[SYSTEM ALERT: FATE-LINK ESTABLISHED.]
[TARGET: MIA (LITTLE SISTER) <---> RESIDUE OF ARCHMAGE MALAKAR (DECEASED).]
[WARNING: SOUL SYNCHRONIZATION AT 42%. MEMORY LEAKAGE IMMINENT.]
Kyle didn't wake up. He exploded back into consciousness.
He wasn't lying in the mud anymore. Or at least, his mind wasn't. He was standing in a tower made of ivory and bone, overlooking a sea of liquid silver. Beside him stood a man whose face was a shifting blur of constellations.
"To steal fate is not to take a gift, boy," the man whispered, his voice sounding like a thousand dry scrolls tearing at once. "It is to invite a ghost to live in your marrow."
Kyle tried to scream, but his mouth was filled with the taste of ancient dust. This was the memory of the "High-Value Fate" he had just scavenged. The sorcerer Malakar.
Suddenly, the ivory tower shattered. The scene shifted violently.
He saw his sister, Mia. She wasn't in the forest. She was standing in a field of flowers, but the flowers were made of teeth. She was crying, calling his name, but every time she spoke, a piece of her thread—the one Kyle had tied to the sorcerer's residue—turned into a black snake that bit her heart.
"I saved you!" Kyle roared in the dream-void. "I tied your life to his!"
"You didn't save her," the ghost of Malakar laughed, his blurred face leaning close to Kyle's Crimson Eye. "You just gave her a more expensive death. Look at the countdown, Scavenger."
Kyle looked up. The golden 'pause' icon above Mia was cracking. The numbers weren't ticking down; they were bleeding.
[09:12:05... 09:12:04...]
The 24-hour grace period was collapsing because the energy Kyle had used was 'corrupt'. The sorcerer Malakar hadn't died peacefully; he had been executed for treason against the universe. By linking Mia to him, Kyle had accidentally linked her to Malakar's "Causality Debt."
GASP!
Kyle's eyes snapped open. He was back in the rain. His right hand was buried deep in the mud, clutching a handful of glowing, charcoal-grey dust—the physical remains of the thread he had grabbed.
His body felt lighter, but in a terrifying way, as if his bones were becoming hollow. His Crimson Eye was no longer just red; a small, black pupil shaped like a jagged star had formed in the center.
[LEVEL UP: 1 ---> 4]
[STAT GROWTH: PERCEPTION +15, WILLPOWER +20, PHYSICAL ENDURANCE -5]
[NEW TRAIT ACQUIRED: 'GHOST-WALKER' (Level 1)]
Your existence is partially out of sync with reality. 5% chance for physical attacks to pass through you. 100% chance to be hunted by Fate-Enforcers.
Kyle ignored the blue screens. He crawled toward the direction of his home, guided by the three threads stretching across the horizon. He had less than ten hours. He needed more energy—clean energy.
He couldn't scavenge logs and dead birds anymore. He needed a heart. A living, beating heart of someone whose fate was "Heavy."
He heard it before he saw it. The rhythmic thump-thump of heavy boots on wet soil. The clanking of silver chains.
"The boy couldn't have gone far," a voice echoed through the trees. It was cold, devoid of emotion. "The Eye leaves a trail of 'Dead Air'. Follow the grey grass."
Kyle froze. Two Silver Knights. They weren't the high-level elites from the cottage, but scouts. Through his left eye, their threads were like thick, silver cables, vibrating with the authority of the Church.
[TARGET: SILVER SCOUT A (Level 12)]
[TARGET: SILVER SCOUT B (Level 11)]
In his current state, a Level 4 boy against two Level 10+ knights was suicide. But Kyle didn't feel fear. The "Memory Leakage" from the sorcerer was still whispering in his ear, teaching him things a ten-year-old should never know.
"A thread is not a rope," the ghost of Malakar whispered in his mind. "It is a vibration. If you can't cut it, change its frequency."
Kyle gripped the rusted dagger he had scavenged earlier. He didn't look at the Knights' bodies. He looked at the space between them.
He saw their threads overlapping as they walked side-by-side.
"There!" one of the Knights shouted, spotting Kyle's small form huddled behind a tree. He raised a silver crossbow. "Don't kill him! The Bishop wants the Eye intact!"
As the bolt hissed through the air, Kyle didn't dodge. He used [Ghost-Walker].
The bolt passed through his shoulder as if he were made of smoke. The Knight gasped, his eyes widening behind his visor.
In that moment of shock, Kyle reached out. He didn't grab their threads this time. He did what the ghost whispered. He "plucked" them.
Ting.
The two silver threads vibrated violently. Kyle forced them to occupy the same causal space. He "knotted" them together while they were still alive.
[WARNING: ILLEGAL KNOTTING DETECTED.]
The two Knights suddenly slammed into each other, as if pulled by a magnetic force of infinite power. Their armor crumpled, bones snapping like dry twigs as the universe tried to force two distinct "fates" into one single point.
They didn't even have time to scream. They became a single, distorted mass of silver and flesh.
Kyle stumbled forward, his left eye burning like a sun. He knelt over the dying mass. He didn't feel pity. He felt the hunger.
"Give me your time," Kyle whispered.
He plunged his hand into the center of the silver mass and pulled. Two thick, vibrant threads were ripped from the dying men.
[FATE CONSUMED: 2,800 UNITS.]
[SYSTEM UPDATE: STABILIZING 'MIA'S BUBBLE'...]
[COUNTDOWN RESET: 24:00:00]
Kyle slumped against the Ironoak tree, his face covered in silver blood and mud. He had bought another day. But as he looked at his reflection in a pool of blood, he saw the star-shaped pupil in his eye grow larger.
He was saving his family, but with every life he stole, he was becoming the very monster the Knights were sent to kill.