The shift was sudden. One moment, Alastor was submerged in the endless chasm of the void, suffocating under the weight of chaos and memories that weren’t his own. The next, he was spat out, hurled back into reality with a force that ripped at the fabric of his being. His body burned as though it was being remade, but in that moment, he felt the raw, bitter taste of power flooding through his veins—new power, yet still his own.
Alastor stumbled forward, his feet sinking into the wet earth. The landscape before him was unrecognizable, a shattered version of the world he once knew. Buildings stood in ruins, their skeletal remains towering like silent witnesses to the collapse. The air was thick with the scent of decay, of a world that had been left to die. It was not the Earth he remembered, nor the Earth he had dreamed of returning to. This was something else entirely—a broken reflection of a reality that no longer held any promise.
But there was something familiar about it. The chaos, the destruction—it felt right. He could almost taste the disorder in the air, feeling the pulse of the void still lingering in the cracks of this crumbling world. His shadow stretched unnaturally across the broken streets, twisting and flickering in ways that shouldn’t have been possible. It moved when it should have been still, an unsettling reminder that the void had left its mark on him.
He raised a hand to his face, and for the first time, felt the crisp, cool air of Earth against his skin. But it was wrong. The wind didn’t feel like it used to. It wasn’t fresh. It was laden with something darker, something more unnatural. The void stirred within him, faint flickers of darkness moving in the corner of his vision, like half-remembered dreams or the shadows of forgotten things. They whispered to him, promising chaos, promising control.
Alastor’s clothes, the sharp suit he had once worn to command respect, twisted into something else—a twisted homage to the past. The fabric stretched and shifted, the colors darkened, as though his very desire to return to something better had been corrupted by the void’s influence. His tie, once neat and precise, was now askew, the pattern distorting as if it couldn’t decide what it was meant to be. The gleam of his pocket watch flickered, its hands jerking between times that no longer made sense.
As he stood there, the rain began to fall—cold, relentless, washing over him in sheets. The world felt silent, empty, but in that silence, he heard it. The faintest echo of music, distant and sorrowful, like a memory pulling at the edges of his mind. A song from a jukebox. It had been years since he had heard it—decades, maybe—but it was still there, a haunting reminder of the life he had lost.
He began to hum the tune, low and mournful, as he stepped through the ruins of the city. His voice was barely more than a whisper, but in the emptiness, it filled the space around him like a ghost. His shadow danced erratically across the wet ground, a flickering, chaotic thing that didn’t belong. The void had always been a part of him, but now, it was something more—something inescapable. A part of him he had no choice but to embrace.
The rain fell harder, but Alastor stood there, his face tilted upward, his eyes closed as the water mingled with the rain of the past. He was no longer human. He was no longer bound to the Earth that had cast him aside. He was something new, something greater—something shaped by the void, by the chaos.
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And as he hummed the last note of the song, the sound was drowned out by the echo of his own power, a ripple that disturbed the fabric of reality itself.
Alastor stood motionless in the rain-soaked ruins. His body trembled, not from fear, but from the raw surge of power coursing through him—the chaotic energy of the Void now intertwined with his very being. His mind was sharp, clearer than it had ever been, as though all the fragments of his shattered past had been pieced back together.
The sensation was intoxicating, like he could bend the fabric of the world with a single thought. But as the rain fell and the shadows danced around him, he felt it—the call of the System. The familiar, mechanical pulse at the back of his mind, beckoning him to assess the power he now wielded. The air around him vibrated with energy as he allowed his thoughts to slip into the System's interface, his fingers twitching in anticipation. It was time to see exactly how far he'd come.
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System Notification:
[ALASTOR - VOIDBORNE MANIPULATOR]
Level: 50
Core Class: Voidborne Manipulator
Title: VOIDBORNE
Affiliation: None
Health: 4,800/4,800
Mana: 5,000/5,000
Stamina: 3,000/3,000
Strength: 200
Dexterity: 250
Constitution: 220
Intelligence: 450
Wisdom: 350
Charisma: 400
Abilities:
* Mind Over Matter (Level 10): Control the minds of others, creating illusions, fears, and controlling actions for a limited time.
* Void Shards (Level 14): Manifest destructive shards of Void energy to pierce and corrupt enemies.
* Ethereal Flicker (Level 13): Blink between shadows, evading attacks and repositioning in the blink of an eye.
* Flicker of the Past (Level 12): Manipulate memories and create false recollections that cloud the minds of others.
* Void’s Embrace (Level 14): Warp the environment into the Void temporarily, disorienting enemies and causing extreme sensory overload.
* Charismatic Destruction (Level 15): The power to manipulate minds with charisma, turning allies into followers and enemies into pawns.
Passive Abilities:
* Void Resistance (Level 15): 90% resistance to Void-based damage and control.
* Regenerative Shadows (Level 14): Regenerate 5% of health and mana per minute in darkness or shadowed areas.
* Illusion Mastery (Level 13): Increases the effectiveness and control over illusions, making them harder to resist and more powerful.
Weaknesses:
* Light Sensitivity (Level 11): Exposure to bright light weakens his Void-based abilities, reducing damage by 30% and illusion effectiveness by 40%.
* Void Fatigue (Level 12): Overuse of Void powers leads to extreme fatigue and slower regeneration. Prolonged use can cause Alastor to lose control of his abilities.
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This world was his now.