The world resists many things. It rejects foreign energies, punishes anomalies, and suppresses foreign influences with brutal precision. But not the Void. It flows freely here, unbound and undeterred. That in itself proves its terrifying scale.
"Sid, what are you doing?"
A sharp, clear voice echoed from behind me, ringing with authority and a hint of scolding.
It was Claire—this body's sister.
She stood like sin wrapped in elegance— no longer in her combat leathers, but in something far more attractive while also comfortable.
A tight black blouse clung to her upper body like it had been stitched to temptation itself, the fabric straining ever so slightly over the curves of her E-Cup chest. Her chest, barely contained by the crimson blouse molded to her voluptuous figure, heaved with every breath, daring any onlooker to try and look her in the eye instead. Each movement sent a tantalizing ripple across her body—her hips swaying like a song of war and seduction all at once.
She stood tall at 1.88 meters, her posture proud, radiating confidence and martial discipline. The neckline dipped just enough to distract, but not enough to betray the mystery. A high-slit skirt hugged her hips, swaying with each subtle shift of her stance, revealing smooth, toned legs that disappeared into thigh-high boots—commanding, sensual, impossible to ignore.
Her long raven hair cascaded down her back in waves of shadow and silk, catching the light like liquid onyx. A single lock curled across her cheek, only enhancing the sultry defiance in her eyes.
Crimson lips curved in a smirk as she cracked her knuckles with practiced grace, a flicker of violence coiled behind beauty. The blood on the walls behind her wasn't hers—it never was.
She tilted her head, one heel clicking softly as she took a step forward, hips swaying with lethal rhythm.
"...I'm looking at the stone." I withdrew my palm from the black meteorite embedded in the altar before me—a relic known as the Virtual Gold Meteorite. I had been absorbing the primal traces of Void Essence stored within my reverse scale. I halted the flow, masking my actions with an awkward smile, and turned to face her.
Claire's brows furrowed as her sharp gaze bore into me. A long sigh escaped her lips before she fixed me with a severe expression.
"You are the last male heir of the Kageno family. The only one left. The weight of our lineage rests on your shoulders now, and you can't just waste time staring at rocks. Come with me—we're resuming sword training. No complaints."
"I—" I began to speak, but the moment she noticed my hesitation, her eyes narrowed. Before I could even formulate a response, she stepped forward with unexpected speed. Her left arm wrapped tightly around my waist like a steel band and lifted me from the ground with ease.
Damn it. I could see her movements clearly thanks to my sharpened Void-infused consciousness, but my current body… it was so pathetically weak that I couldn't even react. All I could do was dangle helplessly in her grip as she carried me off toward the training field like a sack of rice.
Feeling her firm arms encircling my waist, I finally gave up struggling. There was no point.
It was humiliating. I, the supreme Black Dragon King, a monarch whose mere breath could annihilate entire armies, the Source of Void—the big BOSS who can decide the life and death of hundreds of millions of creatures with one word—reduced to this. Being cradled and dragged by a girl. A human girl. It was…
Never mind.
I'll endure—for now. Once I gain control over the powers of the Void, things will change. I'll bide my time.
---
The Training Field
The training ground was a broad, open square covered in finely packed sand, ringed by weapon racks and training dummies carved from ironwood. Claire threw me a heavy iron sword without warning. It clattered at my feet.
"You haven't awakened your Spirit Cage yet, but the Kageno bloodline is strong. You'll awaken it eventually. Until then, your physical body needs to be tempered," she said coldly. "You can't be a spellbinder—or a conjurer—without physical strength. It's the foundation."
She drew a short breath, and her tone turned more formal, almost ceremonial.
"Our family practices two primary sword styles. The first is Spirit Snake Swordsmanship—a nimble, elusive technique based on agility and precision. The second is Violent Bear Swordsmanship—a brutish, overwhelming style that relies on raw strength and explosive power. Choose one."
I hadn't told Claire that I'd already awakened the Spirit Cage. Over the past few days, I had quietly explored it on my own. I had delved into its structure, studied its function, and come to understand its potential.
"Sister… I think I've already awakened my Spirit Cage."
As soon as the words left my lips, a surge of wind blasted in my face. Claire moved faster than the eye could follow. Her presence was like a thunderclap—sudden, powerful, overwhelming. My hair blew back from the pressure alone, and I struggled to keep my eyes open.
Then came her hands, slamming down on my shoulders like twin hammers.
This body was barely 1.6 meters tall—thin, frail, lacking muscle or stamina. Claire, on the other hand, had the physical strength of a three-meter-tall war beast. Her hands sank into my shoulders like iron vises. I swore I felt my scapula crack.
"What did you say?! You've awakened your Spirit Cage Space?!"
Her face was twisted with disbelief, awe, and something bordering on pride. But when she noticed me grimacing in pain, she quickly stepped back and released me, coughing awkwardly.
"Ahem… sorry. Got too excited. Show me. Let me see your spell imprint."
I rubbed my aching shoulders, then nodded. I took a deep breath and focused inward.
The Spirit Cage Space responded.
From the center of my palm, gray mist slowly leaked outward—thin as threads, but heavy with meaning.
This was curse power—a byproduct of awakening the Spirit Cage Space. Not all conjurers could access it, but those who did were considered to be on the path of Spell Binders—a higher echelon of arcane warriors. This power wasn't purely internal; it required synergy between the caster and the spirits they enslaved.
In this world, spellbinders couldn't wield supernatural powers directly. They acted as channels. Their strength came from the cursed spirits they bound within their Spirit Cage, which acted as intermediaries to draw ambient energy from the environment. That energy would then be converted—transformed—into usable spell force.
My own curse power was meager. This body's bloodline was weak, its magical channels underdeveloped. But that could change. The stronger the curse spirit I enslaved, the more energy I could channel. And with Void Origin's influence still merging with my soul and body, I suspected even the fundamental rules of the cultivation path could be rewritten.
Claire studied the gray mist with a serious expression, then nodded.
"It's definitely curse power. You've awakened the Spirit Cage. Good. I'll give you a collection of beginner spell inscriptions tonight. Study them. Memorize the sigils. Learn how they interact with different curse spirits. If you don't understand something, ask."
Then her tone hardened again. "But first—choose your sword style. Snake or Bear?"
"Violent Bear Swordsmanship," I said immediately.
She raised an eyebrow at my tiny frame, clearly skeptical, but didn't argue. Instead, she turned and grabbed a 1.8-meter-long training sword made of heavy red oak and tossed it to me.
"The bear sword style requires tremendous physical power. Your body isn't ready. But since you chose it, I'll supervise your training directly."
Claire's expression darkened slightly.
"I'll be writing your regimen. If you can't finish it..."
She didn't finish her sentence. She didn't need to.
I gave her a faint smile. "Don't worry. I'll give it everything I've got."
She nodded. "Good."
Then she stood straight, her voice turning crisp and precise.
"Now, listen carefully. Violent Bear Swordsmanship may look crude, but it's anything but simple. It's not just swinging heavy metal. The first stage is about learning how to root your stance—feeling the ground, channeling force through your legs and core. The second stage is about impact redirection—learning how to absorb and deflect force with minimal movement. The third is overpowering momentum—crushing opponents through sheer kinetic dominance."
She raised her own blade and began to demonstrate, every swing radiating precision and monstrous force.
"If you master the first level, no ordinary person can stand against you. At the fifth level, you'll be able to break free from the grasp of a fifth-rank cursed spirit. My demand is simple: one month to master the first level. Six months to master the third."
She paused, then looked at me.
"Now. Watch closely. I'll demonstrate the first form—Falling Hammer Strike. This is where your journey begins."
Claire gave a short nod and began to practice the Violent Bear Swordsmanship. Although she had already mastered the Spirit Snake Swordsmanship, her extraordinary talent in swordsmanship allowed her to instruct others even in disciplines she had not specialized in. Teaching the first and second levels of the Violent Bear style wasn't beyond her capability. After all, basic sword techniques were foundational. If one studied with diligence and dedicated a significant amount of time, even ordinary individuals could master them to a high degree.
I focused my full attention on Claire. Using my heightened mental awareness and sharpened perception, I committed every motion she executed to memory—each stance, footwork, and transition embedded itself into my mind like branding iron to flesh. My consciousness was far from that of an average person; it was keen, analytical, and frighteningly precise.
Once Claire completed her demonstration and made sure I had mentally absorbed the flow of the sword art, she moved closer and began the painstaking process of teaching me how to disassemble the movements one by one. Swordsmanship wasn't merely the memorization of forms—it was the cultivation of muscle memory, spirit resonance, and kinetic insight.
However, to Claire's astonishment—and to her strange delight—it quickly became clear that I was no ordinary student.
Her younger brother had changed.
Each motion she showed me, I mimicked flawlessly, almost immediately. There was no hesitation in my limbs, no pause for mental calculations—I simply did it.
Ten minutes passed. Claire looked at me, stunned, her mouth slightly agape. In just that short span of time, I had learned and flawlessly executed all the movements of the first level of Violent Bear Swordsmanship.
"How come you couldn't learn it before?" Claire asked, her voice laced with confusion.
"My father and mother were still around back then, and you were always in the way. I didn't want to learn at the time," I replied casually, drawing upon Sid's fragmented memories to fabricate a believable excuse.
When she heard the words "father and mother," her eyes darkened. A cloud of sorrow passed over her face, but she recovered quickly. Her expression hardened into one of steely resolve.
"If you truly have talent in swordsmanship, then you mustn't waste it," Claire said seriously. "You were born without any innate gift in spell power. If you also grow lazy in your sword training, then even your natural talent will rot. That's all I'll say for now. Train on your own."
With that, Claire walked away to the far side of the training grounds and resumed her own practice.
I lowered my blade and turned my attention toward her.
In the memories of my predecessor, Sid, he had only a vague understanding of his sister's abilities. He knew that she was a fifth-level Conjurer—a genius—but the extent of her strength was shrouded in uncertainty. Even in Sid's past life, there were few clear memories of actual battles involving conjurers.
Now, I wanted to see it with my own eyes. I wanted to observe how the spellcasters of this world fought. Only then could I begin to piece together the true peak of martial and magical power in this realm.
From a logical standpoint, this world was built on the architecture of a super-massive material plane—a vast and ancient construct capable of supporting beings at the demigod level. Planes like this, rich in magic and natural life force, often give birth to transcendent entities as time flows on. It is inevitable. Like a bottle left under a running stream, given enough time, it would eventually fill to the brim.
However, this world was... strange.
The rules here were twisted in some way. The lifespan of conjurers was alarmingly short, and there were few records of ascended beings. As of now, I couldn't confirm whether the ceiling of power in this world actually reached demigod status or if it had been artificially suppressed.
And that mattered.
The upper limit of what was possible in this world would determine the ceiling of my own potential, and would shape my future plans entirely.
Not to mention the upper limit of the strength of the strongest person in the world determines my future action plan.
In a material plane of this magnitude, the sheer number of living creatures alone formed a titanic ecosystem—an ocean of life—and with it, a sea of untapped resources. Even if my body required ten times the resources or even more than those of the same level, the resources here should still be abundant enough to push me through DemiGod.
More importantly, this was a closed-world system—a localized world not yet connected to the vast astral realm where gods, systems, and world laws compete. Without external interference, such a world was a fertile land for conquest, development, and resource harvesting.
Suddenly, in the distance, Claire raised her right arm and made a simple yet deliberate hand gesture. From the space behind her, a rift of shadow peeled open, and out slithered a massive, smoke-wreathed creature—a six-eyed black python composed entirely of cursed energy.
Its body stretched more than twenty meters long, coiling through the air like an ancient serpentine spirit. Smoke billowed from its scales, and its six green eyes glowed with eerie intelligence. Even at this distance—hundreds of meters away—the aura it emitted made me, currently nothing more than a low-tier mortal, feel like my lungs were being compressed under a mountain.
This was no ordinary summon.
This was a Curse Spirit—a magical construct drawn from the undercurrents of the world's energy field, not a flesh-and-blood creature born of life. Because of that, I couldn't gauge its strength using traditional life-sense techniques. I couldn't feel its vitality because it didn't possess any in the biological sense.
But based on its oppressive aura alone, I estimated it to be equivalent to at least a seventh or even eighth-level human professional.
Claire climbed atop the great serpent and sat cross-legged on its head. The black python began to draw in strands of chaotic, tainted mana from the environment, funneling them through an invisible link into Claire's body. Veins of dark mist wrapped around her frame as she began her Spirit Convergence Cultivation.
She looked terrifyingly majestic. The sinister energy clinging to her body made her seem almost like a devil goddess communing with a primeval beast.
I exhaled softly and pulled my gaze away. I could not yet decipher the full nature of her curse spirit or its hidden powers, and continuing to watch wouldn't help until I could understand more of the conjuration techniques. I returned my focus to the Violent Bear Swordsmanship, though my heart was stirred.
'How could a fifth-level conjurer control a Curse Spirit that emanates a power comparable to the seventh or eighth level?'
That wasn't a simple increase—it was a leap across realms of power.
And that was just based on aura. If I considered the innate abilities and magical enhancements that Curse Spirits possessed, it was entirely possible that even a level-nine elite professional could lose in a head-on clash with her.
Level nine... that's the peak of the Intermediate Tier. Level ten marks the beginning of the Advanced Tier.
'So a fifth-level conjurer—despite having a physical body only comparable to a second-level professional—can bond with a Curse Spirit of the eighth level, and also cast external spells? That makes conjurers perhaps the most dangerous combat class below the Tenth level.' I thought grimly.
It became clear to me: the combat system of this world had dual-tier advancement.
There were Physical Classes—swordsmen, warriors, archers—who relied on their own strength, muscle, and internal energy.
Then there were Spell Classes—conjurers, casters, ritualists—who advanced not just in their physical strength, but by forming bonds with external forces, spirits, or dimensions.
A conjurer's effective power was not linear—it spiked based on the spirit tier they could control.
The realization hit me like a blade: I was now considered a low-tier conjurer, essentially at Level One. The next major milestone was Level Five—Claire's current level—and yet the gap between us felt like an endless chasm. How could one level contain such a difference?
Currently, I had the strength of a fragile mortal—barely stronger than a pair of zero-level goblins. My spell power was meager, my body unrefined, my understanding of the arts superficial. I hadn't even enslaved a new spirit yet—the Fire Curse Spirit had already been consumed during my descent.
From this point of view, the pinnacle of military force in this world cannot be underestimated.