The cobbled streets of Noctera echoed not only with the clatter of hooves but with whispers that slithered like smoke between crooked alleys. Merchants leaned close over shadowed stalls, their voices hushed, their hands trembling as they exchanged coins and secrets. Stone buildings loomed on either side, jagged edges crowned with moss, iron balconies jutting like watchful sentinels.
Above, the sky was pale — gray, lifeless, as though the sun itself had grown weary of shining upon this city. A drizzle clung to the air, dampening cloaks and dripping from rusted gutters.
In the shadows of this place, a child moved. His steps were light, almost soundless, yet each one carried the weight of survival. He wasn't tall. He wasn't loud. He didn't smile. But he watched — always watching — with crimson eyes that burned too brightly for someone so small.
His black hair fell across his face like a curtain, hiding expressions that rarely surfaced. His tattered clothes clung to him, threadbare and frayed, marking him as a beggar to those who bothered to look. His name was Kev.
Kev did not belong in the light. Not anymore.
Neighbors whispered when he passed — cursed, forgotten, a shadow among shadows. But Kev never answered. He simply existed in the cracks of Noctera, like dust behind the stones, like a secret never told.
Sometimes, when the wind shifted, he remembered fragments of what had been stolen from him. His mother, vanishing after giving birth to a girl whose face he could no longer recall. His father and stepbrother, abandoning him for a softer world, a richer woman. Their voices had faded into silence, leaving only the echo of betrayal.
At six years old, most children in Noctera dreamed of becoming warriors, mages, or heroes sung in tavern halls. Kev… dreamed of nothing. His nights were filled with silence, his days with survival.
Until the day the mark appeared.
Kev sat alone behind the old stable, knees drawn tight to his chest, the damp earth pressing cold against his back. His breath came shallow, misting faintly in the chill air. The silence was broken only by the drip of rain from the roof, each drop echoing like a ticking clock.
Then it struck.
His right hand burned. "Ahhh!" The cry ripped from his throat, raw and startled. He jerked upright, clutching his wrist, crimson eyes widening as a faint circular pattern ignited beneath his skin. The mark glowed, pulsing like a heartbeat, each throb sending fire through his veins.
The world seemed to pause. Even the rain slowed, drops hanging heavy in the air as if time itself bent around him.
[SYSTEM RECOGNIZED: USER "KEV"]
[PATH SELECTION INITIATED]
[AVAILABLE PATHS DISPLAYED BASED ON COMPATIBILITY]
Symbols spun before him — five ancient emblems, hovering in the air, their edges shimmering with forgotten power. Kev's chest heaved, his breath uneven, his fingers twitching as if reaching for something unseen.
He couldn't read the symbols. Yet something inside him whispered their meaning.
[WARRIOR PATH]
[MAGNUS PATH]
[ADVENTURER PATH]
[HUNTER PATH]
Kev's lips parted, trembling. "I… I know them."
The Adventurer Path glowed faintly darker than the rest, ominous, dangerous. He knew it was the deadliest. But Kev had no choice. No family. No money. No future. His heart thudded, his breath shallow, his body shaking with the weight of decision. A boy with nothing left but a death wish reached out.
[PATH SELECTED: ADVENTURER]
The symbols flared, light searing his vision.
[WARNING: RACE: ?????] [FORCED REALM RELOCATION INITIATED] [REALM: UNREGISTERED]
His world shattered.
Light bled through stone, cracks racing across the stable walls. The cobbled street outside folded in on itself, collapsing like paper. Kev's body lurched, gravity twisting, pulling him not just downward but away.
He didn't scream. His mouth opened, but no sound came. His crimson eyes stared wide, locked on the glowing system etched into his palm.
Race: ???
His voice was a whisper, broken, disbelieving. "It must be… a bug."
The ground vanished. The stable dissolved. The city of Noctera was gone.
When Kev awoke, he was no longer in Noctera.
The air was colder. Heavy. Each breath scraped his throat, tasting of smoke and metal. Above him stretched no sky at all, but a yawning void of green — endless, suffocating. Floating mountains drifted in the distance, their jagged edges crackling with violet arcs of energy. Rivers of shadow bled down their sides, pooling into black lakes that shimmered without light, as if mocking the very idea of reflection.
Kev stood on obsidian sand. Alone. The silence pressed against him like a weight.
Then his hand burned again.
"Ahhh!" His cry tore through the void, raw and desperate. He clutched his wrist, crimson eyes widening as the mark seared into his flesh.
[YOU HAVE ENTERED: THE SIXTH ABYSSAL REALM]
No explanation. No warning. Just that.
And then… they appeared.
Shadows. Not flickers, not tricks of the eye — but figures. A million of them, rising from the ground, shaping themselves into broken silhouettes of people without faces. They stretched across the endless black plain, surrounding him in a suffocating tide.
Voices followed, layered and thunderous, echoing from every direction.
"THE BOY WHO FELL TOO EARLY." "A SOUL TOO YOUNG FOR THIS PLACE." "FLESH, MIND, AND SPIRIT — OURS."
Kev fell to his knees, clutching his head. His fingers dug into the sand, nails scraping against the obsidian grains. His breath came ragged, chest heaving, as if the air itself was poison.
"Ahhh!" His scream was broken, strangled. The pressure was unbearable. Thoughts weren't his anymore. Languages clawed against his sanity, words he had never learned tearing through his mind like blades.
And in that torment, memories surged. His mother's absence. His father's betrayal. His brother's abandonment. The whispers of "cursed" that had followed him through Noctera's alleys.
Kev's crimson eyes flared, tears burning but refusing to fall. His voice cracked, rising into a roar that shook the abyss.
"Why must I be the one to suffer?!" His fist slammed into the ground, obsidian dust scattering. "Why not them too? Why must I be the one left alone?" His breath came ragged, each word dripping with venom. "I didn't do anything! It was them! It's their fault, not mine!"
The shadows recoiled, their faceless forms trembling at the heat of his rage.
Kev's voice grew sharper, louder, his hand clawing at the ground as if to tear the abyss itself open. "I swear… I will make them suffer like I did. I will make them pay for this!" His body shook, his aura flaring crimson. "I am not a toy to be dumped. I am not a mistake to be forgotten. I will show them!"
The abyss quivered. The faceless millions whispered in awe. "WHOA… WHAT FRESH ANGER." "WHAT A LOVELY LOOK."
Kev rose slowly, his ragged clothes whispering against his skin, his crimson eyes burning like coals. His voice steadied, but the fury beneath it was undeniable. "You want me? Then take me. Train me. Feed on my rage. I'll survive. I'll learn. I'll become something even this u guys fear fears."
Silence fell — endless, suffocating silence.
"WOW I AM STARTING TO ENJOY THIS"
Then, together, the voices answered. "ACCEPTED."
[CONTRACT FORMED: KEV — BEARER OF THE SIXTH ABYSS]
Time passed differently for Adventurers. Seven to fifteen years in a realm before being forced onward. Kev had endured eight.
He no longer walked. He hunted. His steps were silent, his breath measured, his crimson eyes scanning void‑bridges that cracked beneath his weight. He no longer feared. He commanded. His voice carried in the tongue of shadows, each syllable bending faceless creatures to his will.
He crossed broken bridges of stone suspended over endless green voids, rivers of shadow bleeding beneath him. He touched secrets buried before time itself, inscriptions carved into obsidian cliffs that whispered of forgotten gods.
One by one, he trapped the shadows — not outside, but within. His hands trembled each time, his veins glowing faintly as the faceless millions dissolved into him. They became part of his cells, bound by something ancient, something forbidden.
Though he had explored only three percent of the realm, his strength was immense. Wanderers grew with the percentage of realm explored, and the Sixth Abyss was no ordinary place. Every step forward was a war. Every breath was survival.
Atop a cliff of obsidian, millions of shadow‑creatures bound within him, the system returned.
[NAME: KEV]
[TITLE: BEARER OF THE SIXTH ABYSS]
[RACE: ???]
[UNIQUE SKILL: CELL MANIPULATION (Rare)]
[SKILLS: SHADOW MOVEMENT (Extraordinary), SHADOW EYE (Magic), CELL CONTROL (Force)]
[LEVEL: PEAK SOLDIER]
[ARTIFACT COMPATIBILITY: SHADOWBOUND]
Kev exhaled — sighhh. His breath misted in the cold abyssal air, shoulders rising and falling with the weight of years. His crimson eyes narrowed, scanning the endless void below.
He knew he had brought something dangerous out of the abyss. He could feel it in his bones, in the way his cells pulsed with shadow, in the way his veins whispered with voices not his own.
But he didn't care.
His lips curled into the faintest smirk, ragged clothes fluttering in the abyssal wind. "They left me to rot," he muttered, voice low, steady. "Now I carry the abyss itself."
The shadows inside him stirred, whispering approval.
Kev clenched his fist, the mark glowing faintly on his palm. "I'll show them. I'll show everyone.