Later that night, after Mira had gone to bed, Kai sat on the couch in the dark living room, staring at the ceiling.
He'd been avoiding this. Avoiding really looking at whatever this screen he was seeing meant. It looked like a game notification of some sort… like a System screen.
Maybe that's what it is.
He couldn't put it off any longer; he needed to understand what he was dealing with.
"How do I turn it on?" he said to no one in particular. "Uhmm… power on? No, come on? Turn on? Pfffttt…"
He needed to think like this was a game.
After a few seconds of thoughts, he finally found the right word.
"Status," Kai whispered.
The golden text appeared instantly, much clearer than before:
[RECKONER SYSTEM - SSS CLASS]
[User: Kai Arren]
[Shard Rank: A (Apex)]
[True Rank: SSS (Mythic) - LOCKED]
[Core Function: Principle of Balance]
[Status: All encounters auto-balanced to perfect equilibrium]
[Balance Points (BP): 1,247]
[Current Debts: 8 years lifespan]
[Remaining Lifespan: 39 years (Age: 24)]
[Skills:]
- [Equilibrium Strike] (Unlocked) - 100 BP
- [Balance Sight] - 2,500 BP
- [Forced Equilibrium] - 5,000 BP
- [??? - Insufficient Balance] - 10,000 BP
- [??? - Insufficient Balance] - 50,000 BP
Kai read through it slowly.
"SSS Class," he muttered. "But my registered rank is A. The True Rank is locked?"
He focused on the words "LOCKED," but nothing happened. There was no explanation, no additional text. Almost as if the System was keeping secrets.
"Balance Points. I got 1,247 from killing the Phantom Lord."
That made sense. The Echo had been B-rank, worth significant rewards. But the cost...
"Eight years of my lifespan," Kai said aloud. "Thirty-nine years left. I'm twenty-four now, so that means I'll live to... sixty-three?"
That was young. Most people in the colony lived to seventy or eighty, if they didn't die in the Wilds. Kai had just lost nearly a decade.
But he was alive. The alternative had been dying at twenty-four.
He focused on the Skills section.
[Equilibrium Strike] was already unlocked, presumably from the fight with the Phantom Lord. The others were greyed out, requiring Balance Points to activate.
Kai mentally selected [Equilibrium Strike].
New text appeared:
[Equilibrium Strike - Active Skill]
[Cost: 10 BP per use]
[Effect: When facing superior threats, attack damage equals target's current threat level. Perfect balance maintained between user and opponent for duration of strike.]
[Activation Condition: Only functions against threats ranked higher than user]
[Note: Excessive use may result in environmental energy drain.]
"Attack damage equals threat level," Kai read. "But only against superior threats. So if I'm fighting something stronger than me, like an S-rank, the skill lets me match their power level."
That was insane. It meant he could theoretically hurt anything, as long as the System could balance the equation.
But there was that note at the end. Environmental energy drain.
Kai thought about the streetlights dimming as he walked. The scanner at the Registration Center glitching. The medical equipment acting strange.
"You're pulling energy from the environment to fuel this power," Kai said to the System. "Aren't you?"
The System didn't answer, but he knew he was right.
He looked at the other skills. [Balance Sight] cost 2,500 BP; he didn't have nearly enough. [Forced Equilibrium] was even more expensive at 5,000 BP. And the locked skills at the bottom? One required 10,000 BP, the other 50,000.
"How am I supposed to earn that many Balance Points?" Kai wondered. "Kill fifty B-rank Echoes?"
He leaned back and rubbed his eyes. This was all too much and too confusing. He had gone from a simple support Hunter to... whatever this was.
"Fine," Kai said. "Let's start small. I'll unlock [Equilibrium Strike] properly. Get used to using it."
He focused on the skill, mentally confirming the unlock.
The moment he did, the black Shard in his chest flared with cold fire.
Kai gasped, pressing a hand to his sternum. The sensation wasn't painful, exactly, but it was intense… like something was rewiring inside him, carving new pathways through his body.
Then it stopped.
[Equilibrium Strike - Fully Integrated]
[Skill ready for combat use]
Kai let out a shaky breath. "Okay. That wasn't so bad."
The lights in the apartment flickered.
Then they went out completely.
Kai felt his heart pounding as he sat in the dark. He could hear confused voices from the other apartments; people were shouting about the power outage.
"Did I do that?" Kai whispered.
He stood up, moving to the window. Outside, the entire block was dark. No streetlights. No building lights. Everything had gone dead.
"No way. That's got to be a coincidence. The power grid in the Outer Ring is always failing."
But even as he said it, Kai didn't believe it.
He looked down at his hands. They were glowing faintly with the same golden light from before, and it was pulsing in time with his heartbeat.
Before he could process what that meant, new text appeared in his vision; this time in red instead of gold:
[WARNING: Prolonged power extraction detected in Grid Sector 7-G.]
[Environmental balance compromised.]
Kai's blood went cold.
"Environmental balance compromised," he repeated. "I did this. The System pulled power from the entire grid to unlock the skill."
He sat back down, staring at the red warning text. It didn't fade; it just hung there.
From Mira's room, he heard her voice. "Kai? Did the power go out?"
"Yeah," Kai called back, trying to keep his voice steady. "Looks like the whole block. Probably just another outage."
"Figures," Mira muttered. "I'm going back to sleep."
Kai sat alone in the dark, watching the red warning pulse in his vision.
This power wasn't just dangerous to him; it was dangerous to everyone around him.
"What have I become?" Kai whispered.
The System didn't answer.
Outside, in the darkness of the Outer Ring, he heard distant sirens as maintenance crews scrambled to restore power to seven thousand people who would never know what had really caused the blackout.
Kai closed his eyes, the red warning still burning behind his eyelids.
[WARNING: Prolonged power extraction detected in Grid Sector 7-G.]
[Environmental balance compromised.]