The room was quiet.
Not just in sound, but in weight.
Nclai sat on the edge of his bed, one hand hovering over the flickering red sigil.
[Playback Y/N?]
He didn't hesitate.
[Playback: Y]
The sigil pulsed once.
Thereupon the room was darkened.
It was not because of darkness but bloodlight.
The Codex whispered, lower than before... as though it were some hidden thing down in the marrow of the world, stirring with it.
......
Legacy Episode II – The Flesh Rewritten
"When the curse no longer dwells in the marrow… but becomes the marrow."
......
The vision bloomed to life.
A pit.
Black stone. Wet with rot. Chains wrapped around a figure half-dead, half-burning.
Nicklaus Azrael.
Tonight he was not a dark outline. One could see him. In a terrible condition. He was a human, just barely.
His flesh was steaming. There were pieces of broken bones with each breath. The cursed signs were slithering along his body like scars. the air hissed around him.
The speaker was speaking an archaic language but they were translated directly to the mind of Nclai through the Codex.
"They cast him into the Hollow Pit, where dead gods were forgotten.
But he did not rot.
He endured."
Nicklaus screamed. Not in fear. But in defiance.
The curse that should have killed him did something worse.
It rewrote him.
Muscles tore. Bones shifted. Organs liquefied and reformed in patterns not seen in any living race.
"He was the first. The rewritten flesh. The vessel of the curse made divine."
When it was over, he rose.
Naked. Radiant. Blood dripping from his fingertips, eyes glowing like dying stars.
He did not look like salvation.
He looked like the answer to everything the world feared.
......
The vision was over.
The buzzing stopped.
The light went down.
......
Nclai gasped... air flooding into his lungs like he'd just surfaced from drowning.
His physique was perspiring. His heart was beating on his chest. And he did not fall. He settled himself up taller.
He stared on his hands.
They were the hands, which acted independently in the ring.
The same hands that were shaking not from fear... but awakening.
His veins felt thicker. His breath calmer.
Like his flesh understood now.
"So the curse… became the bloodline," he whispered.
......
Then it came.
System Alert.
......
System Update
Bloodline Trait Gained
Trait: Nightgod's Vessel – Lv.1
Effect:
You now carry the dormant vessel structure of the First Nightgod.
– Gain passive resistance to spiritual disruption and status effects.
– Physical resilience moderately increased in dark zones.
Future Evolutions – Locked
• Lv.2: Vessel Awakening
• Lv.3: Crimson Marrow
• Lv.4: Throne of Nerves
• Lv.5: Form of the First Night
......
He didn't smile.
Did not show any physical response.
But his fingers drew together a little.
As the body would verify what the blood already knew.
This was never only a gift.
It was a legacy.
And now?
He was becoming what the world had forgotten to fear.
......