He was Crazy.
That was his name.
Everyone called him that.
They never called him anything else.
It was another day in his home sweet home. A bleak, white, padded cell with a hole big enough for rats to enter.
Crazy spent his life rotting in the white padded cell, his world reduced to soft walls and the skittering of rats. He didn't know how long he had been here. The days bled together in a fog of nothingness.
He didn't even know how he got in here. One day, he woke up... And was in the cell. It was weird, having a major part of your life gone.
At first, he fought. Screamed. Demanded answers. But the walls did not answer, and the guards only laughed. Eventually, he stopped caring. He lay still, staring at the ceiling, his thoughts as empty as the room around him.
He knew two things.
One: He had no past. No memories. Nothing before the cell.
Two: He could not die.
He tried. Many, many times. Twisting his limbs in impossible angles, snapping his neck, starving himself—all pointless. The body that belonged to him refused to break. He wasn't sure if it was a curse or a joke.
The only ones that kept him company were the rats. He didn't mind. They were better than the guards, better than the cold, sterile voices of the doctors beyond the door. Sometimes, he talked to them.
"Hey, did you know I can turn my head all the way around?"
The rats never answered.
Then, one day, everything changed.
It started with a whisper.
A sound that didn't belong.
A voice, seeping through the cracks of his mind, slipping past the walls like a cold breath of wind.
"Found you... My lord."
The walls ruptured.
His world shattered.
Then—
Sudden Pain.
Pain unlike anything before. It ripped through him, like something sharp was clawing into his very being. His skin burned, his bones twisted, and his head felt like it was splitting apart. His entire body was transforming. Twisting, compressing... The pain was unbearable.
He screamed.
And then—
Darkness.
When Crazy woke up, he was no longer in the cell.
He was falling.
The sky above him was wrong. Impossible. Twisted clouds stretched over a blood-red moon, and the air reeked of something old and bitter. Beneath him, fields of grass and trees stretched far beyond the horizon.
He could faintly see what he thought was a giant tower in the horizon.
Birds flew past him as he fell, ignoring the falling prisoner as he flapped his arms, as if trying to fly with the birds.
Just as he gave up, a weird window popped up before his eyes. It was blue and transparent, seemingly made out of glass.
---------{ Iris' System}-------------
Congratulations! You have been chosen as the Hero!
Initializing Hero System integration…
WARNING: Error detected! Compatibility unstable. Adjusting…
Searching soul points...
--------------------------------------
Crazy barely had time to process the words before agony slammed into him. His veins felt like they were on fire, his bones shrieking as something invaded his very soul.
More text flashed in his vision.
---------{!⚠Warning⚠!}---------------
[User soul points = '-919483.]
[Hero system is non-compatible with the User.]
[Canceling integration...]
----------------------------------------
What..? Soul points? What the hell was that? The number was almost as low as his IQ. Suddenly, his vision glitched, as the text in front of him suddenly changed from blue to a deep red.
----------{System Notice.}-------------
Soul points compatible with [???'s System.]
Forcefully integrating [???'s System.]
Warning. User's Level does not meet the requirements. This may
result in immediate agonizing death.
Forcefully increasing stat points for minimum compatibility...
----------------------------------------
Crazy gasped as he suddenly felt his entire body shifting. His muscles were ripped apart and then rebuilt. His bones were broken and then restructured.
His vision blurred as his skull cracked, his bones splintering and then reforming in an instant. His heartbeat pounded like a war drum.
His muscles tore apart, only to knit themselves back together even stronger.
{Strength +200.}
His mind was no different.
Memories that didn't belong to him flashed across his consciousness—visions of blood-soaked battlefields, whispers of forgotten gods, glimpses of a throne made of screaming souls. He felt a strange power wrap around his heart, as his body suddenly burned, feeling it was on fire.
He felt his brain flood with information as if his brain was exploding from the pain. He screamed in agony as he felt his brain expand forcefully...
{Intelligence + 150}
His body twisted, reshaped, and evolved in ways it was never meant to.
His body suddenly burned, feeling it was on fire. A weird hot feeling seethed into his skin and muscles, as he felt his heart and immune system growing.
{Vitality +300}
His body could take more punishment now... Wonderful.
{Agility +180}
Faster. Sharper. He could feel time itself slowing down around him.
{Madness +???}
A new stat? That was definitely concerning. And yet…
Crazy laughed.
A deep, wheezing, broken sound that scraped against the air. He felt like a puppet with its strings snapped, a corpse given a second life with no instructions on how to move.
"...I like this game already."
This wasn't normal. This wasn't human. And he loved it.
He didn't know if he was dead or alive, if he was being reborn or corrupted.
Maybe both.
Then, the final crimson message burned itself into his vision:
----------------[Notice]-----------------
[???'s System] fully integrated.
New Title Acquired: [Apostle of Madness] (Unique)(Legendary)
Unique Skill Acquired: [??????] (Level does not meet requirements)
Unique Skill Acquired: [Insanity's Blessing] (Legendary)
The system has been successfully integrated.
Assimilation rate: 0.4%
Welcome back to Veldorath, [∎∎∎∎∎∎∎∎∎].
-----------------------------------------
The pain stopped.
Crazy gasped, panting, falling dangerously close to earth.
He didn't have time to question the window's text.
He hit the ground.
Hard.
His body crashed into the earth like a meteor, sending dirt and debris flying in all directions. The leaves on the trees around him were blown, some flying away to who knows where. For a moment, he lay there, buried in a crater, his mind still trying to process what the hell just happened.
Then, footsteps. Heavy. Approaching fast.
He could faintly hear armor clinking behind the trees.
Crazy slowly lifted his head. His body felt new. He could feel every hair, every cell, every atom in his body. He lifted his arm, clenching his fist... And sure enough, he felt explosive power in his arm.
How wonderful.
He stretched his arms and legs, before slowly emerging out of the crater.
A group of what seemed to be people cosplaying as knights stood before him, clad in shining silver armor, their swords drawn. Their leader—a man with golden eyes and a scar running down his cheek—glared at him with pure hatred.
"Demon," the knight spat. "Another one of you?"
Crazy blinked. He looked at his surroundings, then at himself.
"Demon?" he repeated, tilting his head. "That's new."
The knight raised his blade. "Kill him."
The soldiers rushed forward.
Crazy sighed.
Did he look so ugly that they mistook him for a demon?
"Hell," he muttered, cracking his neck. "First day out, and people already wanna kill me. Figures."
The knights swung their swords—
And Crazy moved.
Faster than they could react.
He sidestepped, grabbed the nearest soldier by the face, and squeezed. Bone crunched. A body flew. Another knight slashed at him—Crazy bent backward, his back crunching in an arc, grinning as the blade missed his nose by inches.
He grabbed the sword mid-swing, and snapped it in half.
The knights hesitated.
Crazy smiled, as he pulled himself back up.
"Huh."
He stared at his hand... His newfound strength was immense.
It was going to be a fun day.