It wasn't supposed to be like this.
A blinding light. Voices like bells, speaking in a language he didn't know but somehow understood. A warmth that felt like peace. Like death. Then—cold.Stone.Silence.
When Kasien opened his eyes, he wasn't standing in a grand hall surrounded by kings and heroes.
He was lying in a crypt.
The air was thick with the stench of old blood and rot. Water dripped somewhere in the dark. The stone beneath him was wet, sticky. When he pushed himself upright, his hand sank into something soft.
A rotting cloak.A body.No—bodies.
They were piled around him like offerings. Bones snapped under his weight as he staggered to his feet. Some were clean. Some were fresh. All of them had died here, left here, forgotten here.
He turned slowly in the dark.
The walls were covered in ancient glyphs, glowing faintly, pulsing in and out like a dying heartbeat. One by one, they fizzled out, leaving him in darkness.
Then, a flicker.
[Class: Healer][Status: Summoned — Incomplete Ritual][Spells Mastered: 198 / 198][Combat Ability: 0][Location: Forgotten Ossuary – Depths]
He blinked. The words burned into his vision, then faded.
Summoned.But wrong.
Something had gone sideways. Maybe they didn't mean to summon him. Maybe someone interrupted the ritual. Or maybe—
He looked down at his hands. Pale. Too pale. Clean despite the filth around him.
He didn't feel cold. Or warm. Or… anything.
"Am I dead?" he whispered.
No answer. Only the echo of his voice, stretching off into the crypt like a prayer no one would hear.
Footsteps echoed above. Heavy. Armored. More than one set. A voice called out, sharp and cruel.
"Clear the lower levels. Anything moving dies."
Kasien didn't move. He didn't breathe. His eyes flicked to the archway on the far side of the room, half-collapsed, a staircase barely visible behind it. That was his only way out.
But he wasn't a fighter.
He was a healer.
[Spell: Light of Purity — Cast?]
He hesitated. Then whispered, "Cast."
A golden orb bloomed in his hand—small, steady, silent. It rose gently into the air, casting the room in warm, holy light.
He wished it felt comforting.
Instead, it revealed the truth.
The corpses around him weren't human. Not all of them. Some had gray skin, cracked and dry. Others had twisted horns, shattered wings, eyeless faces. Some wore armor—ritualistic, ceremonial, ornate—and all of it stained with blood.
These weren't victims. They were sacrifices.
He stared, then knelt beside the nearest corpse.
A woman, or what was left of one. Runes carved into her skin. Lips sewn shut with silver wire. Her heart had been removed, and something was placed in the hollow—a gemstone. Still pulsing faintly. Still warm.
[Spell: Reconstruct — Cast on Target: Corpse A][Memory Echo — Ready]
He didn't think.
He placed his hand on the stone and whispered, "Cast."
The body shuddered.
Bones cracked. Flesh tore. The mouth opened, and a voice—not hers, but layered, fragmented, broken—whispered:
"Healer… not meant… not chosen… run…"
The gemstone burst in his hand, and the corpse fell still.
Above, the footsteps had stopped.
Kasien stood.
He was no hero. No chosen warrior. No divine savior.
They summoned a healer.
And they left him to die.
But they forgot one thing.
A healer learns every part of the body—to restore it, or to break it.
And Kasien?He knew everything.