Kaelen rolled beneath a snapping maw as blackened fangs tore through the space where his head had been a heartbeat earlier. The creature—a Razorback Ni-Stalker—screeched as its body phased halfway into shadow, its outline blurring like heat over stone.
“Figures,” Kaelen muttered.
He came up on one knee, Veil already in his right hand. The obsidian katana hummed faintly—not with power, but recognition. The weapon did not drink Ni.
It waited for it.
The Stalker vanished.
Kaelen inhaled slowly.
Shadow rippled to his left.
He pivoted and slashed.
Steel met resistance.
The Stalker screamed as Veil cut through its phase-shifted torso, dragging it fully into reality. Black blood splashed across the dirt, hissing where it hit exposed stone.
Kaelen didn’t stop.
He stepped in close, dropped Veil into his left hand mid-motion, and drew Fangs with his right—twin daggers flashing as he carved upward beneath the creature’s jaw.
The Stalker collapsed, dissolving into inert ash as its Ni destabilized.
Kaelen staggered back, chest heaving.
A pulse echoed through his body.
[SYSTEM NOTICE]
Ni Assimilation Successful
XP Gained
Heat surged through his veins—blood, shadow, lightning moving together now, no longer fighting each other.
He clenched his fists.
“Again,” he whispered.
He didn’t stop.
A Grave-Tusk Boar charged from the underbrush—Kaelen sidestepped, cracked its skull with a whip-assisted redirect, and finished it with Veil through the spine.
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A Stormwing Drakelet descended shrieking from above—Kaelen lashed it out of the air, lightning instinctively crawling along the whip as if answering a call.
A Feral Ni-Hound pack tested him next.
That one hurt.
Kaelen fought bleeding, panting, moving on instinct and discipline alone. Lash wrapped throats. Daggers flashed. Veil sang.
When the last hound fell, Kaelen dropped to one knee, soaked in blood that was not all his.
His heart thundered.
Then—
The world clicked.
[SYSTEM ALERT]
LEVEL UP
LEVEL 6 ACHIEVED
Pain flared—sharp but controlled—as his Ni networks expanded, reinforcing pathways that had been shattered months ago.
He gasped.
Lightning sparked between his fingers.
Shadow pooled beneath his boots.
Blood energy surged warm and steady through his veins.
Another presence stirred inside him.
Not hunger.
Not rage.
Control.
Before he could catch his breath—
The forest broke.
Branches snapped. The ground shook.
Something massive pushed through the treeline.
Kaelen looked up.
And swallowed.
The Gravebound Colossus stood nearly twenty feet tall—an amalgam of stone, bone, and condensed Ni. Runes glowed faintly across its torso, pulsing with stolen life-force from everything it had crushed.
This wasn’t a beast.
It was a walking grave.
Kaelen tightened his grip on Veil.
“Alright,” he said hoarsely. “Let’s see what level six really means.”
The Colossus charged.
The impact cratered the earth.
Kaelen vanished sideways in a burst of lightning, reappearing along the creature’s flank. He slashed—Veil bit deep, but the wound closed almost instantly.
“Of course it did.”
A stone fist clipped his shoulder and sent him skidding across the ground, armor scraping, ribs screaming.
Kaelen forced himself upright.
Blood dripped from his mouth.
Something inside him answered.
Shadow surged outward—not as concealment, but as structure. Lightning threaded through it. Blood anchored it.
For the first time, Kaelen didn’t feel like he was forcing power.
He was conducting it.
He moved.
Not fast.
Absolute.
Lash wrapped around the Colossus’s leg. Kaelen anchored himself, shadow biting into the ground, and pulled—not with strength, but layered Ni.
The Colossus stumbled.
Kaelen leapt.
Veil came down in a two-handed strike, lightning exploding on impact as blood-energy reinforced the blade’s edge.
The rune-core cracked.
The Colossus roared.
Kaelen drove Fangs into the fracture and poured everything he had into the wound.
Lightning.
Shadow.
Blood.
The core detonated inward.
The Colossus collapsed, crumbling into lifeless rubble.
Kaelen landed hard, barely staying on his feet.
His vision blurred.
Then—
[SYSTEM ALERT]
LEVEL UP
LEVEL 7 ACHIEVED
He laughed—short, breathless, half-disbelieving.
“I’m alive,” he whispered.
High above, unseen—
A man stood atop a stone outcropping.
Tall. Cloaked. Crimson eyes glinting with ancient amusement.
He watched Kaelen Volkov wipe blood from his face and stand amid the ruins of a monster that should have killed him.
The man smiled.
“Interesting,” Kaze murmured softly.
And vanished into the wind.