Breathing felt like swallowing wet ash. Cold mud clung to Vance’s face, smelling of sulfur and rotting vegetation. He lay flat on his stomach in the dark, his left leg twisted at an unnatural angle. Pain radiated up his spine in sharp, electric spikes, threatening to drag him back into unconsciousness. "Damn them," he hissed, the sound barely escaping his swollen lips. Mud-slicked fingers clawed at the wet earth, trying to drag his useless lower body forward. Above him, the jagged violet sky of the Abyssal Rift bled a dim, sickly light that barely penetrated the dense canopy of weeping black trees. He was deep in the trenches now, a place where even seasoned hunters only ventured in heavily armed squads. The air here was heavy, saturated with the smell of old blood and ozone, tasting of sulfur with every desperate breath he managed to claw into his lungs. His fingers tightened around the hilt of his soul-weapon. It was a pathetic, rusted piece of scrap metal barely longer than a kitchen knife. The Vanguard Academy testers had laughed when he first summoned it, branding it the Dagger of Decay—a weapon so volatile and weak it was deemed a parasite. While others summoned gleaming blades of absolute light or pristine shields that could withstand a dragon's breath, Vance had been left with this junk-heap of a blade that took more than it ever gave. Runes of dull, pulsing grey etched along its pitted blade hummed with a low, hungry vibration. Unlike the brilliant golden swords or crystalline spears of his peers, this weapon didn't draw from his mana pool. It fed directly on his vital essence, his very years of life, converting his lifespan into a corrosive rot. Unlike the wealthy nobles who possessed weapons of light and fire, Vance had been born with a curse masquerading as a tool. His own family, the prestigious House of Thorne, had disowned him the moment the awakening ceremony ended. They threw him to the streets, leaving him to survive on the scraps of the outer districts before he clawed his way into the Academy's lower ranks. A sharp snap of a twig shattered the oppressive silence. Vance froze, his breath catching in his throat as he pressed his back against the slick, rotting bark of a massive root. His heart hammered against his ribs like a trapped bird, each beat sending a pulse of cold fire through his chest. He held his breath, praying that whatever beast roamed the dark would pass him by. Yellow eyes, wide and burning with feral hunger, illuminated the gloom. Out of the shadows slithered a massive, monstrous silhouette, its fur matted with dried blood and black ooze. It was an Abyssal Dire-Wolf, easily the size of a carriage, though its left hind leg dragged uselessly behind it. A massive gash ran along its flank, weeping dark, viscous fluid that sizzled where it touched the ground. Or rather, the skirmish his squad had used as an excuse to leave him behind. "Just bait," Vance whispered, his jaw clenching so hard his teeth ground together. "I was always just bait to them." Images of his squad leader, Julian, flashed through his mind with agonizing clarity. Julian had smiled when he pushed Vance into the ravine, claiming it was an accident, a sudden slip in the chaos of the monster horde. The golden-boy of the Vanguard Academy, beloved by all the instructors, had looked down at him with nothing but cold amusement as Vance tumbled into the abyss. It had been a calculated execution, wrapped in the convenient lie of a chaotic battlefield accident. Julian's sister, Elara, had simply watched, her beautiful face blank as she turned her back on his screams. They had planned this from the very moment they drafted him into their expedition. They needed someone to trigger the pressure plates in the lower ruins, someone whose death wouldn't register as a loss to the Academy. But the rope had been cut clean. Vance had seen the sharp, cauterized slice mark on the hemp dangling above him before he fell. He had trusted them, despite his instincts, believing that even the elite wouldn't stoop to murder. How wrong he had been. Growling low, the wolf caught his scent. It turned its massive, scarred head toward the root, baring rows of jagged, yellow fangs. Saliva dripping from its maw hissed against the acidic soil, leaving tiny trails of smoke in the damp air. Vance knew he couldn't run. His left ankle was swollen to the size of a grapefruit, and his lungs burned with every shallow breath he drew. He could feel the bones in his ribs grating against one another, broken from the long fall. Death was coming, but he refused to go quietly. With a desperate grunt, he pushed himself off the root and raised the rusted dagger, his knuckles turning white. "Take it," Vance roared, channeling his very life force into the weapon. "Take whatever you want, you piece of garbage, just kill this thing!" Instantly, a sickening sensation of emptiness washed over him. It felt as though a vacuum had been placed inside his veins, sucking the warmth from his blood and leaving him ice-cold. Grey veins shot up his forearm, his skin wrinkling and drying out like old leather as the dagger drank his lifespan. The blade began to glow with a sickly, rotting green light, dripping a dark acid that sizzled violently against the mud. He could feel his heart stuttering, his vision blurring as months of his life were eaten away in a matter of seconds. Hunting instincts took over the wolf, and it leaped with surprising speed despite its crippled leg, its jaws open wide to crush his skull. Vance threw himself to the side, barely evading the snapping jaws. The wind from the beast's movement knocked him flat, but he rolled, driving his glowing dagger upward into the creature's lower belly as it descended. Metal bit into thick, leathery hide. Rot took hold instantly. Black veins erupted from the wound, spreading across the wolf's flesh like wildfire, dissolving fur and muscle into grey ash and bubbling liquid. Howling in agony, the beast thrashed, its massive paw catching Vance across the chest with crushing force. Claws tore through his light leather armor, leaving three deep, bleeding gashes that wept crimson onto the grey dirt. He flew backward, crashing hard against a stone outcrop, the impact driving the breath entirely from his lungs. Stars exploded in his vision, and for a second, the world went completely gray. He coughed, a thick splatter of dark blood painting his chin. Through the haze, he saw the wolf staggering toward him, its body rapidly decaying from the inside out. One of its eyes had already turned into a milky, melted gelatin, yet it was driven by pure, feral rage. It dragged its rotting body forward, driven by the singular instinct to crush the pest that had poisoned it. "Not yet," Vance whimpered, tasting thick copper in his mouth. "I can't die here." Memories of the Vanguard Academy flooded his mind, bitter and burning like hot coals. He remembered the grand hall, the glittering crystals, and the sneering faces of the noble houses who had discarded him. He remembered Lord Corvus looking down at him during the awakening ceremony, disgust written across his aristocratic features. He remembered the words that had sealed his fate. 'A parasite weapon for a parasitic child,' Corvus had whispered, turning his back on Vance without a second thought. 'The Thorne family has no use for trash.' Cold, absolute anger ignited in Vance's chest, overriding the agonizing pain in his ribs. He forced his broken body to move, crawling forward as the dying wolf collapsed mere inches from him, its remaining eye locked onto his face. With a final, screaming effort, Vance drove the Dagger of Decay directly into the beast's eye socket. Rotted black fluid sprayed across his face as he twisted the blade, pushing deeper and deeper. The dagger hummed, drinking another massive chunk of his fleeting youth to fuel the decay. He felt his lungs tighten, his muscles weakening as yet another year of his lifespan vanished into the rusted metal. A violent shudder ran through the wolf's massive frame. Finally, the beast went limp, its dying howl cut short, leaving Vance trembling in the sudden, heavy silence of the Rift. He lay there, draped over the corpse of the monster, clutching his bleeding chest. His hair, once a vibrant, glossy black, now had streaks of dull silver near the temples. He felt older, his joints aching with a stiffness that didn't belong to a nineteen-year-old. Every breath was an agony of cold and fire. He had traded months, perhaps years, of his life just to survive this single encounter. And it was all because of them. Julian, Elara, Marcus... they had planned this from the very beginning of the expedition. They needed a sacrificial lamb to sate the Rift's wardens while they gathered the high-grade cores, and the "parasite" of Class 3-B was the perfect target. They were probably back at the surface by now, celebrating their victory, receiving medals from Lord Corvus himself. "I will kill you all," Vance wheezed, his fingers digging into the rotting flesh of the wolf. "Corvus... Julian... every single one of you." Blood bubbled past his lips, dripping onto the dead beast's fur. His vision began to fail, the edges darkening into a deep, velvety black. The sheer physical toll of using his weapon, combined with his blood loss, was pulling him under. He was going to die anyway, alone in the dirt, forgotten by the world above. Suddenly, a strange, electric hum vibrated through the damp air. --- As the darkness closes in, a red screen flashes before his failing vision: 'Sovereign of Dust System Initiated. Absorb target soul?' followed by a low, mechanical growl echoing from the shadows behind him.

Chapter 1: Sacrificial Lambs in the Dark