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The air in the Silverfang Great Hall tasted like iron and shame.
It was the scent of a thousand thriving werewolves, a mix of musk, ozone from controlled mana discharges, and the cloying, proud cologne of high-ranking Alphas. Yet, for Kael, it was the suffocating smell of his own failure, a stench that clung to him like cheap oil on a fur cloak.
He stood against the cold granite wall, shoulders hunched, trying to make himself small an instinctive reflex developed over eighteen years of existence as the lowest rung on the lycan hierarchy: an Omega.
Below him, the Trial of the New Moon was in full swing. This annual ritual was a brutal display of the Silverfang Pack's strength, where every young wolf, having just passed their eighteenth lunar cycle, performed a ritual combat to gauge their aptitude. The Betas fought the Gammas, the Gammas fought the Deltas, and the Omegas… well, the Omegas were mostly there to watch the real wolves fight.
Kael was neither new to the Pack nor its trials. He was merely new to the crushing finality of adulthood in the supernatural world.
He was tall, lean, and bore the sharp features of his human mother, a detail often pointed out by the pure-blood elders with barely veiled disdain. But his eyes, a shocking, pale gold, betrayed his werewolf blood. They were the eyes of a powerful wolf a cruel, beautiful joke played on a soul trapped in a useless body.
His core, the internal mana reserve that defined a werewolf's power, was pathetic. While a standard Beta wolf possessed a core capable of holding at least twenty units of raw mana, Kael's could barely contain three, and often felt like a cracked vial, leaking energy whenever he tried to access it.
A booming voice, laced with raw Alpha command, echoed through the Hall.
"Next! Kael, son of Vale! Step into the Circle!"
The crowd's murmurs died down, replaced by a wave of cold, heavy silence. Kael felt every eye in the Hall, rich with curiosity and pity, drilling into him. He could practically hear the collective sigh of disappointment from the Alpha's inner circle.
He straightened his torn, gray tunic and stepped onto the polished obsidian floor of the ritual circle. The material shimmered faintly, designed to siphon any rogue mana spills.
His opponent was already waiting: Garrus, a stocky Beta who worked as the Pack's quartermaster. Garrus was twenty-five, powerful, and utterly devoid of mercy for those weaker than him especially Omegas. Garrus wore a smug, bored expression, his massive arms crossed over his chest. He was built like a battering ram, and his deep brown eyes held the confidence of someone fighting a ghost.
"Don't waste my time, Omega," Garrus grunted, his voice a low rumble. "Just shift. Let's get this farce over with."
Werewolves didn't just 'shift' in combat; it was a deeply instinctual and mana-intensive process. For a Beta like Garrus, a full shift into his large, dark-furred form was seamless and instantaneous. For Kael, it was a agonizing, messy affair that often ended in tears and exhaustion before the transformation was even complete.
"I… I can't do a full shift," Kael admitted, his voice barely above a whisper.
A wave of laughter erupted from the upper tiers, mostly from the young, cocky Betas and the Alpha's heir, Lord Valerius.
Valerius, a man whose arrogance was matched only by his overwhelming natural power, leaned forward in his opulent seat, his red silk robes contrasting sharply with his terrifyingly handsome face. "Did you hear that, Father? The 'Pure Omega' can't even grow claws! Perhaps we should have him fight a field mouse instead!"
The Alpha, Lord Silas Silverfang, did not laugh. He merely gave a slow, disgusted shake of his massive, grizzled head. "Proceed. Partial shift is permitted."
Kael swallowed the bitter bile in his throat. Partial shift. It was all he could manage. He closed his eyes, focusing all his willpower on the cracked vial of his mana core. He pushed, he strained, forcing the meager three units of mana to flow.
Pain.
It felt like tearing his own ligaments. His muscles screamed, and his bones grated. Slowly, painstakingly, two things happened: his fingertips extended into dull, yellowed claws, and his pale gold eyes flashed with an ephemeral, weak fire. That was it. No heightened speed, no increased strength. Just yellow claws and burning eyes.
Garrus sighed dramatically. "Pathetic."
The referee dropped a silver coin. The Trial began.
Kael knew he had no chance in a direct fight. He lunged, attempting a maneuver his human mother had taught him—a messy, desperate feint. But in the world of the supernatural, human tactics were child's play.
Garrus didn't even bother moving his feet. As Kael approached, the Beta merely extended one massive hand, grabbing Kael by the throat before his claws could even graze Garrus's thick hide.
The world tilted. Kael's feet left the ground, and he dangled, choking.
"You disgrace the blood," Garrus spat, his hot breath smelling of rare venison and power. "You're not a wolf, Kael. You're a waste of space."
With a casual flick of his wrist, Garrus slammed Kael backward into the obsidian circle. The force knocked the air from his lungs, and he felt a sharp, sickening crack in his ribs. The pain was immediate, blinding, and overwhelming.
He lay sprawled on the cold stone, the shame finally eclipsing the pain. He could hear the laughter again, louder this time, mixed with satisfied sneers.
Valerius's voice cut through the noise, sharp as a dagger: "He's not even worth the effort of a kill, Garrus. Just throw him out with the refuse."
Garrus shrugged, his task done. He grabbed Kael's collar, dragging his limp body across the Hall, past the rows of jeering faces, and unceremoniously dumped him outside the grand doors onto the slick, rain-drenched pavement of the city's backstreets.
"Stay out of the moonlight, Omega," Garrus said, his voice laced with finality. "It doesn't shine for the broken."
The massive doors slammed shut, plunging Kael into the sudden, suffocating darkness of a London alleyway.
***
Kael pushed himself up, every muscle protesting, every rib burning. The rain was a cold, brutal shower that washed away the blood and the sweat, but not the deep, internal humiliation.
"A waste of space."
"The Pure Omega."
He knew they were right. He was eighteen, yet weaker than most ten-year-old Betas. His werewolf blood was a curse, serving only to highlight his inadequacy in a world ruled by strength and hierarchy. He had tried everything. Spent countless hours in the Pack's low-tier training rooms. Begged low-ranking Gammas to teach him basic mana control. Nothing worked. The curse of his weak core, the 'Omega' designation that felt like a brand, was absolute.
He limped deeper into the alley, driven by an instinct to hide. This part of the city, bordering the territories of the Lycans and the Vampires, was dangerous a no-man's-land known as the 'Fringe.'But Kael preferred the risk of a rogue vampire to the certain humiliation of the Silverfang Hall.
If I can't be strong, I might as well not exist,the thought was a familiar, heavy friend.
He reached a dead end, a crumbling brick wall covered in thick, toxic ivy. He sank down onto a discarded, rusting bin, ignoring the sharp edges of metal digging into his skin. He closed his eyes, allowing the tears of pure, furious frustration to mix with the rain on his cheeks.
Strength. If he had just one ounce of the power Valerius flaunted, just one full shift, he would never have been this easy to discard.
He clenched his fists, forcing his dull claws to extend again, only to have them retract, useless, as his pathetic mana core instantly ran dry.
***
A sudden, sharp sound sliced through the downpour the soft click of metal on stone.
Kael's head snapped up. His Omega senses might be dulled, but they were not entirely defunct. Someone, or something, was here.
From the mouth of the alley, a figure emerged. It was not a wolf.
The figure was tall and impossibly elegant, dressed in a sleek, charcoal suit that remained pristine despite the torrential rain. His hair was slicked back, and his skin was unnaturally pale, almost luminous. His eyes were the unmistakable mark of a high-tier predator: a liquid, hypnotic crimson.
A Trueblood Vampire.
Kael froze. This was not the Fringe's usual riff-raff. This vampire was a sentinel, a noble hunter, perhaps from the notorious House Vladislaf.
The vampire Kael registered the faint, floral scent of his expensive cologne smiled, a slow, predatory curving of his lips that revealed two perfectly white, elongated canines.
"The scent of a weakling," the vampire purred, his voice a silken bass that seemed to vibrate in Kael's bones. "And yet... unique. The scent of a dying Omega."
Kael scrambled back, trying to stand, the pain in his ribs flaring with every movement. "Get away from me."
The vampire, unhurried, took a single, deliberate step forward. "I was following the trail of a rogue. A Beta, wounded from the Trial. Imagine my delight when I find something far more... rare. The Last Omega of the Silverfang. A specimen of failure."
The vampire raised a hand, its movement fluid and deadly fast. Kael saw the blur, but his body was too slow, too weak, too burdened by the Omega curse to react. He tried to summon his mana—the cracked vial gave him nothing.
*I'm going to die here. Thrown out like trash, killed by an enemy I can't even fight.*
"A pitiful end, little wolf," the vampire murmured, his crimson eyes glowing with cold hunger.
The vampire's hand shot out, not to strike, but to grab Kael's face, his fingers clamping down with crushing force. Kael felt his vision swim, the rain a distant roar. The vampire leaned in, his canines glistening.
"Sleep," the vampire commanded, and a wave of pure, hypnotic Vampire Essence the infamous Blood Charm slammed into Kael's mind, attempting to shut down his will, his fear, everything.
This time, Kael did not resist with mana, for he had none. He resisted with despair.
No.
It wasn't a roar. It was a silent, internal, absolute rejection of his fate. He was tired of being weak. Tired of the curse. He would not die like this a stain on the pavement.
He felt the vampire's teeth begin to descend, a cold, terrifying pressure against his neck. The world went black, silent, and cold.
This is it.
Just as the sensation of his life essence leaving his body began, a phenomenon unlike anything in the physical world occurred within the silent, hidden chambers of his consciousness.
A force, deeper and colder than the vacuum of space, collided with his dying will. It was not gentle. It was violent, disruptive, and utterly alien.
The Vampire's Blood Charm was instantly neutralized, not by strength, but by a sudden, catastrophic shift in reality itself.
Kael's consciousness, milliseconds from oblivion, was forcibly ripped into a realm of pure data and crystalline structure.
Then, the voice came.
It wasn't a whisper. It was a cold, digital declaration, echoing through the void, carrying the immense weight of systems and cosmic calculation.
[ERROR. ANOMALY DETECTED.]
The voice was neither male nor female, merely a resonant frequency of pure, mechanical will.
[HOST LIFE ESSENCE AT 0.0001%. REVIVAL PROTOCOL INITIATED.]
[HOST STATUS: OMEGA (Designation: Unstable, Weakened, Expired)]
[INITIALIZING CORE OVERRIDE.]
A searing, blinding pain worse than the fractured ribs, worse than the vampire's impending bite ripped through Kael's very soul. It felt as if his pathetic, cracked mana core was being dissolved and replaced by a cold, limitless furnace.
[OMEGA STATUS DEEMED INADEQUATE FOR REVIVAL.]
[ACQUIRING NEW SYSTEM ROOT... COMPLETE.]
The process took less than a second in real time, but in the realm of Kael's consciousness, it was an eternity of agonizing, digital restructuring.
[OMEGA SYSTEM ACTIVATED.]
[WELCOME, HOST Kael. YOU HAVE BEEN CHOSEN TO DEFY THE HIERARCHY.]
***
In the alleyway, the vampire froze, his fangs mere millimeters from Kael's carotid artery.
He hadn't been pushed. He simply couldn't move. An invisible, crushing pressure a raw, formless power that felt like a localized cosmic event had erupted from the seemingly dying Omega. It was not mana. It was something else. Something cold.
The vampire's crimson eyes widened in genuine terror. He tried to retreat, tried to invoke his Blood Charm, but his own essence felt choked, overridden.
A cold, bluish-white light burst from Kael's eyes, illuminating the vampire's horrified face. Kael's pale gold eyes were now empty of confusion or weakness. They were filled with the silent, terrifying resolve of a machine that had just rebooted.
Kael spoke, but the voice was not entirely his own. It was rough, still Kael's, but laced with an unsettling layer of metallic detachment.
"You… tried to kill me."
The vampire finally managed to stammer out a word. "W-what are you?"
[QUEST INITIATED: ELIMINATE THE THREAT.]
[OBJECTIVE: Kill the Trueblood Vampire.]
[REWARD: 1x OMEGA POINT; Unlock Basic Interface.]
[FAILURE: Immediate Host Expiration.]
The System offered no advice, no help, only the cold truth. Kill or die.
Kael felt a sudden, unbelievable surge of strength coursing through his body, not from mana, but from a wellspring he had never known. The fractured ribs still hurt, but the pain felt distant, like someone else's problem.
I can fight.
He didn't need to transform. He just needed to survive.
With a primal roar that tore through the rain and the silence of the night, Kael shoved the vampire away with an utterly un-Omega level of raw power.
The vampire stumbled back, his elegance replaced by frantic panic. He looked at Kael not as a target, but as a monster.
Kael stood up straight, ignoring the blood dripping from his mouth. A faint, nearly translucent blue screen flickered into existence only in his field of vision, displaying his new reality:
[Kael Vale – The Omega]
[Synchronization: 0.01% (Initial)]
[Stats: Locked]
[Skills: Locked]
[Omega Points: 0]
Kael smiled, a cold, terrifying expression that didn't reach his eyes. His fight for existence had just been rebranded. He wasn't just Kael the Omega anymore.
He was the Host of the Omega System.
And his first lesson was about to begin: Kill or be killed.
The fight for his life, and the world, had officially begun in a dark, forgotten alleyway.
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