The Codex pulsed in his chest.
Not metaphorically—physically.
The flesh around Cain's ribs tightened as black veins laced with silver spread across his torso, etching ancient sigils across his skin. Glyphs that pulsed in time with his heartbeat.
[Core Integration Confirmed]➤ Path Chosen: Codex Channeling➤ Fusion Threading Initialized…Warning: Memory Pollution Probability: 86%
"This is gonna hurt, isn't it?""You're trying to read a book that rewrites you."
He carved a circle in the cave floor. A Codex Seal.
Bone ash. Wolf blood. A single tooth from a fused predator he barely remembered killing in the memory realm.
Then he knelt inside.
The Codex opened on its own.
Pages unfurled like wings—flesh and script, shifting and unreadable.
One phrase burned itself into reality:
"Bind not the beast, but its nature."
⚙️ [New Technique Unlocked – Echo Threading]
Description: Temporarily channel an echo-skill from a consumed memoryDuration: 60 secondsCooldown: HighSide Effect: Fragment Overlap / Sanity Drift
Cain gasped.
A golden skeletal arm surged from the floor beneath him, offering a cracked beast skull with a rune carved into the jaw.
"What the hell is this…?""The first thread.""Memory of the Six-Legged Flamecat."
He reached out and grabbed it.
His spine arched.
Flames burst from his legs.
For sixty seconds, Cain ran faster than he had ever moved—a blur of motion that shattered trees, burned footprints into rock, and left trails of memory sparks.
When he stopped, he vomited.
Not from nausea. From the overlap.
He remembered a family that wasn't his.He mourned a child he never had.He howled like the Flamecat did… when it died.
The cost of threading.
But he smiled.
"This is how I'll beat them.""I don't need their rules. I'll steal their legacies."
Cain's Channeling Journal – Week One:
Thread: Dire Talon King➤ Skill: Aerial Step – Mid-air dash➤ Side Effect: Brief fear of open skies
Thread: Obsidian Watchbeast➤ Skill: Stoneplate Hide – Temporary skin armor➤ Side Effect: Skin cracks for 3 hours post-use
Thread: Arin's Memory – Beast of Regret➤ Skill: Soul Moan – Psychic scream that stuns enemies➤ Side Effect: Nightmares of loved ones drowning
Cain began tracking which memories were safe to use—and which were too painful to survive twice.
Meanwhile… in the distance…
The Moonlink girl stood atop a tower of bones, wind swirling around her robes of starlight ash.
She watched Cain through a shard of cracked mirrorglass.
"He chose Channeling.""Then he's marked now. By the Librarians.""They'll hunt him. They have to."
New Threat Unlocked: The Librarians of the Forbidden Codex
👁 Agents of a forgotten religion sworn to erase Codex-born powers➤ Abilities: Memory edit, time fractures, "Redaction Blades"➤ Goal: Remove Cain before he opens Archive II
Final Scene:
Cain walks through the woods now with Nyx, different.
Shadows respond to him.
Echoes of old fused beasts howl softly when he nears their bones.
The Codex opens for him without pain now.
Then, the sky twitches.
A tear opens above the treetops—a redacted portal, incomplete, flickering like an unfinished sentence.
From it steps a Librarian.
Ink-dripping robe. Head wrapped in scrolls. Voice like paper tearing.
"You should not exist."
Cain smiles, shadowfire coiling at his fingertips.
"Neither should you."