Midnight fell like a heavy velvet shroud over the Shattered Forest. The air was thick and tasted of wet ash.
"Do you hear it?" Bram whispered, his hand hovering over the hilt of his greatsword.
"The forest doesn't breathe like the mountains. It wheezes."
Alaric looked at his hands. They were steady, but the Destruction Essence beneath his skin was thrashing, vibrating in rhythm with the corrupted mana of the woods.
"I don't just hear it, Master Bram. I feel it.
"It's... calling to the void in me."
Bram looked at the seven-year-old boy, his moon-white hair a beacon in the gloom. "Then use that call. But don't let it become your voice. Once you start screaming with the abyss, you never stop."
They crept through a thicket of weeping briars. Suddenly, Alaric Appraisal flared.
[ Target: demon Imp Pack (Scouts) ]
[ Number: 3 ]
[ Rank: Novice (Peak) ]
The Imps were perched on a low-hanging branch, their leathery purple skin slick with a black, oily secretion. Their yellow eyes were fixed on Alaric. To them, he wasn't a boy, he was a feast.
"Stay back, Master Bram," Alaric murmured. "Let me see if I can handle the feast."
The first Imp launched itself, a screeching blur of claws and needle-teeth. Alaric didn't draw his sword yet. He pivoted on his heel, his movements fluid and eerily calm.
As the Imp passed, he struck out with a palm—not with physical force, but with Erosion skill.
There was a sound like a limb was tearing. The Imp's stomach simply vanished. It
Was destroyed .It didn't scream; it didn't have lungs anymore to hold the air. It stumbled to the forest floor as a scattering of grey ash and a few disconnected limbs.
"One," Alaric counted, his voice chillingly flat.
The other two Imps, seeing their kin destroyed from existence, didn't flee. The demonic madness drove them into a rage. They attacked simultaneously, one diving for his eyes, the other for his hamstrings.
Alaric unsheathed The Quiet Soul. The dark blade caught the moonlight.
[ Sword Art: Vanguard's Shadow - Form One: the vertical cleave ]
The blade moved in a perfect horizontal arc. The Imp neck cut cleanly. its black corpse hit the ground. But Alaric didn't stop. He allowed the momentum to carry him into a spin, his white hair whipping around him like a blizzard.
The third Imp was inches from his throat when Alaric grabbed it by the face.
The creature's yellow eyes widened in realization. Alaric didn't look at it with hate, but with a terrifying, clinical curiosity.
"Erosion" Alaric whispered
He concentrated the destruction essence into his grip. The Imp's skin began to blacken and flake away. Its mana—the foul, demonic energy that gave it life—was being consumed, sucked into the void of Alaric's palm. The creature shivering like a sun-dried fruit in seconds, its bones turning to brittle glass before shattering into nothingness.
Silence reclaimed the forest, shock can be seen Bram Thorne face.
Alaric stood in the center of a circle of ash and steaming blood. He sheathed his sword with a slow, deliberate motion.
[ Notification: 3 demon Imps Slain ]
[ Strength: 70 -> 71 ]
[ Agility: 80 -> 81 ]
[ Endurance: 83 ]
[ Destruction Essence Purity: 2.15% -> 2.17% ]
"That wasn't a hunt," Bram said, stepping into the clearing. His face was etched with a mixture of pride and profound horror.
"That was an execution. Alaric you didn't just kill them. You dismantled them."
Alaric turned. In the darkness, his crimson eyes seemed to bleed light. "They were an obstacle, Master Bram. In Musk City—obstacles aren't meant to be negotiated with. They are meant to be removed."
He walked over to the largest pile of ash, reaching down to pull out a single, charred ear that had survived the erosion.
"We need the proof for the bounty. My mother wanted me to remember her face, but my father wanted me to become the eclipse. I think the eclipse is starting to find its shadows."
Bram looked at the boy—the white hair, the red crimson eyes, the cold steel of his soul. He realized then that the Silverlane family hadn't just produced a genius. They had birthed something the world wasn't ready to welcome yet.
"Come on," Bram whispered, his voice thick with emotion. "Let's get back to the city. The smell of this ash. it's going to attract things much worse than demons.
As they walked away, a pair of Expert eyes watched them from the high canopy. Vex, the gate commander, stood on a branch, her poleaxe tight in her hand. She stared at the spot where the Imp had vanished into ash.
"That's not mana," she whispered to herself, her scarred throat tightening.
"That's an end."
____________
The morning sun in Musk City was a pale, sickly thing, struggling to pierce the perpetual shroud of Demonic mist that clung to the black stone walls.
Alaric walked through the muddy streets toward the Bounty Hall, the charred ears of three Imps rattling in a leather pouch at his belt.
Beside him, Bram Thorne remained uncharacteristically silent. The veteran warrior's eyes were fixed on the back of the boy's white head, his mind replaying the clinical, terrifyingly silent destruction of the demons from the night before.
The Bounty Hall was the beating, bloody heart of the frontier. It smelled of stale ale, wet iron, and the sharp, copper tang of blood that never truly left the floorboards.
As Alaric pushed through the heavy timber doors, the rowdy atmosphere died down instantly. It was as if a cold draft had swept through the room, snuffing out the warmth of the hearth.
The mercenaries who had witnessed the confrontation with Groggan the previous day shifted in their seats, their hands instinctively moving closer to their hilts.
Alaric ignored their reaction and reached the registrar's desk and placed the pouch down. The sound of the shriveled ears hitting the wood was the only noise in the hall.
"Three Imp Scouts," Alaric said. His voice didn't carry the high pitch of a seven-year-old, it was a flat, resonant baritone that cut through the silence like a razor.
The old registrar, a man whose face was a roadmap of scars, opened the pouch. His fingers, missing two joints on the left hand, trembled as he inspected the trophies. He glanced up at Alaric, then at Bram.
"Confirmed. Three Novice-Peak kills. That's fifteen Gold, young Lord."
As the gold was counted out, Alaric and Bram neared the massive iron-studded doors of the Hall to exit.
A figure stepped out from the shadows of the portico. It was Vex, the Expert-rank gate commander. She leaned against a pillar, her sharp eyes scanning Alaric's gear with a predatory intensity.
"Still in one piece, Silverlane?" Vex remarked, her voice like grinding stones.
She pushed off the pillar and walked toward them, her Expert aura washing over the street like a cold tide.
"I saw the site you left last night. Or rather, I saw the 'nothing' you left behind.
I've seen fire that melts bone and ice that shatters steel. But I've never seen a demon turned into cold ash that smells like a vacuum.
You're carrying a heavy secret, little ghost."
Alaric stopped and looked up at her, his ruby eyes meeting hers with a stillness that made even the battle-hardened commander hesitate.
"In Musk City, Vex, secrets are the only things that keep people alive.
You should be happy the ash doesn't scream.
It makes the cleanup easier."
Vex narrowed her eyes, a faint, scarred smile touching her lips.
"Cocky. But be careful.
The forest doesn't just eat the weak; it eats the arrogant too.
Don't go looking for demons you aren't ready to bury, or you'll find yourself part of the scenery."
"The forest isn't my grave, Vex," Alaric said, walking past her. "It's my training ground."
They secured a room at The Iron Rose, a fortified inn where the walls were three feet thick and the windows were reinforced with iron bars.
Inside, the atmosphere was suffocating. Alaric sat on his cot, the moonlight-white hair falling over his face as he began to sharpen The Quiet Soul. The rhythmic shick-shick of the whetstone was the only sound for a long time.
Bram stood by the window, staring at the dark treeline of the Shattered Forest. He finally broke. "No. I won't allow it. I know that look in your eyes, Alaric.
"You want to go back out there. Alone."
Alaric didn't stop sharpening.
"I am not asking for a favor, Master Bram.
I am telling you my next step. I cannot grow in your shadow. Every time you stand behind me, my soul relies on you as a safety net. I need to feel the genuine threat of death. I need to hunt a Demon Soldier."
"A Demon Soldier?" Bram roared, slamming his fist against the stone wall, cracking the plaster.
"Those things have actual intelligence! They don't just bite; they hunt. They use tactics! You're seven years old! You have a mother who prays for you every night, and a father who expects a Lord, not a corpse!"
Alaric stood up. He was a head shorter than Bram, but in that moment, he seemed to tower over the veteran.
"And in ten years, the Church of Eternal life will come for our lands. If I am 'just seven' today, I will be 'just a corpse' then.
"You told my father you would make me a weapon. A weapon that needs to be held by its master at all times is just a decorative piece.
Do you want me to be a Lord who hides behind walls, or the man who ensures the Silverlane name survives the end of the world?"