2026-04-12 23:56:48At first, Adam thought it had all been a dream. The wine was still on his suit. The smell of the alley was the same.
"It was just a hallucination," he whispered, wiping water from his face. "I hit my head. I’m going crazy."
But then, he looked at his hand. In his vision, floating just above his skin, were numbers.
[Health: 15/100 (Critical)]
[Stamina: 5/100 (Exhausted)][Mana: ERROR / NULL]Adam blinked. The numbers stayed there. He turned his head, and his vision adjusted like a camera lens. He looked at a wooden crate nearby.
[Object: Rotten Wood Crate]
[Quality: Trash]He looked at the puddle of water at his feet.
[Object: Rainwater Mixed with Mud]
[Status: Contaminated]"It's real," Adam breathed. "It's actually real."
He stood up, his legs feeling like jelly. Every muscle in his body ached, but beneath the pain, there was a new sensation. It was a cold, humming energy sitting right behind his navel. It felt like a tiny, frozen sun.
He walked out of the alleyway and back toward the main road. The Academy was a city within a city. It sat on a hill, its white stone towers reaching toward the dark clouds. Usually, Adam looked at those towers with a feeling of being small. Now, he looked at them with a feeling of fear—and a strange, new hunger.
He had 72 hours.
As he walked, he noticed something else. The world wasn't just physical anymore. He could see colors floating in the air. Around a street lamp, there was a faint yellow mist.
"Is that mana?" he wondered.
He looked at a passing carriage. The horse had a faint green glow around its legs—an enhancement spell to make it run longer.
The System was showing him the truth of the world. He could see the magic that everyone else took for granted. He could see the "threads" that Julian and the others used to bully him.
He reached the gates of the Academy. The guards recognized him. They laughed as he walked past, still soaked and smelling of wine.
"Hey, Null! Did you enjoy the mud?" one of them shouted.
Adam didn't answer. He didn't even look at them. He focused on the HUD in his vision. He needed to find the faculty tower. He needed to find Catherine.
As he entered the inner courtyard, he stopped.
The Academy was vast, but one tower stood taller than the rest. It was made of dark, blue-black stone. Even from a distance, Adam could see that the air around that tower was different. The rain didn't fall there; it turned into snow before it hit the roof.
Adam stared at the tower. His new eyes zoomed in, and his heart nearly stopped.
A massive aura was radiating from the top of that tower. It wasn't like the yellow mist of the lamps or the green glow of the horse. This was a storm of jagged, icy blue light. It was so bright it hurt to look at. It felt sharp, like thousands of tiny needles pressing against his eyeballs.
[Warning: High-Level Mana Source Detected.]
[Subject: Catherine Cook.][Power Level: Calamity Class.][Danger Level: Fatal.]In the middle of that blue storm, Adam saw something else. Deep inside the blue light, there were streaks of ugly, pitch-black energy. They looked like cracks in a mirror. They were pulsing, eating away at the blue light from the inside.
"What is that black stuff?" Adam whispered.
[System Analysis: The target is suffering from 'Soul-Frost Corruption'] the voice echoed in his head. [Her own power is turning against her. She is dying, Sovereign. And she is in more pain than you have ever known.]
Adam looked at the "Ice Witch's" tower. He thought about the woman everyone feared. The woman who was supposed to be a goddess among mages.
She wasn't just cold. She was rotting from her own magic.
He took a step forward, his feet crunching on the wet gravel. He was a Null. He had nothing. He was a boy who had been thrown out of a party like a piece of trash. And now, he was walking toward a "Calamity Class" mage who was dying of a magical curse.
"How do I even get inside?" Adam asked.
[Find a way, or die] the System replied coldly.
Adam looked down at the timer in the corner of his vision.
[Time Remaining: 71 Hours, 42 Minutes, 10 Seconds.]
The countdown was ticking. Every second was a step closer to his heart stopping. Adam gripped his tattered suit jacket and began to walk toward the tower of ice.
He didn't know how he would do it. He didn't know what he would say. But for the first time in his life, Adam Cook wasn't just a victim. He was a hunter.
And his first target was the most dangerous woman in the world.
As he approached the base of the tower, the temperature dropped. His breath began to come out in white puffs. The ground was covered in a thin layer of frost.
Suddenly, a shadow fell over him. He looked up.
Standing at the entrance of the tower was a tall woman with hair as white as a blizzard. She wore long, flowing robes of deep indigo. Her eyes were a piercing, unnatural blue, and they were fixed directly on him.
It was Catherine Cook.
"A Null?" she said. Her voice was like the sound of glass breaking on a stone floor. "How did a piece of dust like you wander into my garden?"
Adam felt the air in his lungs start to freeze. He couldn't move. He couldn't speak.
[Warning: Extreme Pressure Detected!]
[Favorable Impression: -90 (Hostile)]The mission had begun. And if Adam didn't speak in the next five seconds, he was going to become a human popsicle.
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Chapter 58
The broken pieces of the heavy wooden door lay on the cold stone floor. The medical ward was completely silent.High Inquisitor Malphas stood in the ruined doorway. He was a man who had fought in a hundred magical wars. He had killed rogue mages, dark witches, and giant beasts. He wore the thickest, strongest holy armor in the entire kingdom. But right now, his hands were shaking.Malphas looked at the boy sitting on the edge of the broken bed. Adam Cook did not have a weapon. He was not wearing armor. He was bare-chested, wearing only simple dark pants.Yet, Malphas felt a terrible, crushing weight pressing down on his chest. It was not a spell. Adam was not doing anything. The heavy pressure was just coming from Adam’s simple presence."I think," Adam whispered again, his voice echoing inside Malphas’s brain, "you are going to have to fix the door."Malphas opened his mouth to speak, but his throat was perfectly dry. He wanted to raise his heavy silver broadsword. He wanted to sho
Chapter 57
The purple screen flickered. A new message appeared in bright red letters.[Query Acknowledged.][To expand the Soul Architecture, the current walls must be completely destroyed.][Action Required: Open the Second Gate of the Void.]Adam read the words. He understood perfectly.To build a bigger castle, you have to tear down the old one. He had to destroy his own soul's shape to let the Void expand naturally. But there was a catch. The System immediately showed another red warning.[WARNING!][Opening the Second Gate will instantly shatter the current Soul Walls.][If the Host cannot control the raw energy without walls, the Host’s physical body will instantly vaporize in the real world.][Survival Rate: 0.01%.]Adam smiled. It was a cold, dark, fearless smile. "I survived the mud," Adam said softly. "I survived the Ice Witch. I survived the Bone Dragon. I survived the Holy Seraph. Do you really think I care about a decimal point?"Adam raised both of his hands. He looked at the thick
Chapter 56
Catherine closed her eyes. She reached deep into her own magical core. She did not pull out normal ice magic. Normal ice magic would just melt against the extreme heat of the Moon-Shard explosion and the Holy Smite.She pulled out something much deeper. She pulled out her bloodline's secret. "Primordial Frost," Catherine whispered.A blinding, pure blue light erupted from her hands. It was not just cold. It was the complete absence of heat. It was the magic of the frozen end of the world. Primordial Frost did not just freeze water. It froze energy. It froze time itself."I am going to build a dam," Catherine told the unconscious boy. "The energy inside you is leaking. It is a flood. I am going to freeze the flood. I will hold the chaotic energy back. You just have to rebuild the walls. Do you hear me? Rebuild your walls!"Catherine pushed with all her might.The Primordial Frost sank directly through Adam’s skin. It did not try to fight the dark Void. It did not try to fight the hol
Chapter 55
The terrible, pitch-black cloud over the arena did not last long. For one single, terrifying moment, Adam Cook had held Julian Martinez by the throat. Adam’s eyes had glowed with the power of a dark god. He had stopped the holy fire. He had controlled the eclipse. But a human body is still made of flesh and bone.The Eternal Sovereign System had removed the safety limits to save Adam’s life. It had forced the Second Gate to open just enough to swallow the massive magical explosion of the Moon-Shard and the Holy Smite. But opening that gate had a terrible price.Suddenly, the blinding violet light in Adam’s eyes flickered. BZZZT. It sounded like a dying lantern.Adam’s hand lost its iron grip. His fingers went completely limp. He dropped Julian. The heavy, bald boy fell to the sand, coughing and gasping for air. The golden runes on Julian’s face were dull and gray.Adam did not say another word. He did not look at the Princess. He did not look at the Inquisitor.Adam’s eyes rolled bac
Chapter 54
Julian did not listen. He did not care about his own life. The Seraph only cared about destroying the darkness."I will purify you," Julian commanded. He raised his hand toward the sky. A massive ball of holy fire began to gather in his palm. He was preparing to execute Adam right there in the sand.Adam’s hands fell away from Julian’s boot. He had no strength left.The digestion fever had sapped his muscles. The broken ribs made it impossible to breathe. The Holy Smite had burned his nerves.Adam lay pinned to the dirt. He looked up at the bright blue sky.“I wanted to be a King,” Adam thought slowly. His brain was shutting down. “I promised myself I would never be on the ground again. But here I am. In the mud. Under his boot. Again.”He thought about Catherine. If he died here, Julian would tell the Inquisition about her. Malphas would burn her at the stake.He thought about Princess Elara. She was sitting up in her velvet chair, watching him die like a dog on a leash.He felt a de
Chapter 53
The darkness formed a heavy barrier between him and Julian. It was the same shield that had easily stopped the Bone Dragon and the fire mages.Julian’s finger glowed brighter.BZZZZZT! A thick beam of solid, roaring white light shot from Julian’s finger. It moved faster than lightning. It crossed the ten feet of sand in a microsecond and slammed directly into Adam’s Void Shield.Adam expected the Void to eat the magic. He expected the black smoke to swallow the light. But it did not.The moment the holy light touched the Void, a terrible, shrieking sound filled the arena. It sounded like water being thrown into a fryer.The Holy Smite did not fade. It burned through the darkness like boiling acid melting through thin paper.[System Alert: 300% Critical Damage Received!][Holy Energy is the absolute counter to Void Energy.]The white beam pierced right through the center of the black shield. It hit Adam directly in the left shoulder."GAAAAAH!" Adam screamed. It was a raw, agonizing s
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