'Damn!'

Sirius cursed his recklessness. He quickly pointed the revolver at the figure opening the door. A man with blue eyes and shoulder-length brown hair lazily came out of the bathroom, dressed in a formal black tuxedo, with a magazine under his left arm. For a brief moment, his gaze met Sirius's, who was standing in front of the door.

The startled man raised his eyebrows in astonishment, making a motion to react, but he was too slow.

Sirius's gaze shifted for a second to the wall clock, which showed 3:59 pm. In sync with the movement of the hands, Sirius fired at the same time the clock struck 4:00 pm.

Bang

All of this happened in a short amount of time, but it was more than enough. The bell marking the end of classes for that day rang at the exact moment Sirius shot the man. The bullet hit him in the forehead with astonishing precision, causing him to collapse onto the wooden floor.

"..." Sirius digested the scene for a few seconds.

He approached the blue-eyed man and searched his pockets. What he found was at least interesting. The man carried a wallet, a pack of cigarettes, and a small notebook. Sirius recognized the notebook as Martin's; the man was probably after it, but what was most intriguing was that the man wasn't carrying any weapon, not even a pocket knife.

'How the hell did he kill Martin?!'

Sirius really began to question if he had killed an innocent man, but that would be absurd. Who would use the bathroom of a room with a dead man inside? No matter how much he thought about it, he couldn't see any reason for the man to stay longer than necessary at the crime scene.

He, even being meticulous, decided to neglect the details for now because something told him he should check the strange energy beneath the floor. Removing a small part of the floor, he discovered a small compartment containing a small metal piece resembling a pocket watch. Upon touching the object, he felt a strange energy of connection flowing between his body and the strange circular object.

'This...'

Analyzing the piece, he saw strange symbols, similar to those on his necklace, glowing with a faint red light. There was an inscription in the center that he managed to identify and read; it was in Latin, the ancient language used in the country of Griffin.

"Unum quod... per aeternum fluit... tempus."

"The one that flows through eternal time..."

As soon as Sirius recited the words written on the object in a low voice, his senses began to become increasingly distant, and the only things he could see clearly were the symbols glowing red before his eyes.

A feminine voice sounded in his mind; it was an ethereal and mysterious voice.

"Welcome, descendant of death."

A text formed in front of him as the symbols of the object seemed to detach and rearrange before his eyes, and the voice read it out loud.

"Do you wish to receive the inheritance of time?"

Sirius was now in some kind of ethereal place, something like another dimension, where there was only him, the voice, and the text with a slight blood-red glow before his eyes.

'What the hell...!?'

"Who are you, and what is this inheritance?"

"..."

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

Sirius waited in silence for a while, expecting an answer from the mysterious voice, but nothing happened. The place where he was was just a black void where his body floated softly, and the text remained before his eyes, still glowing in an ethereal red.

"Eh... Yes, I accept?"

With the words of confirmation, a white light appeared around his body and gradually turned crimson; in the end, the light consumed him, and he returned to reality. His head seemed to throb, and his previously numb muscles now burned wildly.

A few moments later, his body calmed down, and a cold sensation ran through his entire body as if nothing had happened. Sirius saw the object dissolve in his hands and noticed a new text appearing in front of him.

| Name: Sirius Falkner.

| Age: 20

| Lineage: The last descendant of Death.

| Inheritances: -Moment of Chronos.

| Artifacts: -Second chance: charge (0/1).

'What the hell is this? Did that thing make me go crazy?'

The content that appeared before him was completely new and confusing for him, but according to what he knew about the primordials, it was certainly linked to them. His head was filled with ideas and theories about what was happening and about the mysteries surrounding the ancients.

'Moment of Chronos?'

With that thought, the menu in front of him changed, showing details about the inheritance.

| Inheritance: Moment of Chronos

| Type: Temporal

| Description: Chronos, the primordial patron of time, had the ability to extend the smallest moments so that they could be fully enjoyed. The |descendants of Chronos were known for their decisive actions meticulously executed in time. After the fall of Chronos, his power was sealed in |an object and lost over the ages until it was revived by the last of the descendants of Death. Time weakened its effect but also softened the |penance.

Sirius read the description with bright eyes; all that was the knowledge he had been seeking. As a student of history and archaeology, understanding the origin of such a singular artifact was definitely something incredible, but one thing bothered him.

'It says "The last descendant of Death," that would be me?'

'Descendant of Death...'

Another thing that caught his attention was the artifact called "second chance" with a charge (0/1). The only thing he could relate this name to was his sudden resurrection. He then mentally called for the artifact's description to confirm his theory.

| Artifact: Second chance

| Item: Amulet

| Type: Death

| Description: Imbued with energy from death itself, this amulet can resurrect one of its descendants. Recharge cost: (0/3) souls.

'My mother's amulet?!'

He searched for the object in his pockets and examined it briefly. The amulet seemed simple and cracked; there wasn't much more he could discover just by looking at it. When he thought about putting it away again, the object simply disappeared from his hands with a slight black smoke. He experimented with summoning and storing the object, testing his new abilities before trying the same with the strange window in front of his eyes.

Sirius spent some time playing around with calling and dismissing the menu that appeared before his eyes with some curiosity, but remembering the situation he was in, he turned his attention to the two bodies inside the room.

'Descendant of Death suddenly made a lot of sense...'

Sirius put the two bodies in the bathroom and searched Martin's room for anything useful. He pocketed the notebook he found on the assassin's corpse and took six aureus notes he found in the wallets of the two dead men.

As much as Sirius wanted to give a decent farewell to Martin, he couldn't afford to bury him or report his death to the staff at Goldenbridge. His situation was complicated and peculiar, but even so, the fact that he was alive and Martin wasn't made Sirius feel guilty for his friend's death.

'Damn it, Sirius, damn situation!'

Sneaking out of the university, he took a private carriage. There was nowhere to go, but it was a more suitable place to sleep or, in this case, read Martin's notes to discover more about the strange artifact that made him go through that curious experience and perhaps learn about the descendants of death.

"Where to, sir?" asked the coachman.

"What is the closest city from here?"

"I believe it is Rose to the east, sir."

"How much to get there?"

"Just one aureus."

"To Rose then."

Closing the small window that gave access to the coachman, he settled into the cushioned seat and began to read Martin's notebook. The carriage rattled as it traveled over the cobblestones of Irving's streets, while the sunlight penetrated the interior from the side windows.

'Let's see...'

Looking through some of the notes, Sirius concluded that it was nothing more than the research diary used by Martin to record both his thoughts and discoveries and progress on the research about primordial inheritances. This resulted in some irrelevant passages like "Today seems promising, Sirius was very excited about our recent discoveries about the possible meaning of some symbols!" or things like "The academy breakfast was scrambled eggs and bacon."

Flipping through a few pages, Sirius came to one that caught his attention.

"March 20th, Dr. Still betrayed us, damn him! Sirius and I went to meet Stills in an alley a few blocks from the academy to meet a supposed 'Descendant' who claimed to have real powers and intended to collaborate with our investigations on the matter. The bastard led us to a dead-end alley where he cornered us and shot Sirius in the back!"