Even with the soft humming of the ceiling fan above and the distant buzz of city traffic, Rudra couldn't ignore the strange weight that pressed down on him lately. Not the kind of weight you feel in your shoulders after carrying a heavy bag. This was deeper — like something inside him had gotten heavier without anyone else noticing.
He sat alone in his room, cross-legged on the bed, the laptop screen glowing faintly beside him but ignored. His focus was on something else. Floating quietly in the air before him was a projection of the Zix Core, its interface faintly pulsing like a heart.
He exhaled slowly, reading the line that had been sitting there for over a day now:
> AVATAR 1: KAALKRIT
Status: Active
Realm: Velgrath
Loyalty: Bound
Sync: 13%
Summon Access: Locked
Rudra reached out, swiped to the next tab, and watched as a line of glowing script appeared:
> View Origin Memory: Kaalkrit
– Play Record?
He pressed it.
And the world around him dimmed.
---
[Velgrath – The Demon Realm]
There were no skies in Velgrath. Only smoke and lightning.
From the moment Kaalkrit took his first breath, he was surrounded by screaming. Not human screams — but something guttural, something wild. Monsters giving birth to monsters. He didn't open his eyes for hours, but when he did, the creature beside him — some nurse-beast, horns twisted, skin like cracked obsidian — turned its head in surprise.
Because this newborn didn't cry.
He stared.
Quietly. Alert.
Watching her.
Then he bit off her fingers.
They raised him in fire pits and feeding grounds where children were encouraged to fight over scraps of flesh. But he didn't scramble like the others. He waited. Watched. Picked his moment. Then struck when it mattered. One clean kill. Every time.
By the age of six, the others didn't approach him. Not even to talk.
By nine, the trainers refused to enter the pit with him.
By eleven, he had earned a name — Kaalkrit, meaning "one who causes death to rise early."
He didn't ask for it.
Someone just carved it into his shoulder with a bone dagger and said, "Live up to it."
So he did.
---
The Rise to Control
The world he lived in was simple.
Might meant control. Weakness meant death.
But Kaalkrit wasn't just strong — he was methodical. He memorized fighting styles by watching, then improved them without a teacher. He didn't roar when he killed. He didn't show off. He just won. Quietly. Consistently. And that scared people more than shouting ever could.
At eighteen, he killed the clan leader who fed him poison to "test his resolve." He didn't just kill him — he fed the man's body to the wolves in front of the entire tribe. No speech. No ceremony.
He just said, "Don't try that again."
They didn't.
Over the next decade, he fought, absorbed, and unified seven rival clans. He didn't use charm. He offered them two choices: obey, or die fighting. And those who chose to fight… usually didn't last long.
There were no great banners or trumpets when he declared himself ruler of the lower mountains of Velgrath. Just silence — because no one dared to argue.
But Kaalkrit didn't want to be king. He didn't even care about the title.
He just wanted control — so no one could ever corner him again.
---
The Power He Built
He didn't study magic like the shamans.
He learned it by surviving it.
When a blood priest tried to burn him with cursed ash, Kaalkrit let the fire eat part of his arm — then crushed the priest's skull with that same flaming limb. He watched his skin heal faster, tougher. The fire had changed something inside him.
Later, when he fought a creature that used sound to paralyze enemies, Kaalkrit took the hit — barely able to breathe — then roared back so violently that the creature bled from the ears and died in seconds.
Each time he faced a new threat, he didn't just adapt. He absorbed it.
Pain didn't slow him. It made him smarter.
His power came not from spells or blessings — but from his willingness to get hurt in order to learn how never to be hurt that way again.
He called it the Wrath Engine. Not something anyone could see — just a way of being. The more you beat him, the more dangerous he became.
And his enemies began to realize… the harder you fought him, the faster you died.
---
The Dream He Didn't Understand
Somewhere along the way, the nightmares started changing.
At first, they were just the usual — blood, war, betrayal. But eventually, something else slipped in. A voice. A calm one. Human.
It wasn't commanding him. It wasn't yelling.
It just spoke.
Not in demon language. In something older.
A whisper: "Wait."
He didn't know what it meant.
But he started to feel that all of this — the blood, the chains, the rise — was just the beginning of something else.
Something that hadn't arrived yet.
---
His Fall
He made one mistake.
He didn't kill his best general when the man started asking too many questions.
Instead, he spared him. Called it mercy. Loyalty.
That general returned months later — not with a sword, but with three high-ranking priests from the Abyssal Throne, armed with sealing magic older than Velgrath itself.
Kaalkrit fought.
He destroyed two of them.
But the third survived. Barely. Long enough to chain him in the Void Hollow, where time stutters and souls forget how to move.
And there he stayed.
Alone.
Until Rudra came.
---
[Present – Rudra's Room]
He opened his eyes slowly.
The room was the same — pale ceiling, dusty fan, quiet street outside.
But inside him, the memory pulsed like a second heartbeat.
He'd seen all of it.
Rudra leaned back against the wall and rubbed his temple.
"You're not just some video game boss," he muttered. "You're a guy who got buried because you were too dangerous to leave unchained."
Then he looked back at the Zix Core display, where the sync meter had jumped slightly.
> Kaalkrit – Sync: 18%
Passive Skill Gained: [Throne of Wrath]
+5 Awakening Points
And below it:
> Total Points: 15
Next Unlock: 15
Avatar 2 – Mahavirin (Available)
He stared at the button.
But didn't press it.
Not yet.
He wasn't in a rush. Rushing gets you caught.
"I'll wake you when I'm ready," Rudra said quietly, tapping the interface shut. "One monster at a time."
He pulled the curtain open.
The street below was alive with people, none of them knowing what had just stirred in the dark.