Marked by the Faceless
LOCATION: LIMINAL VOID — BETWEEN REALMS
Lucan stood adrift in that place between systems and sanity, heart still hammering from the ambush. No data, just cold, seeping dark and utter silence.
The Faceless God waited, no face, no smile and no eyes but a voice that cut through like a blade.
"You are Sinbound."
Lucan didn't speak, he couldn't.
The god stepped forward and continued speaking
"Not bound to them," he said. "Not to Thrones. Not to Rites. Not to gods who demand worship."
A pause then—
"You are Sinbound to me."
Lucan's breath caught and the void pulsed.
"No system. No leash. Only purpose."
Then quieter.
"Break the chains. Burn the faith. Become the undoing."
"You were made to shatter the chains others call faith."
Lucan's system flickered, then fell silent. No prompts. No glitches. Just nothing.
Only him, the faceless god and the raw terrifying promise of freedom.
---
LOCATION: THE VOIDSHIFT — MEMORY OF THE FIRST SINNER
The world twisted. One blink, and Lucan was gone, not in body, but soul.
He stood now in a forgotten time, wearing someone else's skin. Feeling someone else's pain. A man—hooded, chained, kneeling in ash.
The First Sinner.
Around him, Thrones sang praises to a silent god. Choirs wept golden blood. And at the center of it all, the Rite stood tall—a monolith of law carved from the marrow of obedience.
Lucan couldn't move, he couldn't scream. The memory just dragged him through it—merciless.
He felt the whips. The betrayals. The moment allies became judges. The moment love turned to sacrifice. The moment mercy was outlawed.
He felt the First Sinner rise.
Alone. Unforgiven and still… unbroken.
The voice of the Faceless god whispered behind it all:
"Power without pain is borrowed."
"Power with pain is forged."
Lucan dropped to his knees as the memory ended—body intact, soul not.
Breath ragged, his hands shook but in his chest? There was a spark.
---
LOCATION: TIMELESS ECHO — EDGE OF THE WORLD — MEMORY - ???
It wasn't a battlefield, it was an ending.
Skies ripped open like parchment but soaked in blood. The ground shattered beneath with ash and divine fire. Cities floated—then crumbled. Beasts of light and void tore through reality, screaming rites in forgotten tongues.
Lucan stood—no, watched—from a godless height.
But it wasn't him, not exactly. The figure in the storm wore his face but the hair was dark—raven black, soaked in blood and rain.
His eyes burned—not with fire, but with judgment.
The cloak was heavier. His gauntlet, cracked and spiked with god-killing runes. He moved like a prophecy fulfilled and a warning repeated.
He tore through divine armies like parchment. Slaughtered the righteous and the corrupted alike. Titans screamed and systems collapsed.
And when the world burned low, he stood alone atop a mountain of corpses the he turned and looked directly at Lucan.
Same face, same eyes but older and colder.
And he spoke with a voice that echoed in every bone in Lucan's body:
"You're not ready to be me... but you will be."
The world blinked out.
---
LOCATION: THE VOID BEYOND RITE — TIME UNHINGED
Lucan gasped as the vision bled away.
His knees hit the obsidian floor of the void with a crunch that echoed through eternity. The mist curled tighter now, suffocating, whispering in dead languages.
Above him, the Faceless stood—taller than before, or maybe Lucan was just smaller.
No face, no expression and yet, he felt the question. It pressed into his skull, his spine, his soul.
"Are you ready to begin, Sinbound?"
Lucan looked up, his jaw clenched and his heart hammering.
He didn't answer with words, he just nodded once.
The Faceless god just rose a hand and the world fractured.
---
TRIAL: PATTERN OF BETRAYAL
Pain didn't announce itself, it returned.
Lucan blinked and found himself back in a familiar place.
Ashvale, the temple, the Rite. Aelira stood over him again, tears in her eyes. Thalos behind her as the glyph on his chest seared.
He screamed again and again he was betrayed. He blinked and it reset. Same betrayal but a slightly different angle.
He reached for her and she flinched then he blinked again. This happened again and again, a hundreds of times until his rage dulled, his heart stopped shattering and eventually…he started noticing placement, patterns and tells.
Thalos' hands tightened before he gave the order, Aelira's lips always trembled just before the glyph lit.
He no longer cried out so he just watched. He was learning.
The Faceless whispered through the simulation, not into Lucan's ears, but into the marrow of his being.
"Gods do not fear betrayal, they account for it."
Lucan, kneeling in the dark, his breathing ragged, finally spoke.
"…What are you making me?"
The Faceless stepped closer. Shadows kissed Lucan's brow like a brand.
"What you were always meant to be."
---
LOCATION: HOLLOW CREED — MEDICA CHAMBER, INNER CIRCLE — ONE HOUR LATER
Rivenna sat like a statue at Lucan's bedside, arms folded, her face unreadable and her blades nearby, but untouched.
Lucan hadn't stirred in over an hour—his body bloodied, cracked, breaths shallow but stubborn and yet, despite the state he'd been dragged back in, she hadn't left.
Then he moved, barely, a breath drawn too deep to be sleep and just like that, his eyes snapped open but they were not the same.
For one blink—just one—Rivenna saw it, a flicker of violet. A glyph not of the Creed, nor the Order, but of the something else—seared just behind his pupils like an afterimage of a curse.
Then it vanished.
Lucan didn't flinch. Didn't ask what had happened, he just sat up, slow but sure. His joints aching and chest bandaged.
"Where are we?" he asked.
"You're back," Rivenna replied. "The vault site. I dragged you out. The others are gone."
Lucan didn't ask about the bodies, he already knew.
"The relic?" she asked, almost cautiously.
Lucan looked away.
"Vault was empty."
A pause. He could feel her measuring him. But she didn't press.
She wasn't ready for the new truth, not yet.
Lucan swung his legs off the slab and stood—slowly, but without hesitation then his system flared to life in the corner of his vision.
But it was no longer a broken thing. No stuttering lines. No screaming error logs. The interface was… still imperfect, still other, but now it moved with clarity—god-kissed code, divine defiance refined.
---
[SYSTEM INTERFACE: CALIBRATED]
> Tier II – SINBOUND (ACTIVE)
State: Stabilized – [Faceless Link: Dormant]
---
> STATS UNLOCKED
Name: Lucan Malryk
Class: Sinbound
Level: 21
System Type: Rebellious Sync — [God-Forged Variant]
Title(s): Ritebreaker, Witness of Ash, Marked by the Faceless
---
ATTRIBUTES:
Strength: 22
Agility: 18
Vitality: 19
Perception: 23
Willpower: 30
Sin Resonance: 34 (Locked potential detected)
---
SKILLS UNLOCKED
[Spectral Reflex] – Passive
React to hostile intent before it manifests. Time distortion possible during fatal events.
[Memory Shatter] – Active
Target's last truth becomes unstable. Induces spiritual trauma and identity fragmentation. (Cooldown: 1 Hour)
[Sinforged Limit] – Core
Briefly channel corrupted divine power. Stat boost x2 for 12 seconds. Chance of system instability: 8%.
---
Lucan blinked, reading them with quiet calculation. No awe, n pride, just assessment and control.
He looked at Rivenna again. She was watching him the way one watches something that used to be human.
"Let's report to the Creed," he said simply.
He didn't mention Verrick, because he didn't need to.
Not yet.