A cold chill ran through my body, deeper than anything I had ever felt.

  Then—

  BADUM.

  One beat.

  Just one.

  And everything inside me collapsed.

  My thoughts shattered. My body refused to listen. I couldn't move. I couldn't breathe.

  I was drowning in my own existence.

  Everything blurred. Colors twisted, melting into one another, yet I could see clearer than ever before. A second ago, my heartbeat had been the only thing in this suffocating stillness. Now, it was as if I was becoming part of that silence—erased from everything around me.

  A weight—no, a presence—loomed closer.

  "You are causing me too much trouble."

  The voice was right above me.

  The pressure was unbearable, crushing down on me like I was nothing but an insect under his foot. My mind was screaming for my body to move, to react—to do anything—but nothing happened.

  He was right there.

  And I was helpless.

  Then—

  A rush of something—everything—slammed into my body.

  Like a switch had been flipped, the air around me trembled. A storm of invisible force erupted from my chest, a pulse rippling through the stillness.

  The man hovering above me hesitated. His gaze snapped toward me, his expression shifting into something unreadable.

  Then the system flashed again.

  The title was incomplete. Hidden.

  But the weight of those words crushed against my soul.

  "Favored by the what?"

  The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

  The question lingered, unanswered.

  Then—

  BADUMP.

  My heart lurched back to life, sending a violent surge of corrupted energy racing through my veins. It burned. It devoured. Every nerve in my body screamed as the first rush of tainted blood flooded my system. My muscles locked, my bones felt like they were shattering and reforming all at once, and then—

  BOOM.

  A massive shockwave erupted from my body.

  The air cracked. The world shattered like fragile glass, shards of the illusion peeling away in all directions. Even the man—the one who had twisted my arm with a mere gesture—was blown back from the sheer force.

  I was floating.

  But I wasn’t the one controlling it.

  It felt like something else had taken over.

  My body hovered mid-air, pulsating with newfound power. My eyes…

  My eyes burned.

  A deep, twisting purple overtook my vision, like I was staring into the core of pure corruption.

  The man narrowed his eyes at me, confusion flickering in his gaze.

  Then, my lips moved on their own.

  "Asmoth. Do not abuse powers that even you cannot handle the drawback of."

  The man froze.

  The voice that spoke was something else. Cold. Absolute. Heavy with an authority that didn’t belong in this world.

  Zane hovered mid-air, his body surrounded by a swirling mass of corrupted energy. His eyes, once their usual sharp hue, had darkened into a deep, twisting purple, like they had become the very core of corruption itself.

  Asmoth narrowed his eyes, his mind racing.

  How?

  How did this kid know his name?

  "Who are you?" Asmoth demanded, his voice cutting through the thick silence.

  Zane did not answer.

  Or rather, he didn’t.

  His lips moved, but the words were not his own.

  "The answer to that question is not something a mere hindrance like you can handle."

  BOOM.

  A sudden, overwhelming force crashed down from above. The air warped, and the ground beneath Asmoth's feet cracked under the sheer weight of the unseen pressure.

  It was like gravity itself had multiplied.

  Asmoth’s feet slammed against the earth, his knees bending slightly as he fought to remain upright.

  From above, Zane’s form hovered like a god passing judgment.

  There was no fear in his gaze. No hesitation. Just something ancient staring down at him.

  Asmoth’s breath hitched.

  "Isn't it time for you to go back?"

  The words sent a chill through him.

  "Your system, though a bit more complete, still won’t help you more than this."

  A shudder ran through Asmoth’s spine.

  Before he could react—

  The world collapsed.

  Light fractured, shadows warped, and then—

  Reality shattered.

  Darkness. Utter darkness.

  "What the actual fuck..."

  My voice echoed into the nothingness around me. My arm which had been twisted beyond recognition was now fine. I could hear myself again, feel my own body, move my own limbs, but none of that comforted me. Because I had no fucking clue where I was.

  The world had shattered.

  And now, I was here.

  A vast, empty darkness stretched infinitely in all directions. No ground beneath my feet, no sky above, no sound—just an overwhelming, suffocating silence. It wasn’t like being blind. It was like existence itself had been stripped away, leaving only this void.

  I clenched my fists. They felt real. My body felt real.

  But everything else?

  I had no idea.

  I took a deep breath, steadying myself. My mind raced back to what just happened. I wasn’t in control. My body—my own fucking body—moved on its own. Spoke on its own. And whoever, whatever spoke through me had been powerful enough to make that guy—Asmoth—hesitate.

  And he was strong. Terrifyingly strong.

  I still felt my arm twitch at the memory of it nearly twisting apart, of him trying to rip something out of me. But the thing that really ticked me off?

  "He has a system too?"

  I gritted my teeth, my thoughts spiraling.

  "And what did ‘I’ mean by ‘a bit more complete’?"

  Was he like me? A system user? No, that wasn’t what threw me off. The way it was said… it sounded like whoever had spoken through me knew about Asmoth’s system. Knew its flaws.

  Just how many people had systems? Were there different versions of them? And why the hell did I get one that was corrupted?

  My heart pounded, not from fear but from sheer frustration.

  I turned, or at least I thought I did, there was no real way to tell directions in this place. Everything was just void.

  No sound. No movement. Just me.

  Alone.

  I called upon the system.

  The system continued.

  I am fucked.

  What the hell did I just do?

  Just when I thought everything was over.

  Buzz

  What?

  What throne? I am already way too involved into this world at this point, please do not fuck me over more.

  I stared at the notification, my eye twitching.

  “…Are you serious?”

  The sheer audacity of this broken-ass system was beyond comprehension.

  “Bitchass system,” I muttered, running a hand down my face. “Had me nearly killed and then decides, ‘Nah, no rewards for you,’ just ‘cause I got a fancy title?”

  I exhaled sharply, my frustration boiling over. “I was right from the start. This shit doesn’t want me to live.”

  I had bigger problems than my stingy-ass system right now.

  Like the fact that I was still stuck in this void with no way out.

  I had no clue where this place even was. No landmarks, no directions, just an endless, dark expanse stretching infinitely in every direction. There was no sky, no floor, yet I could walk as if something solid existed beneath me.

  Then there were the other questions.

  Who took over my body back there? Who were the “higher beings” that overrode my fate? And while I was at it, what even was my original fate? Why was I "favored"?

  Questions kept piling up with no answers.

  And then, it hit me.

  The girl.

  I never found her. Fuck this bullshit man, I will end up crying at this point.

  I sucked in a breath, pushing forward with no real direction, hoping that just moving would get me somewhere. Maybe this place worked on intent. Maybe I’d stumble into something useful.

  And after what felt like hours—minutes? Time didn’t exist here—I finally saw something in the distance. A small figure, barely more than a dot at first.

  Hope surged in my chest. Without thinking, I broke into a sprint.

  As I got closer, the shape became clearer.

  A kid.

  A small boy, no older than four, sitting cross-legged in the middle of this void, scribbling something onto the ground.

  I slowed my steps, my initial relief giving way to unease. The sight was… unsettling. The kid looked completely unbothered by the fact that he was alone in a literal nothingness.

  Still, I wasn’t about to ignore him.

  Swallowing my apprehension, I approached carefully and knelt beside him, glancing at whatever he was drawing.

  It took me a second to make sense of it.

  A chair?

  No… a throne.

  My stomach twisted.