Chapter 1 — Ordinary Cruelty(Part 2)
The moment Aaron stepped through the Rift, the air changed.
It wasn't dramatic or atlist not at first. There was no explosion of light or crushing pressure. Instead, it felt like the world had exhaled and didn't inhale. Sound dulled, colors sharpened too much, edges turning slightly wrong, like a painting stretched over a frame.
The industrial district vanished.
They stood in what looked like a collapsed underground facility, concrete walls cracked and overgrown with something that resembled moss, except it pulsed faintly with mana. The ceiling arched high overhead, broken in places where roots or veins had forced their way through.
An E-Rank Rift.
Aaron recognized the signs immediately.
Low-tier monsters, minimal environmental distortion and stable mana flow.
"Same as last time," one of the team members said, rolling his shoulders. "Sweep and collect cores."
The leader glanced back at Aaron. "You stay behind. If anything moves toward you, scream."
Aaron nodded.
He didn't argue.
They moved forward in formation. Aaron followed at the rear, eyes scanning, senses stretched thin. He carried no weapon,F-Ranks weren't issued any. His role was simple: observe, retrieve dropped items, don't die.
The corridor opened into a wider chamber.
Something skittered across the ceiling.
"I've got Contact," the woman on the team said calmly.
Three shapes dropped down.
Rift vermins.
Dog-sized, six-legged creatures with translucent skin and glowing cores visible beneath their ribcage. Weak individually but dangerous in numbers.
The Heroes moved smoothly.
Mana flared. Blades flashed. The monsters died, dissolving into smoke and leaving behind small, dull cores.
Aaron stepped forward only after the leader waved him in.
He crouched and picked up the cores carefully, placing them into a containment pouch.
His hands didn't shake.
Cause he had gotten used to it.
"Hey," one of the men muttered, watching him. "You ever wonder why you're still an F?"
Aaron didn't look up. "No."
The man scoffed. "Lying to yourself, no wonder you're still weak?"
Aaron stood and moved back into position.
The man laughed, but there was something sharp underneath it.
They continued deeper.
The Rift felt… off.
Aaron noticed it before anyone else.
The mana density fluctuated in strange waves, like an unregular heartbeat. The walls pulsed faintly, shadows stretching and shrinking in ways that didn't match the light sources.
He slowed his steps slightly.
"Leader," he said quietly. "Something's wrong."
The team leader frowned. "Are you sensing monsters?"
"No," Aaron replied honestly. "Just... the flow in the air it's strange."
Another team member snorted. "An F-Rank sensing mana? That's a new one."
The leader hesitated for a second, then shook his head. "We're almost done, just stay sharp."
They moved forward.
The chamber ahead was massive.
Maybe too massive.
The ceiling vanished into darkness. The floor dipped into a shallow pit filled with broken machinery and debris from another era. At the center—
A nest.
Aaron's breath caught.
This wasn't E-Rank.
Dozens of vermin clung to the walls, their cores glowing brighter than before. And at the center of it all was something larger, its body partially fused with the floor, eyes opening slowly as mana surged.
A mutated brood variant.
At least D-Rank.
"Shit," the leader breathed.
The creature screeched.
The sound pierced straight through Aaron's skull.
The swarm moved.
"Everyone fall back!" the leader shouted.
Chaos erupted.
Blades flashed, mana burst, vermins died but more poured in from every angle. The air filled with smoke and screeches.
Aaron retreated exactly as instructed.
Then the floor beneath him cracked.
He fell for what felt like 30s.
Pain shot up his side as he slammed into debris below. The impact knocked the breath from his lungs. Dust filled his mouth, his ears rang.
"Aaron!" someone had shouted above.
He tried to move.
His leg screamed in protest.
Then the world shook.
The brood variant roared, tearing itself free, its massive body collapsing part of the chamber above.
Rubble fell.
Screams cut off abruptly.
Aaron stared upward, vision blurring as dust and debris filled the air.
Silence followed.
Not peaceful.
Wrong.
He lay there, chest heaving, body trembling—not from fear, but from something deeper. A pressure built inside him, tight and suffocating.
He was alone.
Time passed strangely.
Minutes? Seconds? He didn't know.
His communicator crackled, then went dead.
There was no response.
No footsteps.
And then Rift pulsed.
Aaron pushed himself up despite the pain. His vision swam, but he forced it to steady.
"Common get up," he whispered to himself.
He staggered forward.
The chamber had changed.
The nest was gone.
The walls… weren't walls anymore.
They stretched outward, forming a vast, empty space that felt infinite and suffocating at the same time. The air thickened, heavy with mana so dense it pressed against his skin.
This wasn't part of the Rift.
Aaron knew that instinctively.
Either something had gone wrong.
Or something had noticed him.
A sound echoed.
Footsteps.
Slow and deliberate.
Aaron turned.
A figure emerged from the distortion.
Not a monster.
Not human.
It was worse, way worse.
Tall.
Wrapped in ancient armor. A crown of bone resting atop a skull that burned with cold light.
An Elite Skeleton Lord.
S-Rank
Aaron's mind went dull.
This wasn't a mistake, not even bad luck.
This was death.
Run.
The thought barely formed before he moved.
The Rift entrance was still open, still glowing.
There was hope—thin and fragile—sparked in his chest.
Then something struck him.
Pain exploded through his shoulder, knocking him to the ground. His arm went numb instantly.
He screamed, the sound tearing out of him before he could stop it.
The spear embedded in the stone beside him hummed with power.
The Skeleton Lord raised one bony hand.
The ground shifted.
Shapes began to rise, undead but from the way they looked he knew they hadn't eaten in a while.
Too many in numbers.
Aaron tried to crawl. His fingers scraped uselessly against cold stone. His body refused to listen.
The sounds closed in.
Then everything blurred.
Time lost meaning.
Pain dulled into pressure, they feasted upon him like he was the main course of the day, each one taking a chunk off him to the point it felt like nothing remained.
Aaron lay still, staring at a sky that wasn't even real.
Memories came uninvited.
His mother's voice.
His brother's laugh.
The smell of bottles and alcohol coming from a toxic father.
The way he always said it's fine even when it wasn't.
His lips trembled.
"…Why me?"
His voice was barely a breath.
"Why did I have to be so weak…?"
His chest tightened.
"I just wanted to save my brother. Just wanted to live a life without pain but in the end got so much of it."
The gray sky swam.
"I'm tired… really, really, really tired…"
His eyes filled up with tear.
"I guess there's really no place for the weak in this world."
"Damn it"
Silence followed.
Aaron Yaghan stopped breathing.
Far away, beyond rankings, systems and broken worlds, something ancient stirred.
Blood remembered.
And then—
Silence.
The next minute he heard noice.
He tried to open his eyes, he was lying on cold concrete.
Sirens wailed in the distance.
Hands shook him urgently.
"Hey! He's alive!"
Light stabbed into his vision.
"Pulse is stable!"
"Get him out now!"
Aaron tried to speak.
Nothing came out.
As they lifted him, his vision flickered and for a moment, something translucent hovered at the edge of his sight.
Not words.
Not yet.
Just the faint outline of something waiting.
And he was ready meet it.
End of Chapter 1 — Part 2