The basement of the Zenith Guild was an industrial purgatory. Shadows were stretching long across the damp concrete, cast by the flickering overhead lights that buzzed with the frequency of a dying insect. Kenji was dragging his body toward the loading docks, his crushed hand tucked into the waistband of his trousers. Every movement was a negotiation with pain—a sharp, stabbing dialogue that reminded him his "godhood" was currently a hallucination trapped behind a wall of broken bone.
He was watching the clock on the far wall. 03:42 AM. In exactly three minutes, the automated logistics drone would deposit a crate of low-grade consumables from the Alchemical Association. In his previous "dream," this had been a footnote, a minor logistical error he had exploited to fuel a sub-commander's growth. Here, in this distorted reality where everything was mirrored and sharpened to a killing edge, that error was his only lifeline.
[WARNING: PHYSIOLOGICAL COLLAPSE IMMINENT]
[HEART RATE: 145 BPM — INTERNAL HEMORRHAGE DETECTED]
[SYSTEM ADVICE: SURRENDER TO STASIS]
"Shut up," Kenji hissed, his voice a dry rasp.
The blood-red window flickered in the corner of his vision, its edges jagged and pixelated. The System was a parasite now, mocking his frailty while feeding off the echoes of his future self. It wanted him to fail. It wanted him to lie down in the dark and let the memory leak hollow him out.
The sound of heavy hydraulics hissed through the corridor. A heavy metal shutter groaned open, and a sleek, silver drone hovered into the bay. It dropped a wooden crate with a dull thud before retracting back into the night.
Kenji moved. He didn't run; he limped, his breath hitching as his shattered ribs shifted. He reached the crate and clawed at the lid with his good hand. The wood splintered under his fingernails, drawing fresh blood.
Inside were dozens of small, blue vials—standard Rank F mana potions, little more than flavored water with a hint of essence. He tossed them aside, his eyes searching for the anomaly.
There. At the very bottom, wedged between two packing dividers, sat a vial that was different. It was made of thick, obsidian glass, and the liquid inside wasn't blue. It was a thick, viscous crimson that seemed to pulse with an internal heat. To an untrained clerk, it looked like a spoiled health potion. To Kenji, it was the Dragon Heart Extract.
He grabbed it, the glass feeling unnaturally hot against his palm.
"What are you doing, rodent?"
The voice came from the shadows of the loading bay. Kenji didn't jump; he didn't have the energy for it. He slowly turned to see a man leaning against a support pillar. It was Sato Takeshi (no relation), a Rank D hunter and one of Akane's personal lackeys. He was a bully with a penchant for torturing porters to pass the time between raids.
Takeshi walked into the light, spinning a combat knife between his fingers. "Stealing from the guild supplies? Akane-sama wouldn't like that. Then again, she'd probably thank me for cleaning up the trash."
Kenji looked at the vial, then back at Takeshi. The Rank D hunter was a titan compared to Kenji's current state. One kick would likely end him.
"This is trash," Kenji said, his voice eerily calm. "A spoiled potion. I was going to dispose of it."
"Give it here," Takeshi ordered, stepping closer. "Anything a rat wants that badly is something I want to take."
Kenji felt the Sovereign's mind flare within him—a cold, calculating ghost. He will lead with a right kick to the ribs. His center of gravity is too high. If you drop, he will overextend. Strike the carotid with the broken glass.
But Kenji's body was too slow. Even as the thought formed, Takeshi's boot was already moving.
CRACK.
The kick caught Kenji squarely in his already broken side. He was sent sprawling across the concrete, the air leaving his lungs in a silent scream. The obsidian vial rolled away, stopping just inches from a drain.
Takeshi laughed, walking over and placing a heavy boot on Kenji's neck. "You're pathetic. Why do you even bother waking up every morning? You're a porter in a world of gods."
Kenji's vision was swimming in black spots. He could feel the blood-ink notebook pressed against his stomach, a reminder of the world that should have been.
"Because..." Kenji wheezed, his fingers clawing at the concrete. "I've seen... the end of the world. And you... weren't in it."
Takeshi frowned, leaning more weight onto Kenji's throat. "Madness. You've finally lost your mind."
He reached down to grab the obsidian vial. The moment his fingers touched the glass, Kenji acted. It wasn't a move of strength, but of pure, suicidal desperation. He lunged forward, not for the vial, but for Takeshi's ankle. He used his crushed hand, ignoring the agonizing scream of his nerves, to dig his jagged fingernails into the pressure point behind Takeshi's Achilles tendon.
Takeshi barked in pain, his balance shifting. It was only for a second, but in this universe, a second was an eternity.
Kenji grabbed the vial. He didn't try to hide it. He didn't try to fight back. With a frantic motion, he bit down on the glass stopper, shattering it and his own front teeth in the process. He swallowed the contents in one gulp.
The effect was instantaneous.
It wasn't a "buff." It was an execution.
[WARNING: DRAGON HEART EXTRACT CONSUMED]
[PHYSIOLOGICAL COMPATIBILITY: 0.001%]
[CARDIAC ARREST INITIATED]
[ERROR: FUTURE ESSENCE IS REACTING TO THE CATALYST]
Kenji's heart didn't just beat; it detonated. He fell back, his back arching so violently his spine audibly groaned. His veins began to glow with a sickly, incandescent red light, visible through his skin like molten lava.
Takeshi backed away, horror dawning on his face. "What did you drink?! Your skin... it's melting!"
Kenji couldn't hear him. He was back in the Void. He saw the Monarch of Eternity standing over him, a faceless shadow of golden gears. You wish to force the evolution? the entity seemed to ask. Then pay the price in kind.
Inside Kenji's chest, the extract was fighting the corruption of the System. The "Memory Leak" slowed. The jagged, red windows turned a blinding white.
[EMERGENCY PROTOCOL: FORCED SYNCHRONIZATION]
[REPAIRING SYSTEM INTEGRITY... 0.04% -> 1.02%]
[SKILL UNLOCKED: BLOOD-DRAGON'S BREATH (RANK: F - EVOLVABLE)]
[PASSIVE UNLOCKED: PAIN-TO-MANA CONVERSION]
Kenji's eyes snapped open. They were no longer brown. They were a burning, pupilless violet.
He looked at Takeshi. The Rank D hunter was frozen, his knife shaking in his hand. To Takeshi, the porter had just turned into a demon. The air around Kenji was vibrating with heat, the concrete beneath him beginning to crack and blacken.
"My turn," Kenji whispered.
He didn't use a sword. He didn't use magic. He simply exhaled.
From his mouth erupted a stream of pressurized, red mist. It wasn't fire; it was his own vaporized blood, infused with the dragon's heat. It hit Takeshi's chest, and the man's reinforced leather armor turned to liquid. Takeshi screamed, falling back as his skin began to blister.
Kenji stood up. His ribs were still broken, his hand was still crushed, but the Pain-to-Mana conversion was working. Every throb of agony in his body was being recycled into a raw, violent energy that kept him upright.
He walked over to the screaming hunter. He looked down at him with the same indifference Akane had shown earlier.
"Go tell her," Kenji said, his voice sounding like two stones grinding together. "Tell Akane that the trash is starting to burn."
He didn't kill Takeshi. That would be too simple, too loud. He let the man scramble away, sobbing and clutching his melted chest. Kenji needed the fear to spread. He needed the Zenith Guild to think he was an anomaly, a glitch they couldn't ignore.
He turned toward the drain and spat out a mixture of blood and glass shards.
[SYSTEM INTEGRITY STABILIZED]
[CURRENT RANK: F (PEAK)]
[NOTE: THE MONARCH IS WATCHING. THE NEXT GATE WILL BE A SLAUGHTERHOUSE.]
Kenji pulled his notebook out. The blood on the pages had dried, but the names were still there. He added a new line at the bottom, the ink replaced by a scorched mark from his finger.
The Pain is the Battery. Do not heal. Do not rest. The more I hurt, the faster I climb.
He looked up at the flickering lights. He had five hours until the Gate opened. Five hours to find a weapon. His mind drifted to the "Inversed Roses." In his memory, Rin was a queen of ice who loved him. In this world...
He remembered a report he had seen on the guild's newsfeed. A "Pyromaniac Vigilante" terrorizing the Northern Slums. A girl whose fire burned blue and couldn't be extinguished.
"Rin," he whispered.
He knew where she was. She was hiding in the ruins of an old orphanage, her own power eating her alive because she didn't have a Master to stabilize it. In his dream, he had saved her with a kiss. In this reality, he would have to save her with a cage.
Kenji limped out of the loading bay, leaving behind a trail of scorched footprints. He wasn't the Sovereign yet. He was just a dying man with a stolen heart and a notebook full of sins. But as he stepped out into the cold morning air of Tokyo, the stars seemed to dim.
The universe was beginning to realize that the porter wasn't following the script.
The Gate was coming. And Kenji was hungry.