Evolution Of The Broken Heir

Chapter Eight — The First Hunger

Darius Veyne had barely left the main estate when the pain began.

It started as a faint ache beneath his ribs. By the time he reached the carriage waiting outside, the pain had spread through his chest, and the black mark beneath his skin had begun to burn.

He stopped beside the carriage and pressed a hand against his chest.

“What now?”

The mark pulsed once.

For a moment, he heard a voice inside his head.

“Hungry.”

Darius froze.

The voice was different from the ones he had heard in his dreams. It was quieter, almost distant, yet he felt its meaning as clearly as if someone had spoken beside his ear.

He looked around. The guards near the carriage were busy talking among themselves. None of them seemed to have noticed anything unusual.

He climbed inside and ordered the driver to return to his manor.

Throughout the journey, the pain came and went. Each time it returned, the black mark grew warmer. Darius tried to ignore it, but the word kept repeating in his mind.

Hungry.

What could a mark possibly be hungry for?

By the time the carriage reached his manor, he had come up with several explanations. None of them made sense.

He dismissed the driver, entered the house, and went straight to his room. After locking the door, he removed his shirt and examined the mark in the mirror.

It had spread slightly.

What had once looked like a small black symbol now resembled a thin network of dark lines beneath his skin. They stretched from the center of his chest toward his ribs, though they disappeared whenever he looked too closely.

Darius touched the mark.

A sharp pain shot through his arm.

He immediately pulled away.

“Damn it!”

A faint warmth spread through his chest, followed by a strange sensation. For a brief moment, he could feel everything around him more clearly—the wooden walls, the dust beneath the bed, even the small insect crawling across the windowsill.

Then the feeling vanished.

Darius stared at his reflection.

He had spent years trying to awaken. He had studied every manual he could obtain, trained until his muscles failed, and pushed his body beyond what most people considered reasonable. Yet his Vita had never responded.

Now, after a single trip into the Black Reach, something had begun changing inside him.

He didn't know whether to be excited or afraid.

Perhaps both.

He dressed quickly, took a small lamp, and left his room. If the strange sensation returned, he wanted to understand what triggered it.

His training ground was behind the manor, separated from the main building by a narrow path and several old trees. He had built it himself from discarded wood, broken weights, and equipment he had managed to collect over the years.

It was crude compared with the facilities used by House Veyne's awakened descendants, but it was his.

Darius set the lamp beside a wooden pillar and began with a simple exercise. He struck the pillar with his fist, stepped back, and repeated the movement.

Ten strikes.

Twenty.

Fifty.

The pain in his chest remained, but he refused to stop. Sweat soon covered his forehead, and his knuckles grew sore.

Then something changed.

The black mark pulsed.

Darius felt a faint current move through his body. It wasn't the familiar exhaustion that followed intense training. It was something deeper, something that seemed to be searching for a way out.

He struck the pillar again.

This time, the wood cracked.

Darius stepped back, staring at the damage.

The pillar was old, but it had survived hundreds of his previous strikes. He had never managed to c***k it before.

He examined his fist. The skin was bruised, yet the pain was surprisingly mild.

“Was that me?”

He repeated the strike, putting the same amount of force into it.

The pillar shook but remained intact.

Darius tried again.

Nothing.

His excitement faded as quickly as it had appeared. Whatever had happened, he couldn't reproduce it.

He sat on a nearby stone and studied his hands.

He had spent years watching other people awaken. He knew the signs of a developing Vita core, the changes in physical strength, and the gradual improvement in control. What he had just experienced didn't match any of them.

It had happened too suddenly.

And it had come from the black mark.

Darius closed his eyes and tried to feel the strange current again.

For several minutes, nothing happened. Then the pain returned, sharper than before.

He bent forward, gripping his chest.

The voice came again.

“Hungry.”

This time, Darius understood something he hadn't understood before.

The sensation wasn't coming from his body.

It was coming from something inside him.

He forced himself to stand and stumbled back into the manor. He needed to find an explanation before the pain became unbearable.

His room offered no answers. Neither did the books he had collected on Vita, awakening, or the old bloodlines.

He searched through them anyway, turning pages until his eyes began to ache. Most of the information described ordinary awakening, the development of a core, or the abilities granted by powerful bloodlines.

None mentioned a black mark that spoke.

None described a power that demanded to be fed.

Finally, he threw the last book onto the bed.

“Think, Darius.”

The pain was getting worse. He could feel the mark pulsing beneath his skin, almost as if something were beating inside his chest.

Then he remembered the man he had seen in Ironhold.

The man had died in the street, and Darkness had erupted from his corpse, transforming him into a Grade 2 Enhancer. The Blood Knights had dealt with the creature, but Darius had watched the entire event from beginning to end.

He remembered the strange energy surrounding the corpse.

He remembered how the black pillar had twisted through the air before entering the dead man's body.

Most importantly, he remembered the sensation he had felt while watching it.

Something inside him had responded.

At the time, he had assumed it was fear. Now, he wasn't so certain.

Could the mark be connected to Darkness?

The thought sent a chill down his spine.

Darkness was the curse that had nearly destroyed humanity. It turned dead humans and animals into monsters, and even the strongest awakened warriors treated it with caution.

If the thing inside him was connected to Darkness, then he might have a problem far greater than a failed awakening.

But he couldn't afford to remain ignorant.

Darius returned to the training ground and stood beneath the trees. The pain had become difficult to bear, and the voice had not stopped repeating its demand.

He needed to test his theory.

There was a small storage shed beside the training area. Inside it lay a collection of old equipment, discarded tools, and a few dead creatures he had trapped during his training. He sometimes kept their remains for practice, though he had never found a use for them.

He entered the shed and found a dead rat lying inside a wooden box.

It had been dead for several hours.

Darius stared at it, feeling ridiculous.

“What am I supposed to do? Eat you?”

The mark pulsed.

He took a step closer.

A faint sensation brushed against his mind. It felt like reaching toward something invisible, though he couldn't explain how he was doing it.

Darius hesitated, then placed his hand over the rat.

For a moment, nothing happened.

Then a thin strand of black mist rose from the creature's body.

Darius immediately tried to pull away, but his hand wouldn't move.

The mist twisted around his fingers before sinking into his palm.

The rat's body shriveled, turning dry and brittle. At the same time, a warm current rushed through Darius's arm and spread into his chest.

The pain vanished.

He stumbled backward, breathing heavily.

A strange sense of satisfaction settled inside him, as though something that had been starving had finally received a small piece of food.

Darius looked at the rat's remains.

Then he looked at his hand.

“What did I just do?”

A faint black glow appeared beneath his skin. It moved from his palm toward the mark on his chest, disappearing into it.

For the first time since the pain began, he felt completely normal.

Then a message appeared in his vision.

[Devouring Core synchronization: 1%.]

Darius stood motionless.

He had seen the message before, during his strange awakening. But this time, another line appeared beneath it.

[Foreign essence detected.]

[Absorption successful.]

[Essence quality: Insufficient.]

He read the messages several times.

The Core had absorbed something from the dead rat. Whatever it had taken, it wasn't enough.

His heartbeat quickened.

This was no ordinary awakening. He hadn't simply grown stronger through training, and he hadn't developed a normal Vita core.

Something had entered his body—or perhaps it had always been there, waiting for the right moment.

And now it was feeding.

Darius backed away from the shed, trying to control his breathing. He should have been relieved that the pain had stopped, but the realization left him feeling colder than before.

If the Core could absorb essence from a dead animal, what else could it absorb?

Could it take energy from living creatures?

Could it consume the essence of an awakened human?

The last question made his stomach tighten.

He remembered the twelve bloodlines, their powerful descendants, and the way Ragnar's presence had filled the dining hall. Those people had spent their lives accumulating power. Some could destroy buildings with a single attack.

If the Core could take their strength, then it might offer him a path no ordinary awakening could provide.

But there was a difference between possessing power and controlling it.

Darius had no idea what the Core was, why it had chosen him, or what would happen if he fed it too much.

He looked down at the black mark.

“You'd better not be another curse.”

The mark remained silent.

Darius returned to his room and washed his hands. He tried to sleep, but every time he closed his eyes, he saw the woman standing in the black water and the enormous figure with pale eyes.

You finally returned.

The words echoed through his mind.

Then came the other voice.

You were made for this.

Darius sat up in bed.

He had spent his entire life being told that he was useless because he had failed to awaken. His family had treated him like a stain on their name, and even the servants had learned to look down on him.

Now, something inside him was offering a different path.

He could reject it out of fear and remain powerless, or he could learn what it was and decide for himself what to do with it.

He had no intention of allowing another force to control his life.

Not the House Veyne.

Not the people who had killed his parents.

And certainly not the thing living inside his chest.

Darius lay back and stared at the ceiling.

“Whatever you are,” he whispered, “I'll find out the truth.”

Beneath his skin, the black mark gave one faint pulse.

Far beyond the walls of Ironhold, deep beneath the ancient foundations of Arkenfall, something answered.

For a brief moment, a sealed chamber stirred.

Then a single line of light appeared across its darkness.

[Vessel signature recognized.]