2025-12-12 05:19:48The air in Leo’s small room felt heavier after the System’s warning. It wasn’t his imagination they were scanning him again.
He could almost feel the pressure coming through the vents, like invisible fingers checking his heartbeat, listening to his breath, searching for anything that didn’t fit their version of the truth. He lay still on his bunk, forcing himself to breathe slowly. “Just think boring thoughts,” he whispered in his mind. “Nothing strange. Nothing clever.” So he pictured the dullest thing he could think of dry library manuals, the basic beginner scrolls he pretended to study every day. His face stayed relaxed, sleepy, harmless. Inside, though, his thoughts spun fast, calculating every risk, every angle. The System steadied him. [Scan detected. Filtering… masking vitals.] Leo felt his pulse flatten, his body readings shifting into the perfect pattern of a tired, obedient trainee. The scan brushed over him, searching… searching… then slowly faded after nearly an hour. He opened his eyes once it was gone. “So that’s how it is,” he murmured quietly. “The cage has bars I can’t even see.” Morning came too soon. Leo got up and followed the routine they expected from him. Breakfast in the mess hall. Silent nods to other low-ranking clan members. No emotion. Nothing interesting. Just another quiet nobody. Then came the daily examination. Today, they made him push tiny bits of Qi into a clear crystal. He deliberately made it wobble and flicker, like someone with sloppy control. The crystal dimmed. The technician clicked his tongue disapprovingly. “Hm. Your potential is raw, Kaelen,” the man said, shaking his head. “So much waste. But don’t worry we will shape it.” Leo kept his expression empty. “Yes, sir,” he said politely. You have no idea what I really can do, he thought silently. After the morning tests, he was given his usual free period. To everyone else, it looked like a harmless break. Nothing special. But Leo knew better. This was his window. Midday shift change when guards switched posts, when the hallways got crowded, noisy, confused. The one time the facility wasn’t focused. He stood up slowly from his seat, acting like he was just stretching. “Well,” he whispered under his breath, eyes sharp with purpose, “time to move before the cage notices.” Leo went back to his room first. He reached into the hiding spot under his thin mattress and pulled out the crystal model. He slid it into the deep pocket of his grey Aetherius-issued pants. Then he took a slow breath, letting his Zephyr Lungs pull in energy. His heart was steady. His mind was ready. “This is it,” he whispered to himself. “No turning back.” He stepped out of the room and walked down the hallway not toward the library where he was supposed to be, but toward the service elevators. These elevators were meant only for cleaning bots and maintenance workers. His low-level pass definitely shouldn’t open them. But the System had been watching and memorizing everything. [Access Code Pattern Detected. Maintenance override codes rotate every 72 hours. Current code: 7-3-0-Phi.] Leo glanced around, making sure no one was watching. Then he typed the code into the keypad. The light blinked green. The elevator doors slid open with a soft ding. Leo stepped inside the cold, metal box and hit the button for Sub-Level 2 The doors closed, and the elevator dropped fast. When it opened, he stepped into a long, empty corridor. The air smelled like oil and hot metal. Pipes snaked across the ceiling. Cables buzzed inside thick conduits. The floor vibrated softly under the weight of the building’s machinery. [Proceed forward 50 meters. Turn right at the junction. Access Panel B-17 contains the target coupling.] Leo walked quickly but didn’t run. Running made people ask questions. His shoes barely made a sound on the concrete floor. He passed a maintenance worker in dirty coveralls. The man gave Leo a brief, confused look but didn’t stop him. In Aetherius Tower, people rarely challenged anyone. Everyone assumed you were supposed to be there. Leo reached the junction and turned right. A long hallway stretched in front of him, lined with identical metal doors. Each one had a number and a strange symbol stamped on it. B-17 was right in the middle. He walked toward it five steps away, four steps “Hey!” A sharp voice cut through the hallway. Leo froze. Two security guards were walking toward him. Not elite enforcers just regular patrol guards but trouble was still trouble. One narrowed his eyes. “You. Kid. Residential is upstairs,” he said, pointing behind him. “You’re not supposed to be here.” Leo forced his face into a confused, harmless expression. “I… I got lost,” he stammered. “The elevator took me somewhere weird. I was trying to get back.” The guards exchanged a look. “Let me see your pass,” the lead guard said, holding out his hand. Leo’s stomach dropped. This was the moment. His pass would immediately show he had no access here. They’d drag him away before he even reached B-17. Slowly, he reached for his pass with one hand… while the other closed tightly around the crystal model in his pocket. One chance. One. He drew in a deep, quiet breath. His Zephyr Lungs expanded, packing Qi together into a tight, buzzing knot in his chest. No time for precise control. He had to trust instinct. He pulled out the crystal model and dropped it onto the floor between them. The guard blinked. “What the—?” Leo exhaled. Not a shout. Not a blast. A note. A razor-sharp, needle-thin sound that the human ear could barely hear. The sound struck the crystal. For one heartbeat, nothing happened. Then— VMMMMMMMM. The crystal glowed from the inside, lighting up like a tiny star. Its “voice” rose into a horrible, twisting screech that made Leo’s teeth vibrate. The air itself shook. “AH—!?” The guards yelled, slapping their hands over their ears. The crystal’s light pulsed once like a heartbeat. Then a ripple of warped energy shot out along the floor, crawling like electric lightning straight toward the wall where Access Panel B-17 waited. It hit. BOOOOOOM.
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Door in The Dark
The hum of the chaotic lake was a physical force, vibrating in Leo’s teeth and bones. The energy he’d swallowed the Chaotic Core thrummed in response, a hungry prisoner rattling its cage.The black temple in the center of the madness was the only still point. It didn't glow. It was a hole in the world, a silence at the heart of the scream.It is the source, the System had said. And the energy inside him was a piece of it.He had to reach it. It was the only possible answer. A place that absorbed chaos might be able to contain the bomb in his chest. Or, it might be the catalyst that set it off.There was no path down the sheer cliff face. Only the swirling, bubbling lake of liquid madness below.He looked at his hands. The silvery-purple scars from the stag’s corruption were now dark, throbbing lines. He felt the chaotic energy inside him, pressing against the walls of his marrow. He had an idea. A terrible, stupid idea.He focused on the energy in his bones. He didn't try to control i
The Devouring
Leo’s lungs, the Zephyr Lungs refined to a mythical 13th level, did not breathe air. They screamed. It was a silent, internal shriek of protest as the System seized control and forced them to do the impossible.He didn't pull in a trickle of the Wisp's energy. He opened the floodgates.The Chaos Wisp's tendril, meant to siphon his life, became a highway for a catastrophic reversal. The dark, crackling energy of the Wisp a condensed storm of madness and raw, unrefined power surged into Leo.It was not like the stag’s corruption. That was poison. This was an avalanche.It felt like his bones were being replaced with live wires, his blood turning to molten lead. His vision whited out. The pain was so total, so absolute, it stopped being pain and became the only reality. He could feel the System working frantically, a tiny, brilliant logic engine at the core of the storm, trying to channel the impossible flood.[FULL ASSIMILATION INITIATED.][ENERGY OVERLOAD: CRITICAL.][RE-ROUTING TO RE
Between Stone and Beast
The crystalline chiming grew louder, shaking droplets from the ceiling into the dark pool. Elias shifted his grip on the spear, his knuckles white. He didn't look back at Leo."Stay in the water," the old man growled. "The Heart-Stone is your only chance. If you get out now, the corruption will rush back in, worse than before. And you'll be too weak to fight."[Corruption Extraction: 41%. Pure Energy Drain: 5.8%. Vital signs stabilizing.][Host is combat ineffective. Estimated recovery time: 9 minutes.]Nine minutes. An eternity.The beast emerged from the tunnel. It was transformed. The broken crystal antlers had regrown, but now they were smaller, darker, and sharper, like obsidian daggers. Its six legs ended in points that scratched deep grooves in the stone floor. Its eyes, once swirling purple, now burned with a focused, hateful crimson light. It had evolved. It had consumed the chasm's energy to heal, and it had come for the thing that had hurt it.It saw Leo in the pool and le
The Hermit of the Chasm
The old man's spear point didn't waver. His eyes, clear and sharp as broken glass, scanned Leo from head to toe. He saw the silvery lightning-scars on Leo's hands, the faint, unhealthy purple tinge under his otherwise perfect skin. He smelled the conflict on him the clean, sharp scent of high-level refinement clashing with the sour ozone of the chasm's corruption."You are poisoned, boy," the old man stated, his voice like gravel. "And you are hunted. The Aetherius grey doesn't hide well, even when it's torn.""I'm not with them," Leo said quickly, holding up his empty hands. He was exhausted. His body felt like a battleground between purity and poison. This cave, this pocket of normal air, felt like heaven. He couldn't afford to be turned away. "I escaped them. They chased me here.""Fool's choice," the hermit grunted. "Better the cage than the crawler's belly. Or the slow madness." He tilted his head. "But you're not mad. Not yet. And you're standing. That's... unusual.""My name
Devour or be Devoured
He had escaped the hunter. But he had jumped into the mouth of a different beast. The perfect energy of his 13th Level foundations was now a poison in this place, a shining beacon that the chaos wanted to extinguish.He was alone, in hell, and his own body was beginning to turn against him.In the swirling purple mist ahead, something huge and multi-limbed shifted, drawn by the scent of his pure, struggling energy. A low, gurgling growl echoed through the warped trees.The fight was over. The survival had just begun. And he had nothing left to fight with but the System, and a body that was becoming his enemy.Leo's heart was a frantic drum against his ribs. The whispers weren't just in his head now they were in the air, slithering through the glowing leaves, echoing from the pulsating ground. The multi-limbed shadow in the mist took a heavy step forward. He saw a flash of chitinous plates, too many joints, and eyes that shone with a hungry, insane light.He couldn't fight. His Qi was
The Painted Ghost
Cora’s hand, wrapped in sharp, geometric light, punched into Leo’s chest.The impact was a thunderclap in the small alley. But the sound wasn't of tearing flesh. It was a deep, resonant CLANG, like a hammer hitting the world's strongest bell.Cora’s confident smirk vanished, replaced by shock. Her fingers hadn't pierced skin. They had hit something impossibly hard, and the recoil shot pain up her own arm.Leo grunted, the force driving him back a step, but he didn't fall. He looked down. Where her strike had landed, his grey Aetherius shirt was torn, revealing the skin beneath. It wasn't cut. It wasn't even bruised. A faint, diamond-like shimmer faded from the spot.His Level 13 Diamond Hide had held.Cora stared, her stormy eyes wide. "Impossible... That was a Piercing Star technique. It cuts through reinforced steel!"[Critical Impact Sustained. Diamond Hide Integrity: 94%.][Warning: Cannot withstand a second direct strike of that magnitude.]"You talk too much," Leo growled, and h
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