2026-07-04 05:55:22
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Chapter 26: The Ironhide Beast
The ethereal purple interface of his Evolution System violently glitched in his vision, overriding his status screen with a bright red warning window. [CRITICAL WARNING][CORRUPTED ESSENCE DETECTED][DO NOT ABSORB][EXTREME MUTATION AND HUMANITY LOSS IMMINENT]Aren stumbled backward. Up until this exact moment, he had viewed the Beast Core System as a pure, albeit dangerous, path to survival. But the stone radiating total wrongness proved that the monsters roaming the wasteland were actively being manipulated. Someone, or something, was deliberately manufacturing these nightmares. He pulled his tattered cloak tightly around his face, darting his eyes away from the corrupted core. He didn't belong down here. Not yet. If he got tangled up in the terrifying, high-level conspiracies of the black market now, he would be instantly crushed. He turned and swiftly navigated through the bustling crowds of elite mercenaries and rogue alchemists, desperate to reach the spiral stone staircase an
Chapter 25: The Black Market
The wealthy merchant stood blocking the narrow alleyway, his expensive silk robes a stark, insulting contrast to the knee-deep mud and filth of the outer slums. He didn't draw a weapon, nor did he signal for hidden guards, but the cold, calculating look in his dark eyes set Aren’s predator’s instinct to a low persistent warning. This man was highly dangerous. Not because of raw physical strength or magical prowess, but because of the immense, unseen power he clearly wielded within the kingdom's sprawling criminal underworld."I don't do mercenary work," Aren said, forcing his voice to remain perfectly flat as he tightened his grip on the bone-handled hunting knife hidden beneath his tattered gravekeeper cloak. "And I am certainly not a killer for hire."The merchant chuckled, a dry, grating, humorless sound that echoed off the rotting, waterlogged wooden walls of the alley. "Relax, gravekeeper. I am not asking you to slit throats for me in the dark. I have plenty o
Chapter 24: Blood For Coins
Aren slipped back through the rusted, drainage grate, splashing softly into the freezing muck of the perimeter ditch. The adrenaline from his hunt was beginning to fade, rapidly replaced by an ache in his muscles. Yet, despite the physical exhaustion, a triumphant fire burned in his chest. He felt alive. He had ventured out into the pitch-black Wasteland completely alone, and he had returned victorious.Slung heavily over his left shoulder was a blood-soaked burlap sack. While he had absorbed the Scavenger Hound's beast core , he knew better than to leave the rest of the massive carcass to rot in the wild. The magical system was concerned only with the monster essence, but human society was a entirely different. The foundation of the city's wealth ran on the physical remnants of the monsters that stalked the borders, and Aren was finally about to enter the monster economy.He navigated with silent ease, utilizing his enhanced agility to vault over collapsed tin roofs and easily avoid
Chapter 23: Midnight Hunt
The fog rolling off the night sky Asteria was dense one that smelled of ash. To the wealthy nobles and the elite Church officials sleeping soundly behind the towering, magically reinforced white walls of the inner city, the fog was nothing more than a nuisance. But down in the outer slums, where rusted tin roofs leaked and the muddy streets swallowed legs whole, the fog acted as a shroud. It hid the desperate, the starving, and the dying. It also hid Aren.Aren moved through the dilapidated alleyways like a specter, his tattered cloak wrapped tightly around his shoulders. Every step was deliberate and completely silent. For years, he had kept his head down, terrified of drawing the attention of the heavily armed city guards who patrolled the perimeter or the ruthless elite hunters who treated the slum residents like disposable labor. He had been a victim of this oppressive society his entire life. But tonight, as the thrumming power of the evolution system charged through in his entir
Chapter 22: A Secret to Keep
The relocation was done under the cover of a midnight downpour.Aren had led Lily and Rowan away from the dilapidated tin shacks of the outer ring, navigating the labyrinthine alleys.Utilizing the twenty silver coins he had gotten as the hazard pay for the fodders draft, Aren secured a modest, clandestine room in the lower merchant district, situated just inside the city's secondary gates. It was a meager asylum, cramped and smelling faintly of stale beer from the tavern below, but its thick wooden doors and deadbolts offered a tangible amount of security that the slums sorely lacked."You can't go back there," Rowan had argued, pacing the narrow floorboards as Lily slept on the room’s single bed. "If Darius knows you killed that Alpha, if his trackers scanned the mud, he’ll send the elite guards after you.""If we all vanish, it validates his paranoia," Aren had replied, his voice a low, rumble that left no room for debate. He adjusted the collar of the linen shirt which he borrowe
Chapter 21: Surprised to See Me?
Captain Darius pulled back hard on the leather reins of his armored warhorse. The beast nervously stomped its steel-shod hooves into the soft mud, tossing its mane as it sensed the sudden, overwhelming spike of adrenaline emitting from its rider. Darius sat entirely frozen in his ornate saddle. The arrogant sneer that permanently resided on his sharp featured had been violently erased. His eyes, usually half-lidded with boredom and disdain, were blown wide open, fixed in unfiltered shock on the young man standing before him. It can't be possible. Darius’s mind frantically raced, try to reject the information his eyes were receiving. He had personally ordered his lead mage to collapse the gorge. He had watched the stones shear off the canyon walls and bury the rear guard. He had seen the horrifying, mountainous silhouette of the shadow wolf alpha descending upon the trappedunranked recruits.<
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