This was not the village.
This was not the burning forest.
This was not the cold stone of the temple.
Ryan floated in a world of absolute, suffocating darkness, illuminated only by a sickly, necrotic green—an endless void the exact color of the eye he had shoved into his own skull. There was no ground to stand on, no sky to look up at, no horizon in any direction. Just green. Forever green.
And in the exact center of this dead universe, watching him, was the Eye.
It was incomprehensibly massive now—larger than mountain ranges, larger than the world itself. A single, abyssal black pupil stared down at him with an intensity that pierced through his translucent spirit like needles through wet paper. The Eye did not blink. It did not shift. It simply... dissected him.
Ryan's voice felt impossibly thin and small in the endless space.
"You are the Eye. The one I took."
A sound answered him. It wasn't a voice that traveled through the air, but a frequency that resonated directly inside the marrow of Ryan's spirit. It was clear as cut crystal, cold as a winter grave, and older than the stars.
"So you remember. Good."
The Eye pulsed once, sending a slow, glowing ripple through the void.
"Most mortals, after witnessing so much slaughter, do not remember anything. Their minds fracture. Their spirits shatter into dust. But you..." The colossal pupil contracted, studying him from a new, invasive angle. "You kept your mind."
Ryan's spirit-form trembled, but he forced his voice to stay level. "What was that? The village, the attack, the Prince... was it real? Or a nightmare?"
The Eye seemed to laugh. There was no sound, only a violent vibration that violently rocked the green sea of the void.
"A nightmare? No, boy. Those were your own memories. I simply... paused them. Rearranged the pieces. I let you live through what was, and what almost was." The Eye grew perfectly still. "Now. Let me show you what actually happened, right before I pulled you from the dark."
The green void violently rippled, tearing open like a curtain.
Ryan saw himself. Not the glowing spirit floating in the void, but his real, flesh-and-blood body, charging across the frozen mud of the ruined village. It was the exact same scene he had just lived through. He saw himself dodging the arrows. He saw his hand catch the golden shaft. He saw himself reach Tarek, his bleeding hand grabbing the prince's collar.
Then—the vision changed.
A spear.
It thrust outward from the blind spot behind Ryan's shoulder—driven by a heavy infantryman he hadn't noticed. The jagged steel blade punched cleanly through Ryan's back and erupted from the center of his chest.
In the vision, Ryan's real body went limp. He collapsed into the bloody snow, dead before he hit the ground.
Tarek's face did not twist with the triumph of a victor. It twisted with furious, pathetic rage. The prince snatched his golden bow like a club and began violently beating Ryan's lifeless corpse, screaming wildly into the night.
"Why?! Why didn't you run?! Why did you make me look like this?! WHY?!"
Two soldiers had to physically drag the manic prince away from the boy's battered body. Tarek stood over the corpse, his chest heaving, his face splattered with Ryan's blood.
"Throw this trash in the woods," Tarek spat coldly. "He is nothing."
The vision shattered like glass, dissolving back into the green void.
Ryan floated in absolute silence. His spirit-form flickered unsteadily.
"That is what truly happened, boy," the Eye whispered, the vibration rattling Ryan's teeth. "A spear through the heart before you could even choke the prince. Your corpse was tossed into a cave to rot."
Ryan couldn't breathe. He couldn't speak.
"And yet," the Eye continued, its pupil narrowing to a razor-thin slit, "in the simulation I just put you through—knowing you were outmatched, knowing it meant certain death—you still chose to attack him. Again." The ancient entity leaned closer. "Are you a fool, boy? Or simply blinded by pride?"
Ryan's head snapped up. His voice exploded from his chest, raw, loud, and completely fearless.
"Who are you to judge me?! He is a monster! He burned my home! He murdered my mother! He turned my father into a shield! Of course I tried to kill him! If it costs my life, I DON'T CARE!"
The Eye fell silent. It let Ryan's furious echo fade into the infinite dark.
When it spoke again, the crushing weight was gone. The voice was softer. Almost... curious.
"Tell me, boy. Do you know why angels have no feelings?"
Ryan blinked, the sheer randomness of the question halting his rage.
"I do not know the nature of the others," the Eye mused, "but Azrael, the Angel of Death... he feels absolutely nothing. When the great kings of your world see him manifest at the foot of their beds, they break. They weep like infants. They offer him mountains of gold, the blood of their enemies, the souls of their own children—all for just one more hour of breath."
The Eye's voice turned to freezing iron.
"And he takes them anyway. Because he feels nothing."
Ryan listened, floating in the dark, the anger slowly draining away into deep focus.
"The first vessel the old man gave me to was a legendary conqueror," the Eye recalled, the void swirling around them. "He won every war. He crushed empires. He possessed power, wealth, and absolute glory. But when his time came, and I forced him to face the crushing reality of his own death... he broke. He begged me for a second chance. So, I burned his cowardly spirit to ash and moved on."
The colossal pupil locked onto Ryan.
"I did the exact same to the next three. Kings, warriors, warlords. When faced with the finality of the void, they all ran. They all begged. But you..." The Eye began to slowly circle him. "You did something different. You did not run. You did not beg. You offered me no bargains. You simply attacked the prince. Knowing you would die."
The Eye stopped directly in front of him.
"You are the first. Explain to me why."
Ryan opened his mouth, then closed it.
Why had he charged? Why had he embraced death instead of the safety of the forest? He thought about pride. He thought about vengeance. He thought about his father standing tall with a hundred arrows in his chest. But none of those words felt heavy enough.
The ancient entity waited patiently.
Finally, Ryan spoke. His voice wasn't a roar anymore. It was quiet, grounded, and brutally honest.
"I don't know. I was angry. I was stupid. My father died just to buy me time to run. My mother died trying to hide me. And I threw their sacrifice away because... because I simply couldn't stand the sight of the prince breathing."
He looked directly into the abyssal black pupil.
"Maybe it isn't heroic. Maybe it's just foolish. But it's the truth."
The Eye seemed to process this, the green light pulsing rhythmically.
"Do you know what I have learned of humanity in my thousands of years of watching them rot?" Ryan shook his head slowly.
"Every mortal is pure, until the famine comes. You never know if a man is truly loyal until he is offered a bribe. You never know if a man is brave until death stands on his chest." The vibration grew deeper, echoing in the void. "Something for something. That is the fundamental law of human nature. You offer loyalty only to those who protect you. You offer kindness only to those who praise you."
The Eye moved closer, filling Ryan's entire field of vision.
"But you... you gave something for nothing. You traded your only life to avenge ghosts who could not thank you. You attacked a prince who had already killed you. You rejected survival when it was handed to you."
The green light flared, blinding and magnificent.
"That is... fascinating to me."
Ryan floated in the light, waiting for the verdict.
"I will grant you my power," the Eye declared. "But you must understand the curse you are accepting."
Ryan braced himself.
"My power is not the magic of the gods. It will not grant you physical strength. It will not make you faster. It will not mend your broken bones." The ancient voice grew incredibly heavy, weighted with the suffering of thousands of years. "My power allows you to harvest. When you kill a man, his soul does not pass to Azrael. It passes to you. His memories become your memories. His talents become your talents. His life... becomes your life."
A profound, terrifying chill crept through Ryan's spirit.
"But they do not fade away," the Eye warned. "They remain inside you. They will scream. They will weep. They will whisper to you in the dark. Imagine a thousand voices, boy. A thousand lives and a thousand brutal deaths, all screaming inside one skull. That is my gift. That is your curse."
Ryan swallowed hard, the horror of the reality settling over him.
"The previous four vessels went entirely mad. Their minds fractured under the weight of the chorus. They begged me to silence the voices, but I cannot. Once a soul is devoured, it is yours to carry until you break."
The Eye paused, the void falling completely still.
"I will lend you this power for one night. A single night. Use it to butcher the prince and his fangs. But hear me well, boy—if your mind breaks, if the voices drive you to madness, I will incinerate your spirit myself. I will not tolerate another failure."
Ryan's voice came out unnervingly steady. Much calmer than a boy his age should ever sound.
"Why? Why give me the power at all?"
The Eye seemed to genuinely smile.
"Because you are the first soul in a millennia who did not beg." It drifted backward. "Now. Do you accept?"
Ryan closed his eyes.
He saw his father, a mountain of flesh and arrows, refusing to fall.
He heard his mother's final, desperate command: Run. He saw the smoke rising from the ashes of his childhood.
He opened his eyes. They were cold. Empty of fear.
"I attacked him out of blind rage. It was foolish. My parents died so I could live, and I wasted it." He took a slow breath. "But a world without them... a world where monsters like Tarek Ashen sit on thrones while good men rot in the dirt... that world means nothing to me anyway."
The Eye watched, enraptured.
"I will take your curse. But I will not be a mindless butcher. I won't slaughter foot soldiers who were forced to hold a spear. I will hunt the ones who gave the orders. The prince. The elites. The royals."
Ryan's spirit-form flared with its own faint, green light.
"I will paint the wild lands with their blood. The wolves will choke on the meat I leave behind. And when it is done... if I lose my mind..." Ryan glared directly into the center of the Eye. "Then burn me."
The entity was utterly silent. For a long, terrifying moment, nothing happened.
Then, the massive presence violently contracted. The mountain-sized Eye folded in on itself, shrinking rapidly until it was no larger than a normal human eye. It drifted slowly toward Ryan, aligning perfectly with his empty left socket.
"Then let the harvest begin, Hunter."
The green void exploded into blinding white.
Ryan gasped, his back arching off the freezing stone.
He was back in the temple. His spirit had slammed back into his physical body. The smell of dust and old bones filled his lungs. Standing over him, cloaked in shadow, was the Old Man. The ancient, scarred warrior's dark eyes were wide with genuine, unhidden shock.
Perhaps even awe.
"You are breathing," the Old Man rasped, his voice rough with disbelief. "The Eye did not burn you. After a thousand years of failure... I have finally found a vessel."
Ryan sat up slowly, his joints popping. The left side of his face felt entirely different. It didn't burn. It was freezing cold, radiating an ancient, ravenous hunger.
He tilted his head, looking up at the Old Man with one normal eye, and one swirling, necrotic green one.
"We need to renegotiate our deal," Ryan said quietly.
The Old Man's bushy eyebrow shot upward.
"Your terms were entirely one-sided," Ryan continued, rising smoothly to his feet. He didn't feel like a boy anymore. He felt ancient. "You get the corpses of twelve divine gods. I get a cursed eye that will likely drive me insane." Ryan stepped forward, the green light from his new eye illuminating the darkness of the temple. "I want more."
The Old Man actually took a half-step backward. For the first time since they met, the ancient warrior looked uncertain.
"What... what is it you want?"
Ryan didn't blink. "I want to know exactly who you are. I want to know why you chose me. And I want to know..." Ryan's voice caught for a fraction of a second, a brief flash of the boy bleeding through the cold killer. "...if my parents' souls are still out there. If there is a way I can find them. To say goodbye."
The temple was completely silent.
Then, the Old Man threw his head back and laughed. It wasn't a chuckle. It was a booming, seismic roar that shook dust from the ceiling—the sound of grinding tectonic plates and centuries of warfare.
"You attempt to bargain with me? A mortal boy with nothing to his name?"
Ryan didn't flinch. He stood his ground.
"I have the Eye," Ryan stated coldly. "Which means I am the only leverage you have. Without me, you never get your twelve gods. Without me, your thousand years of hiding in this cave mean absolutely nothing." He stepped closer. "So, yes. We bargain."
The Old Man's laughter abruptly ceased.
He stared down at Ryan. He didn't see a terrified teenager anymore. He saw a predator. He saw something that reminded him entirely too much of himself.
"Very well." The Old Man extended a massive, scarred hand. "We strike a new pact. But heed my warning, Ryan, son of Titus—" The ancient warrior's grip closed around Ryan's hand like an iron vise. "The Eye of the Dead is not the only curse wandering this earth. And I am not the only monster who has been waiting in the dark."