Deus Necros

The final stitch closed across Hoyo’s chest.

He remained on the stone table while the graft settled, one blood-soaked hand resting beside him and the other hovering above the fresh incision. Iron, preservatives, burned herbs, and alchemical stabilizers thickened the air. The last of those solutions still clung to the tubes and silver instruments surrounding the table, keeping the stolen heart alive long enough for Hoyo to place it inside himself.

Hiro’s corpse lay beside him with its chest opened and the ribs spread apart. The empty cavity looked strangely small for something that had once carried so much divine favor.

Hoyo waited for pain. Rejection would follow if the heart failed to recognize the vessels connected to it, and failure in an organ this central rarely left enough time for correction. Hearts were bound too closely to blood, mana, and life essence to be replaced casually. Even the less ambitious grafts Hoyo had attempted over the years required extensive preparation before the body stopped trying to destroy them.

The Hero’s Heart had resisted from the moment he connected the first vessel. Holy energy surged through his chest, making several older grafts spasm at once. Modified veins constricted, the demonic tissue beneath his left shoulder burned, and a reinforced mana channel taken from a long-forgotten beast threatened to tear itself free.

Then everything became quiet.

The heart struck once against the inside of his chest, and the force jerked his entire body against the table. A second beat followed, harder and cleaner, sending warm pressure through vessels assembled from more species than Hoyo cared to remember. Human arteries, altered veins, demonic tissue, and the remnants of several beasts all accepted the circulation without resisting it.

By the third beat, the rhythm had stabilized.

Blue light appeared before his eyes.

Hoyo stopped breathing.

He had watched Hiro stare at the air for years. With his eyes moving form side to side as if he was reading something. Whenever possible, Hoyo had asked questions without making his interest obvious, memorized the fool’s careless answers, and reconstructed the rest from fragments. He knew that the staring was something the Hero called a window. And the windows measured levels, attributes, skills, quests, and rewards. They turned actions into advancement, allowing the bearer to achieve in moments what ordinary people might spend decades training to accomplish.

Now one of those windows floated in front of him.

[Heroic Core detected.]

[Original Bearer: Hiro --- Deceased.]

[Cause of termination confirmed.]

[Heroic Core remains viable.]

[Foreign vessel detected.]

[Analyzing compatibility...]

[Analyzing soul...]

[Analyzing will...]

[Analyzing existing development...]

[Successor compatibility confirmed.]

[The authority of the Hero has accepted a new bearer.]

Hoyo read the notification twice before pushing himself upright. His new heartbeat remained audible beneath the silence of the laboratory, steady enough to disturb him more than the violent grafting process had.

His original heart had been replaced years ago. Several different organs had occupied its place since then, and none had produced such a natural rhythm. Some beat too quickly, others depended upon conscious mana circulation, and one had barely resembled a heart after he finished modifying it.

The one he had cut from Hiro simply worked.

A second window opened before Hoyo could examine the sensation any further.

=====================

[You have inherited the Heroic Mandate.]

[Class acquired: Hero.]

[You have inherited the Eternal Obligation of the Hero.]

[Eternal Quest: The Demon King]

The Demon King threatens the ordained order of Ikos. As the bearer of the Heroic Mandate, you are bound to seek, oppose, and ultimately slay the Demon King.

Quest cannot be abandoned.

Quest cannot be transferred while the Heroic Core remains within the bearer.

Completion Reward: ???

Failure Condition: Death of the Hero.

=====================

Hoyo read the entire quest, then looked toward the corpse beside him. ”So that part was true.”

Hiro had complained about the Demon King more often than Hoyo could count. The quest was too vague, the reward took too long to earn, and the Church never provided enough resources. Most offensive of all, the Demon King refused to appear somewhere convenient and allow Hiro to kill him.

Hoyo had assumed that at least half of those complaints were childish exaggerations. The permanent quest suggested otherwise.

More notifications appeared before he could dismiss it.

=======================

[The Heroic System has detected preexisting development inconsistent with a newly appointed Hero.]

[Calculating physical development...]

[Calculating magical development...]

[Calculating accumulated combat capability...]

[Calculating biological enhancements...]

[Calculating graft-derived abilities...]

[Calculating prior achievements...]

[Recalibration complete.]

[Equivalent Hero Level determined.]

[Current Level: 210.]

[Retroactive level rewards have been granted.]

[Unused Attribute Points: 1050.]

The process lasted several seconds. Hoyo leaned forward, his attention narrowing until the corpse, instruments, and laboratory faded from his awareness.

Hoyo’s breath stopped at the final number.

”One thousand and fifty.”

The system had granted five points for every level. Hiro had once explained that detail while complaining about whether to place another twenty into Strength or Charm. At the time, Hoyo had assumed the points produced small enhancements whose value only became meaningful after years of accumulation.

A thousand opportunities to reinforce the body directly were not small.

Hoyo turned toward the dead Hero. ”You had access to this much control over your own development before accounting for quests, abilities, artifacts, and divine rewards. How did you manage to become so disappointing?”

The corpse remained inconsiderately silent.

Hoyo recalled the command Hiro had used and opened his own status screen.

”Status screen!”

[Status]

Name: Hoyo Drak

Race: Human

Class: Hero

Level: 210

Health: 18,940 / 18,940

Mana: 14,221 / 14,221

Stamina: 21,505 / 21,505

Strength: 347

Dexterity: 286

Vigor: 391

Intelligence: 268

Wisdom: 214

Charm: 31

Luck: 42

Unused Attribute Points: 1,050

Unique Traits:

[Heroic Vessel]

[Heroic Spirit]

[Perfect Graft Integration]

[Composite Physiology]

Abilities:

[Inspect]

[Heroic Reinforcement]

[Divine Recovery]

[Demonbane]

[Heroic Inventory]

[Heroic Growth]

[Adaptive Resistance]

[Greater Evil Detection]

The system had not erased his previous development. That possibility had remained one of Hoyo’s greatest concerns throughout the procedure. If inheriting the Heroic Mandate reduced him to whatever condition Hiro had possessed at the beginning, then the operation would have exchanged one form of advancement for another while destroying years of work.

This was the moment a true Hero? was born.