Chapter 62: Soul Bond

District 12 was no longer just a wasteland of sand. It was a living landscape of fire, lava, and light. Countless contractors had fallen here, their bodies scattered across the blazing ground while heavy vessels hovered silently high above the fiery red expanse.

The air was filled with the usual chorus of shouts and screams, but beneath the noise, if you listened closely, came a heavy, rhythmic thud. Bam. Then another. Something immense and terrible was walking away into the distance.

Engulfed by darkness, Orson found himself drifting in a vast, silent expanse filled with stars. He could not feel his body—nothing at all.

All around him, the stars began to grow intensely bright. Before he could react, they started to detonate one after another, bursting like brilliant fireworks across the void until the light was entirely snuffed out, leaving only absolute blackness.

Time lost all meaning. It felt as though he were trapped in an endless loop, watching the same distant cataclysms repeat until the final star exploded and the universe went dark.

Then, a faint light rose from below. Before Orson could move, a rising shadow swallowed it whole.

As Orson looked up, a chill ran through him. Looming before him was a towering visage entirely made of darkness, its body lightless and obscured, with six vast wings spread behind its back. Even the star-like light that had tried to rise was utterly eclipsed by its shadow.

The same cold voice echoed directly inside his mind:

"Welcome, child of war."

Orson wanted to scream, to ask what was happening. He thought he was dying, trapped in the memory of a dying universe, now confronted by an endless entity. But his body remained paralyzed.

The shadow-visage shifted, flowing like liquid water toward him. It pooled around his feet, creeping up from his toes, past his shins, and over his waist. He could feel it now—a heavy, suffocating pressure as the liquid darkness warped around his torso.

The shadow surged upward to his neck, hardening instantly into a heavy iron-like shackle locked tightly around his throat, with a thick chain trailing down to his stomach.

In an instant, the visage vanished. All that remained was the darkness, and as the last simulated star exploded in his mind, a violent, agonizing shock ripped straight through Orson’s very soul.

---

The searing pain of his soul rewriting itself was enough to violently jerk the half-dead Orson back to consciousness. He gasped, his eyes flying open against the dirt of District 12, just as a hover ship above lowered its mini-transporters down to the scorched ground to assess the ruins. The pain was sharp, but manageable.

Orson forced his focus away from the agony, his mind flashing back to the violence of the fight. He stared out at the jagged breach on the horizon.

Suddenly, a searing intensity erupted from deep within his core. It began as a dull throb before spiraling outward, growing sharper with every second until Orson lost his grip on his composure, letting out a raw, ragged scream of pain as he clutched his stomach and panted heavily.

Just then, a system notification materialized directly in front of him:

You have gained the Soul Bond title.

The moment the words flashed, the pain vanished as abruptly as it had arrived.

Orson stared at the notification and tapped it, bringing up the title’s details:

Child of Fear.

As Orson quietly spoke the title aloud, a translucent iron shackle flickered into existence around his neck, complete with a heavy chain trailing to his stomach, before dissolving away into thin air.

Even though the physical restraints were gone, Orson could still feel their phantom weight cold against his skin.

He drew in a long, shuddering breath, free of the tearing agony, though his flesh remained charred and blackened from the light-fire. He tried to push himself up. It was difficult at first, his muscles trembling and protesting, but after adjusting to the dull ache beneath his skin, he managed to stand.

He looked toward the distant breach, but as he did, a flood of phantom echoes crashed over him—the dying screams of men and women ringing endlessly inside his mind.

Just the thought of their terror nearly broke him. He could feel the residual fear of everyone who had fought and died in this realm, a collective panic of facing extinction. It was suffocating, and he felt every single drop of it pressing down on his soul.

He sighed to himself, letting the deafening echoes fade away into the back of his mind.

As he stood, mini-transporters touched down around the location, kicking up dust and ash. Men in military uniforms stepped out, moving toward the surviving contractors to administer emergency medical aid.

Shouts filled the air as medics rushed from body to body, frantic to save as many lives as possible before the astral creatures descending from the barren land swarmed the area.

Orson stared fixedly at the distant breach, the faces of those lost flashing behind his eyes. Even calling it a war implied they had stood a fighting chance against the titan. That hadn’t been a war—it had been a massacre.

A broken, humorless smile touched Orson’s lips. No matter the era, there is no peace without war.

He looked down at his blood-stained, blackened hand. Resting in his palm was a core that suddenly grew blistering hot, melting downward into his own internal pathways. Yet, the core remained tangible.

Glancing back at the breach and the burning horizon, Orson gripped the core with both hands and slammed it against a jagged stone, shattering it completely into pieces.

"We may have lost the battle, but we won the war," Orson whispered.

The moment the words left his mouth, the jagged breach in the sky flared a violent red. With a deafening crack, the wound-like tear slammed violently together, snapping shut.

The sudden closure of the breach sent a massive shockwave rippling outward across the wasteland.

Orson looked up at the sky. It was smooth and clear once more, the breach entirely gone. But his body, having finally pushed past its absolute limit, gave out completely. The latent agony caught up to him all at once, and Orson collapsed heavily to the ground, passing out cold.