Chapter 7: The Voice Beneath the Seal

"Hey kid, wake up..."

The coarse, raspy voice of an older man jolted Ren out of his dark unconsciousness.

Ren opened his eyes slowly, his body flinching on instinct. He reflexively raised his forearm to shield his eyes as blinding, merciless morning sunlight poured down from the sky, stinging his vision.

Standing over him was a middle-aged man with weathered skin, wearing a simple, dust-covered brown shirt and patched trousers. He stared down at Ren with a mixture of confusion and intense suspicion.

Ren scrambled backward and pushed himself up onto his feet, his heart hammering against his ribs.

"Haah... haah..."

The man crossed his arms, his eyes scanning the completely barren, dirt ground beneath their feet before snapping back to Ren. "Hey, kid... where the hell did all the scrap metal go?"

Ren narrowed his eyes into razor-sharp slits, his brain struggling to catch up with reality.

Memory returned to him in a sudden, crashing wave. Yesterday evening... he was the one who executed Mass Deconstruction on that mountain of rusted iron and discarded relics.

Ren’s pupils dilated as the chilling truth settled in. He had collapsed in pure, agony-filled paralysis because his Nyx Seal had surged straight to a fatal 80%.

"Hey! Kid! I’m talking to you!" the man barked, stepping forward to shatter Ren’s frozen stupor.

"I asked you a question," the man pressed, his voice rising in irritation. "What happened to the mountain of trash that was sitting right here yesterday?!"

Ren shook his head slightly, taking a deep breath to steady his trembling hands and regain his composure. He patted down his dark shirt and trousers, brushing off the dry soil and grime that had caked onto his clothes overnight.

Observing the middle-aged man from head to toe, Ren’s sharp instincts quickly pieced together the situation. This man wasn’t a guard or a passerby; he was almost certainly the city worker assigned to manage and bury the waste in this disposal district.

"Sir... there’s no need to worry," Ren said, offering a calm, composed response. "I took care of it."

The older man’s forehead creased into deep, angry wrinkles. His jaw hardened as his eyes flared with indignation.

"Hey, brat! What the hell do you mean you ’took care of it’?!" the man yelled, raising his voice into an aggressive pitch. "Where did you bury it, huh?! Don’t tell me you hauled tons of sharp, rusted metal somewhere else in the city without properly burying it! If the city inspectors find a pile of exposed garbage outside the designated pit, it’s my head on the chopping block!"

It was abundantly clear from his panicked tirade that the old man was terrified of facing administrative punishment for unburied waste.

Ren maintained his unbothered, relaxed demeanor. He took two steps forward, closing the distance, and gently patted the old man’s stiffened shoulder with a reassuring smile.

"Sir, take a breath. Don’t worry," Ren explained smoothly, his tone laced with absolute confidence. "I assure you, I managed the entire load personally. Every single piece of that rusted scrap has been completely processed and disposed of. It will never bother you or the city council again."

The old worker squinted at Ren, his eyes searching the young man’s face for any sign of a lie. Skepticism washed over his weathered features, but as he surveyed the vast, flat clearing around them, he was utterly stumped. Moving a three-meter-tall mountain of iron would require dozens of horse-drawn wagons, an army of laborers, and days of hard labor. Yet, the ground was swept entirely clean. There was literally no physical way the trash could have been relocated overnight.

The old man let out a long, heavy sigh, the tension deflating from his chest, though his brow remained furrowed in bewilderment.

"Listen to me carefully, brat," the man threatened in a stern, gravelly voice, pointing a calloused finger directly at Ren’s nose. "If I find out you dumped that mountain of scrap near the river or in some dark alley without burying it, I’ll hunt you down and teach you a lesson you’ll never forget."

Ren merely smiled, unbothered by the empty threat.

"Sir," Ren whispered, stepping slightly closer and leaning in, giving the man’s shoulder another friendly pat. "If another massive pile of scrap metal accumulates here in the future, don’t bother exhausting yourself digging deep pits. Just come find me. I’ll take care of all of it for you, free of hassle."

The old worker blinked, leaning back slightly. "Huh?"

"Rest easy, sir," Ren continued, lowering his voice into a persuasive whisper. "I won’t touch a single copper of your wages. Your paycheck stays entirely yours. All you have to do is hand the waste over to me."

A slow, tentative grin tugged at the old worker’s lips as the offer registered in his mind. Free labor that let him keep his full salary without breaking his back under the sun was an offer no low-tier city laborer could refuse.

"Fine..." the man mumbled, shaking his head in utter disbelief. "I’ll take your word for it this time, kid."

With a subtle smirk still lingering on his face, the old man turned around and began strolling out of the empty scrapyard, muttering to himself about how strange the younger generation had become.

The moment the man’s figure vanished around the corner of the wooden fence, Ren’s relaxed facade instantly crumbled.

He let out a massive, ragged sigh of relief, wiping cold sweat from his forehead. "Haah... damn it. That was way too close. I almost got flagged as a criminal for grand theft of literal garbage..."

Ren stood alone in the center of the clean, dirt field, trying to calm his racing heart.

Then, without warning, the ambient sound of the morning breeze died completely.

"Ren... tell me... do you truly believe these humans are worth saving?"

A deep, male voice echoed directly inside his head.

Ren froze violently. "Wh-what...?!"

A surge of pure panic shot through his veins. Ren spun around on his heel, his dark eyes scanning the empty clearing to his left and right. There was no one there. The surrounding fences were vacant. The alleyways were clear.

His face turned ghostly pale, his jaw tightening as cold sweat broke out across his temples.

"Who’s there?! Who spoke?!" he demanded frantically, taking three quick, cautious steps backward as his body went into high alert.

His feet felt as though they were rooted into the cold dirt. A bone-chilling coldness crept up his spine—not a chill caused by the morning wind, but a dark, ancient frigidity oozing from the deepest depths of his own soul.

The voice echoed again. This time, it was impossibly clearer, heavier, and vibrating through his skull as if originating from a bottomless, pitch-black abyss within his mind.

"You are searching for me on the outside, Ren... when I have been resting comfortably right here, inside you, all along."

The voice sounded like an ethereal, terrifying hybrid—a blend of a wise, ancient patriarch and the lethal, rhythmic hiss of a venomous serpent.

Ren clutched his head with both hands, his fingernails digging into his scalp as his breathing turned shallow and ragged.

"Look at them," the voice continued, its tone dripping with elegant, chilling disdain. "These pathetic, microscopic mortals. They parade around speaking of justice, of morality, of ’saving’ one another. But what do they actually do? They press their boots against your neck the moment you show weakness. They cast you aside like worthless trash the second you lose your utility. Tell me... is a creature so fragile, so inherently hypocritical... truly deserving of salvation?"

Ren’s eyes dilated to the size of pinpricks. The words struck his mind like physical blows.

Is this... is this talking about the host’s past life before I took over?

In an instant, a violent sequence of suppressed memories slammed into Ren’s consciousness. He saw vivid, painful visions of his predecessor’s past—being spit on by arrogant nobles, pushed into dangerous monster nests as live bait, treated worse than a stray dog, and utterly stripped of his human dignity simply because he was a magicless, low-born porter. He remembered the cold sneers of the royal guards who treated his life as entirely disposable.

Ren bit his bottom lip so hard that the metallic taste of blood burst onto his tongue, desperately trying to fight off the foreign, corrupting thoughts invading his mind.

"Shut up..." Ren growled through gritted teeth, his voice trembling violently. "Shut... the hell up...!"

"Why should I be silent?" The voice chuckled softly—a dark, resonant laugh that sent every hair on Ren’s body standing on end. "Justice is nothing more than a grand illusion spun by the strong to keep the weak subservient. You possess true power now, Ren. If you only chose to awaken it fully, you could crush them all like ants. Imagine it... a world completely cleansed of deceit. No social hierarchies. No arrogant lords. Only eternal silence and absolute tranquility. Burn it all to the ground. Eradicate this rotten human race. It is not an act of evil, Ren... it is a necessary purification."

A wave of intense nausea hit Ren’s stomach. A terrifying vision flickered before his eyes: entire cities consumed by black flames, thousands of lifeless bodies littering cobblestone streets, and himself standing atop the burning ruins of civilization, wearing an icy, heartless smile.

Unconsciously, his right hand began to tremble uncontrollably. Tiny, crackling black particles of Chaos Matter began gathering at his fingertips, radiating a volatile energy that threatened to deconstruct everything in his immediate vicinity—the air, the soil, life itself.

"Who is the true monster here, Ren?" the voice asked, its tone suddenly dropping into a whisper that cut straight into his soul. "Is it me—the one offering you absolute liberation from the suffocating shackles of their morality? Or is it them—the ones who watched you suffer with fake, pious smiles? Do you truly believe you are saving yourself with that System? No... you are merely setting the stage for total, absolute destruction."

Ren gasped desperately for air, cold sweat soaking his collar as his heart hammered against his ribs so violently it caused sharp chest pain.

In that terrifying moment of mental anguish, a stark, horrifying realization struck him like a bolt of lightning.

NYX SEAL: 80%.

The blood-red holographic interface flickered back into his vision, hovering silently at the edge of his sight, pulsating like a cruel countdown clock.

’The God of Darkness’... absolute horror, his blood running cold. This isn’t just a System warning error... This is Nyx! He already has a foothold in my mind! He can directly speak to me!

Ren’s face hardened, his jaw clenching so tightly his facial muscles throbbed. He was fighting a war on two fronts—enduring unbearable mental agony while battling existential dread. He finally understood the horrifying price of his newfound power. Every single time he overused the Chaos Architect System to swallow massive amounts of matter, he wasn’t just gaining raw stats... he was actively unlocking the gates for an ancient, primordial entity far more malicious than any monster roaming outside the kingdom’s walls.

"Sooner or later... you will realize who you truly are..." the voice whispered one final time, fading into the abyss of his subconscious, leaving behind a sharp, agonizing ringing sound in Ren’s ears.

The mental pressure abruptly lifted. Ren collapsed heavily onto his knees, his hands slamming into the dirt ground as he gasped violently for air, his lungs burning.

He had successfully navigated the old worker’s suspicions, but he had come dangerously close to losing his mind to the primordial dark god dwelling inside him.

"Damn it..." Ren hissed through clenched teeth, his dark eyes locked onto the crimson 80% flickering in his vision. "I... I have to be extremely careful from now on."