The Weight of the Past

The city of Greystone had been a kingdom once. A hundred years ago, before the system came, it had been a place of towering spires, bustling markets, and banners that fluttered in the wind. Now, it was nothing more than a carcass, its bones picked clean by those strong enough to survive. The system had reshaped the world in its own image, turning life into numbers, turning struggle into progression, turning men into monsters.

Dorian had walked its streets long before the pits, before the war, before everything had been stripped away. He had grown up in the lower districts, where the system's blessings were sparse and the people who lived there were little more than background noise to the powerful. His parents had been merchants, their business barely enough to keep food on the table. He remembered his mother's hands—rough, cracked from years of hard work—and his father's voice, a deep rumble of quiet authority. They had been ordinary people in a world that had no place for the ordinary.

And then the system had changed everything.

One day, the sky had burned with emerald fire, and the world had been rewritten. The Great Awakening, they had called it. Notifications had flooded into the minds of every living person. Levels. Classes. Skills. Status screens that determined your worth with cold, unfeeling precision. The strong had adapted. The weak had been crushed beneath the weight of a world that no longer had patience for them.

Dorian had been nineteen when his father had died. Not in battle, not at the hands of some monstrous beast, but because the man who had controlled the district—an Enforcer with a rare combat class—had decided that their shop was taking up space. His father had stood his ground. The system had determined he wasn't strong enough to survive.

Dorian had watched his father die, watched his mother weep, watched the Enforcer walk away without a second thought. That was the moment he had realised the truth of this new world.

Justice was a fairy tale for those who had the luxury of dreaming.

He had left the lower districts soon after, throwing himself into the only thing that mattered now: survival. He had trained, fought, bled, and climbed. And he had learned. The system didn't care about morality, only power. And if he wanted to change anything, if he wanted to make sure no one else suffered the way his family had, he would have to become something more than just another forgotten name in the slums.

That was how he had met her.

Seren had been the first person who had ever made him believe in something other than pain. She had been a healer—not the kind who sat in safe guild halls charging gold for their services, but the kind who walked the blood-soaked streets, tending to the wounded with hands that glowed with soft, golden light. She had patched him up more times than he could count, never asking for payment, never asking for thanks. She had simply been there. And it never hurt.

"You can't just keep throwing yourself into fights, Dorian," she had told him once, wrapping his arm after a particularly bad run-in with a group of slavers. "One day, your bloodline won't be enough."

He had laughed then, bitter and sharp. "That's the point, Seren. The system keeps taking, keeps pushing people like us into the dirt. I'm just pushing back."

She had frowned but said nothing. She never agreed with his methods, but she had never abandoned him either. Even when he had become the Woundkeeper, when his name had become something whispered in fear, she had stayed. She had believed in him.

And then she had died.

He had fucked up, he had gotten into trouble with the same Enforcer that had killed his father, stupidly thinking that he could enact his revenge. And had almost died because of it, Seren had already been suspicious of his actions and had followed him. After just one hit from the Enforcer, he had almost died, and Seren had immediately come to his aide.

"Dorian!" She had screamed; it had been so long since he had heard someone say his real name. She ran to him but before she could even begin to try to help, the Enforcer cruelly decapitated her, using some sort of long-range skill, and her headless body crumpled to the floor.

Before he could even react, a System message popped up.

[Bloodline Trait Unlocked: Iron Will (Tier I)]

Effect: All healing is enhanced by 100%. Wounds regenerate at an accelerated rate. Cannot die from cumulative injuries until total HP reaches 0.]

And so, he had not died from the hit. The Enforcer had decided to bring him to the pits, likely impressed by his ability to stay alive. And probably thinking that he would be good entertainment in there.

He thought the System had some semblance of morality; Seren had never hurt a fly, she had saved many lives. And Dorian had learned, in that moment, that even she had not been untouchable. He had played with both their lives, and he had paid dearly for it.

That had been the final break. The moment he had stopped caring about the rules. The moment he had vowed to tear down everything the system held sacred.

And now, years later, he stood at the edge of the pits, staring down into the darkness, feeling the weight of his past settle around his shoulders like a cloak of iron. Calla was watching him, her eyes filled with the same kind of desperate hope he had once carried.

"Are you sure you want to do this?" she asked.

Dorian exhaled slowly, rolling his shoulders. His wounds still ached, but they were already healing. They always did. His bloodline made sure of that.

"This isn't about what I want," he muttered. "It never was."

The system had taken enough from him. Now, it was his turn to take something back.

[Objective Updated: Rescue all the Prisoners.]