Part 1The Wraith Sovereign Returns to Conquer

The day they threw me into the horde was the same day I planned to propose to Sasha Frost.

The crystal-core ring I had bought with every last cent I had rolled across the ground. It was stomped into the mud by someone in the garrison uniform.

It was my best friend, Rafe Donovan.

"Nico, don't blame me." He looked down at me without a shred of guilt in his eyes.

"Sasha deserves better. And you, some deadbeat who talks to corpses, were never going to give her a future."

I stared past him at the familiar figure behind his shoulder.

Sasha, the woman I had loved for three years, was leaning into Axel Kain, the base commander's son.

She did not spare me a single glance. Her eyes were locked on the ring on Axel's finger, forged from an S-class crystal core. It was 10,000 times brighter than my pathetic little stone.

* * *

My ability was channeling and, in the apocalypse, it was the most useless power a person could have.

It did not help me fight. It did not help me defend myself. The only thing it ever did was force me to hear the dying screams and bitter resentment of the dead. Three years of that noise had made me the laughingstock of the entire base.

Axel Kain let out a contemptuous laugh and pulled Sasha Frost closer by the waist. "A piece of trash who talks to ghosts thinks he can compete with me for a woman? Throw him out and feed him to the dead. Make it clean."

The garrison soldiers hauled me up and dragged me out like a puppet. I thrashed and screamed like a cornered animal, but when I looked back, all I saw was Sasha wrinkling her nose in disgust, as though one more second of looking at me would dirty her.

The massive alloy gate slammed shut behind me and sealed off that world of pretty lies. Ahead of me stretched nothing but endless ruins and the shrieking dead already closing in.

Cold despair and white-hot hatred collided inside my chest, threatening to tear me apart. I had no weapon, no food, and my ribs were already cracked from the way they had dragged me across the ground. Death was seconds away.

The instant a zombie's claws were about to rip through my throat, a cold, hollow, mechanical voice rang out inside my skull.

[Host near-death state detected. Resentment intensity has breached critical threshold. Binding conditions met.]

[Abyss Wraith Dominion System activating.]

[Activation successful. Host: Nico Vane. Current level: LV1. Available Resentment Points: 0.]

[Starter quest issued: Bind your first wraith. Reward: 100 Resentment Points, skill "Wraith Armor."]

Abyss Wraith Dominion System?

My eyes snapped open. My survival instincts drew the last reserves of strength out of me and I threw myself sideways, rolling clear of the zombie's lunge just in time. A pale blue panel only I could see flickered to life in front of my eyes.

[Notice: The host may spend Resentment Points to bind the soul of any deceased harboring intense resentment, converting them into wraiths that fight on your behalf. Wraiths are immune to physical damage and unaffected by the zombie virus. They are the perfect soldiers of the apocalypse.]

Immune to physical damage? The perfect soldiers?

A wild sense of desperate joy surged through me. This ability might as well have been made for someone like me.

That was when I heard it. Not the shriek of a zombie, but the faint, broken sobbing of a child.

My channeling ability guided my eyes toward the sound. In a collapsed alcove not far away, a blurred, translucent shadow was curled up and shaking beside the body of a girl no older than seven or eight.

It was her soul, freshly torn from her body. Her parents had used her as bait to draw the zombies away, and the dead had ripped her apart for it. The resentment pouring off her was so thick it had nearly taken physical form.

[High-quality wraith detected: Shade Child. Binding requirement: 10 Resentment Points.]

"How do I get Resentment Points?" I demanded inside my head.

[Kill any living entity or absorb ambient resentment to earn Resentment Points.]

I turned toward the zombie lunging at me again. There was no fear left in my eyes, only cold, killing intent.

I snatched up a piece of broken rebar and the instant the creature closed in, I drove it through its eye socket with everything I had. The bar sank straight into its brain and the zombie dropped like a stone.

[F-class zombie killed. Resentment Points earned: 1.]

It was not enough. Three more came stumbling out of the ruins, drawn by the smell of blood, and I did not back down.

I charged them head-on, using the rubble and their stiff, clumsy movements against them, dodging lunge after lunge and driving the rebar through skull after skull.

By the time I had scraped together 10 Resentment Points, I was drenched in blood and barely able to stand.

"I want... to bind!"

[Spend 10 Resentment Points to bind "Shade Child"?]

I clenched my jaw and nodded.

A streak of pale blue light shot from my palm and engulfed the girl's soul in an instant. She stopped crying and lifted her head, empty eye sockets staring up at me. Then she dissolved into a dark streak and sank into my shadow without a sound.

[Binding successful. F-class wraith acquired: Shade Child. Skills: Shadow Lurk, Psychic Strike.]

[Starter quest complete. Rewards issued: 100 Resentment Points. Skill "Wraith Armor" activated.]

A thin layer of black armor woven from pure resentment spread across my entire body. A cool wave washed over my broken ribs and the pain faded to almost nothing. Furthermore, somewhere deep inside my shadow, a killer now awaited my command.

I stared at the sealed gate of the base in the distance and curled my lips into a thin, cold smile.

Axel, Rafe and Sasha could enjoy whatever time they had left. I would be back for all of them soon enough.