Chapter 61: Attrition Kael watched them charge. Brutes, the lot of them. No strategy, no rhythm—just a frothing surge of corrupted flesh draped in that churning black aura, the stench of madness clawing through the air. He raised his hand. Light bent. Blades shimmered into being—twelve crystalline swords of condensed radiance that sang like harps when they moved. He sent them flying, each a perfect ray of divine geometry. They struck, but the men did not fall. The aura shuddered, drank the blows, then expanded like ink bleeding through water. Kael’s brow furrowed. “That’s bullshit,” he muttered. The System’s voice crackled in his skull, smooth and clinical: They are unstable vessels. That power devours the body. The only reason they persist is because their minds are a

Chapter 63: The Escort’s Joke“Wake up.”Jace’s voice came first, low and rough, followed by the shake that felt more like an earthquake than concern. Kael blinked, groaning as his body tried to remember how to be human again.“What’s wrong?” he muttered, pushing Jace’s hand away. His body ached, but at least he’d managed a few hours of real sleep. The kind where dreams didn’t chase him with fire and screaming.Jace’s face was grim. “We can’t get in contact with Vivum.”Kael froze mid-stretch. “Huh?”Even for a city built on living mana conduits, that shouldn’t have been possible. Vivum was massive. Self-sustaining. Connected to nearly every major relay network on the continent. Losing contact wasn’t just strange, it was impossible.Before he could ask more, the same receptionist from earlier approached, a bead of sweat slipping down her neck. “The mountain’s acting up again,” she said. “It’s blocking the relay netw

Chapter 65: Brat ‘This is divine,’ Kael muttered with reverence as molten cheese burned the roof of his mouth. He devoured the pizza like a starving prophet tasting god’s body for the first time. It was criminal how much he’d missed this flavor, the sacred salt of melted cheese and bread and grease. The last time he’d eaten pizza was back when his life came prepackaged in luxury: silk robes, personal chefs, and a sense of superiority thick enough to choke on.Now, he sat alone in a dingy restaurant with a cracked table and a faulty fan, smiling like an idiot as he ate a $5 slice.Then he saw them. His party. Approaching the Association building like a parade of responsibility.‘Fuck,’ he sighed, stuffing the rest of the slice into his mouth. ‘Why didn’t I buy it to go? There’s no justice in this world.’He looked back at the counter, saw the massive line, and accepted his fate. Grabbing two more slices, he bolted out the door, chewing a

Chapter 67: Ashes and EchoesTorin had been kind enough—or perhaps desperate enough—to take them back. He knew he couldn’t guard the convoy’s supplies on his own, not with the way the air trembled lately. And Selene, blessed by wealth and cursed by pride, didn’t argue. She paid without a flinch. Gold still made problems go away, even when the world itself was cracking.The road to the next village was shorter this time. Barely two hours. Kael sat by the window, silent as a ghost, his eyes devouring the passing world. He’d seen cities in his past life, machines that kissed the sky, oceans of steel and light. Yet none of it compared to this. The mountains shimmered under the twin suns, the skies stretched in impossible blues, and mana—living light itself—rippled like rivers in the air. Colors no human tongue had earned names for drifted and danced, swirling around like sentient fireflies whispering hymns.For a moment, he forgot to breathe.When the

Chapter 69: MimicThe dungeon breathed like a lung full of rot and whispers. The four of them—Kael, Seris, Jace, and Chloe—stepped through the archway, their boots sinking into dust that hadn’t been disturbed for centuries. The corridor stretched ahead in uneven stone veins, dimly lit by fungal light, and somewhere deeper inside, something rattled like a cage full of broken teeth.Kael grimaced. “That sound’s gonna haunt me.”What awaited them wasn’t grandeur or glory but spiders—dozens of them. Pale, twitching, glass-eyed things that looked like nightmares woven from chitin and insomnia.A shiver ran up Kael’s spine. He’d faced demons, undead, and a god once pretending to be a priest, but spiders? Fuck spiders.Beside him, Seris trembled, her sword hand unsteady. Kael caught the twitch and smirked. “What’s wrong, Seris? Don’t tell me the great sword saint is afraid of a few eight-legged cunts.”Her glare could have melted mithri