In the Forest of the Null
The air was different now.
Thicker. Warmer. As if the forest had taken a breath after claiming him… and was now holding it. The trees of the Black Eclipse Null stood still, unnaturally still, their bark a black-charred grey like ancient stonewood, veined with glowing crimson as if they had veins of their own. The leaves overhead no longer rustled — they whispered in hushed tones of a language lost to human memory.
Yuzuki had stopped bleeding days ago. That much he could remember.
Not because he'd healed — but because his wounds had stopped being human.
---
He sat near the ruins of a rotted altar, deep within a crater cloaked by obsidian vines. Its stone edges bore marks: claw-like, unnatural. Even here, time had forgotten itself. It didn't matter if the sun rose or fell. The light that reached this deep into the forest was always a flickering gray-orange… like a dying campfire under ash.
His stomach growled again — more out of habit than hunger. He hadn't eaten real food since the slaughter.
Instead, his body had fed.
On bark. On mud. On the bitter marrow of twisted beasts. On corrupted roots pulsing beneath the forest floor. On whatever the forest offered him — as if it were testing what kind of creature he might become.
---
[ Skill: Merciless ]
Status: Awakening...
Conditions Met: Survival Without Aid. Feed Without Fire. Kill Without Remorse.
Yuzuki flinched as the words appeared again, not in his ears, but in the center of his skull like etched flames. His crimson eyes pulsed dimly, syncing with the rhythm of something inside his chest. Not a heart. Not anymore.
> Kill. Evolve. Become the Sovereign of the Null.
He didn't remember when the voice began. Only that it was always calm… always waiting… and always watching.
---
He rose slowly, bones aching but stronger, wrapped in scavenged scraps of beast hide and forest fiber. His white hair had grown slightly, dirtied by soot and blood. But his eyes were clearer than ever — cold, feral, unwavering.
And ahead of him, at the edge of the ravine, he heard movement.
A shadowed creature, black as night and built like a malformed wolf, crawled on eight legs. Its ribs moved with strange rhythm, and its jaw split vertically down the middle. It had no eyes. No fur. Just an endless gnashing hunger.
> [Null Beast – Tier I]
Threat: Cursed Flesh-Eater
Behavior: Devour anything with a soul.
Yuzuki crouched, gripping the shard-blade he'd crafted from a fallen Null antler. It wasn't steel — but it burned where it struck. And the beasts feared it.
He lunged without a sound. No anger. No roar. Just intention.
---
The creature snapped its vertical maw — but Yuzuki was already beneath it, dragging the shard upward from the belly through its spine. It screeched — not in pain, but in surprise. Like it hadn't expected a soul so quiet to strike with such precision.
It collapsed into a mass of blackened tissue that quickly crumbled into ash. And then… the ash didn't scatter.
It flowed.
Into his hands. Into the cut on his arm. Into his blood.
---
> [ Merciless – Passive ]
New Effect Acquired: Ash Binding (I)
You absorb fragments of corrupted essence from creatures killed by your hand. Instincts strengthen. Pain weakens. Your soul blackens.
Yuzuki didn't smile.
But for the first time, he understood.
This forest was his now. Not by birth. Not by right. But by blood.
---
Far beyond the forest's reach, in the flickering lantern-light of a distant tavern, a man in adventurer's armor slammed a mug on a table.
"There's a thing in that forest now," he said, drunk but dead serious. "White hair. Red eyes. Walks barefoot on cursed soil. Eats what shouldn't be eaten. And never blinks."
The others at the table laughed it off. But an old hunter near the window paused.
He'd been there once.
He had seen the Forest of the Black Eclipse Null.
And he knew this kind of silence… was never natural.
---
End of Chapter 4.