What the hell is down there?

  The enemy’s boots slammed against the cobblestone as he raced toward it. He was fast—too fast for me to reach in time with normal movement.

  So I gritted my teeth and forced Phantom Stride again.

  My legs screamed. The burning pain intensified, but I didn’t stop.

  I was closing in.

  Five steps away.

  Four.

  Three.

  The enemy leaped forward, about to descend into the well—

  I lunged.

  My sword swung toward his back.

  Slash

  With my sword buried in his back, we plunged into the well.

  The walls blurred past as we freefell, the rush of wind screaming in my ears. The enemy flailed weakly, his body still barely clinging to life. I twisted the blade—one final, decisive motion—before ripping it free.

  Shhk!

  His body spasmed. A dying gurgle escaped his lips—then silence.

  I let him drop.

  A second later, we hit water.

  The impact was brutal. The cold shock flooded my senses as I was dragged downward, my limbs stiff from the sudden chill. For a moment, darkness swallowed everything, bubbles rising as I struggled to orient myself.

  Then—instinct took over.

  I kicked upward, breaking the surface with a sharp inhale. The cavern at the bottom of the well was larger than expected, the dim glow of moss-covered stones barely illuminating the space.

  I treaded water, scanning my surroundings.

  How the hell do I get out of here?

  That’s when I saw it.

  A circular wooden door, half-rotted and wedged into the stone wall above water level.

  My mind clicked.

  "Break it and bring it back, unscratched."

  The pathway.

  Without hesitating, I lifted my sword and hurled it.

  The blade slammed into the wooden door with all the strength I could muster.

  CRACK!

  It splintered apart, fragments falling into the water. A dark, narrow passage was now exposed.

  I swam toward the wall, gripping onto the jagged stone edges. My muscles screamed in protest as I pulled myself out of the water and into the passage. The air inside was thick, damp—and pitch black.

  There was no turning back.

  The darkness swallowed everything.

  I pressed a hand against the wall, using it to guide myself forward. The stone was rough, uneven, but it kept me from losing balance. My breath was steady, controlled—yet something about this place felt wrong.

  The deeper I went, the heavier the air became.

  Then—

  A shift in the atmosphere.

  A faint disturbance.

  I slowed my steps. Up ahead, a dim purple glow flickered, barely visible in the suffocating blackness.

  As I moved closer, the passageway opened into a small chamber.

  And in the center of that chamber, floating above the ground—

  A sphere.

  It pulsed, a deep purple glow radiating from its smooth surface, as if reacting to something unseen.

  Thick, swirling purple smoke coiled around it like tendrils, twisting and shifting in unnatural patterns.

  A warning instinct screamed at me.

  Don’t touch it.

  Everything about it felt wrong. The air here was different—tainted.

  And yet…

  I couldn’t look away.

  Something about it called to me.

  I took a step forward.

  Then another.

  My hand moved on its own, reaching toward the sphere.

  The moment my fingers neared it—

  BZZT!

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  The system buzzed violently.

  What the fuck—

  Before I could react—

  A sharp crack split the air.

  The sphere fractured.

  A surge of thick, blackened smoke exploded outward, spiraling wildly.

  Before I could pull back, the smoke rushed toward me, enveloping my body.

  Then—

  Agony.

  ---

  A searing, unnatural pain tore through my body, originating from my left hand.

  I gasped, staggering back, but the pain only intensified. My fingers spasmed violently, twisting at sickening angles as if something was crawling beneath my skin. The glow of the sphere flared brighter, corrupted mana forcefully flooding into me like a dam breaking.

  Then—

  SNAP.

  A wretched, bone-cracking sound echoed through the chamber.

  I screamed.

  My hand contorted, twisting in unnatural directions. Bones shattered, then broke again.

  "FUCK—!" My voice ripped through the air, but the pain didn’t stop. It kept spiraling, growing, consuming.

  My flesh rotted away, sloughing off like burnt paper—then regenerated only to rot again. An endless cycle of destruction and rebirth.

  "MAKE IT STOP—!"

  I thrashed, but my body wouldn’t listen. The corrupted mana held me in place, sinking deeper, crawling into every inch of my arm like thousands of invisible blades tearing me apart from the inside.

  I could feel it—rewriting me.

  It wasn’t just my body breaking.

  It was my very existence unraveling.

  I clawed at my arm, desperate to stop the flow, but my own fingers crumbled at the touch, dissolving into raw pain before reforming just as broken as before.

  My vision blurred, the world twisting into a nightmare of colors, static, and screaming.

  "STOP IT—JUST STOP—!"

  I barely recognized my own voice—raw, desperate, shattered.

  The pain spiked.

  My arm twisted grotesquely, bone pushing through flesh, fingers bending backward.

  I wasn’t breathing.

  I wasn’t thinking.

  I was breaking.

  Darkness rushed in.

  And I collapsed.

  ---

  “Zane. Zane, wake up.”

  The voice was soft. Familiar.

  I blinked, the world around me hazy, my mind sluggish. A hand gently shook my shoulder, the warmth of it grounding me.

  “Come on, you’re gonna be late.”

  I let out a groggy groan, rubbing my eyes. The ceiling above me—plain, white, normal. I shifted under my blanket, the scent of fresh laundry lingering in the air. My room, my bed—home.

  None of it felt wrong.

  None of it felt off.

  I sat up, stretching as I looked toward the doorway.

  There she was.

  My mother.

  She smiled, her usual tired-but-loving expression on her face. “You okay? You were tossing in your sleep.”

  I blinked at her, my mind struggling to latch onto something, but the thought was gone before I could catch it.

  “Yeah,” I muttered. “Just a weird dream.”

  She gave me a knowing look but didn’t push. “Breakfast is ready. Don’t take too long.”

  I nodded absently as she walked out, the smell of coffee and eggs drifting into my room.

  Weird dream?

  For some reason, I felt like I should remember something. Something important.

  But the more I tried, the more it slipped through my fingers.

  So I let it go.

  The day played out as it always did.

  I helped Mom with small chores around the house. Washing dishes, taking out the trash, fixing the damn shelf that had been wobbly for weeks.

  I went to work, punching in for my shift at the convenience store. The same dull hours of stocking shelves, scanning barcodes, and dealing with customers who couldn’t count change.

  I went to school, barely paying attention to class, nodding along to whatever the teachers were saying. My friends joked around, our conversations light, forgettable.

  It was all normal.

  Completely, painfully normal.

  Like nothing had ever been different.

  Like this was how it had always been.

  That night, I went to bed as usual.

  And then—

  The nightmare came.

  Smoke. Fire. Destruction.

  The air was thick with ash and dust, the sky a twisted mess of black and crimson. The ground beneath my feet cracked and burned, jagged ruins stretching out in all directions.

  What had once been a city was now nothing but rubble.

  And in the middle of it—

  A man.

  He stood tall, broad-shouldered, his dark black hair whipping in the wind. His presence was overwhelming. Unnatural. Like the world itself twisted around him.

  And his left arm.

  It pulsed.

  The flesh was wrong— shifting, moving, writhing in a way that defied logic. It glowed with a sickening hue, something between violet and pitch black, cracks of unstable energy running through it.

  The moment I saw it, my stomach churned.

  I knew—instinctively—that whatever that was, it wasn’t human.

  Then—

  He turned.

  And I froze.

  Eyes.

  Pitch black, endless and void-like, staring straight into my soul.

  For a moment, nothing moved.

  Then his mouth opened, just barely.

  He was about to say something.

  Something I needed to hear.

  But before I could even register the words—

  I woke up.

  I gasped, choking on air.

  Every nerve in my body screamed. Pain. Disorientation. Cold sweat clinging to my skin.

  I wasn’t in my bed.

  I wasn’t home.

  I was back in the chamber.

  The air was damp, heavy, still laced with the remnants of whatever the hell had happened to me. My left arm throbbed, an aching, unnatural sensation buried deep in the bone.

  I felt fucked up.

  And worst of all—

  I remembered everything.

  My left arm burned.

  I sucked in a sharp breath, pushing myself upright, but the moment I caught sight of it—

  I froze.

  It was rotting. Or at least, it looked like it was.

  The flesh was a deep, sickly purple, veins glowing faintly as they pulsed with some unnatural energy. Cracks of violet light ran along the length of my arm, flickering in and out like unstable mana leaking through my very skin.

  It hurt like hell.

  A deep, gnawing agony, like my arm was constantly decaying and rebuilding itself over and over again.

  Then—

  The system buzzed violently.

  I let out a dry, bitter laugh. "What the hell does that even mean?"

  Unlocked?

  Did that mean this was mine now?

  Did it mean I could control it?

  I clenched my fist, but the moment my fingers curled, pain spiked through the limb, sending a shudder through my body.

  No.

  This wasn’t something I could just use. Not yet.

  My breath came slow, uneven, as my mind spiraled.

  Then, the dream slammed into my thoughts like a hammer.

  The man standing in the ruins. His glowing, twisted arm. His void-like eyes.

  Was that me?

  The nausea hit instantly.

  I swallowed hard, my pulse pounding in my ears.

  Would I be the one to end an entire city?

  Was that what the dream was telling me?

  Or—

  Had it already happened?

  Had I already done it in some other timeline? Had the Universal Records written it all down, sealing it into history?

  If so—why was I seeing it?

  Why was the system corrupted?

  Why was I constantly being thrown into these visions of destruction?

  Where the hell was this leading me?

  And the most terrifying question of all—

  If that future was to come true…

  Would I be able to change it?

  I clenched my teeth, trying to steady my breathing. The pain from my left arm was a constant, throbbing ache—dull when I stayed still, but sharp and agonizing the moment I so much as twitched.

  I had no idea what had happened to me.

  No idea how to fix it.

  But one thing was clear—I needed answers.

  The Universal Records.

  Everything seemed to trace back to it. The system, my fragmented dreams, the way my very existence felt like it was being pulled in an unseen direction. If I was going to make sense of any of this, I needed to learn more about the entity that dictated power in this world.

  But first—I had to get out of here.

  I forced myself to stand, using the damp stone wall for support. My legs felt weak, my muscles sore—but it was nothing compared to the agony searing through my corrupted arm.

  Then—

  A flicker of light.

  My status window suddenly forced itself open in front of me, glitching faintly at the edges.

  My breath hitched.

  What the hell?