The Royal Ballroom, usually a place of rigid etiquette and whispered alliances, had transformed into a gladiator's pit. The air shimmered with the heat radiating from Prince Bastian. As the Crown Prince stepped into the dueling circle, his golden plate armor seemed to catch every lick of candlelight, magnifying it until he stood as a beacon of blinding radiance.
"A duel of first blood, or submission?" the King asked from his throne, his voice echoing with a cold, detached curiosity.
"Submission," Bastian spat, his eyes locked on Lucian. "I want to hear him beg for the mercy he doesn't deserve."
Lucian stood loosely, his hands at his sides. To the onlookers, he looked defenseless—a sheep standing before a golden lion. But beneath the surface, his Void Veins were pulsing like a rhythmic engine, ready to pull.
Seraphina, status, he sent through the mental link.
The Guardian is a stone golem infused with Holy Mana, her voice flickered in his mind, strained by the sounds of clashing metal and crumbling rock. It's too durable for my daggers. I need a window, Master. If it focuses on the internal mana pulse of the palace, I can slip past.
Understood, Lucian replied. I'll give you a pulse they'll feel in their ancestors' bones.
"Begin!" the King commanded.
Bastian didn't hesitate. He was a practitioner of the Solar Flare Style, a martial art that used mana to increase speed to the point of near-teleportation. In a flash of golden light, he vanished from his starting position.
Clang!
The sound wasn't of a blade hitting flesh, but of force hitting an immovable object. Lucian hadn't moved his feet, but he had raised his left forearm. A faint, swirling shimmer of black-violet energy—the Crown of the Abyss—had manifested just in time to catch Bastian's glowing practice sword.
The nobles gasped. Bastian's eyes widened. "How? You have no core!"
"You rely too much on your eyes, Prince," Lucian said, his voice a low, terrifying calm. "You see light, and you think it's power. I see the hunger of the space between the stars."
Bastian roared, his mana flaring. "Solar Burst!"
A wave of intense heat and light exploded from the Prince's body, designed to blind and incinerate anything within five meters. The front row of nobles shielded their eyes, crying out as the sheer intensity scorched the marble floor.
But Lucian didn't back away. Instead, he leaned into the heat.
[Skill Activated: Soul Feast]
[Target: Solar Burst (Area of Effect)]
[Conversion Rate: 85% Efficiency]
To the horror of the court, the golden explosion didn't expand. It began to spiral inward, sucked into the center of Lucian's chest as if he were a living drainpipe. The blinding white light turned gray, then dull amber, before vanishing entirely into Lucian's skin.
[Soul Points Extracted: +1,200]
[Warning: Solar Mana is volatile. Converting to Void Essence...]
Lucian felt the heat bubbling in his veins, but his Hollow Monarch class acted as a furnace, refining the raw energy into something far colder and more lethal. He felt his Strength and Agility stats ticking upward in real-time.
"Is that all?" Lucian asked. He moved then—not with the flashy light of the Prince, but with the terrifying, silent efficiency of a falling shadow.
He appeared in Bastian's guard. His palm struck the Prince's chest plate.
BOOM.
The sound was like a heavy drum. Bastian was launched backward, his feet skidding across the marble for twenty feet before he slammed into the base of the King's dais. The gold plating on his chest was dented in the perfect shape of a handprint.
"Bastian!" the King shouted, half-rising from his seat.
The Prince coughed, a trickle of blood escaping his lips. His golden aura was flickering, sputtering like a candle in a gale. "You... you're using forbidden arts! That isn't mana! That's heresy!"
"It's whatever you want it to be," Lucian said, stepping forward. He could feel the palace's defensive wards beginning to hum, reacting to the massive mana vacuum he was creating. Now, Seraphina. Now!
POV: Seraphina – The Royal Vault
Deep beneath the ballroom, the air was thick with the scent of ancient dust and ozone. Seraphina pressed her back against a cold stone pillar, her breath coming in short, sharp gasps.
In front of her stood the Guardian. It was a ten-foot-tall construct of white marble and enchanted silver, its eyes glowing with a persistent, holy blue light. Every time she tried to shadow-step, the light would sear her skin, forcing her back into the physical world.
I can't get close, she thought, clutching her silver-black daggers. The moment I move, it detects the mana in my blood.
Suddenly, the entire vault shuddered.
The Guardian paused. Its head tilted upward toward the ceiling. The holy blue light in its eyes flickered, drawn toward the massive "void" signature manifesting in the ballroom above. To the construct, Lucian was a Tier-10 threat, an anomaly that demanded its full sensory attention.
The Guardian turned its back on the vault's inner sanctum, its internal gears grinding as it prepared to breach the floor to defend the King.
"My Master doesn't miss an opening," Seraphina whispered.
She didn't use her daggers. She used the Shadow Stepping skill granted by her bond with Lucian. She melted into the floor, becoming a literal smear of darkness. She flowed past the Guardian's massive legs, through the silver-reinforced gate, and into the heart of the Royal Treasury.
There, resting on a pedestal of solid quartz, was the Eye of the Abyss.
It was a jagged, obsidian shard that seemed to swallow the light around it. It didn't pulse; it vibrated with a frequency that made Seraphina's teeth ache. This was a piece of the Primordial Void, a relic from the age before the gods brought light to the world.
She reached out, her hand trembling. The moment her fingers touched the stone, her shadow flared violently, turning from black to a deep, bruised purple.
[Item Obtained: Eye of the Abyss (Mythic Fragment)]
[Warning: Soul Sync in progress. The Master must stabilize the connection!]
I have it, Master! she screamed mentally. But I can't hold the output! It's too much!
POV: Lucian – The Ballroom
In the ballroom, Lucian felt the surge of power hit him like a physical blow. The Eye of the Abyss had connected to his System, and the sudden influx of raw, unrefined void energy was enough to tear a normal man apart.
Bastian was standing again, his face a mask of insane fury. He was gathering every scrap of mana in his body, his sword glowing with the heat of a miniature sun.
"I don't care what you are!" Bastian screamed. "Die! SOLAR EXECUTION!"
The Prince swung his blade. A vertical crescent of white-hot fire tore through the air, melting the floor as it raced toward Lucian. It was an attack meant to end the duel—and the life of the opponent.
Lucian didn't move to block. He couldn't. He was too busy acting as a lightning rod for the energy Seraphina had just unleashed.
"System," Lucian hissed, his voice echoing with the power of two souls. "Activate Gravity Well. Spend all available SP!"
[14,000 Soul Points Consumed.]
[Skill: 'Gravity Well' (Level 1) — Evolution triggered by 'Eye of the Abyss'...]
[Skill Evolved: 'Event Horizon' (Rank: Forbidden)]
Lucian raised both hands. The violet rings in his eyes expanded until they covered his entire iris.
The Prince's fire hit an invisible wall three feet from Lucian. But it didn't explode. It began to orbit. The white-hot crescent was bent by an impossible gravitational force, spiraling around Lucian's body faster and faster until it became a ring of trapped light.
The ballroom fell into a terrifying, unnatural twilight. The floating candles were snuffed out. The only light came from the ring of Bastian's own stolen power circling Lucian.
"My turn," Lucian said.
He flicked his wrist. The ring of fire didn't fly back at Bastian; it collapsed into a single, pea-sized point of black light in Lucian's palm. He tossed it forward.
The "bead" moved slowly, almost lazily. When it touched Bastian's chest, there was no explosion. There was only a silent, violent implosion.
The Prince was pulled forward into the vacuum. His armor shattered, his mana core screamed, and he was slammed into the floor with the force of a falling star. The marble beneath him didn't just crack; it disintegrated into fine dust, creating a crater five meters deep.
Silence. Absolute, terrifying silence.
Lucian stood on the edge of the crater, looking down at the unconscious, broken form of the Crown Prince. The black rings in his eyes slowly receded, replaced by the glamour of the Raven's Mask.
He turned toward the King.
"I believe," Lucian said, his voice steady despite the blood trickling from his own ear, "that the 'Null Tax' is no longer applicable to House Thorne."
The King sat frozen on his throne. His guards had their swords drawn, but their hands were shaking so violently the metal rattled. Valerius III looked at his son, then at the boy who had just manipulated the fundamental laws of physics.
"Who... what are you?" the King whispered.
"I am a Thorne," Lucian replied, his gaze sweeping over the terrified nobles. "And I suggest you remember that the next time you think of us as 'defects'."
[Quest Complete: 'Solar Eclipse']
[Reward: 5,000 SP]
[New Skill Acquired: 'Gravity Well' (Permanent)]
[Secret Objective Met: 'The King's Fear']
Lucian felt a surge of triumph, but it was cut short by a sharp pain in his chest. The Eye of the Abyss was now inside the palace, and he could feel Seraphina moving through the shadows toward him.
"Your Majesty," Lucian said, bowing slightly. "The Prince looks like he needs a healer. If you'll excuse me, the 'overwhelming' nature of my awakening has left me quite tired."
He walked out of the ballroom, the crowd parting like the Red Sea. No one dared to breathe until the doors closed behind him.
Once in the hallway, Lucian leaned against a pillar. A shadow detached itself from the wall beside him. Seraphina appeared, her face pale, her silver hair stained with stone dust. She handed him a small, velvet pouch that pulsed with dark energy.
"We have it," she whispered.
"Good," Lucian said, taking the pouch. He could feel the System purring in his mind, hungry for the next meal. "Because this was just the appetizer. The King won't let this go. By morning, we'll be the most hunted people in the kingdom."
"Where to now, Master?"
Lucian looked toward the palace gates. "We go to the one place even the King's shadow-guards fear to tread. We go to the Grave of the First Emperor. It's time I got a real weapon."