Bran stared at the flickering screen, fingers hovering just above the keyboard. A hesitation he couldn't explain held him frozen.
The monitor's cold glow washed over his face in shifting hues of blue and pale silver, highlighting the dark circles beneath his eyes and the tight line of his jaw. The small room felt suffocating tonight—the stained walls pressing closer, as if listening to every shallow breath he took.
For most people, Runic System was just a game.
A distraction.
A temporary escape from a world rebuilt on bones and silence.
But tonight, it didn't feel like one.
He leaned back slowly. The worn chair creaked beneath his weight, the sound lingering too long in the stale air.
His gaze stayed locked on the screen, yet his thoughts drifted far beyond it.
The Runic System had emerged in the years right after the war, when the world was still choking on ash. Cities lay in skeletal ruins, streets buried under gray dust. The sky had dimmed into a permanent twilight, and hope had become a half-forgotten myth.
People needed something—anything—to survive the emptiness.
So the governments and corporations, once fractured by greed and borders, united under the banner of "recovery." The Runic System was their gift: a digital sanctuary where the rules of reality could be rewritten, where power could be learned instead of feared.
At first, it was simple. A controlled world. A place to breathe again.
But simplicity never lasts.
The system evolved.
Or perhaps it simply revealed what had always been hidden.
Players discovered the Words.
Ancient. Elegant. Dangerous.
Ignis — fire.
Ventus — wind.
Corpus — body.
Words that did not merely describe power.
They became it.
People experimented. They combined runes. They pushed every boundary.
And the system answered.
Abilities grew sharper. More complex.
More… real.
What began as a game slowly transformed into something deeper. Something people started to rely on.
Whispers spread—first quiet, then insistent.
Glitches.
Symbols appearing where they shouldn't.
Players claiming they could feel the power beneath their skin, not just on the screen.
Most dismissed it as fatigue or obsession.
But not everyone.
Some believed the Runic System wasn't merely created.
It had been discovered.
Bran exhaled slowly, the sound barely audible in the quiet room.
He had never cared about any of that.
To him, it had always been simple: a way to pass the time. A way to forget.
But tonight… something felt wrong.
His gaze shifted.
Hovering in the air above the console—where no physical object should exist—was a rune.
Faint.
Glowing.
Rotating slowly on its own axis.
It wasn't part of the interface.
It wasn't a projection.
It was simply there.
Bran leaned forward, breath catching. "Since when…?"
The rune pulsed once.
And Bran felt it.
Not with his eyes.
Not with his ears.
Through his very bones.
A sharp, electric surge shot from his fingertips, racing upward through muscle and marrow like a current searching for something long dormant.
His vision blurred.
The room tilted.
The rune spun faster.
Light fractured.
Then a message formed—not on the screen, but directly in front of him, burning in the air with unmistakable clarity.
"Runic Interface Activated."
"Player anomaly detected."
"Quest system online."
Bran's breath hitched. "…Anomaly?"
The word hung heavy, unsettling.
His fingers trembled as he reached forward, closer… closer…
Until his hand passed through the rune.
Or rather—until the rune passed into him.
A violent surge tore through his body.
Heat without flame.
Pressure without weight.
Instinct overrode thought.
His lips parted.
And the word slipped out, quiet yet absolute.
"…Ignis."
A spark answered.
It leapt from nowhere and everywhere at once, coalescing in his open palm.
Heat—real, immediate, far hotter than any game simulation—seared his skin.
Bran gasped.
The room warped.
Expanded.
Collapsed.
Sound stretched into distorted echoes.
Light shattered into blinding fragments.
And then—
White.
Total.
Consuming.
Everything disappeared.
And Bran fell into it.