2026-04-27 10:25:01Aroan’s footsteps dragged heavily across the damp, jagged rocks of Velmora. The scraping of his ruined soles echoed against the cavern walls, which gaped open like the maw of a colossal beast.
Even though the Void System had hastily stitched his severed Achilles tendons with Shadow Fibers, the agony hadn't magically vanished. Every step felt like driving electrified, rusted nails straight into his heels. Yet, he refused to collapse. His right hand maintained a death grip on the heavy rusted sword Sargon had tossed him, using the blade as both a crutch and a shield.
At his side, Nyx limped along. The faint purple glow emitting from the crippled pup’s left eye served as their solitary beacon in an oppressive darkness that actively repelled moonlight.
Roughly ten paces ahead, the towering, gray-cloaked figure of Sargon ground to a halt.
Facing a sheer wall of solid rock, the iron-masked giant didn't bother looking back. Sargon unsheathed a curved dagger from beneath his tattered cloak. With highly trained, surgical precision, he dragged the blade's tip against the stone. Screeech. Screeech. Tiny sparks danced in the freezing air.
Aroan squinted, fighting the nausea induced by the suffocating stench of sulfur. As his eyes adjusted to the gloom, he saw exactly what the man had carved.
An imperfect circle, with a third of it shaded pitch-black. An Eclipse.
Aroan’s breath hitched. His heart instantly hammered against his ribs. Wait... that symbol...*
His mind violently rewound to over a decade ago. To a warm, fire-lit room in Silver Peak, where his late mother, Luna Arlene, used to tell him bedtime stories. She would always sketch that exact same symbol—with identical, specific curvatures—on a piece of parchment whenever she whispered tales of the 'Night That Swallowed the Sun'.
"You..." Aroan’s hoarse voice shattered the silence. "Why are you carving that crest? How do you know her exact strokes?"
Sargon didn't answer immediately. He sheathed his dagger and began tapping his leather-gloved index finger against the pommel of his own broadsword. Tap. Tap. Tap. A steady, rhythmic beat that, for some inexplicable reason, felt hauntingly familiar to Aroan.
Slowly, the masked giant turned, locking his solitary, ice-cold golden eye onto the boy. "The world above worships the moonlight, treating shadows as a vile plague. Yet, without the dark... the moon is nothing but a pale, dead rock."
Closing the distance, Sargon’s sheer aura compressed the oxygen around Aroan until the boy nearly choked. "I have waited in the depths of this hell for decades, Aroan. Waited to see if Arlene’s bloodline could truly forge a worthy 'vessel', or if it would merely spawn a pathetic loser crying for his daddy."
Aroan stiffened, his jaw muscles bunching tightly. "Keep my mother's name out of your filthy mouth! Who the hell are you?!"
Instead of showing anger, Sargon scoffed dismissively. Plunging a hand into his pocket, he tossed something straight at Aroan’s chest. Thud.
Catching it purely on reflex, Aroan hissed as his palms blistered instantly. It was an organ the size of a grown man’s fist, and it was still beating. A pitch-black heart. Its purple veins twitched erratically, dripping thick blood that sizzled upon touching the ground, as if the entity inside was still alive and thrashing.
"Heart of a Rank-D Shadow Fiend," Sargon stated coldly. "Those shadow fibers in your legs won't last long unless your body is fueled by pure energy. The same goes for that crippled mutt of yours. If you truly wish to exact vengeance upon your hypocritical clan, you have two choices."
Sargon jutted his chin toward the organ. "First: toss the heart away, let your body rot down here, and become maggot fodder for Velmora."
"And the second?" Aroan challenged, his eyes flashing with suppressed fury.
"Devour it. Let the darkness shred whatever remains of your pathetic Lunaris humanity. You will endure pain a hundred times worse than when your brother crippled you. Survive, and you become a fang. Die, and you prove you were always trash."
Aroan stared down at the black heart in his hands. Oddly, the putrid stench it emitted triggered a primal, ravenous hunger deep within his gut. The Eclipse Mark on his arm throbbed painfully, resonating with the grotesque object.
[System Warning: Item 'Heart of Shadow Fiend' detected.]
[Energy Density: Lethal. Risk of Death upon Assimilation: 85%.]
[Recommendation: Utilize for Entity 'Nyx' Evolution.]
Glancing down, Aroan saw Nyx. The tiny pup was trembling, its purple eye locked onto the black heart with instinctual craving, yet its broken legs prevented it from stepping forward.
Aroan ground his teeth. Elina discarded me because I was weak. Valerius destroyed me because he could. I will never be prey again!
Without a shred of hesitation, Aroan raised his rusted sword. With one swift motion, he sliced open his own left palm. Rich, crimson blood welled up. He squeezed the black heart tightly, letting the boiling, dark essence mix perfectly with his own flowing blood.
"Drink, Nyx," Aroan commanded, lowering his bleeding hand to the pup's snout. "Starting today, we are no longer clan dogs. We are the monsters that will devour them."
Nyx didn't hesitate. The creature greedily lapped up the mixed blood.
The very next second, Nyx’s howl tore through the cavern. It was no longer a weak, pathetic squeak, but a bone-chilling roar that made the cavern walls vibrate.
AWOOOOO!
[Ding!]
[Processing Dark Core... Evolution of Entity 'Nyx' Initiated!]
Pitch-black smoke erupted from Nyx’s tiny body, cocooning the creature in a dark maelstrom. The sickening sound of snapping bones restructuring themselves echoed loudly. As the smoke violently dispersed, Nyx was no longer palm-sized. The wolf now stood at waist height. Its matted fur was gone, replaced by a sleek coat that gleamed like pure obsidian, actively swallowing the faint light around it. Its fangs had elongated into razor-sharp daggers, and the oppressive purple aura cloaking its body radiated sheer lethality.
[Stage 1 Evolution Successful: Shadow Primal Wolf (Rank-E).]
[Active Skill Unlocked: Shadow Sync.]
Watching in absolute silence, Sargon narrowed his single eye. A secret glimmer of satisfaction flashed behind his rusted mask, though his voice remained as rigid as steel. Arlene’s blood does not lie. This boy... he might actually be the vessel.
"Cute," Sargon interrupted harshly, instantly ruining Aroan’s dramatic moment. "But spoon-feeding your pet doesn't prove you know how to fight."
Suddenly, without any warning, Sargon kicked a massive pile of monster bones nearby, shattering them into dust. The explosive crash echoed, awakening something dormant deep within the cavern’s ceiling.
High above in the unseen shadows, dozens of crimson eyes flared to life. The nauseating sound of hairy legs scuttling against stone quickly followed. Three Abyssal Spiders—monstrosities the size of horse carriages, dripping with highly acidic green venom from their pincers—crawled down rapidly, locking their compound eyes onto Aroan.
Rank-D beasts. The exact type of monsters the Lunaris clan used to test their absolute elite knights.
Sargon took several steps back, casually crossing his massive arms. "One graze from their pincers will liquefy your bones in three seconds. Prove you're worthy of holding that sword, boy. Otherwise, I’ll bury you here myself."
Panic didn't even register in Aroan’s mind. The fear that used to paralyze him when facing monsters had completely evaporated. He tightened his grip on the heavy, rusted broadsword. His body no longer registered pain; the pure adrenaline being pumped by the Void System numbed every single nerve.
The first spider lunged, its massive pincers snapping shut like a guillotine aiming straight for his neck.
"Nyx!" Aroan roared.
Their instincts linked flawlessly. Nyx leaped into the air, its entire physical form disintegrating into pure shadow mist before shooting directly into the blade of Aroan’s rusted sword.
[Shadow Sync Activated!]
[Borrowing Entity's Power: +300% Temporary Physical Strength.]
The dull, rusted blade was instantly wreathed in violently crackling black lightning. The twenty-kilogram weapon suddenly felt as light as a willow branch in Aroan’s grasp.
Moving with a speed absolutely impossible for a Rank-F shifter, Aroan swung his blade upward in a devastating arc.
SLAAAASH!
It wasn't a refined technique; it was a pure, unadulterated strike driven entirely by raw System stats and boiling hatred. The spider’s hardened exoskeleton was cleaved symmetrically in two, spraying foul-smelling green blood across the cavern walls.
Hissing furiously, the second and third spiders coordinated a dual pincer attack from opposite flanks. But Aroan didn't retreat. Pivoting on his heel, he utilized the explosive propulsion from his Shadow Fibers to launch himself into the air. His eyes now radiated the exact same menacing purple glow as Nyx’s.
"Die!"
His sword cleaved horizontally to the left, effortlessly decapitating the second spider. Simultaneously, he thrust his empty left hand toward the third beast, fully activating his Eclipse Mark.
[Skill: Devour's Touch!]
A fist-sized black hole materialized hovering just above his palm. The gravitational pull was absolute, sucking the third spider’s head inward until the massive creature shriveled, imploded, and burst into a cloud of gray ash.
[Killed 3x Abyssal Spiders (Rank-D).]
[Acquired: +120 Void Points.]
Landing smoothly on the jagged rocks, Aroan exhaled a steady, controlled breath. Nyx phased out of the blade’s shadow, rematerializing at his side and casually licking the acidic green blood off its fangs.
Across the cavern, Sargon stopped tapping his sword pommel. The masked giant let out a low grunt. His tone was slightly more respectful, though still laced with barbed wire.
"You have sharp killer instincts for an exiled royal." Sargon turned his back, resuming his trek into the abyssal fog. "Wipe your blade. That was merely a warm-up."
Aroan stared down at the butchered carcasses at his feet, then back up at Sargon's fading silhouette. His sword-hand was trembling—not from fear, but from the intoxicating rush of power currently poisoning his bloodstream.
"Just wait, Valerius," Aroan whispered into the dark. "I will swallow your golden light until there is absolutely nothing left."
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