***
The ritual was complete.
Rain knelt at its center, the cold stone beneath him rough with chalk and ash. Around him, lanterns flickered, their glass trembling with pale gold light.
Everything here had a purpose.
The ink was for control.
The ash, for freedom.
The light – perhaps – was meant to remind him of life.
But it didn't feel alive here.
Rain let out a slow breath and shut his eyes.
This is it.
He couldn't afford to hesitate. Not when the price of failing meant something worse than death.
Rogue.
His heartbeat slowed. He reached inward, past breath, past body, and dropped.
—
The spirit realm looked like a graveyard.
Grey mist coiled at his feet. The grass was brittle, scattered with dead flowers, their petals curled like burnt paper. Trees loomed without leaves, their bark scorched black. And the sky – if it was a sky at all – hung low and colorless, as if the world had given up on sunrise.
Rain rose to his feet.
This wasn't unexpected. He was a Necromancer. A place like this… made sense.
Still, the emptiness clung to him.
No wind. No birds. No noise, except the soft crunch beneath his boot.
He looked down.
Flesh..
A half-rotted torso lay beneath the grass, crushed under his step. Bone cracked with a damp sound, ribs caving inward. The skin split open like an overripe fruit.
The smell followed a second later.
Sweet and faintly metallic.
Rain's throat clenched. He staggered back a step.
Then came the fog.
It swirled across the ground, curling between bones and wilted flowers, gently and slowly.
And through it, something glowed.
A lantern.
The same one from the real world. Somehow, impossibly, it had followed him down.
Its light fell over the corpse.
He hadn't noticed the face before.
One side was bloated. The other had rotted clean to the bone. But the shape, the jawline, the broken nose –
It was his.
Rain stared. The fog curled lower.
Then he heard it.
A voice in the wind.
"You can't even handle this?"
His fists curled.
Father's voice.
The corpse stared up at him. Milky eyes unblinking. Mouth twisted into a disgusting grin.
_ This is me. _
_ or what I could become. _
_ Could I really do this? _
He swallowed.
There wasn't room for fear.
He dropped to one knee, leaned in and –
Bit.
The flesh was soft. Slimy. The taste was worse than the smell – rot and old blood, a sharp tang of ash that clung to his tongue.
His stomach turned. His eyes watered.
He kept going.
Something sharp tore his mouth – maybe a tooth, maybe his own. Warm blood mixed with the cold meat.
He didn't stop.
Each bite was harder than the last.
But he kept chewing.
When it was done, he knelt there on all fours, shaking. Bones surrounded him. His mouth slung low.
He hadn't thrown up.
At least not yet.
The ground pulsed.
A heartbeat.
Then – rupture.
—
The ritual circle erupted in golden fire.
Ash lifted from the stones, spinning into the air like dust caught in a storm. The ink lines burned white and disappeared. The lanterns shattered all at once, filling the ground with just golden fire.
Rain screamed.
Something inside him tore open.
Pain. White-hot. Not just through flesh, but through soul.
His core flared awake.
And then something clicked.
Power flooded in.
It rushed through his veins. Cold and ancient. Like your blood cells were replaced by ice.
He gasped, hand instinctively covering his mouth.
And then he heard it.
A voice.
Not the wind.
Not his mind.
A real voice.
"You passed."