Chapter 2: Lucky me
Darkness pulsed like a living being, suffocating Eridan’s vision. His lungs burned as he gasped for air, his legs still screaming from the bullets buried in his flesh. A voice, neither human nor machine, hummed in the void:
*“Welcome, Nascent. You have entered a Category One Nascent Fracture. Selecting specialty based on realm resonance… Specialty selected: Wisdom, Divinity. Mortality rate: 97%. Awakening probability: 3%. Proceed?”*
Eridan coughed, tasting iron. “Proceed to *what*?”
The darkness shattered.
---
He found himself sprawled on a floor of cold, polished stone, its surface etched with faint geometric patterns that pulsed like dormant veins. The air tasted sterile, metallic—a far cry from the rot of the slums.
“Where am I?” Eridan muttered, his voice echoing in the vast emptiness. He tried to stand, but his legs buckled. The gunshot wounds were gone, replaced by jagged scars that throbbed dully. A flicker of movement caught his eye. Above him, the ceiling stretched into impossible heights, lost in a haze of oily mist. Machinery loomed in the shadows—towering syringes, conveyor belts groaning under cages of twitching, half-formed creatures, and massive glass tanks filled with swirling black liquid. The scale of everything was wrong. Doors the size of skyscrapers, handles thicker than ancient trees. This place wasn’t built for humans.
Feeling uneasy, he started to crawl toward a corner, his mind racing. The mechanical voice he’d heard earlier lingered in his thoughts. “System? Window… Status?”
His movement froze as a translucent blue screen flickered into existence before his eyes. The text glowed cold and sharp:
---
[Status]
Name: Eridan
Race: Human
Talent: _
Specialty: Divinity, Wisdom
Stage: _
Attunement: _
Prana: [0%----------------------------]
Traits: [Divine Blood], [Insight]
Relics: _
Time Fragments: _
[Lineage]
Soul Art: _
Sentinel: _
Survival Probability: 3.1%
---
Eridan swiped at the screen. His hand passed through it. “Attunements? Time fragments? Sentinel? What’s all this gibberish—” His whisper trailed off as footsteps reverberated through the floor, deep and seismic. A primal sense of dread overwhelmed him.
A metallic whine split the air. From the darkness above, a clawed appendage—sleek, robotic, and large enough to crush a truck—lunged toward him. He rolled aside, but it seized his ankle with terrifying precision, yanking him off the ground. The world blurred as he was dragged down a corridor, his back scraping against the polished stone.
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
“Let go—!” he snarled, kicking uselessly at the claw.
The machine ignored him. It hauled him into a cavernous chamber lined with hundreds of glass cells, each glowing faintly with luminescent sludge. Inside them, shapes moved. Humanoid, but warped. A man with his ribs split open, crystalline growths erupting from his chest. A woman whose skin had fused to the glass, her mouth stretched in a silent scream. Another cell held only a puddle of blackened flesh, bubbling faintly.
Realizing his fate, Eridan’s stomach lurched. *Test subjects.*
Panic engulfed him as the claw hurled him into an empty cell. The glass door sealed with a hiss. He slammed his fists against it. “Open this! Now!”
No response. The chamber trembled again, those titanic footsteps drawing closer.
---
Hours passed. Or minutes. Time bled together in the eerie half-light. Eridan paced the cell, his mind racing.His eyes scoured the room, as he tried to figure out a way to escape. The Status Window hovered persistently, its numbers occasionally flickering. *Survival Probability: 2.9%*.
A low hum filled the air. Across the chamber, a cell lit up. Inside, a gaunt boy—no older than sixteen—stood trembling as a nozzle descended from the ceiling. Eridan struggled to escape as he watched the nozzle descending in terror. But despite his struggle, it sprayed the boy with a shimmering silver mist.
For a moment, nothing happened. Then the boy’s skin began to peel. He screamed, clawing at his face as muscle and bone dissolved into a viscous slurry that pooled at his feet. The mist stopped. A drain opened, swallowing the remains.
Eridan turned away, bile rising in his throat.
*Subject #89: Assimilation success.*
The mechanical voice boomed from nowhere and everywhere. Eridan’s cell door hissed open.
---
The claw returned. This time, it dragged him to a circular platform marked with glowing sigils. Above it hung a massive needle, its tip dripping iridescent fluid.
*Commencing Trial #1: Stress Adaptation.*
The needle plunged.
Eridan’s head was a mess after the immense pain from the silver mist, but his survival instincts kicked in. He twisted, but the claw pinned him. The needle pierced his shoulder, injecting liquid fire into his veins. He screamed. His vision whited out as agony seared through him.
His muscles locked. His bones creaked. The Status Window flickered madly:
---
Survival Probability: 0.9%
---
The fire in his veins cooled. Eridan gasped, trembling. Dark veins snaked beneath his skin, visible even through the grime. His left hand had gone numb.
The claw released him. He collapsed, retching. The platform’s sigils flared, and the floor vanished.
He fell.
---
He landed in another chamber. This one stank of blood and burnt meat. A wall of glass separated him from a hulking creature—a malformed Giant, its obsidian skin cracked and oozing black ichor." It lunged at the glass, jaws unhinging in a silent roar.
*Trial #2: Threat Assessment.*
A slot opened in the wall. Inside lay a dagger, its blade serrated and glowing faintly blue.
Even with a blurry mind, Eridan didn’t hesitate. He seized the dagger just as the glass shattered.
The creature charged.
He sidestepped, slashing its flank. The blade bit deep, and the creature howled—but Eridan howled louder. Pain tore through him, mirroring the creature’s wound. He stumbled, clutching his side. *No blood. Just pain.*
The creature swung a claw. Eridan ducked, driving the dagger into its throat. It collapsed, twitching.
He fell to his knees, vomiting bile. *Why am I experiencing the wounds I inflict?* Cutting off his trail of thought, the Status Window updated:
---
Trait Acquired!
? Traits:
- Pain Echo (Tier 1)
- Adaptive Immunity (Tier 2)
---
His right eye blurred. When he blinked, the world tilted slightly.
---
They threw him back into his cell. Eridan slumped against the glass, staring at his hands. The dark veins had spread. His numb fingers twitched involuntarily. *Ah... I should’ve just stayed in the slums and eaten trash,* he thought, feeling a deep sense of helplessness. He couldn’t think clearly, overwhelmed by the pain and agony he’d experienced.
He turned his neck to distract himself from the pain, his eyes landing on another cell lit up, labeled *Subject #91*. A new subject—a girl with hollow eyes and a shaved scalp—was led to the platform. The nozzle descended.
Eridan looked away.
When the screaming stopped, he opened his eyes. The cell was empty.
*Subject #91: Assimilation failed.*
---
Survival probability: 0.5%
---
He laughed. A raw, broken laugh.
“Lucky me.”
