The night was silent. Too silent.
Kael left Ravenholt before dawn, the villagers' fearful eyes following him through cracks in their shutters. The road wound through blackened fields, where the storm had torn up the earth and left it raw. He could still feel the curse whispering beneath his skin — restless, hungry.
By midday, the path led him into the foothills. There, hidden beneath a collapsed arch of stone, he found it: an entrance carved with symbols older than any language he knew. The stones were warm to the touch, pulsing faintly as though something inside still lived.
"You feel it, don't you?" the voice murmured, curling through his thoughts like smoke.
"Your kind sealed this place. But not before spilling enough blood to make it eternal."
Kael stepped into the dark.
The tunnel stretched deep underground, the air thick with dust and the faint echo of dripping water. Faded murals covered the walls — warriors kneeling before something vast and formless. Gods, perhaps. Or monsters pretending to be gods.
When he reached the heart of the cavern, he saw it.
A shrine — black stone veined with crimson light. The energy radiating from it felt… familiar. The same power that had cursed him now hummed through the altar like a heartbeat.
Kael approached slowly, his reflection shifting across its surface.
For a moment, he thought he saw someone else looking back — a version of himself stripped of all mercy.
The whisper grew louder.
"This is where it began. The First Pact. The moment mortals traded their souls for power."
Kael's eyes narrowed. "And you were one of them?"
A pause. Then — soft laughter.
"No. I was what they feared most. The price they could never pay."
Cracks spread across the shrine as Kael placed his hand upon it. Red light flared, flooding the chamber with heat and sound. The walls seemed to breathe — alive, aware, watching.
Then the visions came.
Cities burning under black skies. Armies of cursed men marching beneath a crimson banner. A single figure at their head — eyes like dying stars — wielding a blade made of living shadow.
When the vision faded, Kael was on his knees, blood trickling from his nose. The altar was cracked, and something inside it was stirring.
From the fissure, a sword emerged — black as night, humming with a pulse that matched his own. It wasn't forged. It was grown.
"Take it," the voice hissed. "It knows you. It remembers you."
Kael reached out. The instant his hand touched the hilt, agony surged through him — the mark on his chest flared like fire, tendrils of darkness crawling across his arms.
His vision shattered — and when it cleared, the shrine was gone.
He stood in a vast crimson plain beneath a bleeding sky. A system prompt flickered before him, written not in light, but in blood.
> [The Curse Evolves]
Host: Kael Draven
Title: Bearer of Oblivion
Stage: Ascendant
New Ability: "The Blood Oath"
Bind the life of another to your own. Their strength becomes yours. Their death feeds the curse.
Kael gripped the sword tighter. It thrummed in response, like it was breathing through him.
He looked up at the endless red horizon and whispered,
"This isn't a gift… it's a chain."
The voice chuckled — low, almost fond.
"Every chain can strangle its master, given time."
As the plain began to fade, Kael caught his reflection again — and for a moment, the man looking back smiled.