After about an hour of unending pain and agony, sixty minutes of Ishiki lying supine on the cold stone, staring into the oppressive, starless void of the artificial sky.

Ishiki was finally able to move his hands around as much as he wanted.

As if that mattered much in the grand scheme of things. Uh... actually it mattered a lot.

Nonetheless, Ishiki was almost healed, thanks to the new attribute [Minor Regeneration] he had received after killing an ancient, corrupted tree in the depths of the Crimson Canopy.

It didn't perform miracles and instantly heal him. In fact it didn't even heal him, it just regenerated broken things in his body and that too with an oppressively slow speed.

He summoned his system window with a mental command and the similar platinum hued, transparent window appeared before his eyes.

========= Player : ????? ========

Name : Ishiki

Age : 17

Title : [Memory Reaper]

Rank - [Mythical]

Exclusive Skill - [Soul Archive]

Skill Description - [Allows the bearer to chain the very consciousness of the Slain in an eternal collection. The new master can reap the memories within.]

Exclusive Corruption - [Phantom Voice]

Corruption Description - [Listen closely When the Reaper speaks, You may hear the whisper Of everyone they've reaped.]

Synth Reactor Tier - Innate

Level - 15/50

Data Fragments -1,720/7,500

Basic Abilities :

Strength : 25/100

Agility : 25/100

Endurance : 25/100

Charisma : 23/100

Protocols : [Recursive Anomaly (Unknown)], [Curse of the Forgotten (Exclusive)]

Attribute : [Half Royalty (Epic)], [Minor Regeneration (Epic)]

Skill Cards : [Ghost Blade (Epic)]

==============================

{Vestiges}

{Relics}

{Shop}

===============================

He was now at level 15... that was not good at all.

Considering that Kenji was well beyond 20 and Yuki was even higher.

As for Filch and Kaori, Ishiki had no idea. Kaori was transported directly into the city and hence she didn't had much time to level up, so she still might be around 10's.

Filch on the other hand had been strong ever since Ishiki could remember and now that he had spent 2 months alone wandering into the Crimson Canopy... who knew how powerful he was.

It was a tragedy that such power was locked inside a comatose mind... he could have made it to an even higher position in the army and went to the inner ring.

Thinking about that Ishiki couldn't help but think about this guy named Jules. Kenji had told him that he had made it to the inner ring as a inner guard. But there has been no contact since.

What level was he? How strong is that guy? and if he were to turn and help the emperor, what were there chances to defeat him?

Ishiki swiped the thought away. Envy was the rust of the soul.

He focused on the skill card [Ghost Blade] another window manifested itself into reality in front of his eyes.

=====================

Skill - [Ghost Blade]

Rank - [Epic]

Adaptability - III

Skill Description - [The wielder may shroud their presence, becoming difficult to detect by both mundane and supernatural senses, while they are in that form their perception is enhanced, their . Additionally, any weapon touched by the wielder gains unnatural sharpness]

Skill Level - 2

Progress - 49/125

[Use Ghost Blade to kill 125 enemies to level up]

======================

Ghost blade has been struck at level 2, forever and the one to blame for that was the army. Because of them, Ishiki has been getting very less chances to go out and have encounters with Withering beasts.

Most of the time he had to go on patrols was during the Crimson Night... well, he wasn't alone and they didn't wander far away into the Crimson Canopy, it was dangerous still.

But the army seemed to be looking for something that only appeared during the Crimson Night, whatever it was... he had no idea.

Thinking about it, he remembered the past and realized that it was actually just a coincidence that the patrol squad had found him and Yuki that day.

Otherwise... they would have been certainly dead and inside some tree's stomach. Well... not that it was the case anymore.

Dismissing the Window describing Ghost Blade, Ishiki focused on his exclusive skill. The window describing [Soul Archive] in more details blinked into existence.

====================

Skill - [Soul Archive]

Rank - [Mythical]

Adaptability - V

Skill Description - [Allows the Memory Reaper to chain the very consciousness of the Slain in an eternal collection. The new master can reap the memories within]

Inherent Abilities - Mimic, Soul Chain, ???, ???, ???

Mimic - [Allows the Memory Reaper to mimic one of the souls in his eternal collection. One soul can only be mimicked once, and has set time limits]

Mastery - 1/5

Reward - [-----]

Soul Chain - [The souls in possession of the Memory Reaper are his property. The master can use them however he wants. Souls are built to be used again and again after all, providing their utmost support to the master is what they wish]

Mastery - 1/5

Reward - [-----]

??? - Information Locked

??? - Information locked

??? - Information locked

=====================

He still hadn't figured out what was this mastery thing... there was no lead to it whatso ever.

On that fateful day, Ishiki had used [Soul Chain] for the first time to save Yuki, without knowing it. But now he knew... the ability was a bit different from others and needed him to think of both the ability and which soul he wanted to fuse with.

Along with that... this skill activated in a bit clanky way, Ishiki felt as if something was being sucked from inside of his very soul each time he used it.

There was a weird kind of energy actually. He didn't know how to control it at will, but it was there and controlling it was the key to become stronger.

The legendry vestige, [Aether Blade]— The bladeless tachi, it worked when supplied with that energy too.

He didn't knew how to use it properly, yet.

Ishiki shrugged at the thought and stood up, moving to the edge of the wall. It was so wide that two trucks could move side by side.

He stood up and walked to the edge of the wall. The wind here was strangely absent, as if the wall existed in a vacuum, separated from the weather below. The top was wide enough to drive two trucks side-by-side. It was like a highway in the sky paved with gold, which no one used.

He looked inward. Toward the Inner Ring. The secondary wall was a bit shorter than the outer wall and the inner wall even shorter.

And Ishiki hasn't actually gone mad or something, he was just practicing...to climb the inner wall and go inside.

That actually sounded Insane.

Anyways, he had hoped that from here at least he would be able to take a vague look inside the inner ring, but his expectations were broken as he could see nothing but the wall and darkness beyond it... as if it was covered by an invisible barrier from the top.

'Actually... screw that. The view is so nice.' Ishiki smiled as he looked below him... a whole part of the secondary ring was 200 meters below him and the picture it painted was almost ethereal.

The brass lamps looked like small dots in the darkness placed at every 100 meters and the light even reflected from the white stone of the streets and house walls... making it look like miniature diamonds scattered on a board.

From this height, the flaws were invisible. One couldn't see the desperation of the poor. One couldn't see the discrimination. One couldn't see the broken world outside and nor could one see the emptiness of the fake sky.

What could be seen, was only peace and Order.

He looked at the miniature world below, where people slept in soft beds, their dreams untroubled by the monsters that roamed the darkness outside the walls.

A strange, heavy gloom settled in his chest.

This city was beautiful and the people lived peacefully even after the world around was in ruins. Surrounded by five regions of death, humanity had carved out a sanctuary of light and stone.

Couldn't they make something like that on earth.

'Huh... I sound like... Yuki.' He laughed out loud, but soon stopped.

"We are no longer builders," Ishiki whispered to the silent void, his voice devoid of his usual cynicism. "We have become those who demolish."

He looked at the beautiful, shining city one last time, his eyes reflecting the golden lights like shards of broken glass.

"Why must it all burn down?" he asked the silence. But the silence didn't answer as usual.

"Because a cage is still a cage," Ishiki answered himself. "No matter how much gold you paint on the bars."

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