CHAPTER 18: THE WARDEN’S WARNING

The power was intoxicating.

It was also disgusting.

It flooded my system, a tidal wave of cold, crackling energy that chased away the exhaustion and refilled the empty well of my Void Energy.

HP and VE bars refilled.

Perfect.

But it came with a chaser.

A cold, alien echo settled in the back of my mind. It was the ghost of the Cable Hound’s instincts.

A sudden, sharp awareness of the cavern’s vibrations.

A phantom scent of ozone and prey.

A raw, mechanical urge to hunt, to patrol, to... secure the perimeter.

It felt like a piece of malware had been installed directly into my soul.

I shook my head, trying to clear the static, and that’s when I saw her.

Jinx.

She was standing at the mouth of the alcove, her face pale as bone in the dim, fungal light.

Her expression wasn’t worried.

It was terrified.

Her hand was resting on the grip of her pistol.

Not just resting.

It was a white-knuckled grip, the kind you use when you’re a single, panicked thought away from pulling the trigger.

She wasn’t looking at me like a partner.

She was looking at me like I was the monster.

And in that moment, seeing the absolute, primal fear in her eyes, I realized what my power looked like from the outside.

It wasn’t a cool skill tree from a game.

It was a horror show.

Shame, hot and sharp, cut through the cold rush of power.

I had scared her. The one person who was keeping me alive.

The one person who maybe, just maybe, was starting to trust me.

Trust, now re-downloading... Error 404: Not Found.

I couldn’t deal with this. I couldn’t deal with her fear.

I needed answers.

I closed my eyes, shutting out the cavern, shutting out Jinx, and retreated into the only place I could get a straight answer.

My own head.

"Warden!" I thought, my mental voice a desperate, angry shout. "Talk to me! What the hell was that?"

There was a moment of silence. The usual tired amusement in the Warden’s voice was gone.

When it finally spoke, its tone was grave, heavy with the weight of centuries.

"I warned you, child."

"I warned you about the forbidden skills."

"But you are your mother’s son. Stubborn. Reckless. You do not listen."

"I didn’t have a choice!" I shot back, pacing the infinite white space of my own mind. "I was empty! We would have been killed!"

"There is always a choice," the Warden countered, its voice echoing with a profound sadness. "You simply chose the fastest path. The darkest path."

"Explain it to me," I demanded. "What is this corruption? What did I just do?"

"This place," the Warden began, and the very air of my mental space seemed to grow colder, thinner. "These Breeding Pits... they are not just a cavern, Michael."

"This is a Void Echo."

"When that Gate collapsed sixty years ago, it did more than just break the bedrock. It tore a permanent, microscopic hole in the veil between worlds."

"A wound that has never healed."

"The energy here is thin. Unstable. It is closer to the Void than almost anywhere else on this plane."

My blood ran cold. I had a feeling I knew where this was going.

"Using Soul Devour in a normal environment is like sipping poison from a cup," the Warden’s voice grew grim. "What you just did... here... in a Void Echo..."

"Was like putting your mouth directly to the spigot of a toxic waste barrel and drinking until you were full."

A wave of nausea washed over me.

"The soul-echo of that creature was not just a bundle of mana," the Warden explained. "It was steeped in the raw, chaotic energies of this place. It was saturated with the Void’s essence."

"You did not just consume its power."

"You consumed its corruption."

"You have invited a piece of the Void’s true nature into your soul."

A new window flickered to life on my HUD.

It was a line item I had never seen before, its text a sickening, deep purple.

[SOUL CORRUPTION: 1.2%]

"One point two percent?" I scoffed, a bubble of hysterical laughter rising in my throat. "That’s it? I get a full-body system restore and all it costs me is one percent? That’s the best trade-off in gaming history!"

"You think in numbers, child," the Warden said, its voice laced with pity. "You do not understand the stakes."

"That is not a debuff. It is a timer."

"Every time you use that skill, especially here, that number will climb. And as it climbs, the whispers of the things you consume will grow louder. Their instincts will become your own."

"The Void will begin to see you not as its wielder..." the Warden paused, and the words that came next chilled me to the very bone.

"...but as an empty vessel it wishes to fill."

My bravado evaporated, leaving only a cold, stark terror.

I was a leaky bottle, and I was filling myself up with the very poison I was trying to fight.

To survive, I had to use this power.

But using this power was slowly, surely, erasing me.

I was trapped.

Utterly and completely trapped between a partner who now saw me as a monster, and a power that was actively trying to make me one.

I felt a profound, crushing sense of isolation, deeper and darker than any cavern.

And just as that despair threatened to swallow me whole, a sound cut through the silence.

It wasn’t the drip of water.

It wasn’t the groan of stressed rock.

It was a high-pitched, frantic, electronic scream.

BEEP-BEEP-BEEP-BEEP-BEEP!

I snapped my eyes open.

Jinx was already on her feet, her own fear forgotten, replaced by the sharp, focused instincts of a survivor. She was staring at a small, battered device in her hand.

A proximity alarm.

She looked at me, her eyes wide with a fresh, more immediate terror.

"Something’s coming," she hissed, her voice tight with adrenaline.

"Something new."

"And whatever it is..." she took a shaky breath, her gaze fixed on the single, pulsing red light on her scanner.

"It’s big."