2026-04-28 21:16:20Every single step Aroan took after the assimilation felt like stomping barefoot on thousands of glowing, red-hot glass shards.
His leg muscles screamed in absolute agony. The Shadow Fibers hastily stitching his severed tendons were completely foreign, refusing to smoothly integrate with his organic flesh. Every time he shifted his body weight, those threads of dark energy violently scraped against his bones, transmitting a destructive wave of pain—the kind of excruciating torture that could shatter a veteran knight's sanity in mere seconds.
Panting heavily, Aroan leaned against the damp cavern wall. His blurred vision focused on the towering, cloaked giant before him. Sargon—the iron-masked executioner—sat calmly on a massive boulder. His leather-gloved fingers were busy carving that same, imperfect eclipse symbol into the stone surface.
"Who... who exactly are you?" Aroan’s voice was hoarse, sounding like coarse sandpaper grating inside his throat. "How do you know my mother’s crest? What is your actual connection to Arlene?"
Metal screeching against stone abruptly ceased. Sargon stopped carving. A suffocating silence draped over the cavern. Through the slit of his rusted iron mask, Sargon’s solitary golden eye stared coldly at Aroan—a gaze that peeled back layers of the soul, silently judging whether the boy in front of him deserved an answer or was simply wasting precious oxygen.
Standing up at a glacial pace, the giant seemed momentarily affected by the name 'Arlene', yet he buried it perfectly beneath an impenetrable fortress of apathy.
"Call me Sargon," the man answered flatly, his tone colder than the blizzards at Silver Peak. "And bury that useless curiosity of yours, boy. Down here, the past is nothing but dust. A name will not magically reattach your head when a monster’s fangs sink into your neck."
Without warning. Without even the slightest shift in his stance. Sargon moved.
His speed was absolute nonsense for a man of his colossal build. He launched a devastating sweeping kick directly at Aroan’s ribs.
BAAM!
"Gahhk!"
Launched like a broken ragdoll, Aroan slammed violently into a stalagmite, shattering the rock upon impact. Blinding pain erupted in his chest as fresh blood spilled from the corner of his mouth.
From within Aroan’s shadow, pitch-black mist flared wildly. Nyx—the Shadow Primal Wolf—let out a vicious snarl. It wasn't the yip of a pet; it was the ancient, bloodthirsty roar of a predator preparing to kill. Yet, Sargon simply tilted his neck, locking eyes with the shadow wolf for a fraction of a second. Instantly, the sheer oppressive weight of Sargon’s killing intent crushed all the oxygen in the cave, forcefully suppressing Nyx's instincts and driving the beast back into Aroan’s shadow.
Sargon casually strolled toward the coughing, bloodied boy. "On the surface, you might have been the weeping son of an Alpha. But down here, you are nothing more than a slab of rotting meat waiting in line to be devoured."
Looming over Aroan, he commanded, "Stand up. Do not use your muscles to support that broken body. If you keep relying on your ruined Lunaris muscle fibers, you will be permanently paralyzed in five minutes."
Grinding his teeth, Aroan forced his violently trembling legs to support his weight. He was beginning to understand Sargon’s brutal lesson. He could no longer fight like a traditional werewolf. He had to learn how to manipulate Void energy to act as an artificial exoskeleton for his shattered anatomy.
"I... can't control it yet," Aroan growled through the blinding pain.
"You don't need to control it. You just need to stop resisting it," Sargon cut in sharply. Reaching into a nearby pile of bones, the masked man pulled out a heavy, pitch-black object and hurled it straight at Aroan.
Catching it purely on reflex, Aroan was nearly dragged face-first into the dirt by its sheer weight.
[Ding!]
[Item Detected: 'Eclipse Blade'.]
[Grade: Unknown (Sealed).]
[Warning: This weapon will passively siphon the Host's Void Points (VP) to activate.]
It was a massive broadsword forged entirely from pure obsidian. Its edges and blade were utterly devoid of sharpness—blunt, jagged, and seemingly useless. Yet, its surface was freezing cold, actively absorbing the body heat from Aroan’s palms.
"That blade does not require physical sharpness to sever its target," Sargon said, crossing his massive arms like an executioner training his successor. "The Lunaris Clan worships physical light and the superficial sharpness of a razor. But you... you will cut exactly what they cannot see: their very souls."
Jutting his chin toward the blunt sword, he added, "That blade will only awaken when you feed it with your darkness."
"Every time you swing, discard the foolish pride of your arm muscles," Sargon ordered, beginning to circle Aroan like a predatory bird. "Focus on the hollow abyss inside your solar plexus. Channel that absolute emptiness through your Eclipse Mark and straight into the hilt. Let the agonizing pain in your legs become your fuel. Lift it!"
Roaring, Aroan engaged his organic muscles. He managed to lift the heavy blade, but his movements were sluggish and incredibly stiff.
Clicking his tongue in disappointment, Sargon mercilessly kicked the back of Aroan’s knees. Aroan collapsed instantly, the heavy sword slamming into the earth with a deafening thud.
"Wrong! You are still using your organic werewolf strength! Use the shadow, you imbecile!"
For the next six hours, the Velmora cavern transformed into a merciless torture chamber. The sickening sounds of physical impacts, Sargon’s brutal insults, and Aroan’s agonizing groans dominated the damp air. Sargon treated him like a piece of rusted scrap metal, forcefully forging him upon an anvil of pain. Every single time Aroan subconsciously relied on his physical muscles, Sargon battered him without a shred of mercy.
Until the seventh hour.
Hovering on the absolute brink of unconsciousness, Aroan finally stopped relying on his flesh. He closed his eyes. He blocked out the agonizing throbbing in his severed ankles. Instead, he reached out to the presence of Nyx lurking within his shadow, harmonizing their heartbeats into a singular, dark rhythm.
[Shadow Sync: Synchronization Rate 15%... 25%... 40%!]
Pitch-black smoke cascaded down from Aroan’s shoulder, slithering down his arm before completely enveloping the blunt obsidian blade. Suddenly, the twenty-kilogram chunk of stone felt as light as a dried twig.
Snapping his eyes open, Aroan’s pupils flared with an intense, burning purple glow. He pivoted his waist and executed a flawless horizontal slash with the *Eclipse Blade* aimed directly at a massive stone stalagmite beside him.
The blunt blade produced no sound of a heavy collision. Instead, it phased smoothly through the solid rock as if slicing through thin air.
A brief moment of total silence followed.
Then... CRAAACK!
The top half of the massive stalagmite slid diagonally and crashed heavily onto the cavern floor. The cut was impossibly smooth, as if severed by a high-tech laser rather than a jagged, rusted sword.
[Ding!]
[New Weapon Mastery Acquired: Shadow Swordsmanship Lv.1!]
[Physical Attack Power successfully converted into Soul Damage.]
Panting heavily, Aroan stood perfectly still, staring in absolute disbelief at the destruction he had just caused. This blunt sword was genuinely a god-slaying weapon!
Across the cavern, hidden behind the rusted iron mask, the corner of Sargon’s lips twitched upward into an invisible smirk. He actually grasped the concept in a mere seven hours. Just what kind of monster did Arlene give birth to?
"Enough for today," Sargon interrupted, his tone snapping back to an emotionless flatline to mask his internal shock. He glanced at the terrifyingly blackened veins bulging on Aroan’s sword-arm. "If you push any further, your blood vessels will detonate."
Sargon turned his back, stepping into a pitch-black tunnel that descended even deeper into the bowels of the earth.
"Rest your broken body and feed your mutt. Because tomorrow, we descend to the second level of Velmora." Sargon paused, glancing over his shoulder. "The nest of the *Abyssal Stalkers*. Assassins of the dark."
"If you cannot use that blunt toy to bifurcate them in a single strike tomorrow..." Sargon scoffed coldly, "...then you will become nothing more than a pile of excrement at the bottom of this abyss."
The masked giant vanished completely into the shadows, leaving Aroan alone.
Aroan plunged the Eclipse Blade into the ground and leaned heavily against its hilt. Nyx phased out of his shadow, curling up beside his leg and gently licking the bleeding wounds on his master's hand. Aroan stared up at the semi-transparent blue interface hovering in the air, a ruthless, bloodthirsty smile creeping onto his face.
[New Daily Quest: Survive the Nest of Abyssal Stalkers.]
[Objective: Slay 10 Abyssal Stalkers (Rank-C).]
[Reward: 500 Void Points (VP) & Unlock 'Shadow Shop' System.]
"Just wait for me, Valerius," Aroan whispered. His voice no longer belonged to a discarded, exiled prince. It sounded exactly like a demon king locking onto his prey. "Your time on the throne is running out."
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