The mist coiled around me like grasping hands, thick with the residue of broken rituals and unspoken oaths.
Behind me, the fading of the summoning circle collapsed into ash and ruin.
Before me, the demon — what remained of it — shuddered violently.
Its smoky mass, once bloated with stolen souls and pride, now withered under the crushing weight of the ancient laws it had dared to violate.
Still, even in defeat, malice burned within its tattered existence.
It twisted one last time, baring a grotesque smile that slithered into the marrow of the world itself.
"I will remember you," it rasped, voice ragged and venomous.
"Across the veils, across the dying stars... I will remember."
The words carved themselves into the stale air, lingering long after the demon's body disintegrated into formless, hissing smoke.
A final tremor shook the chamber, and then — silence.
It was gone.
Not slain. Not destroyed. Merely... departed.
The world itself seemed to sigh in grim relief.
I was alone once more.
I leaned heavily against the cracked frame of the doorway, feeling the stolen flesh shudder under the strain of its unnatural tenant.
My mind, too, groaned under the weight of the fractured memories bleeding into my consciousness.
Images flickered behind my eyes — not clear, not whole.
Shards of a life half-remembered:
A lecture hall, vast and echoing, filled with bored faces.
The sharp scent of old paper and ink.
Ancient relics laid bare under sterile lights, artifacts of civilizations that time had tried — and failed — to erase.
The slow, deliberate cadence of lectures, the thrill of unearthing forgotten truths buried beneath centuries of dust.
A professor.
History and archaeology.
That was who this vessel had once been.
Not a warrior.
Not a sorcerer.
But a seeker of truths lost to the ages.
The memories frayed and buckled as I pressed deeper.
Pain lanced through my mind — the hollow ache of a soul partially devoured.
The core, the essence that should have been here, was gone. Torn away, consumed in terror and agony by the demon before it had been bound.
What remained was a shell.
A hollow vessel.
And now, I wore that shell as my own.
I straightened slowly, the cold clarity of acceptance washing through me.
There was no reclaiming the past.
No resurrecting the lost soul whose body now housed my will.
I was the past.
I was the present.
And I would forge the future.
Turning inward, I reached for the alien sensation pulsing faintly within my mind — the mark left by the demon's forced offering.
The Wisdom Eye.
No — not yet.
What bloomed inside me was a crude seed of perception, embryonic and unrefined.
An Appraisal Eye.
Nothing more.
Nothing less.
A fragment of true sight, barely awakened.
I closed my eyes — not to escape, but to see.
The Eye responded with a shuddering pulse of awareness.
When I opened my gaze once more, the world shifted.
Subtle glyphs whispered into existence across surfaces and structures.
The crumbling doorframe before me shimmered faintly, threads of reality peeling away to reveal hidden truths:
> [Material: Rotten Wood | Age: 52 Years | Structural Integrity: Severely Compromised]
The cracked floor underfoot glowed with faint lines:
> [Material: Weathered Stone | Erosion: 36% | Load Bearing Capacity: Weak]
Even the stale, rancid air was not beyond the Eye's reach:
> [Air Quality: Toxic | Contaminants: Mold Spores, Decay Particles]
The information poured into my mind in quiet streams, decipherable, useful — but basic.
No analysis of magic.
No unveiling of hidden powers.
No glimpse beyond the veil of mortal perception.
Just observation.
Just appraisal.
A primitive tool.
Yet, in a broken world, even a blade of glass could become a sword in the hands of the determined.
I flexed my fingers experimentally, feeling the brittle strength in the body I now wore.
We were both broken, this vessel and I.
Both remnants of things that once were whole.
But unlike the previous owner, I would not squander the second chance fate — or folly — had granted me.
No.
I would sharpen this fragment of perception into a weapon.
I would carve a path through this twisted world.
And in time, when the Wisdom Eye awakened in full, I would tear apart the secrets even the gods had forgotten.