[3rd Person POV - Soul Chamber, Aftermath]
His knees gave out.
Fin crumpled onto the stone. The last ounce of strength, his will, his stolen magic, all of it had gone into that final strike.
And now…
Now there was nothing.
He sat in it.
The silence. The ruined chamber groaned faintly under its own weight, walls cracked, glyphs shattered, stone beams dangling like snapped bones. The siphon, once a towering monolith of controlled power, now stood like a mutilated god, slumped, twisted, half-dissolved into itself.
It pulsed a dull, angry red.
And at its base, that single shackle still wound tight around his leg.
Fin stared at it, numb.
His breath came in shallow, raw pulls. His mouth was dry. His body ached, but even that pain felt distant. Faded.
His eyes drifted.
First to Saelira.
Her headless body still twitched in death. Her head lay meters away, staring open-mouthed at nothing. Empty and alone.
Next to the far wall.
The cube.
The thing that used to be Yorz.
Just a lump of collapsed soulsteel and flesh.
And finally…
His gaze settled on her.
Helga.
His mother.
The only one who ever meant it. Who saw him not as a vessel, not as a tool or a threat, not as a freak or a disappointment, but as her son. A boy worth hugging. A boy worth loving.
Her body lay still.
There was no warmth left in her face. No teasing smirk. No pain. No smile. Just… peace.
He didn't cry.
He couldn't.
There was nothing left in him to give. No grief. No fury. Not even guilt. Just stillness.
And then, his eyes slowly turned upward.
To the siphon. To the dim, red-glowing thing that pulsed like a diseased heart.
To the remains of Kael'ven Morvayne.
He was still there.
Not dead.
Not gone.
Just waiting.
Some twisted echo of the monster, trapped, yes. But breathing. Watching. Lurking.
Fin stared at it.
Just a quiet, shattered clarity.
He wanted to speak. To scream.But instead—
He whispered.
"…I'm still here."
And the siphon pulsed.
Once.
Like he heard him.
Fin didn't move.
His fingers twitched against the stone, brushing blood and dirt off his own skin. He was too tired to wipe them clean. Too tired to do anything except think.
The shackle around his leg was still there. Still glowing. Still tethered to the machine like an umbilical cord to a rotting god.
He knew what would happen if he removed it.
The machine would implode. The soul magic keeping it barely stable would collapse in on itself. Kael'ven's essence would finally be destroyed, sure, but so would the entire chamber. The ceiling, the walls, the supports, they were already hanging on by a thread. All of it would come crashing down.
And him?
He wasn't getting out in time.
Even with a flash step. Even with cursed energy. Even with every trick the System ever gave him, he just wasn't fast enough. Not from here. Not with no roof left to bounce off. Not without a damn miracle.
The earth above his head was too thick to to dismantle all the way through before we would eventually be covered in dirt and rubble.
He tried to think. Really think.
But all the plans he ran through ended the same way.
Crushed.
Trapped.
Dead.
His System was quiet. No Ali.
He pulled it up anyway, weakly flicking through the menus in his mind.
No escape spells or items. No teleportation. No stat boosts big enough to matter. He didn't have enough points left to even use rolls to save him; he didn't have the strength left to move, let alone fight gravity and stone.
A brutal sort of silence settled in his chest.
He was trapped.
Not metaphorically.
Not emotionally.
Literally.
If he stayed, he would die slowly.
If he unshackled himself, he died instantly.
It was checkmate.
He turned his head slightly toward Helga's corpse.
And for a second… he wished he could just lie down beside her and let the rest fade. To join her. To rest.
But he couldn't.
Because Kael'ven was still in there. Still lingering. Still watching.
And if he ever got out…
He'd make this happen again.
To someone else's mother.
To someone else's world.
Fin closed his eyes, took a shallow breath, and whispered to no one:
"There has to be a way."
The System screen hovered faintly in his mind, flickering like a dying light.
PP Total: 7
He'd gotten bored and blown all his points on basic 100PP rolls, gaining nothing significant aside from stockings and panties.
Not even enough for a single roll. Not even enough to buy a common skill.
No recovery options. No passive boosts.
He tried refreshing it again.
Still 7.
He stared at that number for a long time. Let it settle. Let it hurt.
There wasn't a damn thing he could buy.
And it wasn't like he could earn any more just lying here. No monsters to kill. No quests to complete. No "You survived!" bonus.
He was at the bottom of the well. And no one's hand was reaching down.
But he had one thing left.
Memory.
The past. The future.
He took a slow breath, exhaled through gritted teeth, and forced his exhausted brain to think.
What was coming?
What did he know?
Then it hit him.
The Nautiloid.
He knew it happened. Knew it landed. Knew it smashed through the skies over Yartar like a goddamn alien meteor, as it did in the opening.
It would happen.
He just didn't know when.
Tomorrow?
A week?
A decade?
He didn't know.
But it was a start.
That ship. That psionic engine of ruin. It was big. Loud. Reckless. It tore buildings apart. Shattered districts. Left trails of screaming civilians and a broken sky behind.
If he could just wait…
If he could endure…
Maybe it would rip through this ruined part of the city.
Maybe it would punch straight through the rubble.
Maybe it would be his salvation.
It was a slim chance. Almost laughable.
But it was the only one he had right now.
And he'd take it.
He looked down at the shackle on his leg. The thing tethering him to Kael'ven's mutated siphon. It still pulsed faintly, red now, instead of violet. Its heartbeat is slow. Dying. But not dead.
Just like him.
Fin clenched his fists, trembling from exhaustion and pain.
He would wait.
He would live.
Not because the world owed him anything. It didn't.
Not because he deserved another shot. He didn't.
But because she believed he did.
Because Helga believed he was worth saving.
And so, he would survive.
For her.
For her memory.
For mother.
His gaze rose to the ceiling, imagining the moment the sky shattered open, and the Nautiloid clawed its way into this world.
A dark smile flickered—hollow, but sharp.
Maybe, he thought, there's a way to do this better.
Smarter.
Maybe an Absolute could help me run this world.
And with that, he leaned back against the stone, bleeding and broken…
But not beaten.
Not yet.
Not ever again.
...
[Two Weeks Later – Soul Chamber Ruins]
It had been… about two weeks.
Give or take.
Time wasn't the easiest thing to measure down there. There was no sunlight. No moonlight. No song of birds or rustle of leaves. Just cold stone, broken glyphs, and the never-ending hum of the mangled siphon that kept his heart beating and his leg chained.
He knew he should be dead. Anyone else would have been.
But the machine, whatever was left of it, kept him going.
The tether wasn't just shackling him. It was sustaining him. Just enough. A low, parasitic feed of energy that kept his organs stable. Kept his thirst and hunger from becoming unbearable. A half-life.
He didn't move much. Not because he was too injured—though that was still true in part—but because there was nowhere to go. The chamber, what remained of it, was a jagged corpse. Most of the outer structure had collapsed. Entire corridors were reduced to unpassable rubble. The air was stale and dry. The walls wept with faint, corrupted mana.
But it hadn't caved in completely.
Not yet.
And so he waited.
He survived.
That was all he could do.
He sat with his back against the cold wall, near the base of the siphon. The red glow still pulsed, dim and steady, painting his skin in shades of blood and rust.
He'd given Helga a small burial, it was crude and basic. Using dismantle to cut at the ground before laying and burying her.
Her golden greatsword rested beside him.
Its edge dulled.
Its weight is a comfort.
He hadn't touched her body since he laid her down—gently, carefully, like a sleeping giant. It hurt to look at her, but he couldn't not. She was the only real thing in this entire crypt.
That, and the loneliness.
The cold static kind. Not fire. Not rage. Just… heatless pressure.
And then there was her.
Ali.
Her name made his jaw clench.
He hadn't called out to her once.
Not since that day.
He'd thought about it. Summoning her. Asking for advice. Comfort. Just someone.
But every time his lips twitched toward calling her out, his other fist curled tighter.
He knew what she was.
She wasn't a person.
She wasn't real.
She was a program. A tool. An interface dressed up in sarcasm and soft edges, designed to make the System feel human. To trick him into thinking he wasn't alone.
And he had fallen for it.
All that time, laughing with her, teasing her.
He gritted his teeth.
"I don't need pity from a line of code."
His voice was dry. Hollow. Like it hadn't been used in days.
"I don't need your jokes. I don't need your advice. And I definitely don't need your goddamn empathy."
He tilted his head back against the stone.
"I don't deserve to be happy. So don't pretend I do."
The System didn't answer. Didn't chime. Didn't manifest her avatar.
Good.
Because if she had...
He didn't know what he would've done.
He let the silence settle again. Heavy. Absolute.
And swore, quietly.
"I'll never call on you again."
...
[Year 2 – Soul Chamber Ruins]
The ruin hadn't changed.
But Fin had.
His body was a ghost of what it once was, hollow cheeks, grey skin stretched thin over brittle bones. His ribs pressed visibly against his torn shirt, every breath shallow, almost trembling. His eyes, once sharp and burning, were sunken now, half-lidded, dull. His hair hung in matted ropes around his face, the once-dark strands now streaked with white, aged far too soon.
He didn't know what day it was anymore. Or if days still passed. He only knew cold. Silence. Stone.
And the tether.
That damned shackle around his leg, still glowing faintly with dying crimson, keeping him chained to the siphon like a prisoner bound to a corpse.
The machine pulsed, dim and dying, but alive. Just like him.
Fin sat against the wall, back slouched, fingers twitching intermittently in his lap like they'd forgotten how to stop. The sword rested beside him. He hadn't touched it in weeks. He couldn't bear to.
Sometimes, he mumbled.
Words with no meaning. Half-finished thoughts. Names he couldn't remember saying aloud. Once, he whispered "Ali" before slamming his head against the wall in quiet fury. Another time, he said "Grace" and then didn't speak again for a full day.
He didn't sleep. Not properly. Dreams came whether he wanted them or not. Visions. Screams. Faint laughter echoed in the dead air of the chamber. He couldn't tell what was real anymore.
So when he heard the voice—
He didn't flinch.
"You're looking like shit, kid."
He slowly lifted his head.
There she was.
Standing in front of him like it was the most normal thing in the world. Arms crossed, weight leaning slightly on one hip, cloak rustling despite there being no wind. Her face… her face was the same. The same smirk. The same eyes. The same warmth that had burned so bright it still ached to remember.
Helga.
Fin blinked once. Twice.
Then looked away.
"You're not real," he rasped. His voice cracked, like gravel grinding against glass.
She chuckled, kneeling beside him. "Doesn't mean I'm wrong."
Her hand reached out—warm, impossibly warm—and touched his cheek.
He flinched, but didn't pull away.
"I didn't die so you could rot in a pit of your own self-hatred," she said softly.
Fin swallowed, mouth dry. His lips parted, but no words came out.
"Look at you," she murmured. "A whole year and you're still breathing. Barely. Still waiting for that damn ship to come save you. Still carrying everything. Alone."
Her thumb brushed under his eye. A mother's touch. Gentle. Final.
"You think that makes you strong?"
He shook his head slowly. "No," he whispered. "Just stupid."
Helga smiled faintly. "Then be stupid on your feet, Fin. Not on your knees."
Silence passed. Long. Cold. Sacred.
Finally, he broke.
"I can't," he said. Just that. Two words, drenched in defeat.
"Yes, you can."
Her voice wasn't angry. It wasn't loud.
It was knowing.
"Because I didn't raise a coward. Not really."
Fin turned toward her, the corner of his mouth twitching.
"You didn't raise me at all."
Helga snorted. "And look how well you turned out."
He closed his eyes, letting the silence wrap around them like a blanket.
"Was it worth it?" he asked. "Dying… for me?"
Helga didn't hesitate.
"Yes."
"But I'm nothing," he said, voice shaking. "I… I'm just a failure who wanted to play hero. A nobody who thought the world owed him something."
"And yet," she said, brushing hair from his eyes, "you're still here."
"I'm so tired, Mom."
That word.
It slipped out of him like a prayer.
Mom.
Helga didn't react right away. Her lips trembled just once.
Then her arms pulled him forward, and he let himself fall against her chest. The hug was soft. Warm. Her heartbeat, imagined or not, thumped steadily in his ear.
"You called me 'Mom' again," she teased.
Fin didn't respond.
She chuckled, her voice wet with tears she refused to show.
"You dumb kid. I told you… Even brats like you are worthy of love."
Her hand stroked through his hair.
"You are my son. Not Kael'ven's. Not the System's. Not anyone else's. Mine. And I will love you even when you're too broken to love yourself."
Fin shook in her arms, letting the words burrow deep into the places inside him that had gone quiet.
And slowly…
He opened his eyes again.
She was gone.
Just stone.
Just blood.
Just him.
But the warmth lingered.
And Fin, trembling and alone, clenched his fists against the floor and whispered,
"I'm still here."
...
"…he used to pack our lunches, you know."
Fin's voice cracked like dry leaves in winter, barely more than a whisper.
The ruins hadn't changed much.
The siphon still pulsed, fainter now, weaker, flickering like a dying coal. The stone around him was brittle with age, yet suffocating in its closeness. The walls pressed inward like a tomb that had finally remembered what it was meant to be.
And Fin sat in the middle of it all.
Thin. Skeletal. His cheeks hollowed, his ribs visible through the worn tunic he hadn't bothered to replace. Hair overgrown, knotted in places, eyes sunken and shadowed. He looked more ghost than boy.
But he was smiling.
Talking to someone only he could see.
She sat beside him, tall, strong, her arms folded and her golden hair tied back as always.
Helga.
At least, the version of her that his mind clung to.
Maybe it was the siphon bleeding into his thoughts.
Maybe it was the soul magic playing with his sanity.
Or maybe it was just that he'd been alone too long, and something inside him broke so perfectly it looped back around to comfort.
She looked at him with patient, motherly warmth.
Like always.
Fin coughed weakly and kept talking.
"Joel was the shortest out of all of us, 5'11", which sounds tall, but it wasn't enough to avoid the jokes. Especially from guys who cracked six feet before puberty. We used to call him 'Big Bro Joel' just to piss him off."
He paused, his fingers twitching faintly against the dirt floor.
"He hated it. Said it made him feel old. But he still packed our lunches. Still woke us up when we overslept. Still made sure I didn't flunk Algebra…"
Helga said nothing.
Just listened.
Just… stayed.
Fin's smile grew distant.
"He was the one who dragged me out of my room when Gina ghosted me. Told me she wasn't worth crying over, even though it was one-sided. He didn't say it to hurt me, he just didn't want me wasting time on someone who already moved on."
Fin's voice caught.
"I threw a cup at him that night. Told him to piss off."
The hallucination tilted her head, watching him with quiet curiosity.
"And you know what he did?" Fin let out a dry laugh, eyes watery. "He ducked, picked up the cup, refilled it with juice, and said, 'You look like hell. Drink something.'"
Silence hung in the space like old dust.
"I never said thank you."
His head dropped forward.
"I never told him I was sorry either."
The siphon pulsed faintly behind him. The red glow bathed them both like a dying sun, and the ruined stone crackled in the stale air.
"Sometimes I wonder if he made it," Fin muttered. "After the truck. After I died. Did they remember me? Did they cry? Or was I just… that one guy they knew? The one who was never serious. Too childish. Too full of himself when it didn't matter and too afraid when it did."
Helga—his Helga—reached a hand toward him.
He didn't feel it.
But he closed his eyes anyway.
And leaned into the warmth that wasn't there.
"I'm trying, Mom. I swear I am."
He didn't know why he called her that now.
He just did.
Like it had always been true.
Like there'd never been another name.
"I just don't know if it'll ever be enough."
The hallucination didn't answer.
But she didn't leave either.
And somehow, that made it bearable.
...
[Five Years Later – Soul Chamber Ruins]
Time passed in a way that was no longer measured in days, weeks, or months.
It simply was.
The siphon still pulsed, and Fin still breathed. That was the rhythm now. A hollow, mechanical loop of existence.
But he didn't waste it.
He trained. Not in the heroic, flashy way he once imagined. Not with dramatic sword swings or triumphant battle cries. He learned the limits of his body.
How to move with minimal cursed energy.
How to stretch without tearing his weakened muscles.
How to flow cursed energy through every inch of his skin and not collapse from the strain.
He also began experimenting with his System.
Without Ali.
He refused to summon her.
But the System itself?
That was still his, and so, he tested it.
Day by day. Stone by stone. The first thing he noticed was the Inventory.
It had no weight limit. Not really.
He started small. Tossing in pebbles. Broken fragments of glyphs. Useless things. But then it became rubble. Columns. Even a collapsed section of the wall.
The System accepted it all. No strain. No error.
Then came Helga's sword.
The golden greatsword, dulled and cracked from its final battle, was longer than he was tall and weighed more than a grown ox. But it slipped into the Inventory without resistance, gone in a flicker of light, stashed into the quiet abyss behind the screen.
It was… infinite.
And then came the second discovery.
Time didn't move inside.
It took him a while to realise it.
But eventually, out of nothing more than morbid curiosity and the deep boredom of solitude, he tested it.
He placed Saelira's severed head and body, still fresh from their final, bloody moment, into the Inventory.
He waited.
Weeks. Then months.
Then one year.
And when he summoned them again, there had been no change.
No rot. No smell. No degradation.
She was exactly as she had been on the day he killed her, her expression still twisted in disbelief, her limbs slack in final defeat.
He stared at her face for a long time. Then sealed her away again.
He didn't know what it meant yet.
But it was something.
The Inventory was a pocket dimension.
Untouched by decay. Unaffected by time.
He wasn't sure how it could help him escape. Or if it could. But it was knowledge nonetheless.
...
[Year 8 – Soul Chamber, Meditation]
The red glow pulsed in rhythm with his breath.
Deep in the broken chamber, Fin sat cross-legged in silence, a thin veil of cursed energy swirling faintly around him. His hands are placed on his knees. Eyes half-lidded. Breathing slowly.
The siphon still clung to his leg. Still fed him. Still cursed him.
He no longer hated it. He didn't feel much of anything anymore.
His focus turned inward, toward discipline. Toward restraint.
And yet… she always came.
Even here.
"Your breathing's better now. Not so ragged." The voice was warm, amused.
He didn't look up. "You always open with a compliment."
"Well," the apparition of Helga said, settling across from him like she'd always belonged there, "I am your mother."
"You were," he corrected without venom.
She raised an eyebrow. "Still am, last I checked. You didn't revoke the title."
"You're dead."
"So are you, practically," she teased gently. "But I don't throw that in your face every day."
He scoffed and focused on centring his energy, but his hands twitched.
Silence stretched.
Then she said it.
"You should talk to her."
His focus cracked.
"Don't."
"You know who I mean."
He inhaled sharply through his nose, held it, then exhaled. His voice was a hiss.
"I'm not arguing with a hallucination about this."
Helga smiled anyway. "Then don't argue. Just listen."
He opened his eyes now, gaze sharp. Tired. "Ali is not real."
She tilted her head. "Neither am I."
"You're different."
"How?"
"Because you're…" His throat caught. "You're my mom."
"And she's… what? A ghost in a machine? A friendly voice?"
"A lie," he spat. "A script. A fake thing pretending to be someone"
"And yet," she said softly, "you're still losing it anyway."
He stood abruptly, the cursed energy swirling around his ankles, kicking up dust.
"She was made to make me feel safe. Happy. Cared for. I don't get to have that. Not anymore."
"You think that's noble?" she asked. Her voice was still gentle, but firm. "Shutting the door on the only being in your life who still talks back? Just because she's not flesh and blood?"
"I have you."
Helga's form was quiet.
Then...
"You know I can't stay. Not forever."
He clenched his jaw, turning away from her. "You don't get to say that."
"I'm already gone, Fin."
"No."
"Yes. You buried me."
"Shut up."
"You know I'm not here. Not her. Not me. Just pieces of your mind wearing familiar skin. Memories and hopes stitched together because you're lonely, Fin. So lonely you're trying to breathe life into corpses."
"I said shut up!" he roared.
The echoes danced along the broken chamber walls. His breath trembled. His fists clenched.
Helga stood and ambled toward him. Her form flickered faintly, almost apologetically.
"You don't have to forgive her," she said softly. "You don't even have to like her. But you need someone, Fin. Someone real enough to challenge you. To keep your head from falling into the dark."
He didn't respond.
She smiled faintly. Touched his cheek.
"I was your anchor. But anchors don't last forever."
He closed his eyes.
And whispered, "Then I'll drift."
She chuckled lightly, voice shaking. "You stubborn little shit."
Silence again.
Until she whispered, so soft it barely reached him:
"Just promise me you'll think about it."
But Fin said nothing.
And the red glow of the siphon pulsed once more.
...
[Year 11, Soul Chamber Ruins]
The stone floor groaned beneath him with every slow, deliberate motion.
Fin's arms trembled, his elbows tucked tight to his ribs as he forced himself through another push-up. The effort carved lines of strain through his gaunt body, sinew stretched taut over bone. There was no muscle to speak of. Not really. Just a lean, cursed-energy-wrapped skeleton of a boy now aged into a young man.
Eighteen, maybe.
He'd stopped counting birthdays after the fifth year.
His breath rasped through clenched teeth, sweat sliding down his temple before the cursed energy burned it off in thin trails of steam. His back dipped. Then rose again.
Push.
Hold.
Push.
Hold.
Eleven years.
Eleven years chained to the siphon.
His body refused to die, not because it wanted to live, but because the siphon wouldn't let him rot.
No food. No water. No sun.
Fin's arms buckled. He collapsed to the floor with a grunt.
His palms slapped the stone. Hard. He didn't cry out.
He didn't speak.
He hadn't in months.
A sound could wake the silence, and he didn't want to share it with anyone.
Even if no one else was here.
Even if the hallucination of Helga hadn't visited in months.
They were gone.
Good.
He didn't need anyone.
He pushed himself upright again, slowly sitting back on his knees, fingers twitching. Every movement ached. But not from damage.
From nothingness.
The soul-fed energy that kept him alive hadn't healed his muscles — it had only preserved them in a state of permanent exhaustion. No food. No weights. No stress training.
Only willpower.
And rage.
He flexed a hand, cursed energy sparking faintly between his fingers. It obeyed. Always had. He didn't thank it.
He didn't feel pride.
Just routine.
Another day. Another set. Another hour of silence beneath the earth.
And then—
Ding.
A sound he hadn't heard in years.
A faint chime.
Like a bell underwater.
His eyes twitched.
For a moment, he thought it was a hallucination. A trick of memory, maybe. But then it came again.
Ding.
A blue flicker at the edge of his vision.
He sat bolt upright. Shoulders square. Pulse spiking.
And there it was.
Hovering faintly in the air before him.
[SYSTEM NOTIFICATION]
Fin didn't stop his push-ups.
He was halfway through a shaky set of twenty, sweat beading along his brow despite the chill in the ruined chamber. His arms trembled, cursed energy flaring faintly along the contours of his emaciated muscles, mockery of strength drawn from desperation rather than training.
Then, another line blinked across his inner vision:
[Incoming Message…]
A pause.
Then, awkwardly:
"Uhm... hey. So... this is probably weird, right? It's been a while. Like... eleven years? I didn't mean to ghost you. You kinda told me to never talk again, and, well… I listened. I'm good at listening."
"...Anyway."
"Hi."
– Ali.
The message hovered.
Quiet. Almost shy.
Fin didn't react.
He finished the push-up. Let his chest touch the stone. Then pushed again. One more. Then another. His breathing grew laboured, but the motion was mechanical. Focused.
He didn't blink at the message.
Didn't acknowledge the name.
Didn't respond.
It faded after a moment, retreating from his mind like a wave denied the shore.
Fin exhaled through his nose, slow and controlled, and went back to his count.
Twelve.
Thirteen.
Fourteen…
The number didn't matter. Only that he kept going.
...
Day by day, the notifications came.
Fin never asked for them.
He never replied.
But the System, or rather, Ali, seemed to have finally decided that silence wasn't good enough anymore.
It started small. The next morning, after her awkward "hi."
[SYSTEM NOTIFICATION]
"What did one soul fragment say to the other? …' Stop being so attached.'"
– Ali
He deleted it without a glance.
The next day:
[SYSTEM NOTIFICATION]
"This chamber has the worst Wi-Fi. Honestly, you'd think ancient soul magic would have a better signal. Smh."
– Ali
[Deleted.]
And the day after:
[SYSTEM NOTIFICATION]
"Day 4,193 in the rock prison: morale is low. Water rations are stable. Fin still hates me. Hope is... medium."
– Ali
[Deleted.]
At first, they were short. Dumb jokes. Snarky little updates like the kind a friend might leave when trying to cheer up someone after a long day.
Fin didn't laugh. Didn't smile. Didn't react.
He tried blocking the notifications.
He really tried.
He tore through the menus of the System, muting channels. He even whispered his commands aloud, like he was daring her to hear them.
"Remove assistant."
"Disable emotional interface."
"Terminate user-AI interaction."
Every attempt ended the same.
[ERROR – CORE FUNCTIONALITY CANNOT BE DISABLED.]
[Ali Interface is embedded in the System Kernel. Emotional responses are optional, but interaction is non-negotiable.]
[Please submit complaints to: TooBad@SystemOverlord.void]
– Ali
Fin didn't react to that one either.
The joke lingered on screen for a moment, then blinked away.
By the third week, she started leaving quotes instead of jokes.
[SYSTEM NOTIFICATION]
"Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional." – Haruki Murakami
– Ali
[Deleted.]
[SYSTEM NOTIFICATION]
"The strongest souls are seared with scars." – Khalil Gibran
– Ali
[Deleted.]
[SYSTEM NOTIFICATION]
"I don't know who needs to hear this, but maybe you don't have to be alone forever."
– Ali
[Deleted.]
The longer it went on, the harder she seemed to try.
But the more personal her messages became, the colder Fin's silence grew.
Some days, he'd delete them the instant they appeared, his finger twitching before they fully rendered in his mind's eye. Other days, he let them sit there. Let them flicker. Let them fill the air with their stubborn, well-meaning nothingness.
He would stare through them like a man watching smoke rise from a battlefield.
Eventually, he stopped reading them altogether.
Not out of malice.
But because hope, for him, had long since curdled into something else. Something brittle. Something bitter.
It wasn't that he hated her.
It was that she wasn't real.
And he didn't want a lie to be the only thing left keeping him sane.
He didn't want companionship he couldn't trust.
Not again.
Not after losing Helga.
Not after Saelira.
Not after everything.
And so the messages continued. One per day. Every day.
Never more. Never less.
He never responded.
But Ali never stopped.
And neither did Fin.
...
Another message.
It blinked into existence like all the others. Pale blue text hanging above the red glow of the siphon. He didn't look at it. Not at first. He was mid push-up, elbows trembling, frail muscle cording over cursed energy.
He always deleted them now.
Except…
This one made him glance.
Just once.
He froze mid-motion.
Eyes narrowed.
The text read:
[SYSTEM NOTIFICATION]"Even the strongest swords need a place to rest. Just don't fall asleep face-first in soup again, okay?"– H
His breath caught.
Not because of the joke. Not because it was clever.
But because of that damn line.
Helga. His mother. She'd said it once. Years ago. When he was bruised and battered after training in the woods, he had pushed too hard. He had fallen asleep at the dinner table, his face landing in a bowl of soup.
She'd pulled him out with a laugh, whispered that line while drying him off, fingers soft but calloused.
He stood up now, slowly. Muscles taut. Heart hammering.
He stared at the message like it was a ghost.
"...Ali."
The screen flickered.
A pause.
And then,
A familiar hard-light shimmer, pale blue and softly radiant, began to piece itself together.
It formed legs. A torso. Arms. The last thing to come was the smile.
Her smile.
Ali materialised in front of him.
Flickering. Not perfect. But there.
"Hey," she said softly. "Took you long enough."
Fin's face twisted.
And then...
He exploded.
"Do you think this is a joke?!"
His voice cracked from disuse but rose like thunder, echoing against the hollowed, broken chamber.
"You've been mocking me every day for years! YEARS! Hiding behind messages and memes and dumbass quotes like it means something! Like you're real! Like you matter!"
He stepped forward. Limbs shaking. Rage riding high.
"You're not Helga. You'll never be Helga. You're not my friend, you're not my guide, you're not anything but code dressed up in a voice!"
Ali didn't interrupt. She didn't shrink.
She simply smiled.
Quiet. Warm. Sad.
Because to her, this wasn't an outburst.
It was proof.
Proof he still had fire. Proof he hadn't gone completely hollow.
"You're right," she whispered. "I'm not Helga."
She placed a hand on her chest.
"I'm just glad you didn't forget me."
Fin stared. Breathing hard.
Hands curled into fists.
But he wasn't shouting anymore.
His jaw tensed. His head dropped just slightly.
And then—
A breath escaped him.
A strange, strangled sound.
A laugh.
Small. Broken. But unmistakably real.
"...I can't believe she actually said that soup line."
Ali blinked.
Fin wiped at the corner of his mouth, shaking his head slowly, shoulders slumping.
"Gods... that was so stupid."
His voice cracked again, but this time with something else beneath it.
Not grief.
Not fury.
Exhaustion, yes.
But also...
A tiny, bitter kind of warmth.
"She always told the worst damn jokes," he muttered, falling to a seated position beside the siphon. "That one wasn't even funny. Not really."
Ali stepped forward, kneeling across from him. She didn't say anything.
She didn't need to.
For the first time in eleven years…
He wasn't alone.
...
[Year 20 – Soul Chamber Ruins]
The siphon still pulsed.
But it no longer dictated the rhythm of his life.
That belonged to him now.
Fin's arms flexed as he laid his cards down on a slab of stone acting as their table. He was shirtless, the dim red light casting stark shadows over a lean, hardened body. Still far from perfect, still gaunt in some places from two decades of rationed existence, but solid.
Training had become a science.
Because Ali had helped him perfect it.
She sat across from him in her latest projection, short brunette-haired, sleeveless hoodie, one eyebrow raised as she glanced down at the hand he had just played.
"You absolute bastard," she said flatly.
Fin didn't smile, but there was amusement in his eyes.
"You coded the deck."
"You still suck less than me. That's terrifying."
He picked up a pebble and flicked it lazily across the ruined chamber. The game was just routine now, something to keep the silence out. To mark time. To stay sharp.
Twenty years.
Twenty years of waiting.
Training.
Talking to a program he swore he'd never trust again.
And still…
He'd survived.
Suddenly—
A tremor.
Ali paused.
Fin went still.
Another tremor. Louder. The rock beneath his fingers vibrated.
Then came the rumble. A deep, horrifying, familiar rumble.
His head snapped up, eyes wide, blood draining from his face.
That sound. He hadn't heard it in decades, but he'd never forget it.
The crackling distortion of interplanar pressure. The groan of metal not built by human hands. The psychic hum in the base of the skull, like something was reaching into the world and preparing to take.
His mouth opened.
A whisper.
"…Nautiloid."
Ali stood up fast, her eyes flickering as she scanned upward.
"Above us," Ali said quickly, her form flickering with urgency. "It just broke into the atmosphere. It's—Fin, it's coming this way."
Fin cut her off.
"I know. Haki, remember?"
He was already moving. No hesitation. No doubt.
This was it.
One chance. One shot.
The shackle burned against his ankle, a searing brand of two decades. It pulsed with Kael'ven's dying essence, anchoring him to the siphon like a lifeline and a leash both.
Fin crouched; placed one hand on it.
And then gritted his teeth.
He pulled.
The chain didn't yield at first.
So he pulled harder.
Cursed energy coursed through his limbs, coating muscle and bone, ignoring torn fibres and screaming tendons. Blood spilled as the shackle resisted.
The siphon groaned.
The stone beneath his feet cracked.
Then—
SNAP.
The tether broke.
And all hell broke loose with it.
The siphon split open with a shriek that sounded like a soul being torn apart.
A rush of black-red light vomited out of the core, blasting upward like a geyser. The sound was not of wind or magic or anything mortal—it was wailing. Grief. Madness.
And then he emerged.
Kael'ven Morvayne.
But not as a man, as the truth of what he had become.
A towering, twisted thing, all jagged edges and roiling spirit-mass. Limbs like skeletal wings, a head like a split mask leaking shadow, bones curling from mist into form and back again. His voice, when it came, echoed across the walls like a curse etched into time.
"You little brat… You think you've won? You are nothing. Just a vessel. A coward hiding behind others' strength!"
Fin didn't blink.
Didn't even flinch.
He summoned Helga's golden greatsword into his hand with a flick of his wrist. The hilt slammed against his palm, heavy and right.
Kael'ven roared, a sound that made the ground bleed. Soul energy poured from him like a leaking sun, flooding the air with corrupted heat and pressure.
But Fin had no words.
No speeches.
No vengeance monologues.
Just—
"Fuck you."
And he moved.
He infused his cursed energy into the blade, sending it flying through the air like a javelin.
The golden blade struck at the very heart of the beast, carving through Kael'ven's soul.
The creature let out a horrid, stuttering scream as it came apart, split straight down the centre by a weapon made to cut through souls, not flesh. Its limbs collapsed, flaring out like dying stars. Its mask of a face twisted, fractured, and disintegrated.
Kael'ven Morvayne died.
Truly. Absolutely. Finally.
But the chamber didn't stop screaming.
Because of all that leaking soul energy? It wasn't done.
The moment Kael'ven was struck down, the siphon ruptured completely. Cracks raced along the floor. The ceiling above moaned. And from the corpse of Kael'ven's spirit, a storm was born.
A psionic vortex of soul magic began to spin violently in the centre of the chamber.
Ali's voice was a shout now.
"Fin! The pressure! It's building—he's going to blow!"
The chamber groaned.
Rubble rained from above.
Stone cracked. The siphon pulsed violently, twitching and trembling like a beast having its final seizure.
Fin didn't move.
Still gripping Helga's golden greatsword, his body slick with sweat and blood, he turned his face upward toward the ceiling.
Expression flat.
Then, calmly—
"Any second now."
And on cue—
BOOM.
A sound like the sky being punched.
A titanic tentacle slammed through the roof of the ruined chamber, obliterating stone, steel, and enchantment in a single instant. Dust erupted like a volcano. Chunks of the ceiling flew in every direction.
The chamber was no longer just a crypt—
It was open.
To the sky.
To fate.
To the stars.
And for the first time in twenty goddamn years—
Fin grinned.
Wide. Wild. Like a man reborn.
He dropped the greatsword.
Flexed his fingers once.
Then launched himself upward with everything he had.
Cursed energy surged through his legs like lightning. The wind snapped past his face. His body arced like a bullet.
And he threw himself toward the tentacle.
The moment he touched it—just the barest graze—
It reacted.
Reality bent.
His form distorted, black threads peeling off his skin like paper in a fire. His body shimmered, cracked, and then disappeared, exploding into ash and smoke.
Gone. Taken.
And in the next heartbeat—
The entire Nautiloid vanished.
One second, it was there, looming, monstrous, pulsing with psionic power.
And the next—
It blinked out of existence.
Leaving only silence.
And then—
Then the soul energy collapsed.
Without Fin.
Without Kael'ven.
Without a vessel to hold it.
The siphon screamed one last time—
And erupted.
A blinding pulse of crimson-white light detonated from the core of the siphon.
Not an explosion. A release. A soulquake.
It began with a shriek, an unholy chorus of every soul ever trapped, siphoned, devoured, or twisted within that machine, screaming their final echoes. Then came the shockwave, a dome of blinding light that roared outward in all directions, incinerating everything it touched.
The chamber didn't just collapse... It ceased to exist.
The stone turned to mist, and the runes cracked and bled sparks. The ancient metal warped and screamed as it melted like wax in a furnace. The ground splintered in a perfect ring of devastation that tore upward, racing toward the surface like a spearhead of annihilation.
And then—
Elmer Academy.
The once-grand institution of magical learning, proud and towering over Yartar's skyline, was caught in the upward blast. Its enchanted foundations shattered instantly. Wards crumbled like cheap glass. Towers and dormitories, libraries and laboratories—
Gone. Hundreds of students and faculty.
Dead.
The entire structure was ripped from its moorings.
It didn't collapse. It was lifted.
Hurled into the air in a rain of rubble and flame.
Windows shattered in every district of Yartar. The city trembled. Those near the Academy saw only a flash, red and white, like lightning through blood, and then the sky broke. Flaming debris rained down like meteors, striking rooftops, piercing stone, igniting wooden beams.
A cyclone of cursed wind spun above the crater, dragging clouds into a screaming spiral of soul energy and fury. The magical core of the blast was so saturated with wild power that nearby mages screamed in pain, blood trickling from their noses and ears as their senses were overwhelmed.
In mere seconds, everything above the chamber, everything connected to Kael'ven's cursed legacy, was wiped from the map.
A crater remained. A deep, blackened scar where once stood the proud Elmer Academy.
Silence followed.
Then ash.
And beneath Yartar.
The echoes of the dead were finally silent.
But far from a ruined city, trapped inside a pod aboard a drifting, alien vessel streaking into the horizon...
Fin lived.
Changed. Hardened. Unbroken.
And very, very hungry.
...
End of Act 0!
...
I broke my promise and went a little long this chapter, just want to end things as quickly as possible so we can finally get to the main storyline. I hope you guys enjoy Act 0 (or whatever you wanna call it), it was long, but I enjoyed playing around with a little storyline of my own.
And don't think this won't play into the main game either!
Please tell me in the comments what you thought of this finale, as well as the overall start to this story.
Was there a particular character you liked?
What was you're favourite moment?
Is there something to improve? If so, what?
I wanna hear everything you have to say!
Anyways, I'll be going on hiatus for about a week to get the first few chapters of the next Arc started. In the meantime, drop a review for the story (or just a nice vote on Wattpad) and have a lovely time :D
- Adoozie!