The med-bay stank of copper and ozone.
Dylan sat alone on a cot in the corner, one arm resting across his knee, the other holding a chilled gel pack against his ribs. His uniform was singed at the collar, half-soaked in sweat and dried blood. Someone else's, probably. Maybe his. Hard to tell anymore.
His vision swam for a second. He blinked. Focused.
[STATUS WINDOW]
Level: 9
XP: 880 / 1000
Stat Points: 3
Not yet. He wasn't in the mood to assign anything. Stat points were like ammo — better spent when it mattered.
A low hum buzzed from the far wall. Sterile lights flickered overhead, and a service drone rolled past, pausing to beep at him politely before injecting a low-dose stim into the IV port near his cot. Dylan didn't flinch.
He called the list silently.
[SHADOW LIST]
— Ravager Hound [Rank E] — XP: 54 / 100
— Flame Vulture [Rank E] — XP: 81 / 100
Close. One more fight and one of them might break through.
Footsteps. Soft. Padded leather on steel.
"You're awake," a voice said.
Dylan looked up.
Lt. Kael Venn stood at the doorway, posture straight as a rifle barrel, hands folded behind his back. No rank pips. No weapons. Just observation in human form.
"Congratulations on surviving the trial," Kael said, expression unreadable.
"Was that what it was?" Dylan asked, voice dry.
Kael didn't blink. "Your squad leader sustained minor burns. The rest passed out from mana fatigue. You stayed conscious. You also, apparently, got the kill shot."
Dylan just shrugged. "Luck."
"We don't believe in luck here."
A pause.
Kael stepped closer. No smile. No aggression. Just that relentless calm.
"You'll be reassigned. Sector 7-B. Solo ops trial. No team. Standard field kit only."
"What for?"
"Observation. You're... anomalous."
He handed Dylan a slim package. Inside, a metallic disc no bigger than a coin. Combat badge. Dylan turned it in his fingers. It pulsed faintly.
[Combat Badge Acquired — MP Recovery +10%]
Kael nodded once. "Report to the gates in one hour."
Then he turned and left.
Sector 7-B looked abandoned.
Cracked roads. Half-collapsed trees. Broken drone husks rusted along the trail. The air was dry, metallic. The kind of quiet that made your spine itch.
Dylan stepped carefully, knife at the ready. No shadows summoned. Not yet.
Something moved.
A flash of black feathers above.
He summoned silently.
[Shadow Summon — Flame Vulture]
It swooped down, silent and sharp, hovering above. Dylan pointed. It surged ahead.
Then—
Snap.
A blur of motion. A net? No—a binding field. Dylan rolled sideways as a figure lunged from cover.
Another student. Not marked. Not smiling.
"Sorry," the boy said. "Orders."
Three of them. Unmarked. Not local.
Dylan reacted without words.
[Shadow Summon — Ravager Hound]
The creature erupted from the soil like a nightmare. It struck the closest attacker in the chest. Not fatal, but messy.
Dylan moved.
Knife. Elbow. Knee. Shadows.
Minutes later, two lay stunned, one unconscious. Dylan stood above them, breathing hard, blade slick.
A soft ping.
[Level Up: 10]
Stat Points +3
He didn't celebrate.
He just looked up at the sky.
Above, Reeva Talin watched the monitor feed.
"Still think he's a Tamer?" she asked.
Kael Venn didn't answer.
Later, Dylan sat alone beneath the twisted husk of a tree, Flame Vulture roosting silently nearby.
He checked the window.
[STATUS]
Level: 10
XP: 20 / 1300
Stat Points: 6
He looked at Ravager.
[Evolution Available: Rank D]
He thought yes.
The shadow rippled, howled, and reformed. Sleeker. Smarter.
[Skill Gained: Latch]
He smiled. Just slightly.
Not bad.
Not bad at all.
The first thing Dylan noticed was the quiet.
Not the peaceful kind — the wrong kind. Like the world around him was holding its breath.
He sat cross-legged on the narrow bunk in his room. Lights off. Just a faint red glow from the wall strip near the door. His fingers rested on his knees, slow and steady, eyes closed but brain alert.
He didn't move. Didn't flinch. Just breathed once through his nose and blinked it away.
No glow. No sound. No flicker. Just words.
Sterile.
Cold.
He leaned forward, elbows on his thighs, and muttered, "So that's how we're doing this…"
It wasn't the first time the system flagged something. But this wasn't from his system.
It was external.
Someone—or something—was watching.
By morning, the tension had spread like black ink through water.
Word was getting around.
Someone during the live trial yesterday had pulled off a summon that didn't match any known beast class or elemental ability.
Whispers called it a "soul echo," or "void imprint." Some said it was a flesh-type mutation. Others muttered about a forbidden class banned by both MVS and DMR for going too deep into soul manipulation.
"Did you hear? Squad 19—someone made a beast out of a dead monster."
"No signature. No elemental flare. It just… rose."
"That ain't Beast Tamer work."
Dylan heard the gossip while eating a ration bar outside the courtyard. He didn't react. Just sat beneath the shadow of an old solar antenna, one boot pressed against the concrete wall, arms draped over his knees.
Erin hadn't talked to him since the fight. Bran was keeping his distance.
Good. The space helped.
So did the paranoia.
Inside the northern wing, buried behind eight levels of encrypted access and ghost protocols, a different conversation was happening.
"Dylan Hayes. No Earth faction registry. No combat background."
"Still too clean," Reeva Talin said, arms crossed. "Too empty."
"Then we plant him," said Vexen. A younger officer. MDS-trained, hungry for promotion. "Let him lead us to the source."
"Not yet."
She stared at the paused footage. The moment the corpse of the metal-bear twitched… then sank into the ground. The flicker of glowing eyes.
Not a summon.
A command.
Later that night, Dylan stood at the edge of Fort Carneras' training ring. Empty now, but the wind still carried the echoes of spells, strikes, shouting.
He called up his system.
[STATUS WINDOW]
Name: Dylan Hayes
Level: 10
Class: Shadow Monarch
XP: 20 / 1300
Stat Points: 6
[SKILLS]
– Scan
– Shadow Extraction
– Shadow Storage
[SHADOW LIST]
– Ravager Hound (D–)
– Flame Vulture (E+)
– Spike Crawler (E)
– Scrap Golem (E–)
Nothing flashy. Nothing loud.
He checked them one by one. All waiting. Shadows that didn't talk back. Didn't advise. Didn't whine.
Just obeyed.
A low creak made him turn.
A man stood by the gate.
Older. Mid-thirties. Clean uniform, no faction colors. Pale eyes. Walking with the kind of confidence that came from not needing permission to exist.
"You're not hiding well," the man said.
Dylan said nothing. Just watched.
"You've got a leash on something. Something older than the trials."
Still, Dylan didn't answer.
The man stepped closer.
"I don't work for the Fort. I don't work for Reeva. I don't even work for this planet." His tone dropped. "You ever hear of the Black Fang?"
Dylan blinked once.
Didn't nod. Didn't ask.
"Keep it that way," the man said. "But understand this — whatever you are, however you're cheating the system, someone else has done it before. And most of them are buried."
He turned to leave.
Then paused.
"I like what you've made. Not yours, right? But you made it yours anyway."
And then — like fog—he was gone. No aura. No trace.
But Dylan was sure of one thing.
That man had no shadow when he left.
Back in his room, Dylan sat again in the dark.
Opened his system once more.
[SHADOW LIST ]
Ravager Hound – Rank D– Intelligence: Basic
Flame Vulture – Rank E+ Intelligence: Moderate
Spike Crawler – Rank E – Intelligence: Low
Scrap Golem – Rank E– Intelligence: Primitive
Still only four.
Still early.
But something had changed.
For the first time, he didn't feel alone in this world.