The Ultimate Regressor System

"Uhh," Mark said again, clearly struggling to find a way to phrase whatever he was looking at. "It’s... it’s okay," he said, "It’s a mark. A tattoo, maybe? Except I don’t think tattoos are supposed to just... appear like this..."

Lucas waited for another word. Maybe from Eleanor this time. But he couldn’t see the look on her face. An expression of shock and confusion stretching across her face.

When he didn’t hear any other thing, he said again. "Mark, just describe it."

"Right. Okay." He leaned in closer, studying the shape carved into the skin on Lucas’ back with visible unease, unsure where to start from.

He inhaled and studied his back. "Okay. Right. So, there are two scythes crossed over each other, with the blades stretching across your shoulder blades. The blade handles are meeting in the middle of your lower back forming an X shape."

Lucas twisted awkwardly, trying and failing to get a proper look at his own back, and gave up after a moment, letting his shirt fall back into place.

The mark itself, from what little feeling he could feel of it against his own skin, sat on his back faintly warm, and to anybody looking at it could see the edges of it tracing sharp lines that looked less like a wound and more like something that had been branded there like something was marking its possession.

Each scythe curved gracefully before crossing its twin at the center, blade tips extending nearly to the edge of his elbow, handles trailing down toward the center of his lower back in long, elegant lines.

It didn’t hurt anymore, not really, or not as much as it did before. All he could feel was just a low, hum beneath the skin, like something was settling in to stay.

"How did you even get this?" Eleanor asked, staring at him now instead of the mark, something between confusion and alarm written plainly across her face.

"I have no idea," Lucas said, which was, technically, not a complete lie.

’The Reaper. Has to be. Nothing else in this entire nightmare marks people with literal scythes.’

He kept that part to himself, the same instinct kicking in without him even having to think about it.

Explaining the mark honestly meant explaining the Sovereign, which meant that he had to explain the void and every death he’d survived at that made the entity summon him there in the first place.

And if you think about it, none of that was information he could hand over even if he desperately wanted to.

"It’s fine," he said instead, forcing his voice to sound light and unbothered. "Probably just some weird system thing. We’ve got bigger problems anyway," he said, "didn’t we have a meeting about the Gateway route?"

Eleanor studied him a moment longer, clearly unconvinced but apparently deciding for now not to push further. "Fine. But we’re talking about this properly later."

"Sure," Lucas said, already knowing he would find some way to deflect that conversation too.

***

They gathered in the hall about an hour later, the same map spread across the table, survivors filtering in to discuss the newest objective, and Lucas had barely settled into his seat when the system chimed, its crimson texts visible only to him.

[Ding!]

[You have been marked by the Sovereign of Death.]

He deadpanned. ’Yeah, no shit.’

[Congratulations. You have brought about the Sovereign’s fixation on you. Your soul has been marked. ]

[The Reaper’s Mark: Active.]

[Description: The Sovereign of Death has taken a profound interest in this player. Through Regression, this mark signifies a presence of fixation as the Sovereign now regards the player as a personal claim. Through this, the player is partially resistant to the influence of other entities. The mark provides protection against certain abilities and strengthens skills, providing a buff to it. The Sovereign’s attention, once fixed, does not easily transfer or fade.]

[This bond deepens with continued survival, until the Sovereign herself decides it’s time to take back what is hers.]

Lucas stared at the notification for a long moment in silence, the words settling into his stomach in a way that made him feel sick.

’A bond... so the Sovereign is a female...’

He read one of the lines again. ’My soul has been marked by her too and she is obsessed? The kind doesn’t easily transfer or fade.’

He read it again, slower this time, hoping some part of it might dissolve into something less unsettling the second time.

It didn’t...

If anything, it only made it worse — like even the notification itself wanted to terrify him and took pleasure in doing just that. The words glitched once, then again, giving him back every word without softening a single one...

He gritted his teeth. The Sovereign was not just hunting him anymore. She had now decided that he belonged to her...

The thought settled heavily in his chest, and somehow it was worse, more than any of the actual chases had been.

He could survive a fight. He could survive dozens of them, against beasts, gods and everything in between.

But this... an ancient terrifying entity fixating on him specifically, deciding he belonged to her in some way he didn’t really understand and couldn’t begin to negotiate.

The realization sat in a category of danger he had no way of knowing whether or not he could handle.

He exhaled tiredly. His time here wouldn’t be the same anymore, he knew that. Especially now that something like that has decided he was worth keeping.

He closed the notification slowly, forcing his expression back into something neutral, though the effort of it clearly meant that he wasn’t fully successful, before Eleanor saw it anyway...

"You okay?" Eleanor’s voice came quietly beside him, pulling him back from his thoughts.

She’d noticed.. of course she had. She always did, making it hard for Lucas to keep certain things to himself.

He looked at her— her attention sharp and focused on him despite the room’s restlessness around them.

"Yeah," Lucas said, though, it was flat, flatter than he liked, and then, catching her unimpressed look, sighed and spoke again with something closer to honesty. "Just worried.... About the mark and whatever it actually means."

"You still don’t know where it came from?"

"No."

Eleanor studied him for a moment, something gentle settling into her expression despite the worry still visible on it.

She spoke gently, trying as much as she could to ease his worries.

"Whatever it is," she said, "we’ll figure it out. You’re not facing this alone, I won’t let you face it alone"

Lucas knew that she probably knew that what he was worried about was more than the mark sitting on his back, and he was grateful that she chose instead to comfort him. "Everything’s going to be alright. It always has been, somehow, even when it really shouldn’t have."

He frowned at that. She didn’t know that the only reason things had been "alright" was because of the sacrifices he had made along the way.

She didn’t know that behind him was a trail of corpses—his corpses, laid to make sure they got the best possible outcomes in the worst possible scenarios.

Lucas managed a small, grateful smile despite it, the weight in his chest not fully lifting. "Thanks, Elle."

"Don’t thank me yet. Save it for when we’ve actually survived whatever this turns out to be."

She patted his back gently, attention already shifting back toward the map spread across the table. It was back to business, her posture straightening and a serious look on her face. "Speaking of surviving things — we need to talk about the Gateway route. The scouts found three possible paths through the eastern route, but all of them run straight through territory we haven’t cleared yet."

"We need to move soon," Lucas said.

"How soon are we thinking?" Mark asked, leaning over the map with a focused look.

"Three days, if all goes well," Eleanor said. "Maybe less, if we push the pace. I want everyone rested and ready before we commit to a route, though I’ll be choosing who will be going with us by then."

Lucas leaned over the map alongside them, forcing his attention onto the terrain, the markers, at the line traced across unfamiliar territory.

He looked at it once, then again... desperately trying to keep his mind from circling back to the mark on his back and the ancient entity that had apparently decided somewhere in that endless void, that he belonged to her now.

’Three days,’ he thought grimly, tracing one of the routes with one finger while Eleanor continued speaking beside him.

’I guess I’ll have to use it to figure out what this mark actually costs me before we walk straight into whatever waits at the next Gateway.’

He made the decision with determination etched into his face. The last thing he wanted was the mark making surviving harder than its meant to be.

The glitch was already enough. He didn’t want a god making it worse...