The connection to our node was a living wire in my consciousness. I could feel its steady pulse, a calming rhythm against the chaos screaming through the city above. But that connection came with a price: a constant, low-grade awareness of every living thing that crossed its threshold.
Maya and I spent two hours in forced calm. We ate protein bars from a shattered vending machine, drank metallic-tasting water from a emergency fountain that now ran with faintly glowing liquid, and cultivated.
The node's energy was a balm and a stimulant. My bruises from Garrett's tremor slam faded to yellow smudges, then vanished. The residual ache in my channels from overusing Void Step smoothed away. I watched my Cosmic Essence tick upward: +10… +10… +10… Steady, safe, and agonizingly slow compared to what waited outside.
Maya's control grew. She could now summon a crackling orb of lightning in her palm, hold it stable for a full minute, then dismiss it without a stray spark. She'd named it Static Core, a foundation skill for her Storm Caller path.
GLOBAL LEADERBOARD UPDATE:
1. KAELEN THORNE – WARRIOR (MID STAGE) – LONDON
2. ANYA VOLKOV – WARRIOR (EARLY STAGE) – MOSCOW
3. LI JIE – WARRIOR (EARLY STAGE) – BEIJING
4. ISABEL CORTEZ – APPRENTICE (PEAK STAGE) – MEXICO CITY
5. RAJESH VERMA – APPRENTICE (PEAK STAGE) – MUMBAI
Kaelen had advanced again. The gap was widening. And the Legendary Seed promised to close it in an instant. The clock was ticking. Every minute, another powerful cultivator somewhere in the world might be claiming a Tier 2 node.
My map showed the green and yellow dots around the Wilshire Grand clashing, blinking out, or merging. A chaotic dance of violence.
"We can't wait any longer," I said, standing. My staff felt like an extension of my arm. "The initial rush will have thinned the herd. The survivors will be wounded, low on energy. That's our window."
Maya stood, a new determination hardening her features. The timid research assistant was being burned away in the storm. "What's the plan? Charge in?"
"The plan is to not be a target until it's time to be the threat." I pulled up the node management interface. SET PERMISSIONS: BAN ALL. The station entrance shimmered with a faint purple field. Anyone but us trying to enter would find it like walking into a wall of solid energy. It wouldn't hold against a determined assault, but it would buy time.
We took the escalator up to street level. The node's regenerative aura faded after a dozen steps, replaced by the raw, aggressive energy of the open apocalypse.
Los Angeles was a carcass being reshaped by new gods.
The sky was a kaleidoscope fracture. The violet sun was now joined by shimmering auroras that wept glowing particles. Buildings had grown crystalline excrescences. Vegetation, hyper-accelerated and mutated, crawled up skyscrapers, glowing with bioluminescent sap. The air buzzed with displaced wildlife—things with too many wings, or no wings at all, floating on telekinetic might.
And the sounds. Not just screams and roars. There was a new layer: the hum of active skills, the crack-thoom of energy discharges, the wet, tearing sounds of things being unmade by powers physics couldn't explain.
We moved through the carcass of a boutique, out onto 7th Street. The Wilshire Grand was three blocks away, a dark spire now crowned with a swirling vortex of multicolored energy—the visible manifestation of the unclaimed Tier 2 node.
One block in, my void sense screamed a warning.
I shoved Maya into a doorway as a silhouette dropped from a ledge above. It landed where we'd been standing with a crunch of shattered asphalt.
It was humanoid, but its skin was the color of dried blood and textured like tree bark. It had no eyes, just a vertical mouth full of crystalline teeth. In its hand was a whip made of braided light. SYSTEM-SPAWN: NEXUS SCAVENGER (LATE APPRENTICE).
DESCRIPTION: Autonomous entities that hunt cultivators near high-energy nodes. Harvest spiritual signatures for the System's unknown purposes.
It didn't growl. It calculated, its head tilting as it assessed us with senses I couldn't comprehend.
Maya reacted first. Her Static Core flew from her palm, not as an orb, but unraveled into a net of snapping electricity.
The Scavenger's whip flicked. It didn't block the lightning net; it cut through the energy itself, severing the strands with a sound like shattering glass. The dissipated energy was sucked into the creature's whip, making it glow brighter.
It took a step toward her, prioritizing the denser energy source.
I didn't use Void Step. I used the environment.
My staff hooked a fallen street sign—a heavy metal 'No Parking' placard. I channeled a sliver of void energy through the staff into the metal, not to empower it, but to make it null. I hurled it like a discus.
The Scavenger's whip lashed out again to cut it. The moment the braided light touched the void-infused metal, the reaction was violent. The light-whip didn't cut; it detonated in a silent flash of contradictory energies.
The Scavenger staggered, its weapon flickering wildly. It was confused, its primary tool compromised.
I closed the distance. Not with a teleport, but with a sprint, using a parked car as a springboard. My staff aimed not for its body, but for the space just in front of its chest.
Void Rend.
I activated it in a sustained, narrow beam from the tip of my staff. A pencil-thin line of absolute negation pierced the air.
The Scavenger's innate defenses flared—a shimmering kinetic barrier. The void beam hit it. For a second, they warred: negation versus protection. Then the barrier ruptured inward, and the beam punched a clean, tiny hole through the creature's torso.
There was no blood. The matter around the hole simply ceased to exist, leaving a smooth, empty tunnel. The Scavenger froze, looked down at the void in its chest, then collapsed into a pile of inert, grey dust. Its braided light-whip dissolved into motes of energy.
NEXUS SCAVENGER ELIMINATED.
COSMIC ESSENCE +220.
LOOT ACQUIRED: CRYSTALLIZED MANA SHARD.
"It… it didn't even try to dodge," Maya breathed, staring at the dust.
"It couldn't. Its programming told it my attack was impossible. Its barrier always worked." I picked up the mana shard, a warm, geometric crystal. "The System's own enforcers have a weakness: they rely on System logic. Void breaks logic."
It was a crucial insight. My path wasn't just powerful. It was heretical.
We reached the perimeter of the Wilshire Grand plaza. The scene was a painting of pandemonium.
The plaza was a battlefield. A pack of Void-Wolves (Mid Apprentice) was locked in a swirling melee with a trio of cultivators—a woman wielding twin swords of fire, a man whose skin was like living bronze, and another who moved as a blur of shadows. Near the shattered fountain, a massive Stonehide Grizzly (Peak Apprentice) roared, swatting at a cultivator who peppered it with icicles from a distance.
And at the main doors, now twisted into an arch of melted metal and glowing crystal, stood a single figure.
He was clad in scavenged SWAT armor, a dented helmet hiding his face. In his hands was a heavy, modern compound bow, but the arrow nocked was not physical—it was a shaft of condensed sunlight. His aura was a controlled inferno. SOLAR ARCHER APPRENTICE (PEAK STAGE). Title:
He wasn't fighting the monsters. He was picking off cultivators.
His bow hummed. He drew, aimed at the shadow-blur cultivator fighting the wolves, and released. The sun-arrow crossed the plaza in a streak of gold, ignoring the intervening wolves. It struck the shadow cultivator just as he materialized for an attack. The light didn't pierce; it exploded in a concussive blast of purifying energy.
The cultivator screamed, his shadow-form burning away, and was flung into a pack of wolves, which immediately fell upon him.
The Solar Archer nocked another arrow, scanning for the next threat. He was the gatekeeper. Weeding out the competition before anyone could reach the node inside.
"He's smart," I whispered, pulling Maya behind a overturned tour bus. "He lets the monsters and other cultivators weaken each other, then eliminates the most dangerous survivors. He's conserving energy, maintaining position."
"We can't get past that," Maya said, eyeing the sun-arrow's afterimage still burning on the ground.
"We don't get past him. We use him." My mind raced, analyzing the battlefield. The fire-sword woman was tiring. The bronze-skinned man was being overwhelmed by wolves. The icicle shooter was running out of space.
And my void sense pulsed, detecting something beneath the plaza. A sub-basement access. A way in that wasn't the front door.
"Follow me. And when I say down, you drop flat."
We circled the chaos, staying in the cover of abandoned vehicles and new, bizarre fungal growths. My void sense guided me to a maintenance hatch near the base of a monument, partially hidden by pulsating vines.
The hatch was sealed with a heavy lock. Void Rend made short, silent work of the mechanism's core. We slipped into the darkness below.
The sub-basement was a flooded parking level, water up to our knees, glowing with algae. But my sense pulled me forward, through a security door, into a service corridor that led toward the building's core.
The sound of battle was muffled here, replaced by a deep, rhythmic thrum that vibrated in my teeth. The node's heartbeat.
We emerged into a vast, ruined lobby. The ceiling was a shattered glass dome. In the center, where a modern sculpture once stood, was the Tier 2 Resource Node.
It was not a simple crystal. It was a miniature star, contained within a lattice of floating, rotating geometric plates. It burned with white-gold energy, and the light it cast didn't illuminate—it revealed, showing the true spiritual composition of everything it touched. I could see the energy channels in my own hands glowing like silver circuitry.
And we weren't alone.
Crouched behind the remnants of a concierge desk was a figure. A young man, maybe early twenties, wearing a stained USC hoodie. He was frantically sketching symbols in the air with a finger that left trails of blue energy. His aura was frantic, intellectual. RUNIC SCRIBE APPRENTICE (LATE STAGE). He was trying to set up a ritual, a claiming array, by the looks of it.
He hadn't noticed us.
SYSTEM ALERT: CLAIMING RITUAL IN PROGRESS. INTERRUPTION WILL CAUSE MANA FEEDBACK.
The Solar Archer upstairs was the obvious threat. This kid was the stealth play. If he finished his ritual, he might claim the node instantly from right here.
I stepped out of the shadows. "Stop."
He jerked, his concentration shattered. The half-formed runes in the air fizzled out. He stared at me with wide, terrified eyes. "Please! I'm not a fighter! I just… the runes, I can understand them, I can make things! We don't have to fight! We can share!"
His voice was desperate, genuine. A scholar, not a warrior. Thrust into hell.
Maya moved beside me, lightning dancing in her palm. "He could be lying."
"I'm not!" he pleaded. "My name is Leo. I was in the engineering library. The System… it showed me the code behind things. Please."
My void sense analyzed his energy. It was panicked, unfocused, but held a deep, structured potential. He was telling the truth. And a Runic Scribe could be infinitely more valuable than another blunt-force fighter.
A thunderous explosion rocked the building above. Dust rained from the ceiling. The Solar Archer was clearing the plaza. He'd be heading inside soon.
"You have one chance," I said, my voice leaving no room for negotiation. "Help us secure the node against the archer upstairs. If you try to betray us, I will unmake you before your next thought."
Leo swallowed, nodded furiously. "The node… it has a defense protocol. A guardian spirit, but it's dormant. I think I can awaken it. Point it at the door."
"Do it. Fast."
He turned back to the node, his hands moving with renewed, desperate speed. This time, he didn't sketch runes for claiming. He drew symbols of warding, of binding, of awakening. The geometric plates around the mini-star began to rotate faster, their patterns shifting.
The main lobby doors blasted inward in a shower of molten metal and sunlight.
The Solar Archer stood in the aperture, backlit by the chaos outside. His helmeted head scanned the room, settling on us, then on Leo at the node. He didn't speak. He simply drew his bow, the sun-arrow forming with a sound like a furnace igniting.
"Leo!" I shouted.
"Almost—!"
The Archer released.
The arrow of condensed sunlight screamed across the lobby, aimed directly at Leo's back.
I didn't have time for Void Step. I did the only thing I could. I threw myself into the arrow's path, crossways, and activated Void Rend at its maximum, widest aperture—not a beam, but a wall.
A shimmering, vertical pane of absolute negation erupted between me and the arrow.
The sun-arrow struck the void-wall.
Light and negation did not explode. They cancelled. The arrow consumed itself trying to fill the unreality I'd created. The void-wall shattered under the monumental energy. The backlash hit me like a physical blow, throwing me against the concierge desk. My staff clattered from my hands. My spiritual energy gauge plummeted into the red.
But the arrow was gone.
The Solar Archer paused, his head tilting in what might have been surprise.
"NOW, LEO!" Maya screamed, unleashing a torrent of forked lightning at the Archer, not to hurt him, but to obscure his vision, to buy seconds.
Leo slammed the final rune into the node's lattice.
The miniature star flared. From its light, a form coalesced—a serpentine creature made of interconnected, glowing geometric shapes. The NODE GUARDIAN SPIRIT (PEAK APPRENTICE). It had no eyes, but it turned toward the greatest source of aggressive energy in the room: the Solar Archer.
It moved with silent, terrifying grace, flowing through the air.
The Archer cursed—his first sound, a gritty baritone—and fired two rapid shots. The sun-arrows struck the guardian, blasting away chunks of geometric light, but the spirit reformed almost instantly, drawing energy from the node itself. It was endless.
While the guardian occupied the Archer, I stumbled to my feet. My void sense was fried, my body screaming. But the plan was in motion.
"Maya! Suppress him! Leo, the claiming ritual, NOW!"
Maya advanced, her lightning switching from wide bolts to precise, crackling lashes that forced the Archer to duck and weave, disrupting his draw. The guardian spirit harried him, its touch dissolving patches of his armor.
Leo, sweating and pale, began the true claiming ritual. The runes he drew now were complex, beautiful, and they sank into the node's core.
The Solar Archer saw it. He made a choice. Ignoring a lash of lightning that seared his shoulder, he drew one last arrow. But he didn't aim at Leo or the guardian.
He aimed at the node itself.
If he couldn't have it, he would destroy it.
He released.
The final sun-arrow, brighter than all the others, flew straight for the heart of the miniature star.
I had no energy for another Void Rend. No time for a step.
So I used my body.
I dove, not with cultivation-enhanced speed, but with desperate, human will. I interposed myself between the arrow and the node.
The light filled my world. Heat beyond comprehension. The System warnings screamed in my mind: CRITICAL DAMAGE IMMINENT. SPIRITUAL SIGNATURE COLLAPSE DETECTED.
In that nanosecond before annihilation, my void affinity, pushed to its absolute limit, did something new. It didn't try to negate the external energy. It turned inward.
My body became a void.
The sun-arrow struck my chest… and plunged into an infinite emptiness that opened within me. The terrifying heat, the annihilating light, were sucked into a personal singularity. I felt my spiritual channels rupture, my meridians scream in agony. My vision whited out.
VOID AFFINITY CRITICAL EVOLUTION: VOID BELLY (RUDIMENTARY).
WARNING: SKILL OVERUSE. SPIRITUAL FOUNDATION CRACKED.
COSMIC ESSENCE BURNED TO STABILIZE.
I collapsed to my knees, smoke rising from my clothes, my skin covered in fine, lightning-like cracks of silver and black. I had absorbed a city-block-leveling attack. And I was alive. Barely.
The Solar Archer stared, his bow lowering. He was out of energy, out of tricks, with a guardian spirit closing in.
Behind me, Leo shouted a final syllable of power.
The Tier 2 Resource Node flared one last time, then its energy condensed and streamed outward—into me, into Maya, into Leo.
WILSHIRE GRAND TIER 2 NODE CLAIMED.
CLAIMANTS: ALEXANDER VANCE, MAYA CHEN, LEO SANTOS.
REWARDS DISTRIBUTING…
TITLE GRANTED: PIONEER DOMINATOR.
EFFECT: +15% to all cultivation speeds, +10% damage to System-spawn entities.
LEGENDARY SEED GRANTED…
CALCULATING COMPATIBLE PATHS…
FOR ALEXANDER VANCE: [VOID MONARCH SEED] – ACCEPT? (Y/N)
I didn't hesitate. Y.
A seed of perfect, cool darkness planted itself in my cracked spiritual core. It began to grow instantly, sending roots of profound silence through my injuries, stabilizing the fractures.
FOR MAYA CHEN: [STORM LORD SEED] – ACCEPTED.
FOR LEO SANTOS: [ARCHITECT PRIME SEED] – ACCEPTED.
MAJOR REALM ADVANCEMENT INITIATED.
Power, raw and torrential, erupted from the node and flooded us. It wasn't gentle. It was a tsunami remaking our shores.
My shattered channels were reforged wider, stronger. My spiritual sense exploded outward. My body refined itself in a wave of silver fire. The notifications blurred together.
CULTIVATION REALM ADVANCING… APPRENTICE (MID STAGE) → WARRIOR (EARLY STAGE).
BODY REFINEMENT: 24/100 → 41/100.
SPIRITUAL SENSE: 51/100 → 68/100.
VOID AFFINITY: 7% → 12%.
NEW SKILL UNLOCKED: VOID CLAWS (BASIC) – Manifest weapons of solidified void energy.
The world snapped into hyper-clarity. I was stronger, faster, denser. The power was intoxicating.
Across the lobby, Maya was surrounded by a miniature hurricane of controlled lightning, her eyes blazing pure blue. Leo was encased in a shimmering holographic lattice of runes, knowledge streaming into him.
The Solar Archer watched it all happen. Then he gave a short, resigned nod, turned, and vanished back into the chaos outside. He knew the battle was over.
We had won. We'd taken the first major prize.
But as the euphoria of advancement faded, my new, sharper void sense detected something the System notification hadn't mentioned. A subtle thread, finer than spider silk, now connected me to the node, and from the node, stretching up through the fractured sky, into the impossible cosmic distance.
The thread hummed with a faint, familiar signature.
It was the same signature as the Nexus Scavenger. The System's signature.
We hadn't just claimed a node.
We had taken bait on a hook. And something, on the other end of that invisible line, had just felt the tug.
---
[End Chapter 4]