[ You have transferred.]

“…”

[ You have gained experience.]

[ You have gained experience.]

[ You have gained experience.]

[ You have gained experience.]

The statues were killing.

They killed four.

I could feel the negative emotions from a hunter standing before me as we both watched when the killing ended.

The Cruel lord stood over one of them who was crushed and smothered underneath his heels.

One step forward to crush another.

I found both my knees were gone, like they were torn and ripped off my parts.

The blood trailed to my legs resting near a statue holding a large axe over its shoulder.

It would be far better if I didn’t come here.

It would be a little merciful.

I didn’t have the desire to think anymore.

I had enough.

“ Boss.” I heard the hunter speaking to himself staring at the girl the that was split apart.

Many were injured and some were taken under the statues without weapons.

A few young hunters tended to those who had the same conditions as me.

Some had their eyes closed because of deaths and others rested on the floor without a heart beat.

I only saw this side of living when I worked for Siphon.

I know the killings won’t change.

[ You have gained experience.]

Nothing in this kind of life will ever change.

I know…

“ Boss…” The old hunter fell to the floor as he mourned for the girl, I saw his mind go in when he stared to the sword on the ground.

His emotions fluctuated between red energy and a desire to no longer go on.

I reached out my hand in an attempt to comfort him.

I know what it’s like to lose something. I couldn’t reach him from here.

I could only watch him from a distance when he picked up the sword.

I raised my finger and started to write.

Hoping that this would be enough.

I didn’t have the confidence to believe it would change anything.

[ Don’t give up.]

[ Choose life.]

All I could do was leave those two words and accept that I had no control over what may happen.

Then I focus on my legs that were gone.

One moment.

There was an awful scream.

A statue stood over a man with it’s sword raised above his head.

The hunter was enthralled by the Cruel Lord in the center of the dungeon, but couldn’t see the one right behind him.

Before I saw the weight of it drop.

I saw his death.

It would split him through the middle.

Just like in my past lives before.

“…” Something crawled in the back of my eyes when I saw it.

Nothing would ever change. Unless I tried to alter.

Over and over.

The different memories I remembered manifested as holographic hallucinations.

— Why?

——— Why….?

—— Why.

Why do I feel so hollow.

I pushed my fingers against each other and snapped my index and thumb very hard.

Then a bone broke in my thumb.

I focused on the statue and how it paused before it drop the sword.

The hunter noticed it’s shadow… and began to ran far away from it.

Time snap.

An ability I had taken from a video game.

Appeared to capture all statues within my awareness and have their movements restricted by time.

There was this thing moving behind my eyes after breaking my fingers.

An awful feeling as if something living was there tearing it open from within.

One side of my vision blurred and turned red.

But I captured all of them and the Cruel Lord.

“ Al!, Al!” I heard a voice and saw the old hunter pull me up as he stared panicked to my left eye.

Concern I never seen before.

From someone I’ve never met.

I just stared to the sword.

My condition was far more sickly than I had thought.

I thought of ending my life if I had the chance too.

“…” I didn’t say a word when I heard him call it.

He didn’t show any signs of mentioning the way I looked his sword.

I wasn’t hiding it from him.

I thought he was a very kind hunter.

I leaned forward to where I felt my pants without my knees and I lifted both hands forward and focused.

“ What are you doing!” The hunter tried to stop me, but he didn’t press so hard.

“ Al.. You’ve just used your mana… If you go any more than this.”

“ I’m okay.”

An aura appeared over my fingers coating them in this cyan glow.

I was okay. This wasn’t mana I was using.

This was just another variation of the magic they know.

“ Mend.” In that second an inescapable release spread out from my fingers. A stronger aura burst out from the tip of them.

A thick dense of energy brighter than the light I had before.

The old hunter stared very tense at the magic and looked away solemnly.

“ You are right Al…”

“ It’s better if we died here the way we want to.”

Die? That didn’t really matter now.

All I wanted was to see that faint colored light appear.

This world was so beautiful that even if I were to die.

It reminded me that even in the most awful places.

Miracles like this magic exist.

Reach your hand forward and think of everything I could have done if this was my original world.

A form of magic that could have healed my sister existed here…

——Why was I so lucky?

This miracle was wasted on the wrong one.

I saw my flesh begun to reconstruct a new skeletal system for my legs.

The flesh developed over the new bone and soon followed the developed skin.

Mend required one of my memories to be sacrificed.

[ A memory has faded.]

I wondered what memory left me this time.

I pulled myself forward to stand on my new legs.

The old hunter immediately leaned forward and pulled up.

He was strong.

I crawled forward on my stomach when he helped me to stand.

I felt my bones creak and parts of my body begin to snap and I took a deep breathe unable to see very far away.

“ Old man.”

“ Please step back.”

“ Will you be alright?” He asked concerned, but I wondered why he flinched at the mentioning of calling him old.

“ I’m okay.”

When I noticed he stepped back, he seemed concerned that I would follow his movements like a hawk, but I kept looking until he moved further away from my left eyes sight.

“…” In the distance. I could barely see them clear, but I felt their scent, the scent of different people clinging to their forms and moving.

One my eyes saw the world in red and blur and my other saw it as a killing field.

People and their lives.

Hoping to live.

I clasped my hands together and offered them a prayer.

“ Find them.”

I rearranged the positions of my hands praying and pointed down slightly below my chest.

“ Mark their locations.”

I imagined a flame burning. An aura that off the statues I saw.

A combination of time snap and fade being executed immediately.

All my powers were made from a function that as long as I die. I could sacrifice myself for anything I desire and alter reality.

I didn’t need to resort to death to do something as small as this now.

Every last one of them within my awareness will be captured and fade.

That’s when I imagined a parasitic flame coated in elements of fade and time stop using the statues as a burning wick with my memories of my last moments I felt before transferring here.

That moment I saw the signal of a bright glow.

I answered the phantoms.

“ Burn them all.”

[ The Black Tongue of the Tragedian has activated.]

A purple phantom butterfly manifested over the statues.

[ A memory has faded.]

[ A memory has faded—]

My awareness was focused on the statues in this dungeon. The ones on the field holding weapons.

My phantoms manifested and haunted, stopping time and the moment they touch the statue forms.

I would feel their mark.

First it corroded peeling away at the places they touched like parasites feeding on stone, it discolored and morphed what it latched onto.

Making them habitable materials for burning.

Then when I felt a phantom full of life energy, a purple glow flared in delayed blinks after 5 of them.

One of the statues exploded.

Like a wild fire it infected and found other statues and moved onto the process of fading.

[ You have gained experience.]

[ You have gained experience.]

[ You have gained experience.]

[ You have gained experience.]

When I stared saw the fires.

They reminded me of something I saw in Siphon.

White phosphorus executions.

I felt my senses heightened when ever the statues fell to the floor.

Swallowed by fade and slowly burning apart.

It was like I was left in that place again.

Watching someone burn in the forest.

Fading away.

“…” I watched one of the phantoms linger over my fingers and how it discolored that that part of the skin.

I saw the old hunter smile.

Enthralled by flames and standing in front one of them fading in the purple fire.

His emotions now filled with a constant rush of joy.

His head hanged low and as he prayed to the god of them.

He stared up to me.

The one who brought these phantoms to life.

“ Kill them…”

“ Kill them all.”

That old man was haunted by something.

Above him

A large phantom of a serpent like beast with the head of a spider and butterfly wings and it’s tail coiled around him all statues.

It lingered because I recalled Siphon.

I turned away from him and stared off to the distant side to a large gate.

“ Old man.”

“ Do you want to go home?” I glanced down to my fingers when I felt blood fall down my nose.

“…” He was solemn by my words.

“ I’ll take your silence as an answer.”

Then I rearranged the purple phantom and removed the fading effect.

A golden butterfly fluttered before him, flickering in and out of existence.

“ Follow the fading light.”

“ This will take you home.”

He stared at the small light puzzled by it when it fluttered around him.

“ This thing?”

I watched it fade in and out of sight.

“ Its one of my most precious memories.”

“ It will protect you. Hunter.” Then he stood up and stared to the sword I had taken from the ground.

I handed the blade to him.

“ Run. Don’t look behind.” He reached for the weapon and I walked past.

When I was near. I spoke to him in a small voice.

“ Don’t give up.”

“ Choose life.”

“ Vice captain.” I looked over my shoulder the moment I heard him that name, but I didn’t answer. He didn’t turn back either.

“ Will I see you on the other side?” There was a seriousness to his tone as if he believed in it.

I stared up to the the roof of the dungeon.

Thinking of what kind of sky existed outside of this place.

“ I’m sure it will be warm today.”

“ May you live a kind life.” I walked away with my phantom understanding that my body was too tired to hold a conversation.

I moved deeper to the blood shed.

And made my phantoms linger in front of a body we passed.

[ A memory has faded.]

I sent an order to every living hunter through a system notification and prepared some of my phantoms to guide them away from this place.

I decided in that moment, to show them a miracle that never would happen for me in life.

A little change of perspective to a situation where life often kept ending.

I began writing.

[ A miracle has occurred.]

[ The monsters in this area are now being hunted.]

[ Escape the dungeon.]

[ Requirements for survival: Follow the Fading lights.]

[ Rewards: Return home.]

With each system notification I saw, a new phantom was created and the price for their creation was an indiscriminate fading of one of my memories.

I had no control what faded and what remained.

I simply thought of how beautiful it looked when those astral like projections of aura with the forms of butterflies gathered and flickered surrounding me.

They passed through my fingers and danced through to the other side of my hand.

[ A memory has faded.]

[ A memory has faded.]

[ A memory has faded.]

[ A memory has faded.]

[ A memory has faded.]

Their appearance made my memories appear beautiful, but at the same time.

I pointed over the statues to the large gate near some statues being burned relentlessly.

“ Go.”

The fading lights flickered from my hands towards the gate of the dungeon.

I wasn’t interested in the surviving hunters, but I was aware and feel some of their eyes on me.

The old hunter kneeling before the fire. I looked straight through him and past his figure.

To the future of what could be done or what I could do more.

I followed the trail of blood and marked the locations of bodies near us and the places I remembered.

I went to find bodies to mend.

There wasn’t many statues left whose eyes I could borrow to find more hunters.

The statues killing most were burned and those without weapons were spared.

I saw one of them come alive.

In that area where the injured were. The statues started to move like the others.

Holding out their hands and feet to destroy life.

There were more hunters near, more than there were on the killing field, but their conditions couldn’t allow them to leave and some still believed.

That standing underneath one meant they will be saved.

Because of my actions.

The rules were changing.

All were hostile now.

Under a death command from the Architect.

All of this just for one person to be a vessel for Ash-born.

The Architect could have been more than.

I raised my hand and stopped their time.

[ A hunter has been chosen to be a sacrifice for the living and the dead.]

[ The hunter will be afflicted by a curse that will attract the monsters until they die.]

[ Use this time to run through the line of monsters and escape the dungeon.]

I approached a statue holding onto a harp to pull the statues and the Architects attention to me.

I cursed my body so the hunter all can go out and experience some kind of life outside of here.

That was the hope.

My dreams of seeing that future.

Made me realize how empty my conscience seems to be.

I delayed my curse and moved to where the injured were.

There were a few of them with extreme conditions

But there was no healer that could take care of that.

Not in my memories.

A woman, man, hunter, human. They were all the same to me.

“ Mr…?” Even if they stand in front of you. Ignore the reality they look like a person and function.

I approached them and raised out my hands.

An aura brighter than girl whose hands were shaking was needed.

I spoke by her side, and saw the wounds she tried intensely.

Jin-woo. The young Shadow Monarch had one of his legs torn because of them.

“ Recover.” I told her when I pressed my fingers over his missing limbs.

“ I will care of it.”

It was our first interaction here. I could never forget the features of someone like her, but… like my memories.

She was slowly drifting away.

I took a hold of the aura and scattered it over the worst of places on Jin-woo and her figure blurred because of my poor sight.

Then the aura glowed brighter as I fed more memories into it.

[ A memory has faded.]

She had the most brightest eyes, but I couldn’t see them. The hunters, Jin-woo.

They were all blurry to me now.

It was better.

This was a life. I don’t wish to remember.

“ Al?” The aura faded and I moved forward to inspect the new limb manifested by mend. It moved and could extend and flex just like my own.

I was satisfied. There was no reason for me to stay there.

“ Jin!” I turned to leave, but I felt a pair of fingers hold my wrist.

Jin-woo barely stood up.

“ Thank——“

“ You’ll be alright.” I said.

I lifted his hands of my wrist.

I did not come here to speak to them.

My life won’t be any different even if I were to die here more than I can ever count.

“ We’re still here.” There was still monsters nearby.

I walked past him to a hunter who leaned against the floor.

A hunter with their shoulders pierced by a large stone arrow that tore straight through his shoulder.

I pressed my fingers over the arrow to fade it away.

I closed his chin so he would not bite his tongue during the removal of it.

“ This will be painful.”

“ Forgive me.”

I held on to the side of his neck and an aura coated my fingers, first I administered a fading and cut off his mutilated arm.

I didn’t show kindness as I did it. Since I knew my abilities so well.

In one swift moment that the bad arm fell off.

The aura warped and glowed cyan again and I focused on a better one than the other he had before.

While a piece of the fading aura burned away the old one.

I focused on the new developed one being reconstructed in front of me.

I didn’t stop with just that.

I coated his entire form in mend.

The wounded, the dead. I didn’t think or look at them as I mended.

I stayed by their side until I understood there was no reason to be near them anymore.

“ Thank you…” It was a response I didn’t desire to hear from the man whose armed I dismembered.

Since I decided to mend them.

I didn’t see them as people.

When I saw their expressions and the relieved tears that came from fixing something that crippled them.

I understood why I had this as one of my powers.

I didn’t want someone to experience suffering like my sister did in their last moments.

So instead of just focus on what only my eyes could see.

I had to make sure. I did more than what I thought was perfect, because I didn’t trust my ability for it.

When they showed their emotion once the light lifted from their body.

I thought of the inevitable appearance of the monarch invasion in the future from now.

Dying here may appear to be a far more merciful outcome.

I didn’t really care about the worst to come.

All I wanted was to play god.

They would know the first thing they wished to experience out there.

I hoped their dreams and desires come true.

I know it would be a better life than the ones I live.

I just know.

My time sense was far too distorted to focus on reality.

I felt safe because of the silence and distracted by the aura over my skin.

“ My eyes… I can… see…” Time passed because I slipped into my mind. Not knowing, just functioning when I saw a hunter here.

The hunter cried as she reached out for my face.

I held her hand and couldn’t feel anything but indifferent to the emotions she showed me.

The way they stared at me like I was… more than useful.

It only dissociated me from this, because I know what kind of person I can turn into.

They would never look at me the same if they saw my life before this.

I just smiled to the woman.

It was the most politest way to thank her for looking at me with those eyes.

“ Thank you… for helping me.”

“ Thank you… so much…”

Such beautiful eyes that adored my miracle.

“ My pleasure.” The words slipped out naturally.

The aura faded and I stood up to leave again.

“ Hunter. Follow the fading lights. They will help you return home.” Those words were my exit phrase to escape any further conversation with them.

The woman stood up, but turned to the direction where none of my phantoms were.

Where I was looking forward.

She was the last one left to mend.

I couldn’t remember how many I had done before. It just passed by so quickly.

That I had forgotten this was a dungeon we were in.

I fixed my shoulder armor.

“ Where are you going?” She asked it in the most polite voice.

“ Far from everyone.” I replied.

“ Why?” To that small question.

I turned to her.

“ I don’t know.” It was a question I was indifferent to and if I were to share my thoughts.

It would end up turn to an exhausting and long conversation that didn't have a meaning.

“ I don’t feel like leaving.” It was my response to someone who paid just a little attention to me.

I raised my hand and a phantom manifested to guide her from here in the same way I had done for the others.

In that moment a phantom showed.

I imagined my sister standing behind the woman shaking her head as if she were disappointed in how I treated these people.

Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

I was always standing from a distance from them, because I was use to being on my own.

Play a nonchalant observing god and alter reality in places where I see suffering and death.

In one life I took life away and in this world.

I was different than who I was.

“ Take care.” I said to the hunter and walked to the distance side.

Where the statues were frozen far from everyone.

I caressed the clothing of a staute not under the control of the Architect and listened as it played a sad song.

Blue curse marks appeared over the skin covering the bone of my fingers.

It was pulsing and glowing.

When the tune for the song played, memories of my life appeared in the back of my mind as I listened to the melodic tune of Deep Sorrow from the Eminence Of Shadow.

Slow, calm and something I knew could heal my mind, but my skin was stained red from others blood.

It wasn’t just that.

I could vividly see my sins mixed with those kind memories.

In this life there are people that would never face the atrocities I know.

They had another waiting for them on the other side.

I was envious for all of them.

I had only myself.

“…”

‘ Brother!’

[ A memory has faded.]

‘ One day I want to be an aunty. I want some cute nephews and nieces!’

[ A memory has faded.]

‘ I don’t mind staying here, I just want you to always be with me.’

[ A memory has faded.]

‘ Al! Why did you do that to Dolly! No don’t you dare say anything to me. I’ll kill you, I love you, but I will do it. Go back and apologize to her.’

‘ No. I won’t.’

‘… Why?’

‘ I don’t know.’

[ A memory has faded.]

‘ Sera. Would you like to have something sweet again?’

‘ I think I will be okay, but I don’t want to go to hospital.’

‘ Sorry. I want you to be well.’

‘ It hurts when they needle me. They did it wrong again.’

‘ I know. I know. They were… They were only helping me okay? Something happened that day and they couldn’t do their job right. One more time, for me?’

‘ As long as they don’t hurt me again.’

‘ I’ll be there. Like I always do.’

‘ Okay Al. Don’t you lie to me again or I’ll really cry.’

‘ Fighting.’

[ A memory has faded.]

‘ Mr Al. Things aren’t looking good.’

‘ Why?’

‘ Her lungs are not working as they should. We have tried the last thing that could help her, but it harmed them more.’

‘—- I’m sorry. The only way is to put her off the machine and her lungs might recover and breathe on it’s own, but it’s too damaged to keep going.’

‘— Because she was born a disabled?’

‘ No. Her immune system has grown very weak over the time she has been here.’

‘ There is a chance her body won’t make it if we were to go through an operation.’

‘ Mr Al?’

‘ It’s tough when our loved ones go through this, please decide what we should do for her.’

‘ If you wish for us to stop, we can arrange for a new room in a ward and spend the last moments you have with her or go through an emergency operation that may keep her alive, but on a machine.’

‘ It’s better to not go through the operation Mr Al. There is a chance something will go wrong and she may not be awake to feel it, but there will be even more pain done internally to her body.’

‘ Mr Al. I’m so sorry.’

[ A memory has faded.]

‘ No… I don’t want to go there… I don’t want to!’

[ A memory has faded.]

‘ Al, I want you to be loved and I want to see you happy. I’m going to see you again, but I’m going to miss you brother.’

[ A memory has faded.]

‘ I love you.’

[ A memory has faded.]

‘ See you tomorrow…’

[ A memory has faded.]

‘ Don’t leave me here…’

‘ I won’t. I will come back.’

‘ I promise.’

[ A memory has faded.]

‘ Brother Al.’

‘ Bishop.’

‘ I don’t care if my sister will recover her ability to move in the next world. That person you say can walk. That is not my sister. My sister was born paralyzed.’

‘ Why would I want be in a world where my sister will suffer again?’

‘ But she won’t feel suffering. It’s gods world. People who never done wrong in this life will be his children, they will have better bodies and all disabilities will be purged in that place.’

‘ So, I’m supposed to just accept that my sister suffered in this place, just so she could experience a new body in a different world that’s better?’

‘ Stop manipulating me with your words.’

‘ God is very kind. Please understand.’

‘ God? If he were so kind, He would have made her feel no suffering before and when she was taken from me.’

‘…’

‘ So what if he can fix disabilities and make a place where suffering doesn’t exist at all.’

‘ That isn’t enough. It would never be enough. That isn’t enough for me…’

‘ Do you know what I saw before life took her away?’

‘ You don’t really understand your god, do you?’

‘…’

‘ I won’t curse your beliefs, I don’t follow your preachings so I have nothing to say against it, but I want to make something clear.’

‘ No-one will ever be as merciful as I would. If I was him just for a day.’

‘ I don’t know much about this afterlife, but I hope your kind god feeds my sister sweets in that place.’

‘ I hope she is fed constantly and experiences a life where she could have anything she wants, something I could do when she was here.’

‘ I’m sorry brother Al.’

‘ It’s okay. I don’t really feel anything anymore.’

‘ I think it’s because I was thinking of her again.’

‘ I’m sorry Bishop. I can’t control when it happens.’

‘ I think I’ll learn how to get it right soon.’

‘ Al… crying is a good way to show you are still there.’

‘ Not for me Bishop.’

‘ I’m not that person anymore…’

[ A memory has faded.]

“…”

It was like watching two different screens on one side You watch your life and sometimes your memories begin to blur near the end of them and the other was what you see in front of you.

I saw people both living and dead.

One was clear in my mind and the other was blurry in front of me.

The song was soothing and leading me to places where I didn’t want to go.

I can close my eyes and rest listening to that tune.

Nothing mattered. Nothing mattered at all.

I wanted to sleep for long this time and I wanted to dream of my sister when we were young.

I don’t want to transfer.

But for that reason. My senses was on the edge and keeping me from dreaming.

My sister died a very long time ago, but my time sense and my involvement with transfers make it seem like it only happened a few hours before.

I trailed a phantom circling around me.

In the blinks of my eyes closing despite my activate awareness over everything. I would see hunters far away.

I observed them as they attempted to escape from here through my phantoms.

Jin-woo and beautiful Miss Healer and the original survivors and those I helped before.

They all stood at the distance and some looking to my direction waiting.

For the phantoms to guide them out.

“…”

I only wanted to listen to this tune then sink to the bottom of the dark.

“ No! NO!—” The hunters were holding someone.

The woman who had this condition with her eyes.

I was too tired to think about what they were saying.

My entire focus was on the statues moving closer.

Before I had to perform a shadow transfer to make a portal for them to exit the dungeon.

I wasn’t a shadow now.

“…” I looked to the large gate standing tall where the lights creaked out from under it.

Showing the outside.

[ The doctrine of the Idle Baphomet has activated.]

[ Those marked by the Idle Baphomet will be killed without rest.]

[ All monsters will be controlled by ~+~ and orders will be carried out to intiate all out attacks on marked targets.]

[ Monsters will continuously attack until there is no life left in them.]

We all had our role when it comes to life.

I accepted being a No-Life for the rest of my life.

Now I had another to be disposable with the only function needed for this moment—- be useful.

Hunters were more valuable than me.

They had one thing I could never make on my own.

A future. The resolve to choose and endure for a better life.

I raised my hand over my chest because my life wasn’t meaningful at all.

This was just another place I would die.

My corpse will never be buried.

I was satisfied with that.

“ May they all live kind lives.”

[ 5 minutes before monsters will initiate their final attack.]

[ An exit will be created.]

I begun to initiate preparation for all their saftey.

Mend as many of the dead I could find before the statues and the Architect destroy and mutilate my body.

All this for their family outside the gate.

“ Ah… I’m such a good worker.” There wasn’t a need for me to do it.

I hated people.

I hated people who placed their lives in danger.

But I over think it.

And believe that someone would end up just like me.

Who doesn’t care for life.

And live with the ideology of a monster.

“ I bet there’s no-one whose a better support like me.”

I hope the gods of these hunters would provide me some reward.

Like a honey friend chicken and fried rice or something interesting and tasty to eat.

Something cheap would be enough.

I had very poor expectations for living….

A beautiful woman who was madly in love with me would do it for me though.

Something like that would never happen.

So I’m satisfied with the lesser things in life.

“…” Like dying meaningless for no reason at all.

I located many of the bodies marked by phantoms and they lingered over their locations.

[ A hunter who has been killed by a sword.]

[ A hunter who has been killed.]

I don’t believe I have the luxury of time to mend each one of them.

There wasn’t time to do as I please.

A memory to speed up the process and connect it with The Black Tongue Of The Tragedian where all the hunters laid neatly in a row.

I thought of that experience and fed it through vocal projection with the thoughts of life mending.

I stood in front of area where I mended those people before.

I spoke with a clear voice then as if it were some ancient and majestic spell.

“ Sympathy for the Fallen.”

[ The Black Tongue Of The Tragedian has activated.]

A large magical formation emerged over the ground and all the hunters both flesh and blood underneath my phantoms marking were teleported in my direct line of sight.

Blood, flesh all line up in a row and mending at a speed that defied my own mend.

They were cradled in this glow.

I saw flesh and blood being recreated and forming a person.

A young girl who looked no older than a teenager laid on the floor with an insignia of a lion attached to her side.

She wasn’t a destroyed as the others, but there were curse marks on her skin, some kind of curse magic in this world.

I reached out to the marks and begun to fade them from her skin.

Like scraping hair of the skin.

I faded those letters off like peeling.

‘ Aren't you afraid?‘

‘ …‘

‘ If I were a good person. I'd say you shouldn't be here.‘

‘ —-But If I were an honest man I would say.‘

‘ Do as you please.‘

‘ If it hasn't happened yet, there's no need to fear it.‘

Hunters were people who should be strong, but in the stories I saw.

They were just things that were created to serve a meaningless goal.

Just like how these hunters would always be killed again and again by the Architect.

This was their design for their existence.

Live out their lives up to the points their meaning wasn’t useful anymore, because death was just death and this was just a completed story.

So it didn’t really matter.

What lived.

What died.

What experienced cruelty.

Who experienced pain.

Just like me we were all fools lending out our lives, because those were the only options to live and survive with now.

[ Mend has been applied.]

‘ You're leaving me…?‘

‘ If you wanted to. You could always use your sword to make up for me leaving you for dead.‘

‘ It wouldn't satisfy you.‘

‘ You wouldn't even feel a thing.‘

‘…‘

‘ If you make it through this…‘

‘ A tongue wouldn't be enough.‘

‘ I prefer the option where you try to make me fall madly in love with you first, If it works out then maybe we could move on to a red wedding.‘

‘ …‘

I saw a sword crushed and leaning on it’s side. Broken from the weight of the Cruel Lord.

I thought weapons and flesh were the same and all it needed was to be held on and feed of bit of memory.

“ Mend.”

It was easier to mend something not living, because they won’t speak or remember what you had done.

‘ I will kill you.‘

‘ I hope you do. It would be far better to die young than by something without a heart.‘

‘ Take care and—-‘

‘ —- May you perish wretchedly.‘

[ A memory has faded.]

After I added my mending on the areas I faded.

I placed the sword over her chest and wrapped her arms onto it and lifted her to the middle of the formation where the other hunters laid.

In the moment I carried her. It reminded of the times I use to do the same for my sister.

“ Mod. What are the chances for hunters returning to life?”

[ 50%] I thought about the cup of reincarnation and if not for that there wouldn’t be a chance for people to return.

“ If I used Alter Reality would they survive outside this dungeon?”

[ 0%]

“ Why?”

[ All things must die.]

The future outside this place is much more despairing that the experiences here.

Everyone of them will go.

I know that it might appear different if Jin-woo had inherited Ashborns blessing.

I changed that.

There survival rate outside this place ended because I lived.

Because I stopped the Architect from killing anymore.

That led to the reality of this world diverging from the one it was meant to be.

A life where an E Rank Hunter who received the power of the Shadow Monarch Ash born and lives on to save this reality.

I could have just watched as many would die over and over.

Many would choose that cruelty because they had seen the future where Jin had saved world and changed everything.

Nothing really mattered and nothing changed at all.

People still had the memories they died after the cup of reincarnation.

It was a different scenery now.

But I felt like nothing had really changed at all.

I stepped out of the formation and saw the statues who were meant to be frozen by time surrounding me with their eyes glowing.

The Architect stood in the middle of all 5 of them.

“ You’re different—“

[—— from the rest of those flies.]

I cut the Architects communication through the systems voice.

“ There is this saying humans have when it comes to these moments.” I told him.

“ When in Rome. Act like a Roman.”

“ When you’re in a dungeon.”

“ Become a beast.”

The Architect felt the effect of me disrupting his thoughts from speaking through his own system.

The way he looked at me was more intrigued by the curse marks on my skin that my influence over it.

His eyes couldn’t move away from them.

“ Those markings. Why do I feel so much pleasure when I look at you?”

“ Pleasure?” I couldn’t feel anything from these markings all they did was glow.

The Architect eyes snapped wide open and a crazy and distorted smile showed similar to that of the cruel lords.

An arm began to breakout from behind him.

It wasn’t the only one.

“You won’t understand—-”

[—-But I have this very strong feeling that when I kill you...]

[ I can live forever too.]

It was then I felt the air shift and heard the sound of his movements when he disappeared where he stood.

“ You have an ugly smile again.”

“ That statue showed the same expression.”

[ That’s because killing humans is fun.]

“ I know.” I’ve seen people like you before.

The killing instinct appeared above me.

I rushed to the left when I saw a sword break the ground below.

Then another sword arching straight through my chest.

And another blade about to be thrust forward with his left hand.

I saw every movement he made in the fractions of seconds before it happened.

Each time.

I cracked a finger to dull his actions from working under time snap until the rest of my fingers on my left hand was broken.

There was only a space between us, but I was only able to block 5 potential attacks in sacrifice for my fingers.

[ You will run out of your fingers soon.]

[ Surrender.]

[ I can see that body won’t last long.]

I only had my other hand left to break.

But I had no strength to stand longer.

I made an effort to not care for what happen to my body, but I believed there is only a limit you can dissociate yourself from it.

Till you see that it can’t keep up with your mind.

My breathing. My stamina and endurance wasn’t something that can match the things I imagined for it to do.

So I pushed it and broke it past what I know I could take.

It wasn’t my body.

I brushed my fingers under an aura of mend till all 5 of them were no longer painful to feel and placed my hand over my chest to stabilize my heart racing with long and slow controlled breaths.

[ A memory has faded.]

“…” I looked to his statues and their famished eyes focused on my skin.

“ And what do they feel?”

[ Everything I do.]

He raised an axe with his multi armed form and disappeared again.

[ Die.]

“ Come.” I extended my hand like I was going to swing forward with a bat and fed a bit of aura to my hands and imagined a sword of light with the elements of fade manifesting in my hand.

The Architect and statues under the temptation of the curse mark on my skin.

They all rushed without their minds, but I was too blind to see it clearly.

So I surrender my sight to lean on my other senses, scent, feeling , but I surrender myself to the feeling of doom and the rest of my powers in this world.

I surrender myself to the modification system.

I surrendered the rest of mind to all my titles.

[ Sacrificial Devil has activated.]

[ Idol Baphomet has activated.]

[ Tragedian has activated.]

Then I saw in my blurred vision.

A sword of fading light.

And above me

I saw a dark figure approaching from above.

There was this restless darkness inside of me crawling through my memories and probing me into surrendering my control over to it by showing all the worst things hidden within all my memories and exposing them again.

It’s voice spoke in a different language transitioning between distorting and human tone.

A language where the Architect ability could not interpret.

But I remembered.

Don’t close your eyes. It won’t disappear.

Don’t hesitate.

No fear.

Don’t think.

Just kill.

“ I see you.” I raised my weapon without care of how my eyes were so focused on the weapons aiming at me from multiple directions. I stared straight through them to the face I could not see.

My eyes were blind, but I was aware of everything in this dungeon.

[ All Eye See: No fear and indifference to your circumstances allows you to see the world through a different point of view. You see through the eyes of your Phantoms. Passive Skill.]

I saw the Architect from above. I appeared right beside him looking at him dead in the eyes.

[ A memory has faded.]

There was tinge of horror as he found himself unable to snuff me out.

Unlike my other phantoms who appeared in the forms of butterflies.

I had talons.

I had a beak and I had 4 wings, but I stared madly at the Architect who touched me with one of his arms.

I passed through his fingers and clawed at his eyes.

Although my claws passed through.

It was enough.

My talons dug through his skin.

[ Time snap has infected an entity.]

[ Fading has tainted an entity.]

I flew away as my body who stood underneath.

Appeared to be lost in a trance with this apathetic look when the Architect fell.

Holding onto a large sword of purple light.

I felt the area begin to distort from it’s presence, because even the ground was being corrupted by the elements of fade.

I felt my sense of awareness began to drift away the moment I saw my body lunge and hammer the entire blade straight through the Architect from below.

…

[ The Sword Of Fading Light: All entities pierced with this weapon are trapped under all its effects until it fades. It does not harm the entity, but all effects are indefinite and weapon is indestructible before fading.]

The moment I saw it.

I left the sword inside of his chest and created another.

[ A memory has faded.]

Then I stuck another one inside of him.

[ A memory has faded.]

And then another I left in his stomach.

“ There is two abilities you should be familiar with now.”

“ I can’t personally destroy you on my own without them.”

“ So understand what it feels like to live inside your body unable to do anything while the rest of yourself goes away very slowly here.”

“ You should be most familiar with this one.” I showed him.

How I used and ignited the system notifications over all the hunters and directed the Phantoms to guide each one to the most safest route that will guarantee their survival away from me.

I snuffed the notification screen between my fingers and watched it shatter against the floor.

“ What a waste.”

I showed him how I used everything that was siphoned from him and took control over the Cruel Lord using my own system.

With the intention for it to fire of a powerful heat ray to break the gate right open.

The Architect observed everything with everything stripped from him.

His system. His ability to function. Everything taken.

First. A phantom appeared over it and touched its form.

[ A statue has been infected.]

The Cruel Lord raised his head A large amount of magical energy focused to the direction of the gate.

I channeled all of its power in that beam to the extent it would be destroyed the moment the magic left from its body.

[ Your will has been executed.]

Something about the Architect not being able to have control over his own creation, but unable to react because he was bewitched by the curse.

Allowed me to see a glimpse of his eyes turn, but immediately snapping on to me.

It was a sudden moment, but I learned of the extent the Idle Baphomet had control over someone.

It was showing signs of breaking through time snap.

As someone as powerful as the Architect even he couldn’t fight the temptation within.

A large ray of light that almost be compared to a dragons final breath changed everything he saw.

I kept an eye on him through a phantom while I watched as everything began to vanish away.

A massive violent ray of energy gathered to the center of the Cruel Lord eyes and then expelled a large flood of magic exploding through the dungeon.

Anything in its way vaporized and was consumed by the pure magic energy and destructive power of the self destroying Cruel Lord.

It burned through and created a great valley leading out to a large gate swirling and twisting with magic.

It burned straight through and into a different dungeon. The air was changed by it

[ All hostile entities have been drawn to your location.]

It was a once in a life-time experience you’d never see in a world without magic and numerous remains of monsters were found by Phantoms on the outer edges of it.

[ All hostile entities have surrounded you.]

“ My role was to be nothing less than useful.”

“ But look at this mess.”

[ You have created a transparent blade coated with fade.]

A sword of fading light reformed in my hand because… I’m not gonna stand here and wait.

I rested the edge of sword of light against the side of my ear and leaned forward and pulled down while I turned my head towards the opposite side I looked.

In the distance I saw phantoms flying into the ravine and hunters chasing after them.

I saw everything all through my phantoms eyes.

“ I’m very happy. I could be useful.”

I felt so much blood spilling from the open wound I gently pressed into my neck.

I looked down.

That’s when I saw a body near my feet and it holding onto my ankles.

…

[ You have been transfered to a temporary moment in your life.]

I looked down to the pile of people stacked over each other like firewood.

All of them burned by white phosphorus.

“ Did they have to go so far?”

It wasn’t the real white phosphorus. It was an alias for the atrocity we know as white zombie.

We understood they were tortured before it touched their skin, but none of the people in the room wanted to say it.

“ Ah…!!!”

Because the people who did it to them.

They were our own.

We worked for the same organization, but couldn’t think of a reason why a person would only cut open their faces after torture and leave them here still living.

The most cruel thing was to see someone you’d believe to be dead, in pain and breathing heavily.

Helping them was not an option any of us can do. They were less than what was considered unable to save.

Nothing could heal that chemical or those wounds that were inflicted, but worst.

Their minds had becomes zombie and they were crying as if they were still people.

They were going to die on their own, but worse they could never live even if we belonged to the UN who sought to prevent these things from happening.

You can’t save someone who was reduced to a zombie.

“ This isn’t fucking right!” One of the soldiers reached out his gun and shot the floor when he heard a soft and painful moan.

A child who was younger than most of us flinched from his weapon.

I knew what he would do the moment before it happened.

Since this was a transfer in my past.

I had already lived this experience before.

I walked up to the boy and patted his shoulder because he couldn’t look away from the child underneath his feet.

Still breathing and shaking without his mind, eyes hanging on different sides.

They were still people even if they looked like they were used and left here as a warning.

I could tell the boy was angry at all of us, because of we were doing nothing here.

So I took his gun from him and finished off the child he didn’t kill properly.

I fired above their heart. One shot to the head and two at the chest.

This was Siphon way of allowing others to know.

We were here.

“ Boss…” It was hard at first, because at this point of time.

I never had to kill someone.

This boy had to do it, but someone had to bear that sin.

Children were disposable on this side of life.

It was the ruthless truth you learn very quickly when you are a person of Siphon, but you see more when you are there, hunting, scavenging as a trafficker for them.

A young child can be almost anything—- an unsuspecting bomber, an assassin trained lightly to shoot a gun or something much more.

A disposable lure to find and locate other people.

It became instinctual to learn very quickly from repeated experiences to find and kill enemies using their own repeating methods and because of it.

The atmosphere became extremely cruel to the stage. They seemed no different than a dog.

Show them a cruel reality.

Offer them something that could help them escape it.

And show them you are the only one who will be their for them for the rest of their lives.

That future doesn’t happen at this point in time, but I saw signs it was happening many weeks from now.

I handed the gun back to the boy and walked back to my position, but he waited near me because of the others in the room.

“ The next time something like that happens.”

“ Be aware. What can harm and what will kill you.”

We were still new to this. We were left on our own with little information, but to just find villages and places people might be.

I knew all of us did not have the conscience to just walk away after we had found them.

Nobody wanted to have that kind of memory, but it was ruthlessly exposed to us.

It was something I know could ruin someone and deteriorate them later in life. It happened to people who work with Siphon.

It happened to me.

So I chose to ease the burdens of those around me by doing the things I knew some of them could not do at this moment while working in this job.

Someone had to function and get paid to feed their families or their greed and someone had to rot within.

I knew my worth.

Be useful.

Be useful.

“ I will do it.” Keep the rest functioning and survive.

They all had something that I didn’t have.

A place they can go back too after.

I motioned the soldiers to leave the shed and I stared at the gun by my side with a twisted heart.

It was hard, because not all of us were terrible people. I know I wasn’t as twisted as the others I’ve met in this place.

Sometimes you had to do something terrible to show mercy.

Sometimes you know only one way to do it right.

I didn’t have a resolve to just leave them and walk away.

I prayed against the gun.

“ God…”

“ In Another Life.”

“ Please show them a kinder miracle than this.”

I turned the modified pistol down.

Each bullet I heard leave the gun. It reassured me that I would die the most wretched death imaginable.

I felt disgusting and I was ashamed, but I could feel nothing when I pulled aside a different body and shot them in the same way again.

One shot- Follow by two after.

I could hear my heart beating through my ears.

I didn’t really stare at what I had done. I looked straight forward to the faces just looking back, eyes closed and leaning lifelessly against the other.

It hurt me knowing. There were still more who were understanding or waiting for what was to come.

So I never looked at them when they were alive.

Their faces and deformed expressions haunted me.

I didn’t deserve to live or exist.

All I muttered before it happened was— “ I’m sorry.”

I knew one day hell would catch up with me even though I did not understand what that kind of place would look like when that time comes.

All I knew was each time I heard the gun.

I was one step from it.

One sound from falling into it.

Hell was a place the people who hated us wished for us to go.

I wasn’t so afraid.

It sounded like a place where I belong.

Pick up- Drag- Shoot- Drag- Pile.

My heart never stopped haunting my ears.

I made sure they were properly dead and wouldn’t remember their torture.

There on the side. A young boy looked at me and lowered his head after the last one dropped after I let go of his shirt.

I stared at him straight in the eyes and wondered if he had been there for a majority of it.

I did not know.

“ Boss. The others are waiting.”

“ I’ll do my job better this time. I promise.” There was a certain fear he had in his voice when speaking to me.

I think it was because of my mind.

I know I wasn’t normal now.

I could feel it.

What I had done was showing through my skin.

I didn’t have to kill anymore.

It felt like I was relieved that it was over.

It seemed like I hadn’t done it properly and had to go over them again.

My anxious mind was cornering me into a place where… I didn’t do it properly.

Like I had to do it all over again, as if I did not do it right.

I hated that feeling, but my eyes lingered over each one of them checking if any of them might be still alive.

I tapped him over the shoulder and tore my focus away.

“ Make enough money, but don’t be us when your older.”

“ Boss?”

“ Don’t work for anyone.”

“ Notice the way people treat captives.”

“ Don’t forget the way they treat them.”

“ They will treat the people who work for them the same way.”

“ Live longer than those around you and never forget.”

“ Be ruthless.”

“ Be cruel.”

“ Siphon reward these kind of people.”

I stared out the broken building.

It has been awhile since I was here.

That sky was the only reminder.

I wasn’t in Siphon anymore.

[ A past memory has faded.]

“…”

My hands were shaking through out my fingers to the rest of my hands.

I didn’t care about the pain I felt from my throat.

I thought I transfered, but it felt like only a moment now I’m here.

I didn’t want to go back to the past.

It only forced me to remember and live it again.

“ Mend.”

I fix the large cut from my ear down to my collar bone and reacted to a shift in the air.

I moved my head to the side the moment there a pressure and sound from behind.

[ A hostile entity has attacked you.]

[ A hostile entity has appeared above you.]

[ A hostile entity has appeared behind you and is attacking the formation.]

I snapped my fingers the moment I received it.

[ Time snap has been activated.]

And then I sent a sword straight through their chests.

The closest one near was the Architect who had attempted to use a statue to pull out the sword of fading lights, but burned out of sight.

The rest of its body was still in the process of fading, but I fed it with more.

I moved and kicked the statue off the Architect, but it burned the aura. I directed down my heels.

“ You appear like you are missing one more sword.” I reformed a sword and stabbed it straight down his chest.

Under the aura that was eating him from inside and the powerful temptation of the Idle Baphomet that was controlling his mind.

I could still feel that linger sensation I had felt in that memory.

This overwhelming allure of addiction where I must do it properly.

Where I must be better.

I could see him trying to communicate to me.

It was the feeling I could feel from others that made me remove my restriction I held over his system.

“ I’m sorry.”

[ It….doesn’t…. hurt….?]

“ It should never feel like anything.”

When I touched his skin and most of my swords faded, but the one I was holding onto.

I saw the most distorted and wicked smile on his face the moment he regained some form of control.

Those famished eyes staring straight at me and all his arms around me.

Tempted by that short moment of freedom.

I took a grip of the sword and pressed down until I felt the blade push straight through the ground.

There was this feeling when I saw him understand what was really happening with his body.

There was some form of clarity in his eyes despite the curse marks on my skin.

[ What’s your name?]

I couldn’t help but say something only he should know.

“ Cartenon. Al Cartenon.”

In that moment he placed his only hand on my shoulder.

[…] There was a moment of emotions in that look he showed as he stared towards this dungeon and down to the statues fading just like him.

[ You did all this?]

“ Death doesn’t have to be painful.”

Under the brief moment when I felt the release of Idle Baphomet.

New arms erupted out of his back and reached for my face.

I stared in his eyes unfeeling to his actions reaching for my life.

In that short moment.

I thought I just might die, before the rest of fading caught up to it.

“ Al Cartenon. The name of the life who killed the Architect and immortalized him.”

“ In this life.”

“ I’ll be what you always wanted to be.”

[ You have gained experience.]

His eyes stared straight forward, but I lowered one of the swords he held in his multi armed form and just the lightest weight against it shattered his hand starting from his knuckles.

The discoloration made it seem so fragile and sand fell to the floor.

I had an understanding when it came to Monarch deaths.

This time he didn’t fade. He became a different sort of sand.

A dark grain like salt.

I observed as his body broke apart and crumbled but one of his hands holding onto a ring stayed reaching out to me.

I took hold of a black ring.

[ You have recieved ‘ The Ring Of Cartenon’ ]

[ Description: The one named Al Cartenon, inheritance from a creation who chased after immortality.]

The purple aura grew more brightly over his form feeding on everything, but the floor.

The sand burned inside the light.

I watched him the rest of him burn out over the ground.

[ Fading: A curse modification with the element to fade and rot entities.]

On the ring. There was a small description placed on the side. A marking of some language I know I’ve never seen but understood because of his power.

[ Death doesn’t always have to be painful…]

[ Sometimes… It leaves you in a heart beat.]

It felt like something split open in my chest and cut off my ability to breathe, but I found it funny and haunting.

Those were a different translation from the notification I saw before my sister died.

It was over now.

The Architect and most of his statues.

There wasn’t anymore hostile living in this dungeon.

Most of the hunters were following my phantoms.

There was nothing more to do besides ignore Ash-born who lingered nearby.

I did everything that could be considered fun at this time.

I gained some new powers and I will try to remember them for the next transfer.

In the end of it all.

I found myself kneeling over a six pointed thorn helmet that one of stone statues wore.

There wasn’t anything to do, but die and transfer.

The dungeon was empty.

I reached out and placed my chin over the spike of the crown until something poked through the skin and grinding through my chin bone.

I noticed…

The amount of blood that was slowly crawling up my knees.

An illusion… No…

This was that feeling I had before I transferred.

Before the executioners came to take my life.

A Psychological Suicide.

[ A new ability has activated: Auditory hallucinations.]

It sounded like it was raining and although there was no more statues here.

I could hear the melody clear singing from somewhere.

The rain sounded very heavy now, like bodies pouring into a stream.

“…”

When I close my eyes.

The whole world drops dead and I’d see my life. A place I was always so happy and care free and felt like nothing will ever change that.

Now. When I close them.

I don’t see home anymore.

Just a miserable person who did terrible things to other people.

I opened my eyes because I saw a weak and fragile glow.

There I saw an Miss healer with tears falling down her face using her healing powers over me and I was resting on my back surrounded by strangers who seem familiar.

It would seem like someone had pulled me away from the spike. I could still feel the wind pushing through the hole.

I pushed under my chin.

“ It’s not working.” I heard a voice say.

“ It will work!”

This isn’t going to work.

This wasn’t something she did not have the ability to fix.

I thought of tainting her healing aura and alter it with elements of fade so it would stop healing.

I know I could not speak through my voice.

I just raised one of my fingers.

[ Stop.]

It’s not that I can’t mend it.

I had so many abilities that all of them only had one purpose.

Kill. I don’t really want to live out my life in that same place again.

I don’t want to really spend all my time killing monsters or people.

She tried to heal me.

It just wasn’t a broken skill like mine.

So I raised my finger and spoke through the system with no remorse, because she didn’t listen.

[ Fade.]

Her pure green healing powers bright was violently being infected by my aura.

[ The Black Tongue Of The Tragedian has tainted an entity.]

I could see the horror because of the unknown power changing in her hands.

There had only been one color I know when it came to a healers magic.

A warm and soothing green glow that made you feel good, but under this light I desired for it to only exist to do one thing.

Kill me.

My voiceless words was like temptation being amplified even though I ordered her to do it.

She was unwilling to follow that word I projected through the system.

“ No… No….” As she tried to cut of her mana and start over again.

I imitated the same thing.

We both use an ability.

One evoked a green light and the other tainting it to a purple shade.

“ Heal….” The aura would sometimes fade, but she wasn’t as strong in front of my words.

The hunters saw what I had done. Their expressions morphing to the things I could hardly feel.

Parts of me was fading.

The Black Tongue of the Tragedian wasn’t a kind ability, but it worked through the system.

I only said the one thing I know.

[ Fade.]

Each time the light was tainted. A part of me was gone.

[ A memory has faded.]

I was pressuring her into murder. I offered my full consent because it was me who would be killed.

I was comforted at the moments where I only saw purple in her hands.

She stared blankly.

“ I can’t do this anymore…”

“ I tried so hard this time…”

My mind became clear when I understood what the Architect had experienced.

The feeling of watching bits of yourself being torn and disappear, but unable to feel it.

Like the frames of a photo being burned from the edges.

My body was brutally faded.

I could see how deformed my body appeared in those blue eyes.

[ Thank you.]

[ Most beautiful Miss Healer.]

Before I saw the rest of me go.

I left a small gift for her through a system on a phantom.

It lingered over her shoulder and infected it inside of her.

[ An ability Fade has been transferred.]

— You have been killed.

——You have gained a Black Soul.

Then she vanished right in front of me.

I found myself in this dark place.

A status screen masquerading as god glowed.

[ Do you wish to continue?]

All I do was die.

I didn’t deserve to continue.

[ Fated To Perish wretchedly.]

There was always a number recording the amount of lives I’ve died now.

It just I don’t really trust the number I saw there.

[ Past lives: 008]

Just like how I don’t really remember my abilities.

I don’t remember the amount of times I’ve exactly died till now.

[ A personality construct is fading.]

I had no desire to transfer.

[ Personality construct is fading….]

Often I just kept dying.

I saw a message glow in the display of the system.

[ Input new personality construct.]

I reached out with my non existent hands and touched those words and imagined the name I had said before.

“ Al Cartenon.”

[ Al Cartenon has been created.]

[ Al can hold numerous personality constructs and transfer between each one.]

[ These personality constructs will have their own experiences and life in transfers. You develop these personalities during the times you live as them through actions and decision you make in transfers.]

[ Because you are facing a personality construct fading.]

[ You have been a new personality construct to live as.]

[ Do you wish to continue?]

I raised my hand without hesitation.

I didn’t really think of anything.

[ A new personality construct has taken control.]

[ All entities will now regard you in this world, by this name.]

[ Al Cartenon.]

There I saw a someone standing in front of the hunters.

His face was burned and discolored, but I knew that person was the body that had been faded.

It was waiting inside the dungeon.

In front of the hunters covered in my formation.

It was me and he leaned against the formation looking at those inside looking at those inside.

[ Do you wish to continue?]

“…”

“ Mod. What will happen to Al?”

[ Al will experience a temporary form of slumber.]

[ Al Cartenon will take over transfers in their place.]

“ What is a personality construct?”

[ A personality construct is a limb of what you are. It will respond and live as you desire, but all abilities will not transfer over.]

“ So… It’s just a clone?”

[ A personality construct is your identity known within transfers.]

[ Each personality construct have their own history, powers, knowledge and number of deaths counted.]

“ What does that mean.”

[ Your current personality construct will reside here in an eternal slumber.]

[ Until the moment you desire to switch personalities.]

[ You will live past Al’s experiences and continue living in this world.]

[ Transfers are unavailable to all personality constructs besides Al.]

[ Main abilities used by Al can’t be used by other personalities constructs unless through an ability transfer by switching over to Al.]

“ So I will just be starting over with nothing?”

[ Due to circumstance. You will be a substitute Shadow Monarch Vessel because of your past life contract.]

[ You will become the next Shadow Vessel and be devoured by Ash born, but due to circumstances in this life.]

[ Ash-born has been faded.]

“ What?”

[ Due to your lost in the contract and the actions the Shadow Monarch took in your last moments of life. During your interactions with the hunters and the Architect.]

[ ~+~ personally sought to fade Ash born The Shadow Monarch in this world.]

“ If you did that—-” Then what happens to the Shadow Monarch this time?

Jin-woo would go on to receive his powers…

[—But Siphon hunted and Absorbed All Of The Shadow Monarch into your modification system.]

[ All abilities can now be registered into The E Rank Support System and accessed by all personality constructs.]

I looked at the person in that place. In that dungeon instead of thinking over how fucked the events I read were.

“ Mod. Is that person me?”

[ The body is not you, but you infested it before it was killed by a statue in the original timeline.]

[ Due to it’s extreme desire to live on. A forbidden magic was attempted but failed. ~+~ found a disposable body that accepted your personality construct and tailored it to fit transfers within this world.]

“ Does he have a family?”

[…]

[ There are entities waiting for him outside this dungeon.]

“...”

[ Do you feel that you could have lived out your life differently knowing this?]

[ Dear Administrator.]

[ You have seen the world through transfers.]

[ But you have never lived long enough to see the impact or alterations your actions have done in those worlds.]

[ A disposable body for your transfer may have a past, but the moment you transfer that history blurs.]

[ Administrator.]

[ Do you wish to transfer?]

[ In Another Life?]

“…” I stared at my body.

The way he stood in front of the formation not controlled by me.

How he cried in front of the formation.

Something inside of me gave in to the idea of not transferring and just leave him to himself.

I didn’t think of what would happen if I were no longer there anymore.

It seemed that the moment I was no longer in control.

The original owner will return when I had gone.

Living was a curse to me, but from the words I saw on the notification the original owner of the body cried with joy.

[ An existence has offered all of his mana to send a message to personality construct Al.]

I stood there staring at the notification that revealed a short message.

[ Thank you.]

In a single moment message faded and I saw him suffering from something.

[ Due to insufficient mana. An existence will die.]

When I touched the option to transfer.

I found myself kneeling in front of the formation with this indescribable pain of something ripping open from the inside of my chest.

[ In this transfer. The Architect experienced a fading and you named yourself Al Cartenon.]

[ Your body faced a direct fading.]

[ The owner of the body woke up to an event where a large battle had taken place and all his tormentors were gone.]

[ Due to the fading. Only Al felt the physical sensation of being faded from this reality. The original body had not been harmed. A disposable body was destroyed in place of it.]

[ To thank the personality construct. The owner resorted to sacrificing their life to send a single message, since they could not reach you through other means, but death.]

[ This body will soon die.]

[ In the last moments of the originals body life.]

[ He smiled seeing all of his hunting party protected by this miracle.]

[ He smiled seeing many other escape.]

[ They were satisfied with Al actions.]

I clasped my hands together and kneel down and prayed in front of the hunters within.

I didn’t think of god. I thought of what this body had done.

To give up their whole life to leave behind two words.

Although I did not have much emotions.

I prayed for them.

“ Mod can you explain to me the circumstance involving this body?”

[ Al Cartenon. Occupation. Vice captain for a newly established guild called The Hunting Party.]

[ Due to financial circumstance between his life as a student and the guild. He had entered this dungeon with the Leader Of The Hunting party and her butler. All three were killed by the Architects plot to find a perfect vessel for The Shadow Monarch, Ashborn.]

“…”

“ What was the ranks for the Leader and Butler?”

[ Each one of them were registered as E Rank Hunters who could not develop under the extreme conditions of debt and inability to finance their self-proclaimed guild.]

[ They had formed The Hunting Party in hopes of living a better life for themselves, but also their families.]

I’ve been thinking a lot about myself.

And I’ve decided to be happy.

“ Mod. Go through the process for an ability transfer.”

[ Which ability from Al do you wish to transfer over to current personality construct?]

“ Alter Reality.”

[ Alter Reality has been transferred over to Al Carternon.]

~+~

[ Welcome To Solo Leveling]

[ This is your modification system]

[ ] Al Cartenon.

[BAL: -000]

[Rank: E]

[Abilities (+)]

[ Alter Reality.]

I stood over the hunters when I felt pressure attacking inside my chest.

I had a new name now.

I had to be different from those people who I was before.

A new man.

“ From now on everyone of you will be my slave.”

“ Your names. Your faces I won’t remember, but you will know it from your hearts that I own your body, your freedom and your mind.”

“ You will do everything I say even if it were to go against your conscience.”

“ You will respond without hesitation.”

“ You will live how I want you to.”

“ In exchange for belonging to me.”

“…”

“ Use me.”

“ Love me.”

“ Show me affection.”

“ I’ll smother you with great rewards.”

I raised my hand and felt something inside me begin to rot as I thought of what immortality would appear like.

[ Your inside has——]

I didn’t need the system notifications anymore.

I was a different person now.

A serum that granted immortality was enough to fulfill my desire, but it just wasn’t enough.

An immortality where the body will automatically learn to mend and resurrect and evolve each time we experience death was perfect.

This was my gift for them.

Immortal Serum: A serum that grants an entity the lowest level of immortality. Each death will increase the immortal effect.

A white serum sitting inside of a syringe with a needle at the tip of it.

I walked up to one of them and tore a hole into their skin watching part of the liquid flow straight into them.

Then I walked to another and then another.

It was decaying terribly inside, but I couldn’t stop.

Inject every body and do it right.

Physically it will hurt, but it won’t be too much yet.

It was only a small alarm going off detaching me from what I should really feel.

This serum digging into another person.

Function and live till my body stops moving.

The rotting fed on my insides again.

My skin started to turn into this purple lump and tear open seconds after.

Inside of me was all mushy and my hips and joints were just swaying.

All my blood was black now.

Black liquid.

I turned away from walking, because I didn’t like the look of my knees swaying on their own.

I cuddled against the stomach of a hunter injected by my serum and used the stomach as my pillow.

While the rest of everything in me changed.

I could smell the stench of decay from my own breath and my body just… dieing, but that was all fine.

There was still a few injections left inside of the syringe.

I could feed it to more slaves.

But I dropped the needle in front of my eye and left it there sinking down.

I couldn’t feel it.

All I saw was something running across my left eye and stared straight to the roof of the dungeon.

This dark ceiling.

I held onto the hand of my pillow and spoke on my own.

“…”

“ I hate crowds.” They make me self centered.

“ I hate the outside.” Something always goes wrong.

“ I hate people I don’t know.” I’m far too territorial.

“ But worst of all.”

“ No matter how many transfers I see or what I have to go through.” I know. I won’t change.

“ Things will always take on a repeat.”

Maybe this would be different this time?

Immortality.

What kind of life would it look like?

[ You have died.]

[ You have gained a Black Soul.]

[ Immortal effect has activated.]

[ You have gained Lesser Immortality.]

[ Body is in the process of reconstruction.]

[ Modification system has been updated.]

~+~

[ Welcome To Solo Leveling]

[ This is your modification system]

[ ] Al Cartenon.

[Immortal: Lesser Immortality.]

[Black Soul:01]

[BAL: -000]

[Rank: E]

[Abilities (+)]

[ Alter Reality.]