Blackspire—the city of iron and smoke—gasped under the weight of its own decay. Buildings huddled together like shivering giants, their paint flaking in layers, revealing rusted girders and crumbling brick beneath. The streets were slick with perpetual filth from broken pipes, and a sharp, biting stench of rust and sewage clung to the air, inescapable and oppressive. Every corner seemed to hum with latent danger, every shadow a potential threat. Even the wind carried whispers of despair, cold and metallic against exposed skin.
Most of the citizens moved like automatons. They labored not for tomorrow, but merely to survive another day, hoping their meager wages would stretch against hunger, cold, and the grinding monotony of life. The city itself seemed alive, a sentient machine of despair where hope was an expensive luxury, and failure was built into the system, embedded in every gear, every crumbling brick, every dripping pipe.
Among them walked Ren Vallis. Twenty-one years old, lean, sinewy, and precise. His eyes were calm, but there was a coldness within them—a deliberate emptiness. He had earned the moniker "the man without feelings," though he neither confirmed nor denied it. Emotions were irrelevant, distractions that interfered with the calculations of survival. Logic dictated every step, every lift of a sack, every measured breath. Even his heartbeat seemed to obey a rhythm of computation rather than biology.
That afternoon, thick clouds of factory smoke hung low, dimming the weak sun. Ren leaned against the damp, cold wall of a warehouse, catching a moment of respite. Beside him, Jona, a middle-aged worker with streaks of iron dust across his weathered cheeks, sipped water from a dented can, eyes flicking nervously at the distant chimneys belching ash into the gray sky.
"You know, Ren… they're cutting wages again. Scrap production's down," Jona muttered, voice ragged from the smoke and labor.
Ren's gaze stayed fixed on the mud at his feet, unmoving, unfeeling. "Scrap production hasn't changed. The warehouse owner's morals have," he said flatly.
Jona's laugh was hollow, sharp like grinding gears. "Always logical. Don't you ever feel anything, kid? You're like a machine. You lift iron, yet you cannot know joy—or sorrow. Do you even remember human warmth?"
"Anger wastes energy," Ren replied simply, hoisting a fifty-kilogram sack with mechanical ease. "Energy is for survival, not feeling. Sentiment is inefficient."
Jona shook his head, sighing, wiping grime from his forehead. "Well… if I die here, at least I'll die full. May you survive, little machine."
Ren said nothing. He walked toward the storage facility, sack balanced perfectly on his shoulder, every movement precise, every step silent among the clatter of the city. His boots scuffed the muddy cobblestones, leaving imprints that seemed to vanish into the grime, as if the city itself swallowed proof of his passage.
Then—a scream ripped through the market. Not of anger, but of sheer, blinding desperation. Ren turned toward it.
Jona collapsed, eyes wide, hands clutching his chest as though his heart had vanished into the cold air. Around him, people fell one by one. Some clawed at their chests, others froze mid-step, faces locked in silent panic. Within seconds, dozens lay scattered on the street, not dead, but immobilized by some invisible force, their limbs twitching faintly as though testing the boundaries of their own bodies.
Ren approached, crouching, analyzing. There was no blood. No physical wound. No rational explanation.
"…Not sickness… not a weapon… something is extracting life itself, not destroying the body," he murmured, voice even, calm, logical. "…Fundamental extraction."
From the fallen bodies rose a black mist. Thick, curling smoke that twisted as if alive, coalescing into a swirling circle of darkness above them. Shadows beneath Ren's feet trembled unnaturally. The temperature dropped sharply, biting through his thin work clothes. Each gust of air carried an acrid, metallic tang, and even the distant clatter of the city seemed muted, absorbed into the void that now pulsed with ominous intelligence.
A fissure tore through the center of the mist, splitting the air itself with a shriek that was almost audible. Ren's instincts screamed at the anomaly, but logic demanded observation. He inhaled—airless, tasting of ozone and something ancient, indescribable.
From the void, a presence stirred. Not material, not bound by flesh, yet sentient. Tendrils of black mist lashed outward, grasping at him with terrifying force. Ren's feet lifted from the ground before he could react, pulled into a cold, silent, directionless void. Gravity ceased, replaced by emptiness.
Distorted, echoing voices reached into his mind:
[Empty… empty…]
[This body is suitable…]
[A new vessel…]
Ren attempted to draw breath. Nothing. Yet he felt a cold, sharp pressure at the back of his neck. Below him, a reddish-black light bloomed like frozen blood, pulsing rhythmically as if marking time in some alien calculation.
He struck the ground, solid now, though the black plain stretched endlessly. Stone pillars towered like grotesque tombstones, casting impossible shadows. Symbols etched on their surfaces shifted, pulsing subtly, as if aware of Ren's gaze, almost sentient in their silent observation.
At the center stood a figure, humanoid but impossibly still. Long black hair fell past its shoulders, swaying faintly though no wind moved it.
Ren stepped closer, analytical curiosity overriding fear. "What is this?"
The figure turned. Its face mirrored his own—pale, black-eyed, with a smile stretched too wide. Two voices blended into one, distorted whisper:
[…finally.]
Before Ren could react, the figure's hand passed through his chest. Pain was absent; yet something within him yielded, a fractured part of his soul aligning with the intrusion.
[Empty body… fractured soul… the most perfect vessel.]
The black plain trembled. Stone pillars cracked. Mist shrieked in silent agony. The figure grasped Ren's heart, and for the first time, he felt absolute incomprehension, a terror not of death, but of understanding the impossible.
[…EMPTY VESSEL.]
The world erupted into white silence. A void, expansive and patient, pressed against him with the weight of untold calculations. Ren's chest ached, his mind reeled, but deep within, faintly, a presence lingered—cold, precise, and calculating. Watching. Assessing. Waiting for readiness to be earned, a silent evaluation beyond voice or language.
Ren rose, senses sharpened, standing amid a silence heavier than stone or steel. Somewhere, far beyond the limits of perception, the Black Gate observed. And the world, now fractured, waited, trembling in anticipation of what was to come. The black mist lingered, circling around the pillars, restless. Every shadow seemed alive, every fragment of air dense with expectation. Even the faint, distant echo of a collapsing chimney resonated across the plain, a ghostly reminder that the city he had left behind was still part of the same oppressive system. And though no words were spoken, Ren understood: this was not the end. It was the beginning.