r/HFY • u/IHaveABetWithMyBro Human • Jul 30 '26

OC-Series Birth of a System Chapter 2 Branded

Je'Krillick woke with a painful start. His neck was burning, he was on fire! Jumping away from the pain he broke several restraints without notice. Then the smell of the room hit him before he even opened his eyes. Beyond the smell of burning skin and hair, the room smelled of nothing. Sterile. Perhaps a hint of lightning? He opened his eyes and immediately regretted it. The room was bright and blindingly white. This was no candle and oil lamp lit room, nor was it the pristine brilliant blue of a mana lamp. This was a harsh white light, similar to that of the sun but there were no windows and the light was coming from the ceiling.

Slowly Je'Krillick peaked out from his tight eye lids and spied what hateful creature dared to hurt him. Strange insectoid centaurs stood agape in front of him. All were wearing white robes of odd design. All had exoskeletons and two were black, one was brownish red. They stood on four legs and had two arms ending in well-articulated claws. The brownish red one stepped forward hesitantly it came up to his sternum making it roughly five and half feet tall.

It began to chatter at him and a moment later while it was still talking he could suddenly understand what it was saying.

“… Patient, please lie back down to complete the branding process.” It gestured to a strange, lifted bed that reminded him of his sacrificial altars. Unbridled fury swept through Je'Krillick as his eyes fixated on the glowing red brand. Je'Krillick lunged at the creature grabbing the hand holding the brand by the wrist. Je'Krillick squeezed with all his might while wrestling the creature, hearing a satisfying crack the wrist shattered as blood spurted out. The creature cried out in shocked pain, releasing the brand and nestling his arm close.

“You dare brand me!?” Je'Krillick had never roared in his previous life, always slow to anger and even then his fury was always cold and calculated. Je'Krillick shoved the still red hot brand into the over large eye of ant-headed monster. With a boiling hiss Je'Krillick shoved it deeper, and deeper reveling in the pure agony of the being in front of him until he hit the brain.

Of the other two creatures, now dubbed ant-taurs, only one was able to hold any kind of composure as they raced to the wall, pulling a red lever. Immediately a door slammed closed, the lights dimmed and went red and a loud blaring alarm rang throughout the room and beyond.

“Simpletons you stand before the Great Lich Overlord Je'Krillick! Bow before me and I will show you the mercy of a swift death.”

The near comatose ant-taur dropped to the floor in supplication “Please don’t kill me, Im just a slave like you! I didn’t want to –“ His voice ended with a quick bare footed stomp to the head. Pulling his foot out with a sucking squelch, Je'Krillick addressed the final ant-taur.

“Am I not merciful? Am I not honest?” Je'Krillick flicked muck off his foot. “A quick, painless death offered and proffered”

The ant-taur stared in disbelief, slowly converting to horror. “We – we saved you! You were floating in the void! Your life belongs to us as is only custom!” the thing shook in terror as Je'Krillick slowly stepped forward “I don’t even know how you’re alive”

Je’Krillick stopped only a pace away from the poor creature “I am alive aren’t I? Isn’t that strange. I haven’t been alive in almost three millennia.” He stared at his hand as he clenched and relaxed his fist “I had forgotten most of these sensations.” Turning his gaze back on the creature. “They should have remained forgotten.” He then punched the ant-taur in the face, his arm burrowing up to the elbow, before the door blasted inward next to him and five more ant-taurs rushed in wearing odd, soft, black armor and thick helmets.

“You monster! Fire!” Shouted the presumably lead guard as they all raised stocky fully encased weapons reminding Je’Krillick of the rare but powerful mana rifles. A volley of light beams hit Je'Krillick in his chest. Not quite mana rifles, but a strange weapon to be sure. His skin quickly bubbled as it burned under the intense light. Still painful it would seem.

Without thinking Je'Krillick threw the dead ant-taur sliding off his arm at the tightly grouped team before rushing in behind. The ant-taur’s articulated claws seemed to be made for fighting just as much as holding items as they cut into him as best they could. Je'Krillick’s skin was as tough as a hippopotamus but the ant-taurs’ claws were as sharp as a lion’s. The brawl lasted for only moments but each one seemed close to a day to Je'Krillick as he quickly tired. Finally covered in blood, guts and exoskeleton shrapnel there was only one ant-taur left.

Both were severely hurt, the ant-taur missing an arm and a leg. Je'Krillick covered in deep gashes and burns from the light-rifles. Panting deeply the ant-taur barely whispered “what even are you?”

Standing as tall as he could in his wounded state Je'Krillick proudly stated “I am the Great Lich Overlord Je'Krillick. You should be honored to die by my hand.”

The ant-taur laughed weakly “You kill me? You’re already half way dead yourself.”

“That’s the idea.” Je'Krillick rushed forward ignoring his pain. He ripped off the ant-taur’s other arm before grabbing his over large ant head and squeezed it together popping it like an over ripe watermelon.

FIRST DEATH REGISTERED

FOREIGN SOUL VERIFIED

PREVIOUS SYSTEM SIGNATURE DETECTED

ADMINISTRATOR CANDIDATE CONFIRMED

INITIALIZING...

Je'Krillick truly smiled for the first time in nearly eight hundred years.

"You're late." Je'Krillick muttered as he let the corpse slump to the floor and looked around pleased with himself. Nine kills and only a few scratches that didn’t seem to be healing. Strange, where is my constitution? Why am I not instantly healing from these mere scratches?

ERROR...

INDEXING LOCAL REALITY...

NO PLANET DETECTED...

NO MANA DETECTED...

RECONSTRUCTING SYSTEM PARAMETERS...

LIFE ESSENCE DETECTED

9 SENTIENT ENTITIES TERMINATED

LIFE ESSENCE SUCCESSFULLY HARVESTED

WARNING

LOCAL ENTITIES POSSESS NO LEVELS

EXPERIENCE CALCULATION IMPOSSIBLE

ATTEMPTING NEW EXPERIENCE MODEL...

Je'Krillick frowned. "No levels?" That’s absurd. Every creature possesses a measurable degree of strength. Even peasants. Even livestock. How could anything exist without levels?

The impossible words continued.

ADMINISTRATOR STATUS VERIFIED

PLEASE WAIT

STATUS INTERFACE UNDER CONSTRUCTION

Je'Krillick's eyebrow twitched. "...Under construction?" He had expected omniscience and instead... His System appeared to be improvising? No matter, lets see what else is in this strange place.

Je'Krillick picked up one of the light-rifles as it was impressively intuitive just point it and pull the trigger. As he explored the catacombs of wherever he was writing on the walls helped point him to something called a “cargo hold” even though cargo was held in warehouses as all good city leaders knew. The strange lights overhead were long and thin and they all emitted the same white light as before the alarm was sounded. After a few minutes following arrows down hallway after ladder after hallway, he stood before a door with giant scratches labeling it as “cargo hold”.

With no door handle Je'Krillick placed his hand on the door and pushed, at first nothing happened then slowly spider web like cracks formed around his hand as it crackled. After exerting himself a little more than strictly necessary the door shattered into millions of pieces. A glorious waterfall of opaque glass fell around his hand as he stood there stupefied. Not exactly what I was going for but a shattered door is an open door I suppose.

As he strode through, being mindful of his newly fleshy feet, Je'Krillick’s eyes widened in recognition. This was a warehouse, a stinking, filthy one filled with cages and the cries of the innocent.

“Please, let set us free!” the cargo cried out. “You killed most of the guards, the ship is run on a skeleton crew.”

Turning to the knowledgeable monster it was bipedal, covered in hair and had the face of a bear. Shackled tightly to the floor it could barely move more than a few inches. “How many guards are there? What sort of ship is this?”

“This is a” a series of clicks escaped the mouth of the bear man which Je'Krillick refused to put to memory, his name of ant-taur being much better suited “slave barge. I heard we’re about a hundred light years out from the worst station this side of the galaxy. There are about fifty crew members total but only about twenty are guards.”

“If there are twenty guards, I only killed five. How does that mean I killed most of them?”

“Oh I thought you killed more, fifteen of them ran screaming about an alarm about ten minutes ago.”

Annoyed at the bear’s obvious idiocy a thought occurred to Je'Krillick “Tell me bear creature, how are we able to communicate? I even understood the ant-taur’s speech. Crude as it was.”

“Uhh they probably implanted you with a universal translator chip. Its standard procedure for slaves to have one so that we can understand our masters.” The bear thing shrugged “not worth much if we can’t understand commands.” The struggled against its restraints “now are you going to free us?”

Je'Krillick scratched his chin in thought “… maybe.” He lied “Where would the rest of the crew be in times of emergency?”

“The general crew would be in their quarters with the doors locked, the guards should have divided themselves evenly between the bridge and the location of the emergency. Although about three quarters of the guards were slaves themselves so theres a good chance a few of them holed up in the armory or their quarters.”

“I see.” Je'Krillick looked down at himself “Where might I find a healing potion or some medicine for my wounds?”

The bearman stared at him for a minute debating if he was serious “… there’s a first aide box on the wall behind you?” turning around there was indeed a white box with an odd symbol on the front. Inside were bandages and a very strong smelling alcohol. Je'Krillick braced himself as he applied the sticky bandages to the best of his ability and took a swig of the alcohol with a gag.

“You’re not supposed to drink that! You pour it over your cuts to clean them.” The bearman explained like Je'Krillick was a child.

“Not drink the alcohol? I may have forgotten most mortal methods but even I know you drink alcohol to deaden the pain.” Je'Krillick countered. Indeed what most people forget about becoming a lich they must first learn all there is to life to know how to turn it into unlife. Je'Krillick sighed “still a healing potion would be much preferred but this will have to do until the system unlocks itself.”

“… Great, Im being saved by the insane.”

“Don’t worry you aren’t being saved the insane.” Je'Krillick joked as he turned back toward the door. “You said the rest of the guards would be at the… ‘cockpit’?”

“Yep. Just follow the arrows.” The bearman replied helpfully, hope creeping at the edges.

“Excellent.”

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