The void emanating from the Umbra Stalker was not merely a lack of light; it was a hungry, predatory absence that sought to unmake the environment's molecules.
As the Ravager-rank creature descended upon Kale Ardentis, the darkness felt like a physical weight, pressing against his lungs and chilling the blood within his veins.
The ground beneath his feet, the ancient roots of the Greenroot Guild's tree, began to shrivel and rot as the corrosive darkness element ate away at the wood's mana. To any other Apprentice-rank Awakened, this would have been the final moment of their short life.
However, Kale Ardentis was no ordinary Apprentice.
Even as the shadow claws, shimmering with a lethal obsidian sheen, inched closer to his throat, Kale's mind remained a steel fortress of cold calculation. He had already stood before the overwhelming majesty of a Red Dragon, a Tyrant-rank calamity that had incinerated his entire village.
