2026-04-27 10:11:40Winds howled like a thousand screaming souls, violently tearing at Aroan’s eardrums as his body plummeted into the bottomless dark. Velmora Abyss did not welcome him with open arms; it bared jagged, icy fangs of rock protruding from the canyon walls, ready to shred his flesh to pieces.
Yet, the freezing air was entirely eclipsed by the burning agony in his chest.
As his consciousness teetered on the brink of madness, the memories of the Grand Hall played on a loop. Elina’s face—the woman who had sworn to be his sanctuary—was now etched with utter disgust.
"Werewolf society has no need for love, Aroan," her lethal whisper echoed amidst the roaring wind. "It only respects power. You are nothing but a genetic mistake, a walking curse."
Then came Valerius’s psychotic smirk. The sickening SNAP as the silver dagger severed his Achilles tendons replayed in his mind, mocking his absolute helplessness.
"Elina... Father... Valerius..."
Aroan bit his lower lip until it tore. Fresh warm blood trickled down his chin. He tightly embraced Nyx, the crippled wolf pup shivering violently against his chest.
If you call me a curse... then let me be your absolute ruin!
BAM!
Aroan’s body slammed brutally into the bottom of the abyss. The sickening crunch of his ribs snapping echoed sharply through the deadly silence. The impact was so violent it formed a small crater amidst the massive graveyard of ancient monster bones. Black blood spewed from Aroan’s mouth, soaking the cursed soil beneath him.
For any mortal being, falling from the summit of Silver Peak was instant death. However, a fraction of a second before his spine met the ground, the Eclipse Mark on his shoulder detonated. A pitch-black aura erupted, enveloping his vital organs like a fortress of dark steel.
Aroan coughed violently, hacking up clumps of coagulated blood. His eyes fluttered open. Absolute darkness. The putrid stench of rotting corpses and sulfur immediately assaulted his senses.
Simultaneously, that same emotionless, mechanical voice reverberated directly inside his skull.
[Host Assimilation Complete.]
[Physical Condition: Critical. 98% Tissue Damage.][Achilles Tendons: Severed. Status: Permanently Crippled.][Activating Emergency Protocol: Shadow Reconstruction.]"Wh-what... AARRRGGH!"
Aroan let out a muffled shriek. The sensation shooting from his shoulder down to his ankles didn't feel like healing. It felt as though someone was injecting molten iron straight into his veins. His fragile, Rank-F meridian channels were being violently forced open to accommodate the oppressive Void energy.
The cursed mark seemingly came alive. Black smoke slithered out of his pores, forcefully digging into the gaping wounds on his ankles. The smoke acted like demonic surgical threads—grabbing the shredded remains of his flesh and aggressively stitching them together using pure, absolute darkness.
Aroan grabbed a nearby monster’s skull, crushing it into bone dust just to keep himself from screaming his lungs out.
[Warning: Host's vessel is extremely weak! Insufficient Void Energy for total restoration.]
[Tendons temporarily replaced with 'Shadow Fibers'.]Hyperventilating, Aroan lay in a pool of his own cold sweat. Trembling, he tried to move his toes. A miracle. The legs that were condemned to be paralyzed responded. But as he forced himself to stand, his legs felt heavy, numb, and throbbed with excruciating pain. His body was a broken shell, now puppeteered by threads of shadow.
He survived. But hell had only just begun.
A faint, almost inaudible whimper snapped Aroan back to reality.
"Nyx..." he called out hoarsely.
Scrambling in the dark, his hands finally brushed against fur slick with blood. Nyx lay motionless. The tiny pup’s breathing was terrifyingly shallow. The brutal kick from Valerius’s guards had likely ruptured the poor creature's internal organs.
"Don't die... you're the only one I have left," Aroan whispered frantically. He tried to channel his mana, but his energy core was completely hollow.
Suddenly, a semi-transparent, dark-blue interface projected itself directly onto his retinas.
[STATUS PANEL]
Host: Aroan Race: Human (Void Vessel - Incomplete) Level: 1 Class: Shadow Primal (Awakened) Void Points (VP): 0[Target Detected: 'Nyx' (Shadow Primal Bloodline - Sealed)]
[Status: Dying. Estimated Lifespan: 2 Minutes.] [Solution: Transfer 10 Void Points (VP) for Basic Regeneration.]"Void Points? How the hell am I supposed to get that?!" Aroan cursed at the empty darkness.
[The 'Devour' System is active. Kill entities possessing life force to plunder their VP.]
Kill? With a shattered body and no weapon?
Before Aroan could even process the absolute absurdity of the situation, the hairs on the back of his neck stood up. His werewolf instincts—as weak as they were—screamed a lethal warning. Something was watching him from behind the thick fog.
GRRRRR...
A low, guttural growl vibrated through the air, followed by the crunching of bones being stepped on. Two pairs of glowing crimson eyes materialized from the shadows.
Grave Crawler. A Rank-E scavenger monster native to the abyss. It resembled a giant, hairless hyena with rotting gray skin and a bifurcated lower jaw. Corrosive drool dripped from its fangs, drawn by the delicious scent of pure Lunaris blood radiating from Aroan.
The beast didn't rush. It circled him slowly, mocking its crippled prey. On the surface, it took three fully armed Rank-D knights just to subdue one of these monsters.
Screeching horribly, the Grave Crawler lunged, its massive jaws unhinging to bite Aroan’s head clean off.
Time seemed to slow down. Kaelor’s disgusted voice echoed in his mind. Valerius’s triumphant smirk flashed before his eyes.
I refuse to die as trash in this wasteland!
With a roar fueled entirely by rage, Aroan didn't dodge. He planted his right foot—now powered by the Shadow Fibers—into the ground with everything he had. The explosive propulsion from the shadow tendons was absurd, launching Aroan forward like a bullet, even as the pain from his tearing muscles made his vision go white.
Meeting the monster’s leap head-on, Aroan narrowly evaded the snapping jaws by a hair's breadth and slammed his left palm directly into the beast's chest.
"Die, you bastard!"
[Void Instinct Activated. Skill: Devour's Touch.]
The moment Aroan’s palm made contact with the thick hide, his shoulder mark ignited. A miniature black hole spiraled to life in the center of his palm. The massive beast let out a blood-curdling shriek—a sound like grinding metal.
The monster’s body violently seized. In mere seconds, its thick hide shriveled, and its muscles atrophied. Aroan felt a surge of warm, sickening, yet intoxicating energy forcibly sucked into his pores. Drained of every drop of its life force, the creature dropped to the ground as a fragile mummy before crumbling into gray ash, blown away by the Velmora winds.
Aroan dropped to his knees, panting like a wild beast. The veins on his arm bulged pitch-black. This intoxicating high... this was the power to destroy everything.
[Target Eliminated. Acquired: 15 Void Points (VP).]
Wasting no time, Aroan crawled desperately toward the fading pup.
"System! Transfer the energy to him! Now!"
[Transferring 10 VP to entity 'Nyx'...]
A thick, black light flowed from Aroan’s fingertips, cocooning the tiny, broken wolf. A dark miracle unfolded before his eyes. Nyx’s shattered ribs snapped back into place. Its matted fur shed rapidly, replaced by a coat that shimmered with a mysterious obsidian gloss.
Nyx’s blind left eye suddenly snapped open. The milky cataract was gone; in its place was a menacing, dark-purple glow. The pup stood up, no longer limping. It looked at Aroan and slowly licked the blood off its master’s cheek—an absolute contract sealed without the need for any false gods.
Aroan laughed. A cold, raspy laugh that sounded completely devoid of humanity. "We survived, buddy. We're going home to collect our blood debt."
"Home?"
The voice came without warning. Deep, gravelly, and carrying an oppressive weight that made Aroan’s ribs vibrate.
"You haven't even proven you deserve to breathe the same air as me, boy."
Aroan spun around instantly, his killing intent flaring. Nyx let out a low, menacing growl, standing protectively in front of him. Slow, heavy footsteps echoed from the dense fog.
A towering figure emerged from the darkness. He wore a tattered gray cloak, his face hidden behind a rusted iron mask etched with bizarre runes. Only a single, piercing golden eye was visible through the slit—an eye that looked at Aroan as if he were nothing more than an insect.
The sheer pressure of the man's aura was suffocating. Even Alpha Kaelor at the peak of his strength felt like a mere pup compared to the absolute, murderous dominance radiating from this stranger.
The masked man glanced at the pile of ash, then down at the smoking eclipse mark on Aroan’s shoulder.
"Black Moon Eclipse..." the man muttered, his tone dripping with boredom. "So much loser's blood has spilled in this abyss for centuries. Yet, fate decides to toss a crippled, betrayed prince right at my feet."
Casually, the giant raised his right hand and tossed a heavy, rusted sword with a broken tip. The weapon, weighing no less than twenty kilograms, plunged deep into the muddy earth, barely missing Aroan’s foot.
"My name is Sargon," the man stated coldly. "The world above has discarded you. If you wish for a quick death, slit your throat with that blade and stop wasting my time."
Sargon turned around, walking away slowly as if Aroan didn't exist.
"But..." Sargon continued without looking back, his voice now sounding like a decree from the god of death itself. "If you still possess the pride to live... if you truly desire to butcher the false gods sitting comfortably on their thrones... pull out that sword, drag your crippled body, and follow me down into true hell."
Aroan stood in silence, watching the towering back slowly being swallowed by the fog. He looked down at the rusted sword at his feet, then at the palm of his hand that had just plundered a life.
A faint, ruthless, and bloodthirsty smirk slowly curved on Aroan’s face. His eyes were now as cold as ice.
He gripped the hilt of the rusted sword and yanked it violently from the mud.
"Hell?" Aroan muttered, his voice blending perfectly with the roaring Velmora winds. "I just got kicked out of there."
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