The alarm cut through the training facility like a blade.
Not loud at first—just a sharp, rising tone that set teeth on edge. Then the red lights snapped on, bathing the chamber in pulsing crimson.
Breach detected. Adjacent sector. Containment failure.
The announcement echoed from hidden speakers, flat and urgent.
Auro turned instinctively toward the reinforced wall to his left.
He felt it before he heard it.
A pressure ripple. Mana disturbance. Raw and violent.
Something had crossed.
The supervisors behind the glass reacted immediately.
"Lock down the chamber."
"Seal corridor C!"
"Security teams, move!"
Boots thundered somewhere beyond the walls. Heavy weapons powered up. Mana signatures flared as awakened personnel mobilized.
Auro stood still.
His body hadn't fully recovered from the last test. The dull ache in his chest lingered, a reminder carved into muscle and bone.
Then the wall buckled.
Not shattered—punched.
Reinforced alloy dented inward, runes screaming as they overloaded. A spiderweb of cracks spread, glowing briefly before failing.
The wall gave way with a deafening crash.
Dust and fragments exploded inward.
And through it stepped the monster.
It was not large—barely taller than a man—but wrong in ways that size couldn't explain. Its skin was a patchwork of chitin and exposed muscle, slick with dark fluid. Too many joints bent at unnatural angles. Its head was elongated, jaw split vertically, rows of thin, translucent teeth clicking as it tasted the air.
A Gate-born scavenger type.
Fast. Aggressive. Unstable.
Security personnel poured into the adjacent corridor, weapons raised.
"Target acquired!"
"Suppressing!"
Mana rounds slammed into the creature's side, tearing chunks of flesh free—but it didn't slow.
It shrieked, a sound like metal scraping bone, and lunged.
Straight toward the training chamber.
Straight toward Auro.
For half a second, no one reacted fast enough.
Not the supervisors.
Not the guards.
Auro's mind emptied.
There was no calculation. No strategy.
Just instinct.
The same instinct that moved his body when a wild animal broke free on the farm. The same instinct that grabbed a blade when something threatened what was behind him.
Sleep Curse.
The system responded instantly.
—
Skill Selected: Sleep Curse (Basic)Target: Hostile Entity — Biological
Intent Level: High
Warning: Lethal Cost Threshold Approaching
—
High intent.
He didn't dial it back.
Didn't soften it.
He meant it.
The curse surged forward like a suffocating blanket, slamming into the monster's mind.
At the same moment—
Pain erupted inside Auro.
Not pain.
An ending.
It felt as if something essential tore loose inside his chest. His heart seized. His lungs forgot how to draw air. A wave of agony so intense it drowned thought slammed through him.
His vision went black.
His legs collapsed.
He hit the floor hard, shoulder slamming into stone, fingers clawing uselessly as his body spasmed.
This was it.
This was the cost finally coming due.
The monster convulsed mid-lunge.
Its limbs locked.
Its shriek cut off abruptly, replaced by a wet, choking sound.
Then—
The pain vanished.
Not faded.
Not dulled.
Gone.
Auro gasped, sucking in air so sharply it burned. His heart restarted with a violent thud. Sensation flooded back into his limbs all at once, overwhelming but alive.
He lay there, stunned.
Breathing.
Whole.
The monster didn't move.
Its body hit the ground like a puppet with its strings cut. But it didn't just collapse into sleep.
Its flesh blackened rapidly, veins bulging and rupturing. The chitin cracked. Dark fluid poured from its eyes, mouth, and joints as if something inside it was being consumed.
Security fire ceased.
Silence fell.
Then someone whispered, barely audible over the alarm.
"What… the hell?"
Auro pushed himself up on one elbow.
His chest didn't ache.
His limbs didn't tremble.
The familiar hollow pressure—the constant drain—was gone.
In its place was a strange, unsettling lightness.
Across the chamber, the monster twitched once more… then went completely still.
Dead.
Not killed by bullets.
Not killed by trauma.
Killed by something that didn't belong to it.
The alarms began to die down as containment seals re-engaged. Security personnel moved cautiously, weapons trained on the corpse.
No one looked at Auro.
They were all staring at the monster.
At the way its body had collapsed inward, as if time itself had been accelerated within it.
Auro's hands shook as he raised them in front of his face.
No blood.
No tremor.
No pain.
His vision flickered.
The system interface appeared—clearer than ever before.
Stable.
Bright.
—
Emergency Condition Detected
Curse Cost Exceeded Host Capacity
Automatic Reallocation Initiated
—
Text locked into place, line by line.
Cold.
Final.
—
Side Effect Transfer: Activated
Target: Curse Recipient
Result: Host Cost Redirected
—
Auro's breath hitched.
Redirected.
He looked back at the monster's corpse.
Understanding settled over him slowly, heavily, like the realization that a tool you'd been bleeding for could cut something else instead.
The supervisors finally turned toward him.
Their faces were pale.
Not with relief.
With something closer to terror.
Auro lowered his hands.
Inside him, the clock had stopped—if only for a moment.
And for the first time since awakening, he understood the shape of his power.
He didn't remove the cost.
He sent it somewhere else.
And the system—silent, watching—had just decided that this was allowed.