Story Title :- Veins of the Abyss
Chapter 1: The Crimson Code
The rain never stopped in New Drachma.
It poured from the ashen sky like the world was trying to drown itself in silence. Thunder rolled across the blackened skyline, smothered by the jagged silhouette of the city’s fractured spires. On the edge of the slums, deep beneath the twisted iron web of forgotten overpasses, a boy knelt in the mud beside a corpse.
He had no name. Not anymore.
His hands trembled as they hovered over the body—a man with a fractured skull, one eye gouged out, and a strange, glowing brand etched into his throat. It pulsed faintly, like it was breathing.
The boy’s breath hitched. That mark… he'd seen it before.
It was the same one that haunted his dreams, burned onto the inside of his eyelids every time he closed them: a crimson ring coiled around a jagged eye, twitching with impossible movement. The Godmark.
He reached out and touched it.
The moment his fingers brushed the mark, the world shattered.
The boy screamed as searing fire ripped through his body.
It felt like every bone was breaking, twisting, rebuilding itself into something less human. His veins burned black, crawling like worms under his skin. Symbols carved themselves into his arms—unholy glyphs that oozed ink and bled light. He slammed his fists into the ground, but the pain kept rising, blooming like a thousand knives in his brain.
Then—it stopped.
Silence fell, unnatural and cold.
He lay still, chest heaving. Steam rose from his body. The corpse beside him had turned to ash.
Slowly, he sat up. His reflection stared back from a puddle—eyes glowing red, hair white as bone, veins flickering with eerie light.
A whisper echoed in his mind, faint and ancient:
“You are the vessel of the Crimson Code. The Void watches.”
He didn’t understand. He didn’t care.
All he knew was that he was alive, and something had changed.
Hours later, he wandered the edge of the slums, avoiding the roaming patrols of the Black Order. They were zealots—priests with guns and rune-masks, sanctioned by the Holy Dominion to hunt down the marked and burn them. He’d seen it before. Fire, screams, chains.
He wouldn’t let that be him.
Not again.
As he passed an alley, a sound stopped him—metal against flesh. A scream.
He turned.
Three men. One girl. The girl was young, maybe ten, cornered against a wall with blood dripping from her lip. The men wore scavenger leathers, faces wrapped in cloth and grime. One raised a knife.
He moved without thinking.
One moment he was in the alley’s shadow. The next, in the heart of the chaos. His hand gripped the man’s wrist, eyes burning.
The system triggered.
A pulse of red light erupted from his palm.
The man’s body exploded outward—flesh unraveling into dust, bones shattered into vapor. The other two turned, stunned.
He blinked forward—too fast, too silent.
The second man screamed as the boy’s hand pierced his chest, gripping his heart and crushing it like fruit. Blood sprayed across the alley wall.
The third ran.
“Protocol 004: Bind,” the boy whispered, and a red glyph sparked in his palm.
Chains of light erupted from the ground, snaring the fleeing man by the legs and dragging him back with bone-snapping force.
The boy stood over him, eyes glowing.
“Who are you?” the man cried.
He didn’t answer.
He didn’t have a name.
Only power.
Only hunger.
He turned to the girl. Her face was pale, her body trembling.
“You’re safe,” he said.
She stared at him, wide-eyed, then fled down the alley without a word.
Good. Fear was better than trust.
Trust got people killed.
That night, he found shelter in the skeleton of an old cathedral, now broken and half-swallowed by the rising swamp. Its once-golden altar was now cracked and covered in moss. The walls bore ancient murals of angels and demons—most defaced, others weeping blood from stone eyes.
He sat alone, hands shaking.
“I don’t understand this power…”
The system responded.
He clenched his jaw.
He wasn’t ready for this.
But he had no choice.
In the world outside, people died every day. The Godmarked were hunted. The Dominion ruled through blood and fire. Monsters roamed the dark zones, and deeper still, the Abyss waited.
If this power was the only thing that could keep him alive, then he’d use it.
No matter what it cost him.
Even if it devoured him from the inside.
The rain fell harder, hissing against the broken stone.
Somewhere in the distance, a bell tolled midnight.
And the world turned.
End of Chapter 1
