2025-12-11 23:02:15CHAPTER 007
Kieran’s heart leapt. They weren’t done with him yet.The voice came from just outside his row. Torchlight flickered over the walls.
He was out of time. He pushed himself up. His body moved with a new, fluid strength. Four hundred eleven units of Essence hadn’t turned him into a master cultivator, but it had made his broken body faster, tougher, sharper.
A custodial worker rounded the corner, torch in hand. Kieran didn’t think. He acted. He grabbed a handful of loose hay from the floor and flung it into the man’s face.
“Argh! He’s here!” the worker yelled, coughing and swiping at the straw.
Kieran didn’t stop. He darted down the narrow alley between the sheds, his legs pumping, his lungs burning. He didn’t know where he was going he only knew he had to put distance between himself and the stolen core.
He burst into a wide service yard and skidded to a halt.
Standing there in the moonlight wasn’t a worker or a handler.
It was Marcus.
Kieran froze. Marcus’s robes were clean and perfect. A faint, cruel smile tugged at his lips. No torch in his hand just a calm, practiced stance, one hand resting on the hilt of his training sword. The alarm had clearly caught him off guard, but now he looked like a cat with a mouse cornered.
“Well, well,” Marcus said smoothly. “The cockroach not only survived the pit, but it’s learned to scurry faster. I heard a beast core went missing. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you, Kieran?”
Kieran’s blood turned to ice. This wasn’t some overseer trying to recover sect property. This was Marcus and Marcus made everything personal.
“I don’t have anything, Marcus,” Kieran said carefully, stepping back. The wall of the hay shed pressed against his spine. Marcus stood between him and the open yard, blocking his only escape.
“Of course you don’t,” Marcus laughed softly, taking a slow, confident step toward him. “A cripple like you touching a beast core? You’d drop dead before you even picked it up.”
His smile sharpened.
“But you were at the scene. And you ran. That’s enough for me.” Marcus tilted his head. “And you know how I hate it when trash forgets its place.”
He drew his sword.
Shing.
The steel sliding free was the loudest sound in the night.
Kieran’s heart hammered.
Marcus pointed the blade at him. “Let’s see,” he said, voice calm and cruel, “if your other arm breaks as easily as your channels did.”
The sword wasn’t sharp enough to kill, but its solid oak reinforced with spirit steel could snap bones. Moonlight glinted off the edge as he stepped closer, slow and deliberate, savoring Kieran’s fear.
Kieran stumbled backward until his shoulders hit the rough wood of the hay shed. Nowhere to run. The distant alarm bells sounded faint, just a grim soundtrack to the beating he expected.
“No pit this time,” Marcus said, a cruel smile twisting his lips. “No one to shield you. Just you, me, and the consequences of your continued existence.”
Kieran felt the 411 units of Essence surging inside him. He was stronger, faster but still just a scared kid facing a trained swordsman. Marcus had been swinging that blade since he could walk.
[Tactical Override: Allocate Essence for reflexive enhancement. Host lacks martial experience. Prioritizing evasion and durability.]
Marcus lunged.
The strike was simple, aimed at Kieran’s shoulder to disable him. Kieran barely had time to think. The System pulled a thread of Essence, and his body twisted sideways. The sword grazed his ragged robe instead of cutting flesh. He stumbled but had dodged.
“Lucky,” Marcus muttered, eyes widening a fraction. He swung again, this time horizontal.
Kieran ducked. The wooden blade whistled just over his head, brushing his hair. Every move was jerky, instinctive, powered by the System’s calculations, but it was enough to keep him alive.
“Stop squirming!” Marcus snapped, his amusement gone, replaced with sharp irritation. He launched a flurry of attacks thrust, slash, overhead chop.
Kieran became a blur of reaction. He weaved, rolled, and scrambled across the dirt. The Essence burned through him like fuel, finite and precious. A glancing blow caught his ribs. Pain flared hot and bright, but the Essence dulled it. No bones broke.
Marcus stepped back, breathing heavier, his face twisted in anger. “What… what is this? You move like a rabbit, but faster. Did some trash-heap potion make you superhuman?”
Kieran said nothing, panting. His side throbbed. The System flashed warnings in his vision:
Essence Used: 87 units. Remaining: 324. Projected exhaustion in 47 seconds if dodging continues.
He couldn’t just dodge forever. He had to act.
His eyes flicked around the yard. Dirt, a water bucket, the hay shed wall. His other hand still gripped the jagged steel bar he’d brought from the rendering room it ached.
“You’re still just trash,” Marcus growled, composing himself. He raised his sword and adjusted his stance. “Time to finish this.”
This time, he swung low, aiming a sweeping strike at Kieran’s legs to knock him down.
Kieran didn’t jump. He dropped the steel bar and grabbed the wooden water bucket beside him. With a grunt, he hurled it at Marcus, mud and dirty water splashing toward his face.
Marcus flinched, raising his arm instinctively to block. Just a tiny delay but enough.
That was all Kieran needed. He didn’t aim for Marcus he went for the sword.
He dove to the ground, snatching up the steel bar. Every ounce of his strength, every last bit of Essence the System could give him, funneled into the strike. Not at Marcus but at the weapon in his hand.
As Marcus, furious and wiping mud from his eyes, swung his training sword down in a final, savage chop, Kieran slammed the angled, broken end of the bar against it.
CRACK-THUNNNG!
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