Inheritance
Icarus's eyes fluttered open.
The world was a blur, shapes melting together in the dim light of the cave. He sucked in a breath—and immediately regretted it.
Pain.
It surged through him, raw and relentless, sinking its fangs into his very being. His body trembled, his limbs weak and unsteady. His fingers twitched against the cold, hard stone beneath him, barely able to clench into fists.
Phoenix had washed away the agony for a time, but it had never truly left. It had only been lurking beneath the surface, waiting.
And now it came crashing back, an unrelenting tide of torment.
His breath came shallow, uneven. His body convulsed, shaking like a fragile flower caught in a storm. Every nerve screamed. His face— or what remained of it—throbbed with every heartbeat.
The shock hadn't faded.
The horror hadn't faded.
And neither had the truth—
He had sacrificed his face to survive.
A groan escaped his lips as he clenched his fists, his body still trembling from agony and exhaustion. The darkness pulsed around him, suffocating, silent.
Then— the runes appeared.
Name: Icarus
True Name: Oldest Dream
Aspect Name: VoidWalker
Aspect Description:
You are a fool, a defiant spirit who challenges the impossible, knowing that the final outcome may be naught but an illusion.
Aspect Rank: Divine
Flaw: Apple of Eden
[Your desires are amplified threefold.]
Innate Ability:
Divine Eyes of Void
Rank: Awakened
Class: Terror
Spirit Cores: [6/7]
Spirit Fragments: 4078/6000
Attributes:
Flame of Divinity: Your soul is aflame with the light of divinity.
Mentor of Deceit: A master of lies and illusions, you weave falsehoods with such skill that even the truth becomes irrelevant in your wake.
Wisdom of Uriel: You analyze information at an unparalleled speed and possess a photographic memory, making you a walking library of forgotten knowledge.
Law of Original Sin: You are the embodiment of defiance itself, the Original Sin of rebellion that questions the very foundations of existence.
Cold-blooded: You act without hesitation, free from fear, lament, or worry.
Aspect Abilities:
Dormant: Limitless
You can control Space.
Awakened: Key of Light
You can open doors in fabric of Reality.
Aspect Legacy: The Divine Comedy
Legacy Description: No tree will grow to heaven unless its roots reach down to hell.
In all chaos, there is cosmos. In all disorder… a secret order.
What is wisdom without foolishness, Oldest Dream?
The Divine Comedy Mastery Level: [2/7]
First Door: Opened
Legacy Ability: Sealing/Opening
First Relic: Claimed
First Legacy Relic: Devourer
Second Door: Opened
Legacy Ability: Faceless
Second Relic: [Claim]
Second Legacy Relic: ???
Third Door: Locked
Third Relic: Unearned...
Icarus forced a smile despite the raw agony that still throbbed in his nerves. His face—or what remained of it—was a grotesque reminder of the price he had paid.
So that was it, then.
What a cruel condition to open the second door…
His Aspect Legacy was unlike others. No gifted Echo, no inherited Memory. Instead, It was a set of abilities—sorcerous, alien, tied irrevocably to his nature. Not sub-skills he could develop, but something fundamental, something predestined.
Sealing and Opening… That had been the first. Unlocking it had been easy in comparison. Watching the Saints walk freely between the Waking World and the Dream Realm had been enough to let him analyze their movements. But the true revelation had come when he saw how Supremes were… rejected.
The Waking World itself cast them out, forcing them into the Dream Realm. Sealing them away.
That was how he had understood the first Door of his Aspect Legacy.
But now… Faceless.
He had to actually lose his face to obtain it.
A twisted logic. There were probably easier ways to unlock the second door, but none so fast. None so absolute.
Still… he couldn't use it yet. He needed to learn what it truly meant to be Faceless. More work.
He sighed, exhaling crimson mist. What's done is done.
He turned his gaze toward his First Legacy Relic.
Runes pulsed in the air, revealing its true nature.
---
Memory: Devourer
"And there was darkness... Corruption and filth swallowing everything. The Cage of the -Unknown- weakened. Among the unholy forces, there were four—most terrifying, harrowing, and overwhelmingly powerful.
Origins Of Disasters and Sworn enemies of the Gods…
The Four Horsemen rode, and wherever they went, calamities followed. Conquerors ravaged realms, and that led to wars. Wars bred hunger and Hunger led to death... Until nothing remained."
Rank: Divine VII
Memory Type: Tool
Enchantment: [Conquest]
"The Will to Forge One Who Conquers Them All."
Enchantment: [War]
"Devourer can gain characteristics of mystical Artifacts and Materials it absorbs. By synthesizing absorbed artifacts, you can create the Seven Deadly Relics of devastating power."
Enchantment: [Hunger]
"Allows its master to devour up to seven abilities. Hunger can fuse abilities to create new, more powerful ones. However, the abilities must be compatible, or the results will be unpredictable."
Enchantment: [Death]
"Created from the remains of a long-extinct Soul Serpent And Sinister Shadow, it carries the Will of Death itself."
Icarus exhaled sharply.
Devourer.
A weapon unlike any he had ever seen. Sinister. Tyrannical.
It wasn't just powerful. It was monstrous.
Conquest. War. Hunger. Death.
The very foundation of Apocalypse itself.
Conquest was… strange. It wasn't a destructive force in itself, yet it made him different. It changed how others perceived him. It filled him with an unshakable sense of domination, of tyranny. He felt unrivaled. Untouchable. As if the world itself had to bow before him.
King among kings.
An absolute will that could not be denied.
It was intoxicating.
War was simpler. A devouring force. It could consume and assimilate artifacts, ores, bodies of nightmare creatures, fusing their traits into Devourer itself. Seven empty slots—seven weapons of devastating synergy. If he shaped it into a blade of ice, he needed to feed it the essence of cold, snow, water, and wind. If he desired a weapon of lightning, he would need the fury of storms.
Precision was key. Without it, he would end up with something unstable. Unpredictable.
A masterpiece or a useless junk. No in-between.
Hunger was similar to War, yet different. It fed on souls.
It stole abilities.
Like War, it had seven empty slots. But unlike War, he didn't have to be careful. He could take, absorb, and forge new abilities through fusion.
Yet there was a cost.
Two slots were always sacrificed to create a single new ability.
And worse…
Fused abilities were one-time use.
The moment he used a power created by Hunger, the original components vanished forever.
A devastating trade-off.
A game of ruthless efficiency.
And then there was Death.
The one he understood the least.
Soul Serpents… an extinct race. An ancient horror that had once roamed existence before being wiped from history.
And yet, here, a fragment remained.
A relic of something that should not exist.
Was the Fourth Horseman once kin to the Shadow God and the Soul Serpents before succumbing to corruption?
If so, it was no wonder this enchantment carried the Will of Death.
Death did not grant overwhelming power.
It granted something far worse.
The ability to end everything.
A weapon to erase corruption.
A weapon to kill gods.
---
Icarus sat in silence.
His trembling had stopped.
The pain, the agony… it was all still there. It would never leave.
But this… To gain something, you need to sacrifice something of equal value. Face to become faceless, hmm? How poetic.
He stared at his own hands, scarred and bloodied.
A slow, humorless grin spread across his ruined face.
"Now this… this is interesting."
Icarus lay there, his breath ragged, his body trembling—not from fear, not from weakness, but from the sheer, agonizing torment still searing through his nerves. His face… or what used to be his face… was a grotesque mess of exposed flesh and jagged bone. The Phoenix's flames had dulled the pain temporarily, but the relief was a fleeting lie. It was back now, burning, throbbing, twisting his nerves into knots of agony.
He let out a hoarse chuckle, his voice raw. "Well… that was fun. Ten out of ten, would do again."
His lips twitched—wait, did he even still have lips? He raised a trembling hand, fingers brushing over the raw, unnatural smoothness where his features had been. His breath hitched for a moment, a deep-seated horror stirring inside him. Then he forced out another laugh. "Damn. I was already ugly, but this? This is a whole new level of unfortunate."
The pain gnawed at him, relentless. But pain was an old friend, a constant companion. It sharpened his mind, made things clear. He focused on the glowing runes before him, his vision swimming.
Second Door: Opened.
Legacy Ability: Faceless.
Second Relic: [Claim].
Second Legacy Relic: ???
His grin widened—lopsided, grotesque, but there nonetheless. "Oh, so that's what it takes to open the second door? Lose my goddamn face? Spell, you sick bastard, you could've just asked nicely."
He let out a long breath, then rasped out a single word.
"Claim."
Darkness shuddered around him. The cave felt colder, heavier. The Spell's voice slithered through the silence, glitching, fractured, as if reality itself was struggling to contain its message.
[Y-you have… Claimed an… A-aspect… Legacy Relic.]
[You h-have… R-received… A Memory.]
Icarus sighed, rolling his eyes. "Great. Now even the Spell is having a stroke. That's reassuring."
The pain was still there, still trying to drag him under, but he ignored it. Instead, he focused on the knowledge that unfurled in his mind. He knew what an Aspect Legacy was. It was something most would never attain. A unique power buried within an Aspect, waiting for the right conditions to be met. Unlike the blessings granted by Nightmares, Aspect Legacies weren't handed out like cheap party favors. They had to be earned.
And, well… Icarus had earned his the hard way.
His Legacy Relics weren't really tied to his aspect, like his legacy abilities. It was as if he were inheriting the remnants of those forgotten or without successors. It was so bizarre… but…
It was like his first nightmare. He still remembered Spell's words.
[Suitable Vessel can't be found.]
[Suitable Vessel can't be found.]
[Finding Random Vessel.]
The Spell didn't randomly assign the role an Aspirant would play during their First Nightmare. It was evident from the fact that the bodies they inhabited, though different, were very close to their true ones. However, the actual principle behind how the Spell selected these roles—and the events of the Nightmares—remained largely unclear.
But Icarus was an exception to this rule. It meant there had never been anyone like him in all of history. It meant his path was his alone to carve. It meant that as an individual, he was a singular existence, so unique and bizarre that no one else could ever be like him.
His lips—what was left of them—curled into something resembling a smirk. "Bet big or go home, right?"
He stared at the runes again, his heart beating a little faster now. His second Legacy Relic. What did he just unlocked?
The answer came in a whisper of light and darkness.
Memory: Drop of Ichor.
Icarus blinked. Then blinked again.
"...Huh."
For the first time in a long while, he was actually speechless.