The shadow-bird's message hadn't been a warning; it was a curse.
Two days after Bō Ken's inspection by the Imperial Arbiters, the air in the Vanguard Guild complex turned thick with sulfur. It was a clear, blue sky, yet grey, heavy ash began to fall like snow.
Ken was in the back training yard, working through a new Kendo-influenced kata that integrated his Aqua and Thunder pulses. He stopped, holding up a hand. A single flake of ash landed in his palm. It was boiling hot.
He's here, a whisper of cold mana echoed in his mind.
A low, guttural vibration shook the entire city. In the distance, a massive rift—not the controlled green ones of the guild, but a violently spinning vortex of orange and black—tore open above the city gates.
From the vortex, a figure descended. He was not humanoid. He was a creature of ancient, compacted obsidian, roughly eight feet tall. His armor wasn't worn; it was a part of him, forged from the molten core of a dying star. This was General Malphas, the General of Ash.
His weapon was a pillar of blackened iron, easily five feet long and burning with a soft, pulsing heat.
[SYSTEM ALERT: RED-RANK GENERAL ATTACKING CITY!]
[TARGET: BŌ KEN]
[LEVEL UNKNOWN: ???]
"Bō Ken," Malphas's voice was like grinding continental plates. "Mo Zan has sent me to harvest the glitch."
The Call of the Vanguard
Captain Grog and the remaining recruits
scrambled to the battlements. He roared, "All forces! Defensive positions! Recruits, load the ballistas!" But they were Level 1s and 2s; their attacks would be useless against a creature of this tier.
Ken stood in the center of the training ground, closing his eyes for one second. He needed Bushido focus. He opened his mind to the rivers of mana inside him.
The Indigo River (Aqua) flowed, bringing tranquility and precision.
The Gold River (Thunder) surged, providing explosive speed and power.
He ran. He used a massive pulse of Thunder in his legs to launch himself over the guild wall and onto the main road toward the city gate. His speed was terrifying; he reached
Malphas in under ten seconds.
"I am Bō Ken," he said, skidding to a halt. The heat radiating from Malphas was so intense it began to steam the water vapor Ken carried naturally.
Malphas chuckled, a sound like a distant avalanche. "Such speed for a child. Mo Zan was correct to be wary."
The Clash
The battle was instant and high-speed. Malphas raised his massive iron pillar and brought it down. A standard F-Rank would have been turned to a pancake.
Ken, however, was high-Agility. He used Thunder Pulse: Sonic Step, moving not side-to-side, but up. He jumped forty feet into the air, landing lightly on top of the iron pillar.
"Aqua-Blade: Static Edge!"
Ken generated the blade of pressurized water, vibrating with a high-pitched hum. He drove it down, trying to pierce the weak point at the base of the pillar where it connected to Malphas's obsidian hand.
"A cute trick," Malphas said, not moving. He simply tightened his grip. A wave of super-heated ash exploded from his hand. The water in Ken's technique was instantly evaporated.
[SYSTEM STATUS: WEAPON DISINTEGRATED. AGILITY DEBUNK: FIRE HEAT (-10%)]
Ken somersaulted backward, landing on a nearby rooftop. He was outmatched in raw power.
Tactical Mind
Mo Zan had "glitched" the system to make Ken strong, but Ken knew that brute force would never beat a creature forged by a planet's core. He needed to be creative.
He looked around. A massive water tower stood on a hill nearby.
"Aqua-Tidal," Ken whispered, using almost half of his MP.
He didn't make a weapon; he simply willed the entire content of the water tower (thousands of gallons) to rise. A massive, floating bubble of water hovered above the city.
Then, he channeled his largest Thunder Pulse yet. But he didn't attack Malphas. He used the lightning to magnetize the city's defensive metal barricades, pulling them into the massive water bubble.
Now he had a miles-wide bubble of metal and conductive fluid floating above the city.
The Storm Bringer
"Malphas," Ken said, his voice carrying the calm clarity of a man who had accepted his death-trade. "You were born from a star. But stars die. The storm remains."
Ken used his speed, running in a perfect circle around Malphas to keep the heat-debunk from stacking. He then dropped the entire polarized, conductive water mass right onto the General.
A second blinding flash of lightning struck from the clear sky, drawn to the floating metal and water.
[COMBO TRIGGERED: SUPERIOR HYDRO-CONDUCT (LEVEL MAX!)]
[CRITICAL DAMAGE DEALT: 12,500! (GLOBAL ANOMALY DAMAGE)]
The entire city felt the feedback. Malphas didn't just break; he shattered from the intense internal steam explosion. The General of Ash was reduced to a thousand polished obsidian stones.
[SYSTEM NOTIFICATION]
[LEVEL UP: 12... 22]
[RED-RANK BOSS KILLED]
Ken slumped against a wall, his MP at 0/250. His body was covered in steam burns. He had survived the first general, but he knew the war had only just begun. The "Vanguard" had been reborn.
[CHAPTER 3 END]