Kael's body trembled—not with fear, but with something far worse.
Change.
Moments ago, he was being torn apart by the chaos of opposing forces, his very soul caught in a storm of light and dark.
Now… there was silence.
But it wasn't peace.
It was deathly.
Then—darkness surged.
Not from the core.
Not from Noctharion.
From everywhere.
The shadows surrounding him thickened, as if answering a silent command. They rose like smoke, like a living tide, and began to pour into him.
Through his wounds.
Through his eyes, his mouth, his ears—
His skin.
Darkness invaded him.
Like liquid fire, it seeped into his veins.
Like razors, it sliced through his flesh.
It crawled through every nerve, every muscle, every shattered piece of him—and devoured it.
Bone cracked.
Tissue burned.
Blood turned black.
His body was being destroyed—erased—
And rebuilt.
Not by grace.
But by necessity.
The power he was absorbing...
Was too much.
It should've killed him.
Should've turned him into ash—
A forgotten failure swallowed by ambition.
But the darkness refused to let him die.
So it molded him.
It tore apart the old Kael, atom by atom—
And reforged him into something stronger.
Heavier. Denser. Hardened.
It wasn't evolution.
It was butchery.
And yet...
It was working.
His broken bones knit themselves back together—denser, harder than steel.
His torn flesh grew anew—layered with mana-rich muscle and nerves that thrummed with unnatural energy.
Even his blood changed—darker, colder, more alive.
His core, once weak and trembling, now pulsed with terrifying vitality.
No longer a fragile spark—
But a black sun, quietly roaring.
And all the while, the darkness kept pouring in.
Endless.
Unrelenting.
Kael's status screen shimmered.
Then flickered.
Then twisted.
Words rearranged themselves.
Warnings erupted.
Ranks shifted. Titles blinked in and out of existence.
But no one could see it.
Not here. Not in this place between death and rebirth.
Kael was still floating.
Suspended in the black void.
Weightless. Silent. Warm.
The darkness… held him.
Not with chains—
But with comfort.
It wrapped around his broken soul like a lover's embrace.
It numbed the pain, the screams, the fear.
It whispered, stay.
Here, there was no judgment. No failure.
Only endless night.
Kael didn't want to leave.
Not ever.
But the void… trembled.
A distant quake rippled across the calm.
A shiver in the fabric of this comfortable nothingness.
Kael's eyes slowly opened—if they could still be called eyes in this realm.
The warmth was retreating.
Something was wrong.
He looked around. Darkness still stretched in every direction, infinite and quiet.
But now, it was no longer still.
It was pulling.
And then—
A tear opened in the space beside him.
A jagged wound in the void, leaking harsh light and broken energy.
Reality clawing its way in.
Kael's form drifted toward it—slow at first, then faster.
"No..."
He didn't speak. He couldn't.
But something inside him screamed.
He struggled to remain.
To stay in the only place that had ever embraced him without condition.
But the tear kept pulling.
And Kael couldn't stop it.
He reached out to the void, as if it might pull him back—
But darkness, for all its comfort, did not fight fate.
He passed through the tear.
And opened his eyes.
Pain hit like a hammer.
His body convulsed.
His mouth burst open—
And a fountain of black blood erupted from deep within.
He fell forward, coughing, choking, vomiting tar-like ichor that reeked of rot and ancient malice.
His hands gripped the ground, nails clawing into stone.
His spine arched, back twisting unnaturally.
More blood spilled—
Too much.
And it didn't stop.
It kept coming.
Like he was purging death itself.
Like the darkness inside him refused to share space with weakness.
Every spasm was a scream.
Every breath was fire.
Every heartbeat was war.
--------
I stop vomiting.
For a whole minute, I'd been retching out something dark—thick, cold, unnatural. Now, my breath rasps out in ragged bursts. Each inhale feels like swallowing fire.
("Hah… hah…")
I clutch my chest. My lungs are burning. My throat feels torn raw. But… I'm alive.
Slowly, I lift my head and glance around. I'm back. The same stone platform. The same room where I began absorbing the core.
My eyes settle on it.
The core still floats in the air, but its glow is dimmer now—no longer wild or unstable. The crackling pulses that once threatened to explode are gone. It's silent. Controlled.
I did it…
I stopped the core from exploding.
My fingers twitch. I remember that place—
The void.
That silent black ocean. That warmth. That comfort.
A place so serene, so peaceful, it felt like being held in the arms of eternity itself. I could've stayed there forever.
Just thinking about it makes my skin crawl.
What was I thinking…?
"Only a madman would want to live in that place…" I whisper hoarsely. My voice sounds hollow, like it doesn't quite belong to me anymore.
> "You succeeded."
The voice echoes inside my head, cold and deep—familiar.
I flinch and turn.
Noctharion stands beside me again. The black dragon, his body coiled in shadow, watching me silently.
But his eyes…
They're different now.
Gone is the arrogance. Gone is the indifference he once looked at me with.
Now… there's something else in them.
A flicker of fear.
A flicker of curiosity.
As if even he doesn't fully understand what just happened—or what I've become.
"So… I did it?" I asked, my voice hoarse, breath still ragged.
Noctharion's eyes flickered toward me. He said nothing at first. Just stared—as if measuring the thing that now stood in front of him.
"I absorbed the core," I said again, needing to hear it out loud. Needing confirmation that I hadn't just torn myself apart for nothing.
"Yes," he finally replied. "You absorbed the core… and stabilized it."
A faint pulse echoed through the cave. The mana in the air was no longer violent. No longer screaming. Just… still.
"Its rampage has been halted because of you. Had you failed, this place—would've turned into a graveyard."
I glanced at the core. It still floated there, dim and quiet, like the dying heart of a beast that had lost its roar.
But it was intact.
And I was alive.
Barely.
I coughed, wiping the last trace of blood from my lips. My body ached. My insides felt scorched. Yet… I could still move.
Then his voice came again—lower, more serious this time.
"And something else. The darkness recognized you. It accepted you. That's why you survived."
"What do you mean?"
"Your affinity," Noctharion said slowly. "You awakened your darkness affinity… and something far deeper that even I cannot fully see."
"Yes… my affinity."
I'd almost forgotten.
The pain. The pressure. The darkness. It had all overwhelmed me.
"Status," I muttered.
A soft hum filled the air as glowing glyphs spiraled to life in front of me.
---
Status Screen 🞀
Name: Kael Thorne
Title(s): None
↳ Heir of Darkness (New Title)
Potential: B+ → S+ (Partially Sealed)
Current Rank: D-
Trait(s): Dual Soul
---
Affinity
→ Darkness (Awakened)
→ Light (Sealed)
---
Attributes
Strength: D
Agility: D-
Endurance: D
Intelligence: D-
Mana Capacity: C-
Luck: ?
---
Primordial Sigils – 3/9
1. Eye of the Origin
2. Mask of the Nameless
3. Crown of Aural Sovereignty
---
Fighting Styles
Imperial Fang of Thorne (Spear Style)
Forms Mastered: 2/8
→ [I] Fang Unleashed
→ [II] Fang Guard
---
I blinked.
"What the…?"
My eyes widened. Everything had changed.
This—this wasn't the same status screen I'd seen before.
The affinity section now showed Darkness, just like Noctharion said. But next to it… Light, sealed. What did that mean?
My rank—D-.
I'd advanced.
No, more than advanced—I'd jumped an entire major rank.
I stared at the core still floating quietly in the center of the cave. I had only absorbed a fragment of it… and yet, I'd grown this much?
"If I absorb more…"
The thought flickered like a spark in the back of my mind.
Power. I could rise faster. I could get stronger.
But then—
The memory of agony slammed into me. The near-death, the blood, the screaming void inside me.
No.
I shook my head.
Not now. Not like this.
"I'm not gambling with my life again. Not unless I have a plan."
Then my eyes fell on something else.
Trait: Dual Soul.
Noctharion had mentioned it—two souls.
Mine… and the original Kael's.
He's still here.
Somewhere in this body.
Dormant. Silent. Watching.
A chill spread down my spine.
"I only hope he doesn't try to take it back…"
But hope wasn't enough.
I needed to understand this—all of this.
The stat increase was massive. Especially mana capacity—it had jumped to C-, most likely due to the core's influence.
And then I noticed it—my skills were gone.
No Perfect Insight. No Stoic Resolve. No swordsmanship levels.
Instead… three strange names sat in their place. Primordial Sigils.
They didn't look like regular skills.
They felt… ancient. Heavy. Like fragments of some forgotten truth embedded in my very soul.
And my fighting style—Imperial Fang of Thorne—was still there, but my mastery seemed incomplete now.
"It's like… my whole status screen evolved with me."
A silence settled in the cave again.