The Abyss

Chapter 5: The System

The void was no longer empty. It was hungry.

I opened my eyes to a world of absolute nothingness. There was no floor, no sky only a suffocating, heavy dark that pressed against my lungs. I tried to stand, but my legs felt like water, collapsing back into the abyss. Strength was leaking out of me, a steady drip into the silence.

Then, a sharp, crystalline chime cuts through the dark.

"! SYSTEM ALERT !"

"System?" My voice was a dry rasp, swallowed by the shadows.

"! SYSTEM INITIALIZING !"

"WELCOME, THE CHOSEN ONE."

Name: Sebastian Eldrion

Level: 0

Title: The Weakest

Special Power: Domain of Darkness

HP: 2 / 100

A glowing interface hovered before my face, the only light in the universe. I stared at the words, my gaze snagging on a single line. "Special Power? I don't have power. I'm an Eldrion failure."

"Special Powers are the peak," the voice resonated, not in my ears, but inside my skull. It was cold, mechanical, and absolute. "You do not move mana. You harness the essence of the living and the dead."

The memory hit me like a physical punch the freezing current that had surged through my heart back in the hideout. "The dead... that cold feeling. That was them?"

"Yes. You are the vessel for what remains."

"But I'm a corpse," I whispered, looking at my translucent hands. "The King crushed my core. I'm dead."

A sound like grinding gears a mechanical laugh echoed. "We are the System. Death is a status effect, not an end."

Edward's face flashed in my mind unconscious, broken, and alone against a monster. The void in my chest finally found its purpose. It wasn't an emptiness anymore; it was a fire.

"Revive me," I growled, my fingers curling into a fist. "Give me back my life so I can take his."

"COMMAND ACCEPTED."

The darkness didn't just lift; it attacked. Threads of violet energy lashed out, stitching my shattered ribs and knitting my torn flesh. My power core, once a fractured husk, was hammered back together by invisible strikes, forged into something denser, colder, and infinitely more dangerous.

A bar flickered in the center of my vision, climbing with a frantic hum.

"5%... 20%... 55%... 90%..."

The void shattered.

"SYSTEM NOTIFICATION:"

"The Secret Art of System Revival: Success"

Welcome back, Sebastian.