I steadied my posture and stared into the shadows of the dungeon.
I studied them.
The Virelochs still standing continued to shuffle nervously. Even they seemed wary now—glancing toward the darkness instead of me.
Afraid of something else.
I slowly rotated my body, scanning every corner. Every angle. Every shift in light.
Careful. Controlled.
Then a faint breeze brushed across my arm.
Like something had passed by me.
But it hadn't left.
I stepped.
Shadow Step.
In an instant, I was past the broken body of the Coloss, standing several meters from where I had been.
So this is what Shadow Step can do.
I snapped my head back to where I'd just stood.
A shadow stood there.
Still.
Watching.
It looked… surprised.
The creature was lean, shaped like a predator carved from darkness. Long, blade-like limbs curved from its body. Its hide was unnaturally dark, the light around it dimming as if reluctant to touch it. Even the air near its frame seemed to waver faintly.
But its eyes—
Locked forward.
Piercing.
It knew I could see it now.
And it didn't care.
It stepped toward me, adjusting its stance.
Ready.
I activated Sovereign's Sight.
Riftscour — Level 27
My body shifted back the slightest amount.
Level 27.
I've never fought something this strong.
I inhaled—
And it took that as an opening.
The Riftscour snapped forward instantly, blade-limbs scything toward me with terrifying speed. It closed the distance in a violent burst, reaching for me before my breath had even settled in my lungs.
Too fast.
My foot came down.
Shadow Step triggered instinctively.
I vanished from its reach and reappeared behind it.
It landed where I'd been and snapped around in one smooth motion.
Not searching.
Not confused.
Just… recalibrating.
Its jaw parted.
A low growl rolled out—flat, displeased.
The suspended man stirred violently.
Not from pain.
From panic.
The Coloss lay in pieces. The Riftscour kept turning—kept missing—like it couldn't force me to stay in one place.
His purple-lit eyes sharpened.
The dungeon rumbled in answer.
"Kill him!" he roared, desperation tearing through the command.
Behind me, the Virelochs stopped shuffling.
Purple flared hard in their eyes—like a switch had been thrown.
One split its chest open.
Light erupted into the chamber.
The beam fired.
I stepped.
Shadow Step.
I reappeared halfway across the chamber to the right—
and the beam kept going, screaming through the space I'd just occupied.
The Riftscour was next.
It didn't move.
Didn't need to.
The beam reached it—
and flickered.
Like something had grabbed it mid-flight.
I frowned.
No time to think.
The Virelochs were already moving.
Two rushed me from the front—
and one dropped in from above.
Claws came down, meant to pin me.
They hit stone—
and I wasn't there.
Shadow Step.
I snapped into place several meters away, behind the leaping Vireloch. Its claw stayed buried in the floor, stuck for half a heartbeat.
Its back was open.
I moved in.
Fast.
I grabbed its leg.
The other two were already on me.
One lunged low, claws out.
The other came in from my right—fast, desperate, trying to pin me before I could step again.
I didn't let them.
I swung.
The Vireloch in my grip became a weapon—its body whipping through the air like a limp, armored battering ram.
It hit the first one mid-charge.
A wet crack.
A violent thud.
The impact launched it sideways as it slammed into the wall hard enough to leave a shallow dent in the stone. Dust burst outward as it slid down in a twitching heap.
I didn't stop the motion.
I rotated through the swing and brought the body back the other way.
It smashed into the second Vireloch before it could even adjust.
This one hit higher—shoulder-first—rock bursting as it slammed into the wall and dropped, leaving a deeper dent behind.
Both of them lay stunned for a heartbeat.
Across the chamber, the Vireloch with its chest split wide was still firing—still tracking.
Not by bending the beam—
by turning.
Its torso twisted. The exposed stone angled toward me.
The beam cut off—
then snapped back on in a new line, straight and lethal, re-aimed at my position.
I didn't hesitate.
I hurled the Vireloch straight into the beam's path.
It slammed into the beam mid-flight.
Flesh charred.
Purple light flared as it took the hit meant for me.
The beam slowed as it scorched and shredded its flesh.
And then—
I felt it again.
That faint breeze.
Too close.
No time.
I stepped.
The moment I left the Riftscour dropped into it like it had been waiting there the whole time, blade-limbs cutting through empty air.
A heartbeat late.
It growled—sharper now.
Annoyed.
It vanished.
The air shifted again—right at my back.
I stepped again.
It reappeared where I'd just been, snapping forward the instant it formed, hunting the afterimage like it could smell my trail.
This time I didn't wait.
I took initiative.
The moment the Riftscour landed where I'd been—still turning, still chasing—
I stepped into its blind spot.
Behind it.
Close enough to touch.
I grabbed its back leg.
Got you.
Pain detonated through my hand.
I recoiled on instinct.
A blade had formed from the leg I was holding—sharp and clean, grown mid-contact like it had been waiting for my grip.
Fragments of my mimic flesh fell to the floor in wet taps.
It didn't just have blades for limbs.
It could make them anywhere.
My hand trembled as the sting spread.
HP: 17 / 68
I don't have room for any more mistakes.
The Vireloch beam found me again—carving a straight line across the chamber.
It cut between me and the Riftscour.
The Riftscour didn't flinch.
It used it.
As the beam screamed closer, it vanished into shadow—slipping away like it wanted the shot to keep going.
Like it wanted the line to finish on me.
I didn't give it the chance.
I stepped toward the beam's source—
but came up short.
Not enough distance.
The Vireloch was still too far.
The beam snapped to my new position the instant I reappeared.
So I stepped again.
And again.
Burst after burst—crossing the room in violent snaps, each shift tearing me out of one place and dropping me into the next before the beam could re-center.
I reappeared close.
Near enough to strike.
A scorched Vireloch lay there—the one I'd thrown earlier. Its body was split and smoking, but the purple stone in its chest still glowed.
Healing.
Trying.
I didn't let it.
I shoved my hand into the half-melted flesh and tore.
The loosened stone ripped free with a wet, resisting pull.
Purple light pulsed in my palm.
I pressed it to my body.
It stuck instantly—half-sinking into my mimic flesh like a magnet finding its place.
Then I moved toward the beam again.
This time without Shadow Step.
Just speed.
The beam kept snapping after me, trying to pin me the moment I committed.
I didn't give it a straight line.
I cut inside its sweep, ducked under the next correction, and pushed through the heat—close enough that the air scorched.
One more step.
One more angle.
Then I was right beside it.
I grabbed the Vireloch while it was still firing.
Two others lunged at me—the same two I'd sent flying into the walls.
I pivoted and yanked the firing Vireloch with me—turning its chest like a turret.
The beam cut sideways.
It caught the first attacker mid-lunge and peeled flesh off in a smoking strip.
The second tried to twist away—
too late.
The line carved across its ribs, purple light flaring as it screamed soundlessly.
They hit the ground half-peeled and smoking, their cores trying to stitch the damage back together.
Then I dragged the beam toward the shadows.
Forcing it to rake across the darkness where the Riftscour had slipped away.
It hit the wall.
Stone screamed.
A glowing scar carved across the chamber as the beam chewed through rock, chunks bursting loose and crashing down in smoking fragments.
I kept sweeping it.
Searching.
Hunting that distortion—
And when the beam passed through one pocket of shadow—
it stuttered.
Not a weak sputter.
A hard refusal.
My stomach dropped.
Again.
Just like before.
The beam kept burning everywhere else, uninterrupted… but that section—
it couldn't hold.
The Virelochs weren't doing that.
Something else was interfering.
I tightened my grip, eyes locked on the darkness.
This beam is useless against it.
I shoved my hand into the Vireloch's back and tore its stone free.
It came out slick and pulsing—purple light flaring once as the body spasmed around my arm.
I hurled the corpse toward the suspended man.
His anger spiked so sharply the entire chamber answered—purple veins along the walls pulsing as the dungeon trembled under his fury.
No time.
I burst to the two Virelochs I'd carved up earlier.
They were still trying to heal—light licking over ruined flesh, cores glowing through torn ribs.
I didn't let them finish.
I ripped both stones out mid-pulse.
Four stones now clung to my body—cold and heavy.
The dungeon's rumbling intensified.
Not just vibration—
strain.
The whole structure felt wrong, like the stone was fighting to stay in one piece.
Then came footsteps.
Distant. Muffled.
Echoing through surrounding chambers in uneven pulses.
More are coming.
My grip tightened.
I need to finish this.
I turned back to the shadows.
I watched them.
I waited.
For a fraction of a second, something betrayed itself—
the slightest distortion.
Light bending where it shouldn't.
I stepped—Shadow Step snapping me toward the center of the chamber, closer to where the distortion had been.
I tore the four stones from my body.
I cracked the first stone—purple light pulsed.
The second—brighter. Hotter.
The third—air trembling as the charge swelled.
The fourth—
and the whole cluster flared like it wanted to detonate in my hands.
Power swelled, violent and unstable.
I hurled all four together—one tight cluster—straight into the warped patch of air.
Then I stepped again.
Back to where I'd been.
The moment I landed, my body buckled.
Not from impact—
something inside me slipped.
A tight pressure clamped down in my chest. My balance faltered. My limbs lagged a fraction behind my intent, like Shadow Step had left pieces of me behind.
I coughed.
A wet, ugly sound that didn't belong in this body.
That's never happened before.
I looked down.
My form was… wrong.
Thinner at the edges.
Dim.
Like my flesh had been pulled apart and put back wrong—rebuilt, but not fully there.
The stones detonated.
Light flooded the chamber, vicious and purple-white—bright enough to burn spots into my vision.
The pulse hit.
It didn't push me.
It launched me.
I skidded across shattered stone, struggled up as the energy kept swelling—layer after layer, pressure stacking until the whole room felt like it was about to tear open.
This is too much.
At its peak, it felt inevitable.
Like the dungeon itself was seconds from being erased.
And then—
it slowed.
Not abruptly.
Unnaturally.
The pulse stuttered, the pressure bleeding off in careful increments like something had put a hand over the blast and started squeezing it shut.
Just like when I'd thrown stones at the suspended man.
This isn't right.
The light dulled. The violent vibration softened. The build-up kept trying to climb—
but kept getting forced back down.
Then it finally gave out.
A small explosion.
Sharp.
Loud.
But nowhere near what it had been building toward.
Not a cataclysm.
A failure.
Purple light lingered in the air.
It hung in the chamber like dust that refused to settle—faint, shimmering, unreal.
And then I saw it.
The glow caught the Riftscour.
Not like it was covered in light—
like the light was reflecting off something newly sharpened.
Its body flickered purple.
For a few seconds, its outline looked… wrong.
Larger.
Denser.
Not in size—
in presence.
My perception caught the details my fear tried to ignore.
The blades along its limbs weren't exactly the same.
A fraction longer.
A cleaner edge.
Its eyes—already locked forward—looked sharper now, the focus inside them tightening into something colder.
I activated Sovereign's Sight.
Riftscour — Level 28
What?
How?
It didn't kill anything.
So how did it level up?
Memory surfaced—cold and immediate.
The Monarks.
The way they'd spoken about mana crystals.
How energy alone could strengthen a monster without bloodshed.
Realization hit like a fist to the throat.
It's absorbing it.
The purple residue.
The crystals.
The blast I'd just forced into the shadows.
A chill crept through me, slow and sick.
This whole time—
I've been making it stronger.