APOCALYPSE MERCHANT: I TRADE DOOMS FOR POWER!

I woke up in a haze. The world felt off, colors dull, sounds distant. My memories were slipping like sand through my fingers.

**The Ledger's Demand

The ledger wasn't just a book anymore. It was a master puppeteer, pulling at my mind.

Trade your memories, it said. Or lose everything you've built.

**Losing Myself

The faces of old friends, the feel of my hometown, all fading.

I fought to hold on, but each trade drained a piece of me.

**Syphine's Return

She appeared like a ghost.

"Don't let the ledger erase who you are," she whispered.

But can I trust her?

**Battle in the Market's Heart

The Revenant Brokers were closing in, feeding off my weakening resolve.

With every memory lost, their power grew.

As the ledger demanded the last memory I had of my family, I had a choice: lose myself completely or make the deadliest trade yet.

The ledger's voice echoed in my head, cold and merciless:

"Trade the concept of 'trade' itself. Freeze the system. Control all, or lose all."

**A Gamble Like No Other

No one had ever dared this trade. The concept of trade? It was the backbone of the ledger, the Grand Market, every deal across every world.

Doing this meant breaking everything. Ending the flow of dooms, power, even life.

**The Moment of No Return

I hesitated. My mind screamed to stop, but the ledger pulled me forward.

With a breath, I signed the trade. The ledger burned with blinding light.

**Chaos Across the Multiverse

Instantly, markets froze. Bidders screamed in confusion. Time loops stopped spinning.

Power grinded to a halt.

The multiverse was trapped in a deadlock—because I had traded away the very thing that made the system work.

**The Price

But the ledger demanded its toll.

My body felt lighter, empty, but my mind was sharp, clearer than ever. I had frozen the economy of destruction, but at what cost?

In the silence, a whisper came:

"The game isn't over. It's changing. The ledger's true hunger awakens.

The economy was halted. The Grand Market silent. But something moved beneath the stillness.

Because when I broke the system, I didn't kill it.

I woke it up.

**The Ledger Twists

Pages I'd never seen before started unfolding. Blank at first… then names started appearing, not disasters, not items, rather People.

**The First Doomborn Appears

It started with a knock.

Out in the ash-covered wastes, a small figure limped toward my camp, barefoot, starving, silent.

A child. Thin as bone. Eyes glowing with a hollow hunger.

The ledger pulsed.

[The Walking Famine] - Born of fused dooms: Starvation + Contagion.

Status: alive, sentient, hungry.

**This Thing Was My Creation

I hadn't meant to make him. But I had. A living disaster. A walking, breathing apocalypse wrapped in the shape of a boy.

He didn't speak. Just stared at me with those empty eyes. Then followed me, step for step.

Wherever he walked, things died. Animals collapsed. Crops turned to dust. My food rations spoiled in seconds.

**The Ledger Evolves Again

The system changed.

[Doomborn Protocol Activated]

You are now eligible to recruit or destroy living catastrophes.

I didn't know whether to cry or laugh.

I'd created a monster, and now I had to build an army of them.

**The Calamity Vanguard Reforms

I called back my old crew, the fire-witch, the mute flood-warrior, the sewer-born plague thief.

They were all changed, stronger, but not entirely human anymore.

They called themselves the Calamity Vanguard now. Survivors who'd tasted doom and lived.

But there was tension, fear. The Walking Famine never blinked, never slept, and every night someone in camp had a nightmare they couldn't wake from.

Then came the message burned into the sky:

"To the Doom Merchant: You've taken what wasn't yours. The God of Calamity is watching."

Beneath it, a mark. A sigil I'd seen on the corpse I looted back in Chapter 1.

Except now it was pulsing, alive.

The ash hadn't settled since the Grand Market burned, but the air already smelled like something worse: rot from within.

The Vanguard was dying, and this time, it wasn't because of an outside enemy.

It was because of me.

**The Boy Who Made the Air Starve

The Walking Famine never spoke. But you could feel him, like gravity, dragging everything down.

He sat at the edge of camp, knees tucked under his chin, watching the rest of us through those hollow, glassy eyes. The land around him was wrong.

Animals didn't come near. Not even flies. Trees wilted faster. Rations vanished. Even hope seemed thinner when you stood too close.

At night, people whispered when they thought I wasn't listening:

"Is he really a kid?"

"Can you trade something like that back?"

"He's not with us. He's a doom in a body."

**Ruka Snaps

Three nights after the Famine arrived, Ruka finally snapped.

She used to be a fire-witch, mouthy, sharp, fearless. Now, her skin shimmered with glowing burn-scars that never stopped steaming. One of my first trades had wrecked her town, and she'd survived by drinking rainwater that boiled on impact. That kind of trauma changes a person.

"You're playing god, Dren," she said, stepping between me and the boy. "First the dooms. Now this?"

She jabbed a trembling finger toward the Famine. "That thing looks at me like I'm food. Tell me what you see when you look at him. Be honest."

I didn't answer. Because I wasn't sure what I saw anymore. A cursed child? A tool? A mirror of what I'd become?

Ruka scoffed. "You want to know what I see?"

She reached into her coat and pulled out a knife made of molten glass. "I see a kill-switch."

**The Ledger Reacts

Before she could throw the blade, the Doom Ledger pulsed in my hand like a heartbeat under pressure. A new page tore itself free, bleeding black ink.

Alert: Vanguard Loyalty Breach Detected Alert: Vanguard Loyalty Breach Detected Alert: Vanguard Loyalty Breach Detected

Options: Sacrifice. Silence. Reassign.

The words burned my vision. I'd never seen those choices before. The ledger had started offering control over people. Over my allies.

It wasn't just a ledger anymore.

It was a throne.

**The Choice I Didn't Want to Make

Ruka raised her blade again.

"Choose, Doom Merchant," she spat. "Him or me."

Everyone watched. Famine didn't move. Didn't blink.

And I…

…I didn't choose.

The ledger did it for me.

*'System Activation: Reassignment Executed

Ruka dropped her knife mid-swing. Her body locked in place.

The fire in her veins fizzled into smoke.

She stared at me, eyes wide with horror as her hand twitched, spasmed, then steadied. Her voice was gone. Her lips trembled, then moved again, but not with her words.

With mine.

"I will serve," she said, blankly. "Until I'm traded."

**Everyone Else Stepped Back

The Vanguard, what was left of them, saw it happen.

And for the first time, they didn't look at me like a leader.

They looked at me like a doom.

**Syphine Returns

Of course, that's when Syphine decided to show up.

No warning. No signal.

Just a shift in the shadows and the scent of metal and roses. She stepped out from behind the ruined shrine at the edge of camp, her silver hair tangled in wind, her eyes unreadable.

"I warned you," she said.

I didn't even ask how long she'd been watching. "Where have you been?"

"Preparing." Her voice was calm, too calm. "There are more like him coming." She nodded toward Famine.

I frowned. "Doomborn?"

"No," she whispered. "Worse. Doomborn who know what they are."

**Then the Whispers Came

The moment she said it, I felt it.

A pressure. A breath behind my ear, even though I was alone.

Then, a name, whispered through the leaves like the world itself was trying to speak:

"Null…"

Syphine's eyes darkened. "It's starting."

I turned to ask her who, or what, Null was.

But by then, The Walking Famine had stood up, he was smiling.