The Ultimate Regressor System

"Tell me why mine is broken."

The question hung there as if it carried it’s own weight for a few moments before Nyra replied.

"Broken?" She tilted her head, violet eyes glittering with poorly concealed amusement. "I have no idea what you mean."

"You know exactly what I’m asking."

"I do." Her smile widened, slow and satisfied. "I simply enjoy watching you get serious. It suits you."

Lucas stayed silent, staring her dead in the eye, his gaze enough to tell her he wasn’t joking.

"Alright, alright." She waved a hand, and the void around them shifted, threads of light gathering into something that resembled, a system window. "I will explain properly. This will take a moment."

Lucas stared at her, waiting for her to begin.

"Every ability granted through the Systems," Nyra began, "carries a fragment of a god’s own power. When the Edgewalk first began, each of us contributed a piece of ourselves. That piece was just enough to manifest as a usable skill. The System itself was built to find compatibility, that is, to match with mortal soul best suited to carry it."

"So when someone awakens an ability," Lucas said slowly, "they’re compatible with whichever god that piece came from."

"Precisely." Nyra nodded, pleased he’d caught on so quickly. "Before granting anything, the System scans the host. It looks past flesh mind and into the soul itself, watching threads of fate, weighing potential and determining which fragment would settle most naturally into that particular vessel. It is, in its own way, quite elegant."

"However," Something in Nyra’s expression sharpened, the amusement fading,"Yours was not elegant at all."

Lucas raised an eyebrow. "What do you mean?"

"When the System scanned you," she said, "it saw something that was not supposed to be there. Something it deemed terrifying. It panicked and in its confusion, it forced a second skill into you as a corrective measure. A failsafe against whatever it saw."

"A corrective measure? For what?"

"That," Nyra said, "I do not know."

Lucas stared at her, refusing to believe what she said. "You’re a god. You just told me you helped design the entire system, and you don’t know what it saw in me?"

"I do not." She said it plainly, without embarrassment, though something in her tone suggested that the admission cost her a bit of her pride. "The scan itself is not something we oversee directly. It is automated, built into the very core of the System before any of us contributed our fragments to it. Whatever it perceived in your soul, it kept to itself. All I have to work with is the result and that is a corrective skill forced onto an incompatible vessel, glitching endlessly because it was never meant to settle there in the first place."

"So [Ignition] was not even supposed to be mine."

"[Ignition] is a fragment of my domain forced into you by a panicking System trying to suppress something it couldn’t identify. It was never meant to bond with a mortal soul that already carried something else entirely."

Lucas absorbed that slowly, the pieces slowly coming together. "And by that, you mean—"

"I mean Regression." Nyra’s jaw tightened as her beautiful features twisted into a cold expression. "Do you understand what that ability actually is, Lucas? It is not simply a convenient escape from death. It is a direct violation of my domain. Death is mine to grant, mine to take and mine to decide the timing of. Every soul that slips free of it through your ability is a soul stolen from beneath my own hand."

"That’s why you’ve been hunting me."

"You robbed me of the one thing I had absolute control over," Nyra said, voice with her low as she tried to calm herself against the growing anger. "Do you have any idea how insulting that is? If you are truly compatible with me like the System claims, I have other gifts. Gifts far more suited to being carried by a mortal than the one you somehow ended up bound to."

"[Soul Tether]" she said, her voice laced in with visible irritation as she rose a finger. "Binds a mortal’s death to another living thing so that one cannot fall without the other following. Elegant. Useful."

She raised another finger. "[Reaper’s Toll], which lets the bearer claim a portion of any life they end, extending their own. Practical."

She raised a third finger. "[Dying Wish]. It grants one final, guaranteed action in the instant before death. Be it a single perfect strike, an escape, anything so long as it is the last thing you ever do."

She exhaled sharply, calming herself. "Any of those would have settled into a mortal soul without issue. Instead, the System handed you [Regression] and now half my domain answers to a boy who thinks locking his door counts as security."

Lucas deadpanned. "That’s not my fault."

"I am aware." She said it grudgingly, though the irritation didn’t fully fade. "And yet, I cannot deny that watching you has become... entertaining. More entertaining than I anticipated, if I’m honest." Something in her expression shifted again, becoming softer now, in a way that was unsettling. "You have died more times and in ways that are hard to believe as well. Nine deaths in five days, once." She laughed. "Do you remember?"

"How could I not?" Lucas said, flatly.

"I watched every single one," she said. "And every single time, you came back sharper. Cleverer. More determined not to let the next one catch you the same way twice. I have come to accept, reluctantly, that [Regression] is precisely the ability best suited to keeping you interesting." She said this leaning close towards him and running a finger along his chin.

"I’m thrilled to hear it," Lucas said, sarcastically as he took a step back.

"Does that mean you’ll stop hunting me?" he asked, mostly out of hope.

"No." The answer came instant, something cold settling in her violet eyes.

Lucas’ expression dimmed. "Figures."

"I will still hunt you. I will still try to kill you when the mood strikes, and I will destroy anything that attempts to take you from me first. Do you understand? You are mine, Lucas Kane. I made certain every other god watching this game understands that clearly."

She pointed at him. "The mark," she said slowly, "That’s why it’s there, and that is exactly why your system is crimson."

"A brand," she said again, something proud and possessive etched in her voice. "So no other deity dares reach for what already belongs to me."

Lucas said nothing for a long moment, then exhaled tiredly.

"In other words, I’m screwed."

"However," Nyra continued, tone shifting like she was talking about business, "I am willing to offer a compromise. I will reduce the frequency and severity of the hunts, and in exchange, you keep surviving, keep being interesting. That is all I ask."

Lucas sighed. "I don’t really have a choice do I."

"No," Nyra said, entirely unbothered. "You do not."

Lucas exhaled again, exhaustion clawing at him harder now. "Fine. Not like i have a say in this anymore. Can I go now?"

"You may." She waved a hand, the void beginning reform, and then just as he began to fade, her voice called him back. "Wait."

Lucas paused and watched something small and dark materialize in her outstretched palm.

"What is that?" he asked.

"Something to help keep the glitch under control," Nyra said, tossing it toward him. "Consider it a gift. I would rather my favorite mortal not die to something as mundane as his own malfunctioning skill."

Lucas caught it on, and the void dissolved around him entirely before he could ask anything further.

Just as he was about to completely disappear, the system appeared.

[Ding!]

[You have received an Artifact.]

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