Devil's System Override

Those who had lived in the dying era and survived would have thought they've seen it all. But now they're jealous of those that died during the era and couldn't come to this Nightmarish sanctuary.

At this moment, humanity could only reminisce, they were hopeless. All they had was memories of the past and an unknown mechanical voice.

[100 Rifts opened]

[Test For Purity Begins]

Raven and the rest of the Awakened stared at the message. What did it mean? What fresh hell was about to unleash itself upon them? They had no answers. And then, the rifts began to disgorge their grotesque contents.

What crawled, slithered, and lumbered out of those gaping tears in reality was beyond anything humanity had ever conceived. There were lycans, not the romanticized beasts of fiction, but hulking masses of muscle and matted fur, their eyes glinting with predatory intelligence, their claws long and stained as if perpetually caked in dried blood. Some stood on two legs, others on all fours, their guttural roars echoing across the devastated land.

Then came the truly bizarre: a four-horned monster, its skin a patchwork of scales and rough hide, its four massive horns spiraling upwards like twisted, dark spires. Its gait was uneven, a shuddering lumber, and with each step, the ground trembled. Its maw, filled with razor-sharp teeth, seemed to constantly drool a viscous, green liquid that sizzled wherever it touched the broken earth.

But the most unsettling, perhaps because of their mundane origin twisted into something utterly monstrous, were the large mosquitoes. These weren't your everyday buzzing annoyances. They were the size of small cars, their segmented bodies an iridescent black, their legs like gnarled tree branches ending in needle-sharp claws.

Their proboscises, thick as a human arm, pulsed with an internal, sickly yellow glow, hinting at the gruesome feast they sought. Their wings, thin and membranous, beat with a sound like tearing silk, creating a disturbing, low hum that vibrated in Raven's bones.

Beyond these more defined horrors were simply weird things: amorphous blobs that shifted and pulsed, occasionally extruding barbed tentacles; creatures that seemed to be made of living shadow, their forms constantly dissolving and reforming; and multi-limbed aberrations that scuttled with sickening speed, their movements a blur of disjointed limbs. The air itself seemed to curdle with their presence, a stench of sulfur and decay clinging to the world.

"C'mon weird transparent thingy, give me a clue,"Raven muttered, his voice a strained whisper, directed at the ethereal prompt. But the prompt offered no solace, no explanation. It simply shimmered, its spectral light fading, before dissolving into the air as if it had never been there.

"Silent treatment? Really?"Raven scoffed, a desperate attempt at humor to quell the rising tide of panic. Just as he was about to launch into one of his 'dead serious jokes,' a massive shadow engulfed him. He slowly, agonizingly, turned his head upwards, his eyes, already wide with terror, dilating further.

His body trembled, an uncontrollable tremor that started in his knees and shot through every fiber of his being.

It was one of the large mosquitoes, its massive proboscis glistening malevolently in the dim light. Its compound eyes, multifaceted and ancient, seemed to bore into his very soul.

"Hey Mr. Insect," Raven stammered, a forced, terrified smile plastered on his face. "I really don't have any blood… wanna reschedule?" He knew, with a chilling certainty, that the mosquito didn't understand a word he said.

The colossal insect let out a high-pitched whine, a sound that seemed to tear through the air, and lunged. It wasn't just coming to bite; it was coming to obliterate. Just as the monstrous proboscis was mere inches from Raven's face, a viscous spray of black blood splattered across him. It wasn't his.

"Huh…" Raven mumbled, more confused than relieved, as the warm, sticky liquid coated his skin. He looked up, wiping the strange blood from his eyes, and what stood before him was a figure that seemed to defy the nightmare unfolding around them.

It was a teenager, seemingly his age, yet utterly unlike him. Raven was a mess, his clothes torn, his hair disheveled, a survivor's weary grubbiness clinging to him. This boy, however, was the antithesis. His hair was a dark, silky cascade, perfectly combed and gleaming. His eyes, an intense, piercing blue, held a profound stillness, a resolve that Raven could only dream of. His skin was flawless, unblemished, a stark contrast to Raven's pallor.

He wore a pristine white shirt and black trousers, both, however, now stained with the same dark blood that coated Raven. In his hand, held with a practiced grip, was a gleaming axe, its head already slick with gore.

'However could someone from the dying era look so… what's that word again… yeah… good?!' Raven thought, a jumble of stupefaction and confusion swirling in his mind. The thought was absurd, yet it persisted. 'Maybe he's from here… and where did he get the axe from?'

"Do you want to get killed?" The boy's voice was calm, steady, yet laced with an undeniable edge of seriousness. His blue eyes fixed on Raven, unwavering.

"Nooo…" Raven answered, the word.... a pathetic squeak. This was it. This was the first time he had spoken to anyone other than his mom and his 'spoilt boots'—a pair of worn-out combat boots he'd given human characteristics to in the isolation of the apocalypse. This was his first real conversation, and he was stammering like an idiot.

'We look the same age… why am I stammering?' he chastised himself internally.

"Okay then, stand up and fight… you've dealt with worse on Earth." The boy's words were a challenge, a command, yet they hung in the air, seemingly detached from the current reality.

Stand up and fight? That was always a really cool way to encourage people in movies, in stories, in a time when words carried weight. But in this moment, with monstrous mosquitoes the size of cars and four-horned beasts lumbering around, it felt monumentally stupid. To Raven, it was precisely that: stupid, and a direct invitation to suicide.

"Fight?" Raven asked, his body still rooted to the spot, his limbs refusing to obey.

"Arghhh… are you going to stand or not?" The boy's patience, thin to begin with, was clearly wearing out. Just then, a lycan, its height roughly matching Raven's, lunged at the boy, its claws extended. What came next was another spray of blood, a much larger quantity, splashing across Raven's face and clothes.

'He is a born slayer,' Raven thought, wiping the warm blood from his eyes, a strange mix of awe and terror gripping him.

Finally, Raven forced himself to stand up. Not to fight, no, that was still a ridiculous notion. He stood to hide behind Slayer's back and beg for his protection.

"Okay, I'll stand up and fight alongside with you!" Raven blurted out, the words tumbling out before he could second-guess himself.

He couldn't directly tell the boy he couldn't fight; that would be too embarrassing, too humiliating. But seriously, who thought of embarrassment at a moment like this, with death lurking in every shadow? Yet, a little bit of ego and self-respect, however misplaced, won the internal battle.

He already had a stupidly foolproof plan mapped out mentally. He'd let Slayer do the actual killing, while he, Raven, would perform spectacular stunts, faking battles, dodging, weaving, and looking busy without actually engaging.

'Yes!' Raven chuckled, a mad, desperate sound, genuinely amazed by his own brilliance.

"Are you coming or not?!" Slayer yelled, his voice cutting through the din of the monsters. He had already moved ten feet away from Raven, a testament to his speed and the casual way he dispatched horrors.

"Wait up!" Raven scrambled to catch up, his legs finally obeying.

They both tried their possible best to dodge the Aberrants. An instinct, primal and undeniable, kicked in for both of them:

'Whatever you do, don't challenge a monster that popped out of a rift; don't even run into it.'

It was an unwritten rule, etched into their very beings by the terror of the new world.

Just as if the new world was mocking their newfound, tenuous understanding of its rules, their prompts appeared, a new, terrifying pronouncement echoed through the air:

[Rift Monster Type: Minotaur]