Chapter 8: Outgrown by Shadows

Aether sighed, his eyes wandering by themselves at each who passed by him. To survive in a world like this, you must not let your guard down even while sleeping. To achieve this, survival must become something you do unintentionally. Your body must learn to do it independently, to the point it’s muscle memory.

Aether here has spent about four years trying to teach his own body the rules for survival in the Withering Rose district, but has yet to fully achieve his goal.

Around six more years, that’s how much it would take him to master the everyday life of a citizen in this wicked district.

’If I even survive to get to that point.’

He has been able to mask his identity until now, without anyone discovering his true self, but that was bound to happen someday, and he felt like that day would come sooner than he thought.

’There have been more and more nobles coming here, it has become harder and harder to hide.’

He shrugged.

And indeed it has. Meanwhile, it was practically impossible for a commoner to recognize him, as they didn’t even know the face of their own king; it wasn’t the same for nobles.

His game of cat and mouse could even end at any moment if he wasn’t careful.

And when it did, his life would end with it.

’Useless affinity!’

Aether said, irritated as he kicked an innocent rock.

Even after awakening, he has been as weak as he was before. Meanwhile, he now had the ability to enter books, something he couldn’t do before awakening. It wasn’t like he could even reach the end of one, but change it.

He was bound to stay weak for eternity at this point.

***

[Character Codex: Sync Stable]

Name: Aether Moirai

Age: 13

Race: Human

Affiliation: Royal Family

[Path]: —Vessel of the Abyss—

> You were never meant to hold this power. And yet… the Abyss has chosen you.

Knowledge Rank — [Fragment]

>3/1000 knowledge shard

Codex Class — [Reader]

> Sync Rate: 9%

Affinity — [Abyss]

> A slumbering void stirs within you. It gazes back.

[Affinity Bane]: —Stranded Resolve —

[Mental Fortitude Thresholds]

> 80 — Clear Mind: Subject resists Abyssal influence entirely

> 60–79 — Subtle Echoes: Whispered thoughts emerge

> 40–59 — Instability Detected: Reflexive Abyssal traits may emerge

> 20–39 — Possession Risk: Abyss seeks control

< 20 — Vessel Breach: Control lost temporarily

Mental Fortitude: 75/100

Status: Unstable — Abyssal Influence: Minimal

[Abyssal Pulse Log]

[Mental Fortitude: 75] — The hollow eyes of those killed by the Abyss always follow

[Skills / Abilities]

Abyssal Abilities — [Shadow Speech]

Skills — [Echo Word]

***

’Class, Knowledge, Sync,’ Aether muttered, more to himself than anyone.’Three ways to die slowly.’

He leaned back against the crumbling wall, its rot-stained stone cold against his spine. The sky above the Withering Rose was grey again, as always. It suited the thoughts clawing at his mind.

Four years of surviving in this district had taught him not to overthink. Thinking got you killed. But lately, he couldn’t help it.

The Codex flickered in the air beside him, a translucent window that pulsed faintly with his heartbeat. His Sync was still at 9%. His Knowledge Rank is still at the pathetic [Fragment] level. His Class hadn’t even budged.

But what even were these things? What did they mean?

He sighed.

A Reader’s core is born the moment their affinity awakens. That’s when everything begins. And everything starts falling apart.

Class is the rank of that core, the blueprint of what you are becoming. Your longing for the truth hidden inside the Infinite library

Knowledge is the weight of what you’ve survived.

And Sync? Sync is how close you are to losing yourself to the affinity inside you.

The more the vessel and the affinity align, the more Sync rises. Reach 100%, and you enter the threshold all Readers fear and crave:

Enlightenment.

That’s the moment your Class advances, when the Codex reshapes your soul.

But Knowledge was different.

It didn’t grow with time. It grew with blood.

Aether looked down at his hands, remembering the first time he killed something that wasn’t entirely human. The silence after. The way the world watched him, as if waiting.

Knowledge Rank rose not through thought or training, but through violence. The higher the foes you slay, the deeper your understanding becomes of pain, of stories, of death. That’s why it’s called “Knowledge.”

Not wisdom.

Nor experience.

But proof of the darkness you’ve chosen to embrace.

Stories have cores, too. Just like people. And their own Class and Knowledge Rank.

The Class of a book determines how tightly its ending clings to fate, how difficult it is to change. It’s Knowledge Rank? That tells you how powerful the monsters inside are.

Some Readers enter fairy tales. Others step into hell wearing only a name.

And abilities…

He scoffed. That was another gamble.

There were the mundane ones, useless tricks or tiny miracles. Cooking a fish to perfection. Duplicating rocks. Weird, random, and common. Anyone could get them, and most of them weren’t worth remembering.

Then there were affinity abilities. Born from your affinity. Yours alone.

Those only awakened when Sync rose. And even then, it was rare.

That’s why Aether had been lucky, or cursed. At 9% Sync, the Abyss had already given him something: Shadow Speech. A whisper woven into the dark, allowing him to speak to the shadow of others… and his own.

Aether clenched his jaw.

Skills, too, were ranked. Not by Knowledge, but by Class.

Grouped into offensive, defensive, and utility. The higher the Class, the fewer limitations. The more the ability could bend the rules.

But power like that always came with a cost.

And then there were Relics: weapons, armor, tools soaked in the core of stories themselves.

He didn’t have one. Yet. He’d seen what they could do, though.

Maybe one day. Maybe if he lived long enough.

’But truly, all they are is a pain.’

He closed the Codex and stared at the people walking by him.

Their faces, he memorized all of them. Who knew, maybe one day he would have to fight one of them. It was better to know an enemy’s face than not to know anything.

But in short, this was how the codex operated. Or at least that was what his teacher had told him. And from his experience, it was on point…

But there was one thing his teacher never told him. Not because she didn’t know, but because it had nothing to do with her. It was something… unique to him.

When he first received [Shadow Speech], the Codex didn’t just unlock it. It tested him.

Aether remembered the cold. Not from the rain or the stone beneath his back, but from the absence of light.

One night, weeks after his Sync first hit 9%, a whisper slithered into his dreams. It wasn’t a voice. Not really. It was more like the memory of one.

“You speak our name.

Then prove you have one of your own.”

He’d woken in an alley, the city dead around him. Not a soul. Not a sound.

Only shadows.

They moved without light to cast them. Crawling, flickering things that pulled free from his own outline and gathered around him like vultures circling a dying heartbeat.

They spoke. Not in words, but in thoughts sharpened to blades. Every doubt he’d buried. Every fear he’d silenced. Every truth he couldn’t face.

“You are not real.”

“You do not belong.”

“You are just a corpse that hasn’t fallen yet.”

One by one, the shadows took the forms of those dear to him. His father. His sister. The old woman who took him in and taught him everything he knew about the codex.

They screamed without mouths.

Cursed him for surviving.

Blamed him for breathing.

He couldn’t run. He couldn’t fight. He could only listen.

And endure.

The trial wasn’t strength. It wasn’t knowledge. It was will.

When the last shadow faded, the silence that followed felt like a scream.

And then… [Shadow Speech] was his.

He didn’t speak for three days after that. And when he did, he noticed it:

Shadows paused to listen.

Months have passed since then. He has grown closer to his skill, using it to help his teacher earn money. But he neglected the infinite library, not growing his sync even a little since then.

He had learn the secrets of many around him, some he had used for their scams, and some, he regretted learning.

Though something to know about his skills is that he can’t force the truth from the shadows, nor can he make them talk. He was too weak for that, for now at least. So he had to adapt to this and learn whenever a shadow was lying or not.

’Maybe I should enter a story soon. If I don’t become stronger, then I’ll just fall prey to whatever hides in the shadows of this hell.’ But maybe, he should have been more aware of the danger growing inside of him…

The Codex flickered.

Not because he called for it, but because something else had.

Aether clenched his jaw, feeling the cold drip of nothing behind his eyes.

He hadn’t grown. Not since the day the shadows found his voice.

Not since the whispers first called him kin.

> Override request pending…

> Request granted.

[Codex access locked until vessel stabilizes.]

The interface vanished. The whisper remained.

Aether stumbled back, pressing the heel of his palm to his forehead.

“No,” he muttered. “You don’t get to win because I haven’t grown!”

But he was.

The air around him thinned, and the street twisted wrong in his vision. The Abyss didn’t scream; it waited. It pressed in, like water against glass.

It had grown stronger. And he hadn’t.

He opened his mouth to speak again, but the words came out as a breath not his own.

The curse wasn’t that the Abyss would kill him.

It was that it would wear him.

Every day he didn’t get stronger, it did.

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