"My soul isn't yours to take yet," Leo rasped, his voice sounding like grinding stones.He gripped the edges of the obsidian altar, his knuckles turning a ghostly white against the black stone. The red interface hovered before his eyes, pulsing with an aggressive, rhythmic light that seemed to sync with his own erratic heartbeat."You already took my humanity by leaving me in this hole," Leo growled, looking at his graying skin. "Isn't that enough of a down payment?""The soul is the fuel of the Primal, Leo Thorne," the Ancient Echo resonated within his mind, the voice cold and ancient. "But for now, I will settle for the interest."A low growl erupted from the shadows beyond the altar's faint glow. A second Shadow Sentinel, larger and more feral than the first, stepped into the light, its eyes burning like twin embers of spite."Is this the interest?" Leo asked, a sudden, sharp hunger clawing at the lining of his stomach."This is the feast," the System replied, the red screen flashi

"The memorial service has already begun, Elara," the gate guard whispered, his eyes lingering on the dented silver plate of Leo’s borrowed armor."I’m aware of the time, Jenkins," Leo replied, his voice a perfect, high-pitched mimicry of the woman he had devoured. "Dungeons don't exactly keep a schedule for the convenience of the bereaved."The guard stepped back, intimidated by the sharp, arrogant edge in his tone. Leo walked past him, his heart hammering a steady, heavy rhythm against his ribs as he entered the Thorne Guild’s main estate."You’re late," a voice hissed from the shadows of the foyer.Leo turned to see a high-ranking guild officer, a man who had once spat on his shoes when he was a mere porter. The officer was dressed in a formal black suit, a white lily pinned to his lapel in a mock display of mourning."The cleanup in the Abyss took longer than expected," Leo said, tilting Elara’s head with a smug, dismissive grace. "Is Marcus already on the podium?""He started five

"Don't move, and whatever you do, don't look at my face," Leo commanded, his voice vibrating with a hidden, jagged power.Toby, the rookie hunter, clutched his bruised shoulder while huddling against the cavern wall. "There’s too many of them, Zero! We’re going to die in here! That thing is eating the walls!""I didn't crawl out of the Abyss to be digested by a pile of overgrown snot," Leo growled.The black slimes merged, their forms liquefying and knitting back together into a singular, towering mass of necrotic sludge. Hundreds of crystalline teeth sprouted from its shifting surface, gnashing with a sound like grinding glass."Eat," the Ancient Echo whispered in the back of Leo's mind, a sound of pure, unadulterated hunger.Leo didn't use his pawn-shop sword; the metal would have dissolved instantly against the glitched mana. Instead, he lunged forward, his hands erupting in a shroud of dark, red-tinged energy that hissed as it met the humid air."Primal Siphon: Wide Burst!" Leo ro

"I'm going to enjoy turning your skull into a trophy for Marcus," Jax sneered, his hand tightening on the hilt of his broadsword.Leo shifted his weight, his human disguise flickering like a dying candle as the rot from the glitched slime pulsed in his chest. He could feel the eyes of the underground crowd burning into him, hungry for a slaughter that didn't involve a betting slip."You always talked too much, Jax," Leo rasped, his voice vibrating with the dual-toned resonance of the Sovereign."And you always were a pathetic little porter, but look at you now," Jax laughed, drawing the massive blade with a metallic hiss. "I don't know what kind of dark magic you stumbled into, but it ends here.""The only thing ending is your career as a Thorne lapdog," Leo replied, his eyes bleeding into a predatory crimson.Jax lunged, the broadsword glowing with a heavy, yellow mana that signaled an earth-elemental reinforcement. The concrete floor beneath Leo’s feet cracked as the gravity in the

"He thinks a scrap of paper and an old knife are enough to rattle me," Leo said, his fingers tightening around the silver hilt of the dagger.The metal groaned under his grip, the silver warping as a surge of Primal mana traveled from his palm into the blade. Behind him, the charred skeleton of his childhood home stood as a jagged monument to Marcus’s cowardice, the embers still glowing like the eyes of a dying beast."He isn't just rattling you, Leo," the Ancient Echo’s voice resonated from the shadows at his feet. "He is inviting you to the slaughter.""Then I’ll make sure I’m the one holding the cleaver," Leo replied, his gray, stone-like skin smoothing over as he forced his form back into a human shape.He tucked the warped silver dagger into his belt, the blade a bitter reminder of the night his brother had first tried to end him. The city lights flickered in the distance, dominated by the towering black monolith of the Thorne Guild Headquarters."The ring was the only thing our