Nightfall had arrived.
Having survived such a horrifying ordeal, he should’ve returned to Helgan Keep, anyone else would, but his Vital Rune was near completion. To return now would mean he had to come back later, and that certainly wasted more time than he’ll have. Not to mention, Nightfall made it dangerous to travel in the wilderness.
For that reason, Ulrich stayed in his little corner as he waited for all the Great Skeletons to past. Prior to this, he assumed an unnamed graveyard was quite safe, but after witnessing the amount of Great Skeletons, and even the emergence of an Awakened Myriad Undead King, the seer grew more cautious of his own action.
He remained motionless for what felt like an eternity, watching some Great Skeletons moved past his hiding spot with their bone weapons dragging across broken stone. Each footfall sent tremors through the ground, a reminder of their terrible strength.
His legs had gone numb from staying still. Pins and needles shot through his calves as blood flow returned, and he bit down on his tongue to keep from gasping. The metallic taste of blood filled his mouth, grounding him in the present moment.
Ulrich pulled himself upright, joints protesting with soft pops. His Vital Rune pulsed, a warmth that contrasted sharply with the chill emanating from the graveyard. He could feel it, his reservoir nearly full, waiting for that last influx to completion. And this act of completion would certain push all his existing spells and talent to a higher level.
The unnamed graveyard stretched before him in the pale moonlight. Tombstones jutted from the earth at odd angles like broken teeth. Crypts squatted among the debris, their entrances dark in the landscape. Somewhere in these maze of death, Ordinary Skeletons wandered their eternal patrol, like soldiers guarding their lord’s castle; except there is no castle, and there is no lord.
Those were his prey tonight and he would never back down, never give up!
He focused on his Blessing of the Shadow, feeling spirituality drained from his reserves as the talent lit ablaze. Ulrich realized during all his dangerous encounter that talents, despite not being spells, could still be further enhanced so as long as he feed it with spirituality.
The world sharpened. Distant sounds grew clear, the scrape of bone on stone, the whisper of wind through empty eye sockets, the faint rustle of his own breathing. His lean muscles filled with enhanced strength, not enough to match a true Great Undead, but sufficient against lesser threats.
Most importantly, his danger sense expanded, like a sonar radar stretching outward. As expected, that came with a deadly side effect: headache. And damn it was terrible. He brushed off that sensation and honed in on his senses.
Two skeletons to his left, moving away. One ahead, stationary. Three more clustered near a fallen obelisk to his right, too many for a clean engagement.
He chose the solitary target.
Ulrich moved through the ruins with careful steps, placing each foot deliberately to avoid loose debris. The skeleton stood before a defaced monument, its skull tilted as though reading inscriptions long worn away by time. It wore the remnants of armor, rusted mail that hung in tatters from its frame. An ordinary sword rested in its bony grip.
Ulrich raised his hand and channeled spirituality, feeling it congealed into a familiar weight. Dark Arrow manifested, not as a projectile but as a spear of solidified shadow. He struck without hesitation.
The spear pierced the skeleton's spine, erupting through its ribcage with a crack of breaking bone. The undead creature jerked, its jaw opening in a silent scream as Ulrich twisted the weapon and pulled, shattering its vertebrae. Quickly, it collapsed into a pile of bones, its life force extinguished.
A warm sensation flooded his Vital Rune. Lesser rune. It wasn’t much as an Ordinary Skeleton provided minimal essence, but every fragment counted.
Ninety point two percent, perhaps. Still so far to go.
He dismissed the spear and conjured a new one, the previous construct already fading to wisps of shadow. Movement caught his attention, another skeleton drawn by the sound of combat. This one carried a spear of its own, a weapon that had seen better centuries. It shuffled toward him with mechanical intelligence.
Ulrich activated Shadow Vision and the world transformed. Colors muted to grays and blacks, but shadows became vibrant things, tangible entities that clung to every surface. The skeleton's shadow pooled beneath it, a dark mirror of its physical form. And crucially, that shadow held no defenses, no armor, no barriers between his weapon and the creature's essence.
He thrust forward, targeting not the skeleton itself but the shadow at its feet. His spear plunged into darkness, and the skeleton above shuddered violently, as though it had caught the chills in the depths of winter. Cracks spiderwebbed across its skull. Its ribcage fractured. The concept of physical defense meant nothing when the attack bypassed the material entirely.
Huh… He can’t help but realized how powerful and perverted Shadow Vision are. All material things in this world bear the concept of shadow, in that sense, couldn’t he just sever the concept of shadow given that he reached higher ranks? He shook his head and focused on that familiar sensation.
The skeleton crumbled, and more lesser runes flowed into his Vital Rune.
Three more kills followed in quick succession. Ulrich stalked through the graveyard like a ghost, using shadows for cover and striking before his targets could raise alarm. Each victory added incrementally to his reserves, pushing him closer to that crucial threshold. But the battles took their toll. His spirituality was drained with every skill activation, and maintaining Blessing of the Shadow created a constant draw on his reserves; though it was worth every drop of spirituality.
He needed to be smart, to conserve energy while maximizing kills.
A pair of skeletons patrolled together near a collapsed archway. Ulrich watched them complete two full circuits before identifying their pattern. They walked in sync, turning at precise intervals, no different from programmed behavior. When they turned away from each other, a gap opened between them.
That gap was his opportunity.
He waited for the rotation, counting his heartbeats. When both skeletons faced outward, he moved. Shadow Vision revealed their dark twins on the ground, and he conjured two spears simultaneously, one in each hand. The spirituality cost made him slightly dizzy, but he pushed through, driving both weapons into separate shadows.
Both skeletons collapsed as one.
More essence flowed inward. Ninety three percent, he estimated, though the Vital Rune provided no precise measurement. Only a feeling, a sense of fullness approaching completion. The closer he was to this completion, the more accurate his estimation became.
Ulrich leaned against a headstone, breathing heavily. Sweat cooled on his forehead despite the night's chill.
The night did him no favor as the skeletons grew stronger due to the nature of the Shadow Realm. What should have been easy became a struggle. Fortunately, it was still manageable. And the threats of Nightfall does not apply to this place, since skeletons are quite territorial. Any giant or powerful monster that tread on these grounds will certainly attract the attention of that thing.
He had maybe half his spirituality remaining, enough for a few more engagements if he fought carefully. The smart move would be to hunt down individual targets, pick off stragglers until his reserves hit critical.
But the graveyard had other plans.
His danger sense flared without warning, a spike of alarm that sent ice down his spine. Ulrich threw himself sideways on pure instinct, and a massive blade cleaved through the space he had occupied. Stone exploded where the weapon struck, shards peppering his back.
A Great Skeleton loomed over him, its empty sockets glowing with pale light. It wielded a greatsword nearly as tall as Ulrich himself, the blade pitted with age but no less deadly. The creature raised its weapon for another strike.
Ulrich rolled, narrowly avoiding the descending blade. He came up running, putting distance between himself and the towering undead. But his danger sense screamed again, warning of threats from multiple directions.
Two more Great Skeletons emerged from the ruins, cutting off his escape routes. One carried a war hammer, the other a length of chain with a spiked weight at its end. They moved with coordinated purpose, forming a triangle with Ulrich at the center.
His mind raced through options. Three Great Skeletons meant three opponents each vastly stronger than him, each capable of crushing his skull with a single blow as enhanced by the blessing of Nightfall. Fighting all of them directly would be suicide. Running might work if he could create an opening, but the ruins limited his mobility, and these creatures knew the terrain better than he did.
Not to mention, he dared not step outside the boundary of this graveyard, afraid of encountering even more terrifying monsters. He needed an advantage.
The greatsword skeleton attacked first, bringing its weapon down in a vertical chop. Ulrich sidestepped, and the blade bit deep into earth where he had stood. Before the skeleton could recover, he conjured a shadow spear and drove it into the creature's shadow with all his enhanced strength.
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The Great Skeleton staggered but did not fall. Cracks appeared across its bones, but it remained standing, far more durable than its ordinary kin. It wrenched the greatsword free and swung horizontally.
Ulrich ducked under the blow and sprinted toward the chain-wielder, the smallest of his three opponents. The skeleton whirled its weapon overhead, building momentum before releasing and spiked weight hurtled toward him like a meteor.
He dropped and slid across dirt, feeling the chain pass overhead with a rush of piercing wind. The weight had smashed into a pillar behind him, bringing down a rain of stone fragments. Ulrich used this distraction to close distance, manifesting another spear as he moved.
But the war hammer skeleton intercepted him, swinging its weapon in a wide arc. Ulrich had no time to dodge, so he didn't try. Instead, he transformed his spear mid-thrust, shrinking it into an arrow and releasing it point-blank into the skeleton's shadow.
The projectile punched through darkness, and the war hammer skeleton's swing faltered. Its shoulder joint shattered, the massive weapon falling from nerveless fingers. Ulrich rolled past the crippled undead, gaining precious seconds.
His spirituality reserves dropped dangerously low. Maybe twenty percent remaining, and he still faced three threats, one damaged but two at full strength.
Think. Use the environment!
The graveyard was full of unstable structures, centuries of neglect leaving crypts and monuments on the verge of collapse. If he could manipulate the terrain, turn it into a weapon itself.
The greatsword skeleton charged, its heavy footfalls shaking the ground. Ulrich ran toward a leaning mausoleum, its walls cracked and listing precariously. He could see the structural weaknesses, where time and weather had eaten away at the foundation, where support beams had rotted through.
The skeleton followed without hesitation, raising its weapon for a devastating overhead strike. Ulrich waited until the last possible moment, then activated Shadow Vision and targeted the mausoleum's shadow instead of the skeleton's. His spear stabbed into darkness at the base of the wall, and the entire structure groaned.
He threw himself backward as tons of stone collapsed inward.
The greatsword skeleton disappeared beneath the avalanche, buried under rubble. Dust billowed outward in a choking cloud, and for a moment Ulrich could see nothing. He coughed, eyes watering, but his danger sense screamed and buzzed, causing him to winced in pain.
The chain whipped out of the dust, wrapping around his ankle before he could react. Ulrich hit the ground hard, air exploding from his lungs as he gasped. It dragged him backward across rough stone, his clothing tearing, skin abrading, scraped from the stone chunks on the ground.
Panic threatened to overwhelm his rational thought. The skeleton was pulling him toward it, reeling him in like a fish. In seconds, he would be in range of that spiked weight, and a single strike to the skull would end everything.
His Shadow Vision was still active. Through the dissipating dust, Ulrich could see the skeleton's shadow stretching toward him, connected to the chain that bound his leg. Desperate, an idea formed.
He conjured twin arrows, using nearly the last of his spirituality. Both projectiles manifested simultaneously, and he fired them not at the skeleton but at its shadow's extremities, targeting the dark twins of the skeletal hands gripping the chain.
Both arrows found their marks.
The skeleton's hands exploded into bone fragments. The chain went weak, releasing Ulrich's ankle. He scrambled to his feet, gasping for air, and saw the chain-wielder attempting to regenerate its destroyed hands. Great Skeletons could recover from damage given time, but that process required moments it no longer had.
Ulrich poured the dregs of his spirituality into one final spear, making it as solid and sharp as he could manage. With enhanced strength from Blessing of the Shadow, he hurled the weapon directly at the skeleton's spine.
The spear struck true, punching through vertebrae and ribcage both and the Great Skeleton collapsed in a heap of disarticulated bones.
Warmth flooded his Vital Rune, more essence than he had ever absorbed at once from those ordinary skeletons. Great Skeletons yielded significantly more lesser runes, and his reserves swelled toward completion. More crucially, he’d recovered some spirituality from absorbing those essence.
Ulrich had no time to savor his victory. The warhammer skeleton, still functional despite its shattered shoulder, had retrieved its weapon with its remaining arm. It advanced on him with single-minded determination: Kill!
Ulrich's spirituality sat at maybe five percent, barely enough to manifest another arrow. His enhanced strength from Blessing of the Shadow was fading, the skill's duration reaching its limit. He had nothing left; except the environment.
The war hammer skeleton swung one-handed, compensating for its damaged shoulder with raw power. Ulrich dodged, barely, feeling the weapon's passage ruffle his hair. The hammer struck a tilted pillar behind him, and the ancient stone shattered from the impact.
Coincidentally, the pillar had been supporting an archway. Without that support, the entire structure began to collapse.
Ulrich ran as massive blocks of stone fell like rain on a stormy night. The war hammer skeleton, slower and less agile, tried to follow but found itself trapped beneath tons of debris. Its undamaged arm reached out from the rubble, grasping futilely, before going still.
More essence poured into his Vital Rune. So much that Ulrich gasped from the sensation, dropping to his knees. That, or he’d been exhausted from that battle. Either way, the warmth had become heat, almost uncomfortable, his core expanding to accommodate the influx.
Ninety eight percent. Maybe ninety nine.
The greatsword skeleton burst from the collapsed mausoleum, covered in dust and stone chips but otherwise intact. Its pale eye sockets fixed on Ulrich with unmistakable malice.
He had nothing left. Barely spirituality for skills, and no strength for running. The skeleton raised its massive blade, preparing to end this.
Ulrich's danger sense pulsed one final warning, but he was too exhausted to move. Death approached on the skeletal feet, and he could only watch as the greatsword descended.
Then something inside him shifted.
His Vital Rune reached a critical threshold, that final percentage point achieved not through killing but through pure survival instinct. The remaining essence he needed didn't come from an external source, it crystallized from within, forged from his desperation and will to live as well as the inclination of the Rune of Shadow to passively accumulate lesser runes.
Perhaps, Nightfall was his blessing, and it had accelerated his natural accumulation rates, allowing him to reach that threshold.
One hundred percent.
The transformation was immediate and overwhelming. Power erupted through every cell of his body, rewriting him at a fundamental level. His Vital Rune blazed like a star in his chest, no longer just a reservoir but an engine actively generating spirituality instead of merely storing it.
The greatsword came down.
Ulrich raised his hand on reflex, and Dark Arrow manifested without conscious thought, strangely without any spirituality cost. The spear formed instantly, denser and sharper than anything he had previously conjured, and intercepted the descending blade mid-swing.
Metal met shadow with a sound like thunder and the greatsword shattered.
Fragments of steel rained down as the Great Skeleton stumbled backward, its weapon reduced to a jagged stump. Ulrich stared at his hand, at the spear still gripped in his palm, unable to process what had just occurred.
His senses exploded outward. Blessing of the Shadow erupted spontaneously, pushed beyond its previous limits by the completed Vital Rune. Suddenly he could hear the movement of every skeleton in the graveyard, could smell the decay and age embedded in the stones, could feel vibrations through the earth itself. His danger sense expanded into a three-dimensional map of threats, painting a picture of his surroundings in perfect detail.
And Shadow Vision, when it activated alongside the other skills, revealed a world transformed. Shadows didn't just appear tangible, they became his domain, extensions of his will that he could manipulate with thought alone.
This… is the peak of Rank 1? What will happen to my abilities at rank 2? 3? Or even… 6?
The Great Skeleton charged, swinging its broken blade. Ulrich didn't dodge. Instead, he intuitively stepped into the shadow cast by a nearby tombstone and sank into it like a drop of ink falling into water. The skeleton's weapon passed through empty air as Ulrich emerged from a different shadow three meters away.
He had never done that before. Goddess, he didn't know it was possible.
But his completed Vital Rune had pushed all three skills beyond their previous boundaries, revealing applications he had never imagined. Dark Arrow could manifest weapons of pure shadow without spirituality cost. Blessing of the Shadow enhanced him to superhuman levels instead of merely above average. And Shadow Vision, it granted him limited dominion over shadows themselves, a level of freedom he never had access to before.
On that thought, Rosaline Shadow veil seemed to originate from her application of Shadow Vision. Perhaps the origin of all her shadow related abilities stems from this single ability.
The Great Skeleton turned toward him, confused by its opponent's disappearance and reappearance. Ulrich raised both hands, and twin spears materialized, longer and more lethal than before. He hurled them simultaneously, not at the skeleton but at its shadow.
Both weapons struck, and the Great Skeleton detonated in a display of fireworks. Bones exploded outward in a sphere of fragments, its structural integrity completely overwhelmed by the concentrated shadow attacks. The skull arced through the air and landed at Ulrich's feet, empty sockets staring upward.
Essence flowed into his Vital Rune, but there was nowhere for it to go. His core was complete, full, actively rejecting the additional input like a porcelain basin being overfilled. The lesser runes dispersed harmlessly, unable to add to a reservoir that had reached its maximum capacity.
Ulrich stood among the ruins, breathing heavily, surrounded by the remains of three Great Skeletons of Nightfall he had somehow defeated. His clothing was torn, his body bruised and bleeding from a dozen minor wounds, but he was alive.
More than alive. He had completed the first stage, filled his Vital Rune to absolute capacity.
The graveyard seemed different. Less threatening. His enhanced senses detected the Ordinary Skeletons wandering their patrols, felt the presence of more Great Skeletons in the deeper ruins, even caught a faint presence of that Myriad Undead King somewhere in the darkness.
But none of them were hunting him. None had noticed the battle that just concluded.
Ulrich allowed himself a moment of satisfaction, a brief smile crossing his dust-covered face. The journey from zero to one hundred percent had taken days of desperate combat and near-death experiences. But he had made it. Against all odds, despite being a weak Rank 1 Weaver with limited skills and fewer resources, he had achieved what many never managed.
Well, perhaps, that perverted talent “Blessing of the Shadow” had much to do with it.
His Vital Rune pulsed steadily in his chest, a completed foundation upon which to build everything that would come next. The skills that had barely sustained him before now felt like extensions of his own body.
Skelephobia, he had muttered earlier, half-joking about his fear of the undead. Looking at the shattered remains surrounding him, Ulrich thought perhaps he had earned the right to walk among skeletons without fear.
At least until he encountered an Ordinary Myriad King-level creature, or a Nightfall Awakened Great Skeleton.
That thought sobered him quickly. He was stronger, significantly so, but still infinitely weaker than the monster that had casually crushed the Fleshy Golem. The unnamed graveyard held threats far beyond his current capability, and completing his Vital Rune hadn't made him invincible.
Ulrich turned toward the direction of Helgan Keep and paused, glancing back at the deeper ruins where greater dangers lurked. Part of him wondered what other secrets this unnamed graveyard held. It can’t be considered normal for there to be an Awakened Myriad Undead King to remain here, in some unnamed graveyard. No doubt, this place concealed some great, hidden history.
Not tonight, he decided. Tonight, he had achieved enough. More than ever, a flashing card had appeared in the depths of his psyche. It had a name and a description.
Shadow Step
Requirements: Shadow Vision (Active)
An advanced application of Shadow Vision, allowing the Weaver to merge with one shadow and emerge from another within close proximity.