The Gravecaller Who Levels While Sleeping

Chapter 4: The Warrior Who Would Not Speak

Adrian reached his apartment building just after seven.

The building sat at the edge of Riverton's old industrial district, where the rent was low and the elevators complained whenever they moved. He climbed three flights because the lift had been broken for months. At the door to apartment 3C, he paused with his key in hand.

Nothing had changed.

That was the cruelest part of going back. He had expected time to feel different. Instead, the hallway still smelled of detergent and stale cooking oil. The neighbor's television still played too loudly behind a thin wall. A crack ran through the painted number on his door.

Adrian stepped inside.

The apartment was dark except for the blue light of an old television. His father sat on the couch without moving. Marcus Vale had once been a powerful hunter. At least, that was what Adrian had been told. By the time Adrian was old enough to remember, Marcus was a tired man with a gray beard, a bad knee, and a habit of staring at nothing for hours.

"Dad," Adrian said.

Marcus lifted his eyes.

For a moment, he simply looked at the black letters hovering above Adrian's shoulder. Gravecaller. Then he laughed.

The sound was dry and ugly. "Of course."

Adrian shut the door harder than he intended. "That is all you have to say?"

"What else is there?" Marcus asked. "You were supposed to have a future."

"I still do."

Marcus stood so abruptly that the coffee table tipped beneath his knee. "With that class? Do you know what people say about Gravecallers?"

"I know exactly what they say."

"Then stop pretending."

The words hurt more because Adrian had heard versions of them before. His father had changed after the Blackwater Rift five years earlier. Adrian's mother, Elena, had entered that Rift with Marcus and never returned. Marcus came home injured, with a cracked mana core and a silence that no doctor could touch.

He never explained what happened inside. He never talked about Elena. He stopped hunting. He stopped working. He barely remembered to eat.

In his first life, Adrian had hated him for it.

Now, with the memory of his own death still fresh, he felt anger and pity fighting inside him.

"Five years," Adrian said. "You have said nothing for five years. What happened in Blackwater? Why did Mom die?"

Marcus's face turned hard. For one second, a pressure filled the room. The tired man on the couch vanished, and something older and more dangerous looked through his eyes.

"You are not ready for that answer," he said.

"Maybe I am tired of waiting for you to decide when I am ready."

A heavy kick struck the apartment door.

Both men turned.

"Open up!" a voice shouted from the hallway. "You have ten seconds before we break it down!"

Adrian's stomach sank. Tessa and Lucas had found his address. Of course they had. Tessa had been here before. In his first life, he had been too embarrassed to admit how easily she had handed him over.

The Continuum would not release its stored experience until midnight. For the moment, Adrian was still level one. Six points of Agility would not protect him from five grown men with clubs.

Another kick shook the door.

Marcus looked at Adrian. "Who did you anger?"

"Lucas Voss."

Marcus gave a humorless smile. "The Voss boy. His family owns half of this district."

The lock snapped.

Five men entered the apartment. Tessa stood behind them with a handprint still faintly red on her cheek. The leader was a thick man in a leather jacket carrying an aluminum bat.

"There he is," Tessa said. "That is the freak who hit me."

The leader looked Marcus over and snorted. "And what is this? His broken old man?"

"Leave my father out of this," Adrian said, stepping forward.

"Everybody gets a lesson tonight," the man replied. "Lucas wants you to understand where you stand."

The men rushed him.

Marcus moved first.

He crossed the room faster than Adrian could follow. One second he was beside the couch, the next he was directly in front of Adrian. The first bat struck Marcus across the shoulder with a dull metallic sound. Marcus did not flinch.

"You came into my home," he said quietly, "to strike my son."

Red energy exploded around his arms.

The air grew heavy. A status title flashed above Marcus for everyone to see.

Combat Class: Iron Berserker.

The leader's bat slipped from his fingers.

Marcus took one step forward. His eyes were no longer vacant. They burned with the old, furious life Adrian had never seen outside faded photographs.

"Leave," Marcus said.

Nobody argued. The thugs ran. Tessa stumbled after them, pale and shaking. The leader nearly tripped over the broken door in his rush to escape.

Marcus shut the door with one hand. The instant it clicked closed, he coughed blood onto the floor.

"Dad!"

Adrian caught his arm. Marcus shoved him away, more from pride than strength.

"I am fine," Marcus muttered.

"You are bleeding."

"I said I am fine."

He limped into his bedroom and closed the door.

Adrian stood alone in the damaged living room. The fight had lasted seconds, but it had changed something. His father was not helpless. He was wounded, hiding secrets, and still dangerous enough to terrify five armed men.

Adrian picked up the fallen bat and set it beside the broken door. He could still feel the heat that had burst from Marcus's arms. An Iron Berserker was not a minor combat class. It was the sort of class that guild recruiters noticed, the kind that could turn a desperate close quarters fight into a massacre. For five years, Marcus had hidden that strength beneath silence and pain.

Why? Adrian wondered. What had happened inside Blackwater that made a man like that afraid to use his own power?

From behind the bedroom door came the sound of a medicine cabinet opening, then closing. Adrian wanted to force the conversation. He wanted to demand every answer he had been denied. But some part of him understood that Marcus had just bled to protect him. That mattered, even if it did not erase five years of absence.

"Thank you," Adrian said toward the closed door.

No answer came. Still, the television's blue light flickered beneath the door a few seconds later, as if Marcus had not gone to bed after all.

Adrian looked at the clock above the kitchen sink. Eleven fifty-seven.

He went to his small bedroom, sat on the edge of the bed, and waited.

At eleven fifty-nine, the Continuum displayed a message.

Stored Experience: 39,603.

Adrian's pulse quickened. Each second felt louder than the last.

At midnight, another message appeared.

Stored experience is now available for claim.

Adrian smiled into the dark.