The Price of Power: Born in Binding

There was something unnatural about the silence inside this dungeon.

Not the silence of rest, nor that of anticipation. It was the silence of a mouth half-open, waiting to swallow.

Cyr stood at the threshold of the third floor, his boots coated in the black dust of the slain mimic spawn. The System had been silent since his last notification, as if the dungeon itself were watching him, deciding whether he was prey or participant.

[System Notice: 'Watcher Presence' remains undetected. You are not currently being observed.]

That message didn't comfort him.

"Not currently," he muttered, eyes scanning the corridor that split into four narrow paths, each identical in layout. Smooth obsidian walls. No scent. No breeze. But every few steps, he swore he heard an echo—not behind him, not ahead, but beside him.

Where no path existed.

🩸 Memory Interruption – "Blood Runs in Patterns"

He couldn't shake it.

The moment from the second floor—when he used Binding Thread to tether the mimic's cursed core to his hand and burned it alive from the inside.

The way it screamed—not from its mouth, but from the curse.

He'd felt it.

Joy.

For a split second, the mimic had enjoyed dying. A release. A return.

Cyr's stomach churned, but another part of him—the part that catalogued pain and patterns—took note of it. Curses could evolve through emotion. Could… transcend form.

And maybe… so could he.

🕸️ Trap or Test?

He pressed forward, choosing the middle-left path. It spiraled downward subtly, lit by pulsing veins of red energy in the walls. It reminded him of arteries, and something told him this dungeon had a heart.

A heartbeat.

Every few seconds: thrum—thrum.

And between those beats, the System flickered.

[Glitch Detected: Core-Link interference. Proceed with caution.]

"What does that mean?" he asked aloud, fingers on the hilt of his newly-formed weapon: a hybrid binding-thread spear laced with molten curse residue.

No response.

Another beat.

Another flicker.

[System Input Overridden… Error—no… Witnessed.]

His breath caught.

"Who's watching?"

Nothing.

Just the pulsing light and the rising cold.

👤 The Pale Child

He found it in the room at the end of the path.

A circular chamber with a domed ceiling, and in the center, a small figure—kneeling. Clothed in rags. Hair white. Skin like translucent wax.

It didn't breathe.

It didn't speak.

But as Cyr approached, its head twitched violently toward him—snap—like a puppet reacting to its string being pulled.

Then, a voice. Not from the child—but inside Cyr's head.

"Do you bind to command, or to control?"

"Do you curse to survive, or to be remembered?"

He stumbled backward, threads flaring instinctively. But the child didn't move.

Behind it, a glyph appeared—a complex runic structure spinning vertically like a rotating halo.

The Watcher's Mark.

📜 Optional System Branch: The First Vow

[System Offer: Vow of Binding I – "The Soul Remembers Threads"]

Make a vow with the dungeon's cursebound echo.

Gain +1 permanent curse attunement. Unlock "Memory Lashing."

Warning: This vow cannot be undone.

If broken, your soul becomes partially unanchored.

Cyr stared at it, and for a long moment, he didn't breathe.

His fingers twitched. Not from fear—but from calculation.

"Memory Lashing?" he whispered.

Images filled his mind—using someone's memories against them, binding threads to emotional scars, to trauma. Weaponizing what made people… people.

He thought of Maro.

Of the girl who gave him her pendant.

Of the mimic's joy in death.

And of himself—alone, always, stitched together by the things he tried to forget.

"I…"

He stepped forward.

"I accept."

🩸 A New Scar

The glyph shattered.

The child screamed—no, became the scream—and was absorbed into Cyr's chest like ash being inhaled.

The pain was… unlike anything he'd known.

His veins became threads.

His breath became broken curses.

And then—

Silence.

But not the dungeon's silence.

His.

He stood, body smoking, as if he'd just stepped through the veil of something sacred—or profane.

And a new message blinked across his vision:

[Vow of Binding: Accepted]

[New Skill Unlocked: "Memory Lashing (Unstable Form)"]

Bind your threads to a target's strongest memory.

Weaponize it. Break it. Feed on the emotional feedback.

Warning: Use on cursed beings may invoke echo backlash.

[Passive Skill Upgraded: Thread Perception → Thread Awareness]

You can now see the "threads" connecting cursed objects and creatures, even if dormant.

⚠️ System Redaction

Just as he finished reading, the System flickered violently, like a corrupted interface.

Then a new line appeared. Different font. Sharper. Colder.

[You are not the only one who made a vow today.]

Cyr turned sharply.

There, on the far wall of the chamber, a second glyph appeared. Black. Like a shadow burnt into reality.

And in the center of it—

A figure stepped out.

Clad in obsidian bandages.

No face.

No eyes.

But… threads pouring from every joint, dragging behind it like leashes.

End of Chapter 22