2025-12-11 21:07:49CHAPTER OO6
The two handlers closed in, blocking every way out. The lantern light stretched their shadows across the pen, making them look bigger, meaner. Davin’s eyes were fixed on the dark, pulsing core clutched in Kieran’s fist. Rory planted himself at the gate, arms folded like a wall.“Last chance, trash-rat,” Davin sneered, stepping closer. “Drop the core, and maybe we just break your other arm instead of both.”
Kieran’s chest heaved. The 127 units of Primordial Essence inside him churned like a wild river. Raw power surged through his veins, but he had no control over it. He was still just Kieran crippled, scared, holding a stolen steel bar and a pounding heart.
“It’s not a treasure,” he said, voice tight. “It’s poison. It’s what killed the lynx.”
Davin laughed, dark and sharp. “You think I care? Condensed beast core corrupted or not is worth fifty spirit stones to the right alchemist. That’s more than you’ll see in your pathetic life. Now hand it over!”
A warning flashed in Kieran’s vision:
[Tactical analysis: Direct fight unfavorable. Host combat skills: negligible. Essence control: undisciplined.]
“Thanks for the tip,” Kieran muttered under his breath.
[Proposal: Channel 5 units of Essence into the ‘Heart of the Storm’s Sorrow.’ Unstable reaction may create a diversion.]
It was a reckless plan. Maybe stupid. But it was the only plan he had.
Davin lunged, hand outstretched. Kieran gritted his teeth. He focused, sending a thread of the humming energy in his core down his arm and into the cold stone in his hand.
The effect hit instantly.
The stone didn’t glow. It screamed.
Not a sound, not really but a psychic shriek that hammered into Davin and Rory’s minds. Pure animal grief, sharp, raw, unbearable.
Davin froze, eyes wide. “What… what is that?!”
Rory stumbled back, grabbing his head. “It… it’s hurting my head! What is this?!”
Davin cried out too. He clutched his temples, swaying as if someone had slammed him between the eyes. The lantern in his hand shook, the flame flickering like it was afraid.
Both men looked sick pale, dizzy, barely standing.
Kieran felt the wave of grief hit him as well, heavy and cold. His eyes burned, his chest tightened. But for him, the System softened the blow. What he felt was a whisper. What they felt was a scream.
Now.
He didn’t try to fight. That would be suicide.
He ran.
He darted toward the broken rear door, not the gate Rory guarded. He shoved past Davin, slamming his shoulder into the man’s ribs. Davin toppled sideways with a groan.
“Stop him!” Rory shouted, shaking his head to clear it but Kieran was already gone.
He burst through the door into the rendering room. The floor was slick with rotten flesh and old blood. He almost slipped, but he caught himself and kept going. He scrambled up the refuse chute, hands and feet sliding on the greasy metal, until he clawed his way out into the night.
The cold air slapped him in the face. The stolen core throbbed hot in his palm like a tiny, angry heart.
Behind him, shouts exploded.
“THIEF!”
“SABOTEUR!”
“SOUND THE ALARM!”
A bell clanged somewhere in the compound loud, sharp, panicked. Dozens of footsteps pounded the ground. Doors opened. Voices shouted.
They were waking up the whole Custodial Quarter.
Kieran’s breath came in ragged gasps as he sprinted across the yard. He had minutes. Maybe less.
He veered toward the only place that might hide him: the massive hay and feed storage sheds. Dark. Crowded. Endless.
He dove between two huge stacks of burlap sacks and pressed himself deep into the shadows. He held his breath, trying to silence the frantic pounding of his heart.
In the darkness, the System spoke calmly, almost coldly:
[Immediate threat: High. Possession of marked sect resource increases risk of execution. Recommended action: Process core immediately.]
Kieran swallowed hard. “Right now? Here?”
[Affirmative. Resource is unique. Its energy can be traced by skilled cultivators. Destroying it removes all evidence.]
Kieran’s voice was a whisper. “But… it’s toxic. The lynx’s normal corruption gave me over a hundred Essence. This… concentrated core… it’ll kill me.”
[Survival probability with current stability: 68%. Survival if captured with core: 3%.]
Numbers didn’t lie. He had no good options. Only the slightly less deadly ones.
The alarm bell grew louder. Torchlight flickered at the end of the alley. They were coming, methodical and furious.
Kieran swallowed the lump in his throat. “Do it,” he muttered. The words tasted like ash.
He didn’t eat the core this time. He held the Heart of the Storm’s Sorrow in both hands and braced himself.
“System… full salvage. Now.”
[Initiating High-Yield Toxic Salvage. Warning: Emotional and spiritual backlash imminent.]
The core didn’t crumble. It unraveled. Streams of black darkness mixed with jagged purple lightning shot up his arms straight into his mind, his soul. Not his stomach. Into him.
The shed, the hay, the night… all disappeared.
He was inside the storm. Not rain or wind but grief, terror, and rage.
He felt the lynx’s last moments: the sickness that burned it from the inside, the betrayal of its fading body, the severed bond with its young disciple, the total, crushing loneliness as death took it.
A tsunami of primal grief tore through him.
Kieran screamed but no sound came out. His spirit cracked, raw and exposed. He was drowning in another creature’s death, powerless to stop it.
[Stabilizing. Filtering emotional payload.]
A lifeline. The System was there not a voice this time, but a steady, grinding machine at the heart of the storm. It began pulling the raw, screaming emotion away, separating it from the pure, destructive power of the Withering Flux.
The grief didn’t vanish. It was shoved into a quiet corner of his mind, distant but still alive. What was left was energy pure, concentrated, dangerous corruption.
[Refining ‘Withering Flux’ into Primordial Essence.]
It felt like a star was being forged in his chest. The pain was unlike anything the pit or Nightmare Ember had done. Atomic. Unraveling. His vision swam with sparks and darkness. He bit his arm hard to stop a scream, tasting iron and blood.
Then it ended.
Kieran collapsed against the burlap, drenched in sweat, trembling so hard he could barely breathe. The core was gone. Silence replaced the storm.
[Salvage Complete.]
[Yield: 284 Units of Primordial Essence. Secondary yield: ‘Memory of Primal Grief’ – Archived.]
[Cumulative Essence: 411.2 / 1000.]
[Warning: Host spiritual stability decreased. Emotional vulnerability increased.]
He’d done it. Nearly half the Essence he needed to start real repair. The cost sat heavy in his chest, cold and weighty.
But the reward was undeniable. The Essence didn’t just fill him it began to work. A subtle knitting pulled at the fractures in his meridians, tiny threads of healing threading through his broken body. Slow, painstaking, but real. For the first time since the pit, he felt more than survival. He felt… a fragile hope.
Then a sharp voice cut through the quiet.
“You! Check behind those sacks!”
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