Shifter," she whispered, her voice filled with awe and fear. "I haven't seen one of you since the Great Collapse. They said the Shifter-Cores were all destroyed by the Pure-Bloods."
"Can you fix the glass?" Cyrus asked, stepping forward.
Wrench cackled, a dry, wheezing sound. "Fix it? Child, that isn't glass. That's solidified destiny. I can't weld fate. But... I can reinforce it with 'Void-Steel.' For a price."
"Name it," Cyrus said.
"Not points. Not gear," Wrench said, her lenses clicking. "I want a memory. A happy one. I've been in the dark so long, I've forgotten what the sun looks like. Give me a memory of sunlight, and I'll give you your repair."
Cyrus went still. A happy memory? He searched his mind, but all he found were the gray walls of the cell and the cold face of Kronos. Then, he remembered the fragment he had just absorbed. The field of white lilies. The two suns. The woman in the white dress.
It wasn't his memory, yet it was the only one he had.
"Is it worth it?" the voice of Kronos echoed in his mind. "To give away your only light to fix your broken shell?"
"If the shell breaks, the light goes out anyway," Cyrus replied internally.
He looked at Wrench. "I have a memory of a field under two suns. Take it."
Wrench's eyes widened. "Two suns? A memory of the Old World? Deal! A thousand times, deal!"
She pulled a long, neural-link needle from her station. Cyrus took a deep breath. As the needle pierced his temple, he felt a sharp, tugging sensation. The image of the woman in the white dress flickered, her face becoming even more blurred, the warmth of the suns fading into a distant, cold thought.
[Transaction in Progress...]
[Payment: 1 Memory Segment (Sunlight).]
[Reward: Void-Steel Reinforcement.]
The sensation was agonizing. Wrench's robotic fingers began to work on his chest, weaving microscopic threads of dark, indestructible metal around the cracks in the hourglass. The blue sand within flared, reacting to the intrusive material.
"Done!" Wrench shouted, pulling back.
Cyrus looked down. The cracks were gone, replaced by thin, elegant black veins that made the hourglass look even more like a work of dark art.
[System Update: Hourglass Reinforced.]
[Durability: 100%.]
[Passive Skill Gained: Void-Skin (Lv. 1) – Physical damage reduced by 10%.]
But his mind felt colder. The field of lilies was gone. He remembered that there had been a woman, but he could no longer remember her voice. The price was always higher than it seemed.
Suddenly, the subway station shook. Dust rained from the ceiling.
"They're here," Wrench whispered, her lenses retracting in fear. "The Seekers. They tracked the energy spike from the repair!"
The sound of heavy, rhythmic footsteps echoed in the tunnels. Thump. Thump. Thump.
Cyrus stood up, his hand clenching into a fist. The Void-Steel in his chest felt heavy, humming with a new, aggressive power.
"Let them come," Cyrus said, his blue eyes burning with a cold fire. "I still have twenty-two hours left. That's enough time to kill a lot of gods."
At the far end of the tunnel, a golden light appeared. A Seeker, draped in white and gold armor, stepped out of the shadows. In his hand was a lance that hummed with enough energy to level the entire station.
[Target Identified: Seeker Alpha-7.]
[Threat Level: Lethal.]
[Note: This target contains a 'Lifespan Core'. Kill to harvest.]
Cyrus smiled, but it was a jagged, predatory expression. He wasn't the prey anymore. He was the merchant, and he was looking for a very specific soul to buy.
[STATUS WINDOW]
Name: Cyrus
Lifespan: 22:10:05
Fate Points: 25
Stat Update: Strength 14, Agility 20 (Speed Boost Active)
New Passive: Void-Skin (Lv. 1)
Current Objective: Defeat Seeker Alpha-7.