A suffocating pressure radiated from the First Order monster, a force of raw, corrupted power that stole the air from Lin Kai's lungs.
It's guttural roar was a physical blow, rattling the broken streetlights and sending a fresh tremor of fear through him. His twin blades were the only solid things in a world gone mad, their cold weight a defiant answer to the terror coiling in his gut.
There was no plan, no strategy—only instinct. He had to kill this thing, or it would kill him. With a final, silent command to his body, he shot forward, a blur of motion into the heart of the storm.
He struck with the practiced precision of a master, the twin blades aiming for the throat and the heart—the universal weak points of the corrupted. But to his utter horror, his flawless strikes were met with a sickening crunch.
The blades only sank a few inches into the monster's flesh, the wounds closing instantly with a wet, squelching sound as his aether was devoured by the creature's overwhelming power.
The monster didn't even acknowledge the attack. It simply swatted him aside like a fly. Lin Kai's body was a ragdoll of agony, his ribs protesting with a sickening chorus of cracks as he was launched through the air, crashing into the stone facade of a nearby building.
The impact sent a fresh wave of blinding pain through him, and his vision swam with agony. He lay there, tasting grit and blood, the world a spinning, nauseating mess.
He pushed himself to his knees, his body screaming in protest, but the monster simply watched him with a cruel, almost human amusement in its red eyes.
It was playing with him.
Lin Kai pushed himself up, but another casual flick of the monster's hand sent him flying once more. He landed hard, spitting a mouthful of blood and shattered teeth onto the broken concrete.
His mind, so sharp and calculating, was a storm of rage and despair. He was weak. His past life's knowledge was useless against a creature of this level. He couldn't even hurt it.
Is this it? Is this how it ends? Humiliated… crushed…
Just as the thought of defeat threatened to swallow him whole, a different sensation took hold. The despair cleared, replaced by an incandescent, cold fury.
A memory, not of a battle won, but of a thousand battles fought, of a million strikes honed through countless cycles of life and death, flooded his mind.
This was not a power to be fought with brute force; it was a beast to be dismantled with superior skill. His aether, which had felt so drained, suddenly surged, humming with an ancient command.
"Phantom Echo Slash."
He used the last of his strength to propel himself towards the monster, but this time his movements were a beautiful, deadly dance. His feet left faint afterimages as he moved, his body a blur of speed and precision.
The monster, which had been so confident, was suddenly thrown off balance, its aetheric sight unable to track the sheer speed of his attacks.
Lin Kai struck, and his twin blades sliced through the thick, hide-like skin, leaving behind a series of crisscrossing slashes that bled with black, corrupted ichor.
The monster roared not with triumph, but with genuine shock. Lin Kai's aether dropped with every strike, his body screaming for him to stop. He felt his vitality plummeting, but he pressed on, his movements becoming more and more fluid as the technique took over.
The monster, now bleeding and enraged, could only defend, its brutal swings missing wildly as Lin Kai moved with an ethereal, phantom-like grace.
He knew this was his only chance. He gathered every last drop of his remaining aether, forcing it into his blades until they glowed with a faint, ghostly light. He had to end this.
The monster, sensing his intent, threw a desperate, wild punch that landed squarely in his gut. Lin Kai felt his ribs give way and a white-hot spear of pain pierce his very soul.
He vomited blood, but held on, his mind locked on a single, final objective.
With the last of his will, he drove his twin blades forward, aiming directly for the creature's neck. There was a sound like grating stone as his blades tore through hardened flesh and bone, and then the monster's head, its red eyes still burning with rage, rolled heavily to the ground.
The immense body hit the floor with a final, earth-shaking thud. Lin Kai fell to
his knees, his body in a critical state, his vision fading in and out. He heaved a sigh of painful relief, and then the familiar voice of the system sounded in his mind.
"First Order Corrupted Soul has been reclaimed. Zero Order (Peak) attained."
He didn't check his stats. He just started moving, limping silently and slowly in the direction of his home.
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Meanwhile, in a university computer lab, Lin Ling, hunched over her laptop, had only a few moments of dread after the call with her brother cut out. Her fingers froze over the keyboard, the muffled, terrified scream from Lin Kai's phone still ringing in her ears. He had told her to be careful, but what did that mean?
Her gaze was drawn to the large panoramic window of the lab, where a thick, churning cloud of black and purple energy was swirling ominously in the sky, blotting out the last rays of sunlight. The strange, suffocating energy from the cloud had permeated every fiber of the room. It was wrong. It didn't follow any known scientific principle.
Then, a deep, resonating voice echoed not in the room, but in her very skull. It spoke of a "Primal Decree" and a "new order." Her mind, a finely tuned instrument of logic and code, reeled at the impossibility of it.
This is a signal. A frequency. It's impossible, her thoughts screamed.
She looked out the window and saw it. The students, the professors, the staff… they were all twisting, their bodies contorting as black, corrupted veins snaked across their skin. They were no longer human. They were monsters. And they were coming for the lab.
Lin Ling's hands trembled. Her mind was a fortress of rational thought, but nothing could prepare her for this. The door burst open, and a corrupted being—a fellow student she had just had a coffee with—limped inside, its face a mask of hunger.
Her heart hammered against her ribs, a frantic, terrified drumbeat. She was no fighter. Her entire life was spent behind a screen, her power derived from code and commands. She had nothing to fight with. She had nothing.
The corrupted being lunged, and Lin Ling scrambled backward, but it was too fast. It tackled her, and its maw, filled with black, rotted teeth, sank deep into her forearm. A cold, acrid fire shot through her veins, a chaotic aether that tasted of death and decay. She felt her body begin to seize, the poison trying to twist her into a monster just like it.
But in that moment, a different kind of command surged through her mind. All her life, she had given commands to machines—to computers, to programs, to networks. Her mind was hard-wired for control. And in this moment of pure terror, her mind saw not a monster's body, but a corrupted, broken system.
Stop, her mind screamed, with the same force she would use to execute a command prompt. Stop.
The corrupted being's muscles seized instantly. Its limbs froze. The fire in her veins vanished, replaced by a cold, tingling numbness. Her mind pulsed with a new, strange connection. The corrupted being was no longer a monster; it was her puppet.
A cold, clear voice hummed in her mind, a different voice from the Primal Decree.
"First Soul has been reclaimed. Rune of Necromancy Awakened."
Lin Ling's eyes widened, not in fear, but in dawning comprehension. The mental interface she had seen earlier filled with data she could now comprehend, as if she had just downloaded a new program.
Vitality: 180/180
Aether: 400/400
Order: Zero Order (Mid)
Rune: Necromancy
She looked at the lifeless body of the student, a puppet controlled by her will. She felt a wave of disgust, but her mind, ever analytical, saw the logic. It was not a human anymore. It was a corpse. A tool. A weapon. She had commanded it, and it had obeyed.
Her hand, where the corrupted one had bitten her, no longer hurt. The wound was sealed over, leaving behind a faint scar in the shape of a skeletal hand. The power flowing through her body was cold, logical, and absolute.
She looked at the other corrupted beings pressing against the window. She no longer felt fear. Her sisters were somewhere on campus. Lin Ming was in the design lab, and Lin Yu was in the chemical engineering building.
She didn't know if they had seen the same cloud, if they had felt the same change. But she was a protector. She was a survivor. She would find them. With a single thought, she raised the corrupted being's corpse and sent it to stand guard at the door.
Her family was in danger, and for the first time in her life, she had the power to do something about it. She would not let them down.