Far away from the mortal realms, beyond the grasp of any Tutorial participant, a vast platform of polished stone drifted through a sea of distant stars.
At its center stood Kordon.
The god's towering frame was motionless, yet everything around him bent subtly to his presence. His skin was a deep cobalt blue, smooth and unmarked, reflecting the shifting glow of the countless screens that surrounded him. Four powerful arms rested at his sides, each one embodying a different aspect of his dominion.
Thousands of displays hovered in the void around him. They flickered endlessly with scenes pulled from across the Tutorial under his watch.
Battles erupted and ended in moments.
Creatures hunted and were hunted in turn.
Humans struggled, adapted, and died while others survived.
Each moment unfolded in perfect clarity.
Kordon's expression remained calm, composed, untouched by the chaos playing out before him.
Internally, he was anything but.
This has never happened before.
His gaze flicked, just briefly, to a space where no screen lingered.
A nearly imperceptible gap among the thousands of displays. One of his participants had vanished. Not died, for he would know the moment that Normie died. No, somehow he had vanished completely.
Kordon's jaw tightened slightly, though no other sign of his agitation showed.
In all his eras as an Overseer, he had never lost sight of a participant. The System obscured their stats and internal states, but it had never cut one from his view entirely.
What did you do…?
The thought lingered, unanswered.
Then a thin silver seam stitched itself into the fabric of his domain.
Kordon's attention snapped toward it instantly.
The seam split apart with a distorted, tearing sound, like a corrupted transmission forced through an unwilling speaker.
From within stepped Jackal Quipshade.
The second rate god brushed at his fur as if removing dust, bushy tail swaying lazily behind him as though he had all the time in existence.
A second figure followed. Kordon's eyes narrowed at both of them.
Now? Of all possible moments, Jackal has the gall to come now?
Internally, irritation flared into anger but externally he made sure nothing changed.
"What are you doing here?" Kordon asked, his voice even.
Jackal looked up at him with a wide, toothy grin, ears twitching with exaggerated innocence.
"Oh, come now," he said lightly. "Can't a fellow god drop by to enjoy the show?"
The other god said nothing, their presence still and unreadable beside Jackal.
Kordon's gaze lingered on Jackal.
Suspicion came easily when dealing with him. The creature was infamous for inserting himself into matters that did not concern him—always with a reason, always with something to gain.
He knows something.
The thought formed immediately. Two gods did not arrive uninvited to observe a Tutorial without cause.
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And yet… Jackal had said nothing. No mention of the anomaly. No hint that he knew.
Kordon's eyes narrowed slightly.
Or he's waiting for an opportune moment.
"So," Jackal continued casually, reaching into empty space and producing a large tub of buttered popcorn. "I've heard your Tutorials are particularly entertaining. Thought I'd see how the new generation handles things."
He tossed a piece into his toothy mouth, chewing thoughtfully.
Kordon exhaled slowly.
Jackal was annoying and his timing was suspicious. But technically, watching was not forbidden.
And Jackal's offerings…
Kordon's gaze flicked briefly to the popcorn. The last time he had accepted something from Jackal, the beneficial effects had lingered long after the taste had faded.
"Fine," Kordon said at last. "You may observe."
Jackal's grin widened.
"Fantastic!"
A plush recliner materialized beneath him as he dropped into it without hesitation, settling in as though he owned the place.
The soot-robed god, in stark contrast, produced a simple wooden stool and sat with rigid precision, hands resting neatly in their lap.
And just like that—
Kordon was no longer alone.
Jackal tossed another handful of popcorn into his mouth, eyes already scanning the nearest screens with open amusement as he leaned sideways in his recliner, elbow draped over the armrest before giving Kordon a casual nudge.
"So," he said, voice light with curiosity, "who's your pick?"
Kordon did not answer immediately.
All four of his arms folded slowly across his chest as his gaze remained fixed on the constellation of screens drifting before him.
Internally, his thoughts sharpened.
Of course he knows.
Jackal Quipshade did not arrive uninformed. If he had come here, if he had brought another god with him, then he already knew something was amiss.
And yet…
He hadn't said it outright. No mention of the disappearance. No probing questions.
Kordon's eyes narrowed slightly.
How much do you know?
His attention flicked, just briefly, to that same empty space among the screens. One moment, the Coreless human had been there—performing some strange ritual alongside the Viscount of his quadrant.
The next moment, both of them were gone.
Even now, Kordon could replay every other moment within the Tutorial with perfect clarity.
Every battle.
Every death.
Every decision.
But the System had cut him off near the end of the Viscount's ritual.
Why?
The question lingered, unanswered.
Kordon finally spoke.
"I have narrowed the field to a short list of potential candidates."
One of his arms lifted and several screens detached from the greater mass and drifted closer, hovering between them.
"Multiple individuals display potential to be the System's Chosen."
He gestured toward the first.
A frozen mountainside filled the display. Snow whipped violently through the air as a group of humans struggled against an encroaching tide of undead. At their forefront stood a woman with long blonde hair, her blade moving with precise, almost unnatural efficiency as she carved through skeletal ranks.
Another screen shifted forward.
A volcanic landscape dominated the view. Two colossal elementals clashed atop the mountain's rim—one of molten fire and flowing magma, the other of jagged stone. Each impact sent rivers of lava and tons of rock cascading down the slope.
A third display emerged.
A calm oasis, untouched by the chaos of the wider Tutorial. At its center, a man stirred a bubbling cauldron with measured patience, adding ingredients with careful precision as though the surrounding desert posed no threat at all.
The final screen drifted into place.
A crude swamp encampment. Makeshift structures rose from mud as a pale man stood at its center, directing others with a surprising authority, his expression composed despite the danger lurking beyond their fragile settlement.
Jackal leaned forward, eyes gleaming with interest.
"Oh, this is fun," he said.
The other god remained still, arms folded, content to remain silent as they observed.
"Which one do you think it is?" Jackal asked, a grin tugging at his lips.
Kordon's gaze moved from one screen to the next, studying each in turn.
"It is too soon to tell."
With a subtle motion, he sent the displays drifting back into the greater sea of observation.
"The Chosen does not reveal themselves immediately," he continued. "Their path must be observed. Their decisions weighed."
Jackal tossed another piece of popcorn into his mouth, watching the screens with open enjoyment.
"So you're just… waiting?" he asked.
Kordon inclined his head.
"I will observe the flow of fate surrounding each of them," he said calmly. "In time, possibility will narrow into certainty."
Jackal leaned back into his recliner, completely at ease.
"Well," he said cheerfully, his ears flicking with amusement.
"Guess we'll just have to keep watching."
The burning didn't stop.
Cade lay curled beneath the dome, his knees drawn tight to his chest, every muscle locked in a desperate attempt to hold himself together. His skin felt flayed. Every inch of him throbbed like it had been peeled open and pressed against a furnace wall. The pain refused to plateau; it clawed upward, steadily, relentlessly, a horizon that kept receding no matter how far he staggered toward it.
His breath came shallow, harsh. What little air he managed to pull in tasted like metal and dust.
Then the pain changed as it sank deeper within him.
At first it was just a deeper ache, like the burn on his skin had found a fissure and slid inside. But then it crept further—down past muscle, past tissue, past places pain had ever belonged.
A hiss tore from Cade's teeth as the sensation burrowed into him. The burning wrapped around his ribs, pried through his chest, and tugged at his spine. His nerves lit up in frantic, discordant pulses. His vision stuttered behind his squeezed eyelids—bright flares of white and black alternating like a strobe light.
He wanted to scream but he didn't dare. Not with that Emperor somewhere out there in the storm. Not with a creature capable of reducing mountains of flesh to vapor that close. If he screamed loud enough for it to hear—
He bit his own arm to clamp the sound down, teeth grinding through the pain.
But the ash didn't care.
White powdery ash still slipped beneath the dome in thin, insistent streams. It crawled over his legs, his hips, along his back, and across his face. Not drifting—seeking. Moving with intent. Curling up his nostrils, slipping between cracked lips, clinging to the corners of his eyes.
And then it pushed deeper.
Cade felt it invade. The ash was moving into him, down his throat and into his lungs with each ragged inhale. Into his stomach with every involuntary swallow. He could feel it crawling deeper and deeper..
The moment it hit his bloodstream, everything exploded.
White‑hot agony ripped through him. His insides boiled. His bowels turned watery and he puked a thick stream of black, viscous sludge that splattered against the shell's curved inner wall. A heartbeat later his lower half spasmed and more tar-like filth spilled out beneath him.
His chest seized. His back arched involuntarily. His limbs jerked in sharp, uncontrolled spasms as if the ash were carving tunnels through his flesh, excavating him from the inside.
Pins and needles erupted into an inferno in his arms. His legs burned as if veins were being melted and remade. Something pulsed behind his sternum. His spine thrummed with a deep, burning ache.
He pressed his forehead against the ash-slick ground, breath shattering in jagged gasps.
He tried to rasp but no sound truly left his shredded throat.
I need to live. I need to survive this. He thought
The storm outside roared. Wind battered the dome like a beast trying to tear him from his hiding place. More ash flowed in, swirling around him, clinging to him, merging with the black filth already coating his skin.
His lungs spasmed and ash rushed into him again. He coughed, choked, gagged—and more black ooze spilled from his mouth. His throat burned as if being scraped raw from the inside.
His head spun. His vision flickered in and out.
The pain surged again—deeper now as pain erupted from even his bones. A pressure built inside his chest, squeezing his heart until each beat felt like a hammer striking him from within. Something buzzed along his spine. His fingertips tingled. His toes went numb. Heat and cold collided inside him like battling currents, boiling then freezing then boiling again.
Cade's hands clawed helplessly at the floor. The ash under his fingers shifted. His body twitched violently, muscles jumping without permission.
His mind frayed around the edges.
Even as something tugged at his awareness.
Cade's fingers spasmed against the ground, scraping through ash and sludge until they brushed something solid. The sensation sparked a half-remembered thought, dragged up from beneath the pain. The cores. The ones he'd taken from the Lords of the Swamp.
Panic flared weakly.
With shaking effort, he clawed at the ruined remains of his armor and spilled its contents into the ash. Two stones tumbled free.
The first was jet black—darker than night, darker than the onyx scales of the serpent it had come from. Lord N'zhal's core. It should have swallowed light. Instead, its surface crawled with pale streaks as ash clung to it. Fine cracks spiderwebbed across the darkness, glowing faintly white before the glow collapsed inward. The core shuddered once then began to flake, black fragments lifting away before dissolving into dust.
"No—" Cade tried to rasp, but the sound died in his throat.
The second core rolled against his palm as if seeking him out. Tegziran's soft green, almost white, core was glowing gently even now. For a heartbeat, it resisted. The glow brightened, pulsing as if alive, as if trying to hold itself together.
Then the ash began devouring.
The green light dimmed steadily. Hairline fractures spread through the core's surface, leaking pale luminescence that the ash eagerly devoured. The glow thinned, flickered, and finally guttered out entirely. What remained crumbled in Cade's hand, collapsing into a fine, lifeless powder that slipped between his fingers and vanished into the white.
Gone.
Both of them were gone.
Those cores had been proof he had defeated the Lords and the ash had taken them as easily as it had taken his armor, his dagger, and his strength.
The ash didn't care what something was. Only that it could be consumed.
Cade's vision blurred completely as another wave of agony rolled through him, erasing thought, memory, and regret alike.
Not here. Don't break. Don't give in. Don't—
His thoughts shattered as another spike of pain ripped through him, bright and sharp and blinding.
The storm's howl dimmed.
The pressure behind his eyes pulsed as his breath hitched and his consciousness slipped, unraveling like fraying cloth.
Cade lay there, half-curled, half-sprawled, twitching as the waves of ash‑driven agony pulsed through him.
Darkness held him for a long time.
Not the void of the violet eye nor the dreamless numb of a drunken blackout during a college rager. This darkness felt thick—like a blanket soaked in cold tar—heavy enough that Cade had to claw his way up through it.
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When he finally surfaced, the first thing he noticed was the silence. Just a dead, hollow stillness.
Then came the pain.
A deep, throbbing ache radiated from every inch of his body, but it was nothing compared to the inferno from before. This pain felt survivable. Like the aftermath of something catastrophic rather than the catastrophe itself.
His skull pulsed. A pounding headache hammered behind his eyes, each throb sending a wave of nausea through him.
Cade groaned and shifted. The motion smeared something thick and tacky across his chest.
That was when the smell hit him.
"—oh God."
He gagged.
It was the worst thing he'd ever smelled. Worse than the summer Cade forgot his gym bag in the trunk and opened it a week later to find his socks fermenting into a biological weapon. Worse than the time his college roommate tried—and failed—to make homemade kimchi in a plastic bin and left it stewing under his bed for two months. And far worse than the half-rotting corpse of a deer he and his father had stumbled across during one of their yearly camping trips.
This was a suffocating blend of bile, sourness, iron, and something chemical and rotten—like fermented sewage marinated in battery acid. It clawed up his nostrils and coated the back of his throat.
He retched dryly, but there was nothing left in him to throw up.
The sticky layer clinging to him—the black bile all around—that reek came from him.
He lifted a trembling hand and felt the crusted mixture coating his skin. Ash mixed with congealed fluids and whatever else had come out of him. It clung like tar—tacky and horribly slick all at once.
For a moment, there was only the stench, the silence, and the distant hum of pain echoing through his nerves.
Then—
DING!
You have endured the Ashen Baptism. Complete the rite to continue body tempering.
Complete the rite?
His eyes unfocused for a moment, struggling to make sense of the System notification. But he was too dazed, too drained to understand. The words body tempering lodged in his foggy mind. It sounded familiar, important even, but he couldn't quite place it. Not with everything so hazy.
He closed the notification with a sluggish thought. His vision cleared slightly, enough to see the interior of the dome.
He froze.
It looked… bigger.
Not physically, but there was more room around him. Where he'd once been curled tight against the curved walls, he now had space between his limbs and the dome's inner curves.
Did it expand?
His fuzzy brain couldn't latch onto any logical explanation. Maybe the ash had been piled thicker than he realized. Maybe the storm had hollowed the space out more. Cade shoved the thought away before it could form fully.
He planted his palm against the slick floor and pushed. His arm trembled violently. His shoulder screamed. But he forced himself upright, dragging his filthy body toward the dome's opening.
Each movement peeled crusted patches of goo from his skin. It came away in sticky strings that snapped back against him. His knees wobbled and his breath shook.
But he crawled and clawed his way out, desperate to escape the stench and the claustrophobic heat trapped beneath the shell.
He hauled himself free, and at last, cool air touched his face.
The light outside was dim—soft blue and pale gold—as the sun hovered low across a landscape that had transformed beyond recognition.
Cade pushed himself to his feet, unsteady, and stared.
The dunes were gone. Completely wiped away.
Where rolling hills of white had once stretched endlessly, there was now only a vast, cracked plain—a flat expanse hardened as if fused by unimaginable heat. The ground was a mosaic of pale plates and thin fissures, each segment brittle but solid beneath his bare feet.
Cade crouched and touched the surface.
The storm hadn't just passed through—it had devoured the dunes. Pulled them up and compacted whatever remained into a barren ivory desert.
"The whole landscape…" he whispered, voice ragged. "Gone."
His gaze drifted back to the dome behind him.
Fully revealed now, no longer buried, it gleamed bone-white in the fading light. Sunlight traced the weathered ridges across its back, each groove and plate catching a dim, pearly shine.
It looked ancient. Worn. Beautiful in a stark, brutal way.
Recognition struck him like a jolt. It was a shell just like the Ashen Emperor's, only not as massive, but unmistakably cut from the same lineage.
Cade reached to lift it—and froze.
He looked at his hand for the first time. Truly saw what he had become after the ash had its way with him.
His breath stuttered.
His fingers were thin. Skeletal. The skin stretched tight over bony knuckles, smeared with streaks of congealed black goo. His wrist looked wrong—too narrow, like half of the mass had been carved away.
He looked down.
His entire body was a horror.
Every rib visible. Hips jutting sharply. Thighs little more than twigs wrapped in brittle skin. His abdomen hollowed out like he'd been starved for weeks on end. His flesh streaked in chalky white and oily black.
His voice cracked. "How am I alive?"
He fumbled for his Status screen as his mind tried to focus on the most important section.
HP: 18 / 270
SP: 4 / 240
MP: 0 / 260
Cade let out a breath that violently shook his entire body.
He was basically a corpse.
His mind scrambled to make sense of the numbers. The ash had eaten his body so of course it drained his HP. Fighting it off must have drained SP too. But MP? Why did he have zero mana?
He had never used mana, every time he checked before it was always full. He didn't even know how to use mana. The System itself said mana was for expressing energy outside the body, and Cade hadn't done anything close to that.
So why was it zero?
Did the ash eat that too? he thought, horrified that something was able to consume him so thoroughly.
His mind spiraled with questions. How could ash corrode mana? What was mana made of? What was the ash made of? How was he supposed to learn anything when he didn't even have a Class or Profession to go from?
He pressed trembling hands against his face, smearing more black sludge down his gaunt cheeks. He had too many questions and not nearly enough answers.
Cade's eyes drifted again to the dome, the shell that had shielded him from the brunt of the storm. It had held together even while his gear had disintegrated. Even the metal dagger had dissolved to dust. But this thing? It had somehow remained.
Not a single crack ran across its surface. No corrosion or any sign of damage. The same dull ivory gleam it had when he first uncovered it still shimmered in the fading light.
Cade hobbled back to it. The world spun slightly as he moved, but he pushed through it, one hand bracing his emaciated side. His legs felt like they were barely strong enough to support him.
His fingers gripped the outer ridge.
It lifted surprisingly easily. Lighter than he expected. Much lighter, given how solid it looked and how frail he felt. The outer surface was ridged and bumpy. Up close Cade could see the tiny grooves—natural etchings formed by years of wind, ash, and heat.
The underside was darker, more matte, with subtle ridges and depressions shaped by long-gone anatomy. At the center of the concave side, a single bony protrusion jutted downward, curved like a hooked handle.
The thing that had scraped at his back when he'd crawled in.
He reached for it and his hand slid naturally into place.
It almost fit. His fingers curled around the protrusion, but the grip felt loose—his hand too narrow, too gaunt to fill it properly. Yet there were grooves there, shallow contours shaped to cradle muscle and bone. He could feel it—if he still had the bulk he'd lost, if his body hadn't been stripped down to skin and sinew, the fit would've been perfect.
Cade blinked.
He was naked, reeking, emaciated, and exposed to a world that had already tried to kill him many times over. He had no armor or weapons, so he gripped the only thing left: the shell that had acted as his shelter.
His fingers tightened around the handle as he pulled it close, pressing the curved surface against his chest.
It was his now. The ash hadn't claimed it and if he had any say in the matter—it wouldn't claim him either.
The light was almost gone. What little sun remained bled orange across the sky, spilling warmth that didn't reach Cade's skin.
He turned, the shell clutched tightly in his arms, and cast one last look toward the horizon—toward the direction the Ashen Emperor had vanished, where the storm still churned in the far distance, fading opposite the setting sun.
He adjusted his grip. His scrawny form twitched with fatigue, joints stiff and raw. The handle beneath the shell's belly nestled into his palm, and as he shifted, the curved surface slid naturally along his forearm and shoulder.
Then he turned his back on the storm's remnants.
The white-cracked ground crunched beneath his bare feet. He walked slowly at first, unsteady and lightheaded, the shell hugged close. With each step, the wind kissed his raw skin—but it no longer carried the same corrupting malice it once had when it rode in with ash.
He didn't know where he was going.
There was no path or sign he would find an end to this white hell, only the dim orange bleed of the dying sun and the endless white plain stretching beyond it. The air grew colder as the last of the warmth drained from the sky, but Cade kept walking into the night.
The shell dragged behind him in his left hand, scraping a faint trail into the cracked white ground as Cade plodded along. Each step felt heavier than the last, but he kept moving forward.
Above, a pale lilac moon floated—nearly full and glowing faintly against a canvas of midnight blue. Its light painted the landscape in cool hues, softening the brutal edges of the compacted desert. Cade squinted at it, slowing to a shuffle.
Is that a real moon? he wondered.
It looked real but what did "real" even mean in a place like this? Was it an actual moon suspended in space, or just a projection by the System meant to mimic a natural world? Could he walk far enough to reach the horizon and see the edge of a skybox? Was this dungeon an entire planet in a solar system or would he hit a barrier if he kept walking in one direction?
The questions came with no answers, just the dry rasp of his breath and the ache in his limbs. His throat was parched—each swallow scraped like sandpaper—and a dull hunger gnawed at his stomach. But at least the night air was cool, almost refreshing against his raw skin.
He walked for what felt like hours, always angling away from where the distant storm had disappeared beyond the horizon. The cracked plain stretched endlessly, no hills or dunes to mark the way, just pale fissures beneath the night sky. He didn't see any sign of life. No birds or insects or even the remains of a bush or a dying weed. Only a vast emptiness.
Without warning, his hand slipped. The shell fell from his grasp, hitting the ground with a dull thud behind him.
Cade staggered a step, blinked, and then crumpled forward—his legs folding without grace. He hit the ground hard, his ribs jarring against the packed earth. Pain flared through his torso, but there was no strength left to react aside from the slight groan that left his lips. He lay there for a moment before managing to roll halfway onto his side, then after several more seconds of building up his determination, he forced himself onto his back.
The night sky loomed above. The moon hung directly overhead.
Status he thought.
The translucent screen flickered into his mind's eye and he condensed it down to just his resources.
HP: 18 / 270
SP: 0 / 240
MP: 67 / 260
No change to his health. He'd hoped that being out of immediate danger would've let some kind of passive regeneration kick in, but his HP was stagnant at not even 10% of his total health.
Maybe I need food, he thought, his cracked lips twitching with a grimace. His stomach let out a feeble groan. The System probably required fuel for natural regeneration to take place, just like any normal body would. No nutrients meant no repair would take place. He didn't even have a gram of fat left for his body to burn so it would make sense his health wouldn't regenerate.
Zero stamina explained his collapse. He remembered the System Entity's warning back in the initiation that he would collapse or even die if he continued to push beyond his stamina limit.
But what really stuck with him was the mana.
How do I have sixty-seven MP?
He hadn't done anything to regenerate it from zero. Hell, his Wisdom stat was the lowest of any attribute so how had he regenerated a quarter of his mana already? Then again, it had never gone down before either. Maybe this was normal. Maybe mana just trickled back on its own.
He exhaled slowly, eyelids fluttering shut. More questions. He always had more questions.
Cade let the status screen fade and just stared at the stars above until they began to blur. He finally rolled onto his side, arms trembling beneath him. His body groaned and protested but he moved. Slowly, clumsily, he clawed his way towards the shell.
He didn't want to be exposed. Not out here. Not under this endless expanse without any armor or weapons. Even though he hadn't seen another living creature since the Ashen Emperor, the sheer openness gnawed at his instincts. Something primal told him to find shelter, to hide.
It took everything he had left, but inch by inch, he dragged himself back beneath the shell.
The interior was just as before, the curved walls wide enough to fit him in his shriveled state. At least it was something. Something solid between him and the rest of the world. A barrier, however small.
He collapsed on his back and stared up at the dome's belly. Every part of him ached. Every joint, every muscle, every breath. Hell, even his bones felt tired.
And now there was nothing to do but lie there. His body yearned for sleep, but his mind was too wired to rest. So he thought.
His eyes stayed fixed on the shell's underside, where grooves and ridges traced patterns. They looked almost natural—organic—but some of the lines curved too precisely, as if shaped by something other than organic growth. His thoughts drifted to the System. To the way it had transported him into this place.
Why am I even here? he wondered.
He was supposed to be in the human Tutorial for people without cores. A proper entry for someone like him. Somewhere to learn, to adapt, to survive with others like him who weren't initially worthy of the automatic core formation. He wasn't supposed to be here in a corrupted dungeon with monstrous creatures and storms that peeled your soul out through your lungs.
It should have been different.
Maybe he would've had a guide. Maybe he'd be learning to fight slimes in a cave or goblins in a forest or some other generic low level creature.
Instead, he was naked and a breath away from death in a place not even meant for people with Classes or Professions.
His hands curled into weak fists.
Why did I rush into the portal?
He kept coming back to that moment Aquelion had disappeared into the pillar of light. To the seconds after, when he'd looked on and without any real thought he had leapt in to follow.
Why did I help in the first place?
Because a little gator he barely knew had given him a look. It didn't even ask—just gave him a glance that said it needed help.
And Cade had helped.
Just like that. No hesitation. He'd given up the two most valuable items he had: the dewstone, which had refreshed his body constantly, and the axe embedded with the obsidian flake, which had cut through anything he came across with ease. He'd handed them over because the ritual needed them. Because helping felt right in the moment.
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He wanted to help. He wanted to feel useful and not let another person, well creature, down like he had Sasesh and the others.
He gritted his teeth. "Fuck I'm an idiot."
If he'd just taken five seconds to think before leaping, he probably wouldn't be lying under a shell in the middle of this sterile wasteland.
But he hadn't. Because deep down, something in him had wanted to help. Something had seen Aquelion and wanted to prove—what? That he wasn't useless? That he wasn't a waste of space?
Cade shut his eyes.
It didn't matter. None of it did now. What was done was done.
Wishing wouldn't refill his health or bring back the items he fought for. Regret wouldn't give him food or fix the damage to his body. He was here now and there was no going back.
He inhaled slowly through his nose. The air inside the shell was rank and stale. He held his breath for a moment, then let it out through his mouth.
Again.
Inhale. Hold. Exhale. Hold.
He forced the rhythm. Tried to calm his mind. The thoughts came—sharp and spiraling—but he didn't cling to them. He let them come and then he let them go.
Just breathe. He told himself.
He focused on the air entering his lungs. The way his chest rose with each breath. The slow deflation that followed. He could feel the breath anchor him. The pain dulled. His awareness of his body began to soften. His nerves slowly receded like a tide pulling back from the shore.
The aches and itches didn't vanish, but they stopped demanding his attention as he sank into the rhythm and focused just on his breath.
And as he did something inside his mind shifted.
A pressure pulled gently at the edge of his awareness. A flicker of thought. A strand of something coiling deep within his mind, tickling the base of his skull. Not a memory. Not a hallucination. But something else he couldn't identify.
He noticed it and let it be but the pull only grew stronger.
It wasn't malicious. It wasn't even foreign. It felt familiar, like a part of himself from deep inside of his mind wanted to connect. A hand reaching out in the dark.
He breathed.
In.
Out.
The pull lingered just out of reach. A word on the tip of his tongue. A song he couldn't quite remember. It felt so close he could almost taste it.
And then a slight lapse in focus and his mind jumped at the opportunity. It moved to the sensation trying to understand it. The moment his mind shifted his breath hitched and the pull suddenly vanished.
Gone as if it had never been there.
Cade opened his eyes and he realized his heart was racing.
The sensation—whatever it had been—was gone. His body, once numb, now howled again with exhaustion and pain.
The return of pain came with spiteful clarity.
His joints throbbed. His muscles twitched. The raw patches on his skin ached with every breath. That state of calm—the strange pressure at the back of his mind—was gone, and with it, any peace he'd managed to scrape together beneath the shell.
Cade's frustration twisted hot in his chest. He'd been close to something. He didn't know what, but it had felt important. The sensation had been pulling at him, just on the edge of his awareness; but as soon as he'd shifted focus, it had disappeared like smoke in the wind.
A soft sting flared across his thigh but he didn't move. His skin prickled again, that faint pins-and-needles sensation from earlier creeping in along his body. The same feeling that had come at the beginning of the ash, though far less intense.
His eyes cracked open.
The dark under the shell made it hard to see and his vision was blurry. He rubbed at his eyes, hoping to clear it, but the blur remained as a dull, pale smear.
He cursed softly under his breath. Had the ash damaged his eyes permanently? Was this it now? A permanent haze like looking through frosted glass?
Then he looked toward the shell's opening.
Thick white mist pooled outside, spilling in low like smoke crawling across the ground. Cade stared, realization trickling in.
The haze wasn't in his eyes. It was everywhere around him.
He pulled himself up slightly and peered around outside the shell. A dense white fog now blanketed the land, clinging to the compacted ground.
The air tasted damp. For the first time in what felt like forever, moisture coated his throat, as faint as dew but enough to give the air weight. His body tingled all over. Even his mouth and throat had begun to tickle.
The mist is doing something.
His thoughts sharpened slightly.
It didn't feel hostile. The sensation was strange, yes—itchy, a little burny, almost like a mild sunburn—but compared to the burning he'd suffered through with the ash, this was tolerable.
The pale wall of mist rolled slowly, without wind, hugging the ground like it had weight. The mist lapped gently at the edges of the shell, creeping into his shelter.
He shifted again under the shell, skin dragging across the floor, coated in that slick, tar-like residue. It felt a little softer now. The black gunk that had hardened over his skin since the baptism was starting to loosen and even peel at the edges.
That couldn't be a coincidence. The mist was doing something to him.
Slowly, with effort, he rolled onto his side and crawled the rest of the way out from under the shell.
The mist engulfed him further. The pins and needles surged and the burning kicked up a notch. Cade hissed softly but pushed through it. His feet settled against the ground, and he stood—bare, trembling, and aching all over.
The white haze rose to his knees. Now that his head was above it he could see the mist stretched across the landscape in all directions in an endless smooth tide across the desert floor.
There was no high ground nearby. No hills or dunes he could climb to get out of the mist.
It's covering everything, he thought.
There were no hills or dunes behind him, there was only forward.
Cade stretched his arms slowly. The pain flared—but it was less than before. His joints didn't creak as badly. His skin didn't feel quite so brittle. His body still hurt, still reeked, still hung by a thread—but it was a little better.
He summoned the status screen again, eyes scanning quickly.
HP: 21 / 270
SP: 7 / 240
MP: 125 / 260
His brows lifted.
All three stats had ticked upward with his mana nearly doubling in the short time he had laid down.
Was it the mist? he wondered. It had to be. He hadn't eaten or rested properly. He didn't even sleep, he had just laid under the shell breathing.
Cade looked down at his legs and arms again. The black crust on his skin was starting to flake, to soften. Where the mist clung he could swear the patches of ash and bile were breaking down.
Cade crouched and retrieved the shell, his fingers wrapping once more around the protrusion on its underside. The grip still didn't feel right in his raw, boney hands—but it was better than being naked and empty-handed.
He hefted the shell against his left side. The mist curled around his knees, growing more dense with every passing moment.
There was no clear path but he walked in as straight of a line as he could. He had no landmarks to go by as the mist covered landscape stretched out in every direction. Only the shell in his hand, the sting of mist against his legs, and the dark sky above.
The mist clung heavier the further he went. It lapped at his waist and continually crept higher—reaching his ribs, his chest, finally curling against his shoulders. Every rise in height brought a sharper burn, a deeper itch. His skin tingled constantly now, the sensation halfway between a slow peel and a soothing balm.
The black goo coating his skin had continued to soften. Slick chunks peeled from his arms, floated down, and dissolved into the mist.
It's stripping it away, he thought.
With each step, he felt lighter. Not stronger—he was still starving and still shaking—but less bound by the tar covering his skin. The crusted death coating his body was slowly melting off but as it did Cade's skin flared with new sensation. He pressed forward, bare feet cracking the ground as he moved.
Keep walking.
The thought looped in his mind.
Keep walking. Keep moving. Don't stop.
And then he heard a noise far in the distance. A soft, slow, low rolling thunder rumbled across the sky. Not the explosive crack of the colossal worm's death shudder but the long, guttural groan of rain-heavy clouds twisting up above.
Cade turned his face upward and closed his eyes. He listened as another roll of thunder swept across the horizon.
A smile crept up on his lips—weak, tired, and cracked—but a smile nonetheless.
Thunder meant clouds. Clouds meant rain. Rain meant water. Real, drinkable, blessed water.
He stared into the mist-wreathed dark. The fog curled around him, stinging and soothing all at once. Above him, the thunder rolled once more—closer this time.
Cade took another step forward, into the growing fog.
The mist swallowed Cade whole.
It covered his head and the world dissolved into a formless white cloud. Thick enough that there was no horizon, no sky, and no ground but if he got close enough he could still see his hand in front of his face.
His fingers curled tighter around the shell's handle, dragging it behind him as he trudged forward. The tingling sensation that had started at his calves now spread across his entire body. Pins and needles became a slow burn.
The black sludge had begun to slough off in layers—peeling like a snake shedding its skin. Every fleck that fell away revealed raw, new skin beneath. The mist reacted with it like an acid and a balm all at once, searing and soothing in alternating waves.
Cade stumbled, nearly fell, but caught himself. He pressed a trembling palm to his chest and forced his legs to keep moving. The thunder overhead had grown louder and deeper.
Still, somewhere inside the pressure and pain, his thoughts had cleared. The fog in his head was no longer as thick as the one around him.
Body tempering.
He remembered the phrase now. It was from cultivation stories, mythic tales of warriors hardening their bodies to withstand elemental forces, to channel energy, to survive what others could not. He remembered reading about them only a week ago.
Has it really only been a week since the System came and changed the world?
He remembered the System Entity had said something about manual core formation requiring exceptional body refinement. Was this what it meant? Was this how people—or beasts—could achieve power without an automatically formed System core?
He recalled the recent System notification back into his mind.
You have endured the Ashen Baptism. Complete the rite to continue body tempering.
He frowned. The ash storm must have been part of the initial rite, triggered when the Ashen Emperor unleashed its fury on the colossal worm. Cade remembered the moment when the Emperor had looked toward him, ever so slightly, just before the ash poured in.
Had it mistaken him for one of its own? Had it meant to baptize him as if he were its kin?
That would imply beasts like Aquelion were meant to endure such things. A trial of pain and growth. Maybe all Titled beasts went through something like it at some point.
But if the ash was only part one, what was part two? What was he meant to do to complete the rite?
He glanced at the sky—or tried to. Above him was nothing but white haze and soundless pressure that made his ears feel as if they were about to pop. He couldn't see the stars or the moon, but he could still hear the thunder growing closer.
The System message said to complete the rite. He had no clue what that meant or what it entailed but he knew that there was no going back to finish what he accidentally started. There was only endless wasteland behind him, if he turned around now he'd surely die. All Cade could do was move forward, the remaining parts of the body tempering would have to wait.
As he trudged on, his thirst continued to claw at his throat. The mist teased him with tiny beads of moisture clinging to his skin, gliding along his jaw, but never enough to drink.
And then whispers of raindrops began to fall.
They landed in scattered bursts at first, like tiny glass threads striking his arms and shoulders. He exhaled shakily and let the shell clatter to the ground beside him.
Rain. Real rain. He lifted his head, arms hanging limp as the drizzle became steady. It wasn't a gentle warm summer shower he remembered from childhood. This was cold. The kind of rain that sticks to your skin and seeps into your bones. Each drop was small but clung tightly to his body creating a thin wet film.
He opened his mouth to drink and nearly gagged as he felt an immediate burn. The rain water felt like needles coated in vinegar and fire.
He choked, coughed, staggered back and nearly fell over the shell behind him. His tongue recoiled against the taste—acrid and chemical, like the ash had found its way into the sky.
But he couldn't stop. His thirst egged him on as he opened his mouth again and let more in. His throat screamed, but his desperation overrode the pain. Cade told himself it wasn't the rain that was the problem. His throat was raw, torn open by ash and hunger. It had to be that. Right?
Right?
He spat the first mouthful out, washing the filth from his gums and tongue. He cupped his hands together, caught more rainwater, and drank greedily.
It hurt but helped at the same time.
The cold water coursed through him, and for a moment—just a moment—he felt alive again.
Until the shivers hit.
Violent, uncontrollable shivers shook his frame. He was so thin and stripped of warmth that even the bit of cold water he was able to swallow had lowered his body temperature. His body wasn't built for this—not anymore with his lack of muscle and fat.
The clouds above pulsed with strange colored light that flickered in the mist. Lightning in violet, gold, jade, and crimson split the sky.
Cade stared upward, stunned, until a sudden clarity struck him. He was the only thing standing for miles.
There were no trees or hills or dunes around, at least none that he could see before the mist took over the landscape. Standing here meant that he was the tallest thing around, a rod for the rapidly growing lightning above.
Panic punched through the cold. Cade hurled himself to the ground, pressing flat against the muddy surface, hands out in front of him.
He turned and crawled, clawing his way to the shell, dragging his shaking form across the rain-slicked ground. The shell loomed just in front of him. Cold rain pelted his back in waves—no longer needle-fine but broad, brutal sheets of water that slapped against his skin.
The rain wasn't falling now—it was hammering, hurled down in sheets so thick it sounded like the sky was splitting open and an ocean was falling out. The droplets were massive now, wide as his fist, and pelted his raw, uncovered skin with unreasonable force.
He reached the shell and pulled himself beneath. He curled up tight beneath it, hugging his limbs close. The wind shifted, catching the curved lip like a sail.
"Shit—no you don't," he muttered, teeth clacking from the cold. He gripped the inner handle as tight as he could with numb fingers, pulling the edge of the shell into the mud below to anchor it.
The wind howled, dragging curtains of rain sideways. The ground beneath him had softened—compact white stone turned to mud. Thick, clinging mud that sucked at his knees and elbows, filled the shell's base, and squelched beneath his trembling limbs.
He could barely hear anything now over the roar of wind, water, and thunder.
Then—
A flash. The entire world went white.
BOOM.
A single, cavernous blast shattered through the air.
Lightning struck down and tore through the shell like a divine hammer. Cade, still gripping the handle, took the full brunt of the current.
The world jolted. His back arched involuntarily. His muscles seized, then relaxed all at once. Light exploded behind his eyes. His vision whited out entirely.
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
And then came the afterglow—a searing tingle that didn't burn so much as blossomed.
Energy.
Electricity flowed through every pore, lighting up the faint, hollow paths carved into his body by the ash—channels he hadn't even known existed. The current filled them. Flooded them. Charged them like arteries of raw lightning.
Sparks leapt off his skin. Pale white arcs snapped between the shell and the air. His body sizzled, and he smelled his own skin—not burning, exactly but close.
Even though his heart was hammering and his vision was flickering, he strangely felt better than before.
"What…the…hell…" he said between gasps, every muscle twitching.
His brain finally caught up, and a thought bubbled up, wild and reckless.
Was that supposed to happen? Was the lightning part of it? The next stage of body tempering?
No System message confirmed his theory. No notification appeared. But somehow Cade knew—he knew. Deep down, something in him whispered: This is the path I need to take.
Complete the rite.
That's what the message had said. This had to be it.
His body was buzzing now, like static had taken root inside him. Not just pain—power. His thoughts sharpened. The haze that had been dragging at his mind for hours suddenly lifted, wiped clean by the surge of current.
The ash had hollowed him out, carved new trails in flesh and bone. And now the lightning filled them.
He stared down at his hands. They trembled, but not with weakness or from the cold. They trembled with anticipation of what was next.
Cade grit his teeth and pushed himself forward, out from under the shell. Rain battered him immediately. It was so thick now it felt like drowning on land. His skin screamed with the cold but something deeper in him welcomed the punishment.
He crawled through the rain-slick mud and then—using every shred of energy left in him—he climbed up onto the top of the shell.
The wind tore at him, whipping his wet hair across his face, but he stayed steady. He rose onto his knees. Then, with a breath that felt like it could've been his last, he stood.
Naked.
Shivering.
Alive.
He threw his arms out wide. His fingers spread to the heavens.
"Strike me again," he commanded.
As if in answer, the sky tore open.
A jagged bolt of crimson red lightning cracked through the cloud cover and slammed into him with the force of a falling god. It struck him dead-center, chest-first, and he swore he felt the impact resonate in his bones. It poured into him. Poured through him. Into the shell and out through the ground below.
Cade screamed—not from pain, but from a release of something deeper. A euphoric, primal roar that turned his voice hoarse.
He could feel the energy inside of him, reshaping his body, and he wanted more.
The red bolt faded, but Cade didn't even have time to gasp before the next one came.
A streak of thick molten orange ripped downward, splitting the clouds like a wound in the sky. The orange current rippled through him, illuminating every channel carved through his flesh by the ash. They glowed beneath his skin like molten rivers. His arms snapped rigid, his back arched, but he stayed on his feet—barely—knees trembling atop the slick shell.
Then came yellow lightning, sharp, precise, and surgical. It shot down his spine, branching into his limbs, electrifying nerve endings he didn't know still worked. Cade screamed again—this time, half in pain, half in sheer disbelief that his body could even withstand being struck by lightning once, let alone multiple times back to back. He staggered, but he didn't fall. The cracks of each strike echoed into the storm, swallowed instantly by the roar of thunder.
Every bolt was different—its own flavor, its own emotion, its own violence, seeking and striking at different parts of his anatomy. And every time one hit him, the same instinct rose within him:
More.
He hadn't expected that. After the ash, after the horror of being corroded and carved from the inside, he couldn't imagine wanting anything intense ever again. But this—this torrent of raw energy—felt like it was completing something the ash had begun. As if his body, stripped down to its barest framework, had been waiting for something to fill it.
The green lightning descended next. A thick, verdant bolt struck him and spread outward instead of driving straight through. Cade gasped as it soaked into his flesh, sinking deep, heavy and nourishing in a way the others hadn't been. It wrapped around his organs, threaded through muscle and bone, and seeped into the cracked places left behind by ash. The pain dulled, not gone but steadied, transformed into a deep pressure that felt like roots forcing their way through stone. His heartbeat evened out. His lungs drew breath more easily. For the first time since the storm began, his body didn't feel like it was on the verge of tearing itself apart—it felt anchored, reinforced, as if something fundamental had been stabilized so it could endure what came next.
He threw his hands upward again, palms open wide.
Hit me!
The sky obliged.
The next bolt didn't flash downward—it poured.
A wide column of deep cobalt blue cascaded from the thunderhead, enveloping him and the entire dome beneath his feet. It swallowed his body whole, turning him into a silhouette cut from blue fire.
This one was different. It lasted longer as the electricity dug its way inside.
Cade clenched his jaw hard enough that his teeth ached—but he didn't break. The cobalt lightning wasn't just channeling into him; it was exploding outward from him. Tiny tendrils of blue electricity wriggled from every pore, shooting outward in brilliant fractal bursts. Each one vaporizing the last stubborn clumps of black sludge still clinging to his skin.
His face, his neck, his chest—all clean. New and raw.
Something inside him shuddered, and a System notification flickered at the edge of his vision.
He ignored it. If he looked now, even for a heartbeat, he'd break the flow of whatever was happening. Somehow he knew that. He didn't know how he knew—but he felt it deep in his buzzing bones.
So he let the blue current rip through him, let it blaze along the channels carved by the ash, let it fill him until his vision went white and his skin sparked like he was becoming a piece of the storm.
Slowly the cobalt faded. Cade stood there trembling, swaying on shaking legs, his breath ragged and hot in the cold rain. And for the first time in days, he laughed.
He actually laughed—a wild primal laugh that came from the very center of his being.
He felt good. Despite everything. Despite the hunger, the cold, and the exposure. Despite the pain still lingering in his joints. Despite the weakness still clinging to his limbs.
Something inside him was satisfied. He felt stretched to a new limit and thrummed with energy.
He lowered his arms and let himself fall into a sitting position atop the shell, cross‑legged like some lunatic monk waiting for enlightenment via natural disaster.
The rain continued to pound down, but Cade barely felt it as his body hummed with the afterglow.
This was it. This is what his body needed and he didn't need any more, didn't want anymore. He could feel the truth of it just as surely as he could feel the rain. The body tempering was complete.
He closed his eyes, ready to slide off the shell and crawl back under it before the storm decided to throw anything else at—
The sky growled.
A new sound—not the rolling thunder from before. Something deeper. Heavier. The air pressure around him changed, pulled upward as if the sky itself were inhaling.
Cade opened his eyes.
Above him, the clouds churned with sudden, violent purpose. A knot of storm-wind spiraled together, tightening, brightening. Every bolt of lightning he had seen earlier had been colorful, varied, but this one was different.
The cloud pulsed. A massive vein of deep violet light spread across its underbelly, like the sky was cracking open.
He didn't even have time for another thought as the purple lightning fell.
It wasn't a singular bolt but rather a column of amethyst fire three times wider than the shell, crashing down with the force of a meteor. It swallowed Cade whole before he could even take a breath.
This time, the energy didn't flow with him and harmonize with his body. This energy fought to invade every cell simultaneously.
His newly filled channels lit up and the violet lightning slammed into them like a sledgehammer. His cells, swollen with energy from the previous strikes, tried to push back. To reject the new energy forcing its way inside.
They failed as the purple lightning demanded space. Pain ripped through him—pure, perfect, and overwhelming. Not the cutting invasion of the ash, not the invigorating thrust of the earlier lightning.
This was annihilation. This was too much for him to handle. Cade screamed, mouth locked open but no sound escaping. His back arched so hard he thought his spine would snap. His fingers curled like claws. His vision was blinded by the intense light all around him.
Every organ, every muscle fiber, every bone felt like molten metal was being forced through it. His new channels ruptured as the lightning tore into him. His heart missed a beat—two—then slammed hard enough to bruise his ribs.
His consciousness flickered like a candle in a hurricane.
He couldn't take this one and he knew it. He'd pushed too far. Wanted too much.
This was the end.
And then the purple lightning stopped. Just as quick as it came the beam snapped off, leaving silence. The rain hissed and steamed around him. Cade collapsed forward, body limp, barely conscious.
Smoke curled upward from his skin. He lifted a trembling hand and stared. His flesh was blackened and charred, barely holding together.
He didn't have the strength to climb down. Instead, he tilted—and fell off the shell entirely, landing in the mud with a thick, wet slap that sent a shock through what remained of his nerves.
He groaned and crawled as he dragged his naked skeletal form back under the shell, under the only shelter he had out here. The world spun. His breath came shallow. Every inch of him screamed.
He was sure the storm would hit him again, finish him off, but nothing came. He sat there and listened to the rain pound on the shell overhead before finally pulling up the System notification he ignored before.
DING!
Ashen Baptism body tempering has been interrupted by the Rite of Lightning. Unique body tempering detected. Assessing…
Sasesh stood before the group, arms folded, the morning firelight flickering against his jawline. His eyes scanned each of them. They were caked in mud, bruised, and tired but they were all still together.
"I want to start by saying I'm proud of how far we've come," he said, voice carrying over the quiet shuffle of boots and gear. "We've fought hard, we've worked as a unit, and we've pushed through every challenge the System has thrown our way. And now we've all made it to level 15."
A few nods. Kyle adjusted his quiver. Amanda looked up from where she sat, her expression drawn but listening.
"That means we're ready," Sasesh continued. "Ready to finish what we started and take down that monster Kharvaxis."
A ripple of tension moved through the group like a stiff wind.
Bryan was the first to speak. "Are we sure about that?" he asked, voice slow and steady. "We all saw the beach. The corpses. That was before the System warned us the Lords of the Swamp were getting stronger. And that thing… it wasn't just a beast. It watched us with more intelligence than any hermit crab should have."
Sasesh nodded. "You're right. That other group didn't make it." His tone hardened. "But we're not them. You all saw the System notification—two of the eight Lords have already been killed. They're not untouchable."
He let that settle before continuing.
"We were put in here with them for a reason. We're meant to defeat them."
His gaze shifted to Professor Sanders. "They can be beaten, and we're better prepared than the group that tried before. We're stronger. We're smarter." A faint, assured smile tugged at his lips. "And this time, we're walking in with a plan."
Professor Sanders adjusted his glasses and stepped forward, clearing his throat. "When I reached level 15, I was given a new skill selection, just like all of you. But I also received an enhancement option."
There were murmurs of recognition—everyone knew what he meant.
"I chose to upgrade my [Analyze] skill," Professor Sanders said. "It evolved into [Advanced Analysis]. The upgrade grants me access to significantly more detailed information—weak points, behavioral patterns, elemental tolerances, and even some predictive modeling."
"That sounds good," Miriam interrupted, crossing her arms. "But how does that help us right now?"
Professor Sanders didn't flinch. "Please don't interrupt. I was getting to that."
He continued, more firmly now. "Along with [Advanced Analysis], I gained a sub-function: Overclock. I can increase my cognitive speed dramatically for a short duration. With it, I'll be able to process combat data in real time—strategize and direct the battle moment by moment even better than before."
He paused to let that sink in. "As long as you all follow instructions and execute quickly, I'm confident we can bring Kharvaxis down."
Bryan still looked uncertain but didn't speak. He glanced at the others. Kranti stood tall. Miriam cracked her knuckles. Even Amanda gave a slow nod.
Sasesh smiled faintly. "By the end of today, we'll be sitting around a fire on that beach with a dead Lord of the Swamp behind us—and a mountain of experience ahead."
No one cheered. But no one objected either.
They moved out.
The group crept through the trees toward the lake, the air heavy with tension. When they reached the shoreline, they dropped into cover.
There it was.
Half-buried in the pale sand, Kharvaxis's massive spiral shell gleamed dully beneath the gray sky. It hadn't moved since they saw it last.
All eyes turned to Professor Sanders.
He raised his hand slowly, glasses glinting, and invoked [Advanced Analysis].
He paused a moment before saying "Level fifteen. Just like us."
Relief washed through the group. For a moment, even the wind felt lighter.
Professor Sanders nodded once. "Stick to the plan, and we'll be fine."
The melee fighters moved first.
Bryan marched directly toward the half-buried Lord, his heavy armor clinking softly with each step. His shield was raised, his stance wide and prepared to absorb whatever came at him. To his left and right, John and Kranti flanked wide, slipping through the loose sand with the practiced ease of veterans. On the opposite side, Miriam and Nadean mirrored the maneuver, spreading out to encircle the cratered behemoth.
At the rear, Kyle crouched low, bow already drawn. He didn't speak, didn't blink. Mana pulsed around him, thick enough for Sasesh to feel it thrumming in the soles of his feet.
Good, Sasesh thought. He's ready.
They had all agreed—Kharvaxis's greatest weakness was his bulk. If they could catch him off guard, knock him into the open, expose that soft belly buried beneath that grotesque, etched shell they could end it before the monster even reacted.
Sasesh didn't hesitate. He extended his wand, drawing deep from his core. Mana flowed through his channels like molten iron, heating his blood. With a practiced flick, he poured the spell into the ground beneath the Lord of the Swamp, threading his mana through every grain of sand.
He felt the monster's weight. Felt where the body shifted slightly, just enough for him to sense the weak spots. And that was where he struck.
With a thunderous whump, a pillar of sand erupted upward from beneath Kharvaxis, launching the Lord into the air in an avalanche of sand.
It worked. Just as planned.
Kharvaxis soared into the air, a behemoth dislodged from its sandy throne. For a heartbeat there was a stillness as the group stared up in awe at the airborne giant.
The last time they had seen Kharvaxis, it was terrifying. A massive hermit crab with jagged mandibles, layered armored legs, and thick claws dripping with gore. But what now emerged from the shifting sand was something even larger and much meaner.
Its legs had nearly doubled in thickness, now encased in plated barbs that clattered with every motion. The armor on its underbelly had gained a strange sheen, like oil on water, refracting the light unnaturally. Dozens of new spines bristled along the joints, twitching like they had minds of their own. But worst of all were its claws.
The pincers were massive before, each the size of a grown man's torso. But now they had mutated into instruments of war. Atop each claw sat a bulbous, glossy growth.
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Sasesh's mouth went dry.
Before he could process it further, Kyle loosed his arrow.
The air exploded behind the archer. A shockwave of sand blasted outward from Kyle's position as mana roared into the projectile. The arrow flew with blinding speed, carving a visible tunnel of displaced air in its path.
Sasesh felt it in his bones. Not just the sound, but the power of the shot.
That alone could kill it, he thought, awe flickering behind his focused expression.
For a brief moment, he allowed himself hope that they truly would end it in one blow. That their melee fighters wouldn't even need to endanger themselves.
Moments before Kyle's arrow struck true, Kharvaxis shifted.
It twisted unnaturally midair, its heavy form rotating with a grace that should have been impossible for something so massive. The crustacean Lord raised one claw toward the oncoming projectile and the other directly toward Kyle.
Sasesh blinked. What the hell was it doing? It should be helpless. A sitting target in the sky.
Then came the first thundercrack.
A stone the size of a melon launched from the top of Kharvaxis' claw with a hiss of compressed pressure. Another boom followed a half-second later as the second claw fired a second stone like a mortar round.
Sasesh's eyes went wide.
Cannons?
The first projectile struck Kyle's arrow midflight. A third shockwave detonated overhead, lighting up the sky in a white-blue flash. The explosion cracked outward as shards of stone and splinters of magical force rained down. The two attacks canceled each other out with terrifying violence.
Kyle dove sideways, rolling desperately to dodge the second stone.
He wasn't fast enough.
The projectile clipped him mid-roll, striking his left leg just above the knee.
CRACK.
His leg exploded into mist and shredded meat, severed clean by the force of impact. Kyle was launched across the beach like a ragdoll, blood arcing in a grotesque ribbon through the air. He hit the sand with a sickening thud and didn't move.
For a second, the entire battlefield froze.
Amanda screamed a raw, guttural sound that ripped through the quiet and sprinted toward him, hands already glowing with frantic green light.
But the nightmare wasn't done.
Kharvaxis, still descending, shifted its claws again—one toward Nadean, the other snapping down to lock on Sasesh.
Sasesh reacted on instinct.
He flung mana into the sand beneath his feet, calling up a thick wall of compressed earth between him and the descending cannon-blast. At the same time, he poured more mana into reinforcing it—fortifying the grains with hardened bindings, lacing them together until his mana channels screamed.
A split-second later, the stone hit and the world around him exploded.
Sand erupted in every direction. Sasesh was thrown backward, limbs flailing. He slammed into the beach, flat on his back. His ears rang and his lungs heaved, scrabbling for air that refused to come.
Then he felt the pain. Dull and spreading across his side.
He coughed once and forced his eyes open.
He was alive. Hurt—but alive.
Gritting his teeth, he shoved himself upright, gasping. The ringing in his ears was still deafening. Through the haze of kicked-up sand, he scanned the field, vision shaky.
Kharvaxis wasn't where it was supposed to be.
The force of the recoil from its own volley had shifted its descent. Instead of slamming back into the sand like they planned, the Lord of the Swamp had landed in the lake with a massive splash. Water surged outward in concentric waves, swallowing the shore.
The beast had vanished beneath the water's surface.
His heart pounded.
He turned his head, looking for Nadean—and spotted her sprinting back toward him, uninjured. She'd somehow dodged the shot.
Sasesh staggered to his feet, adrenaline forcing his legs to move. The others were already regrouping near Amanda and Kyle's broken form, panic in their faces.
And through the wall of pressure in his ears, he saw Professor Sanders yelling something—but he couldn't hear a word.
Then the Professor grabbed his arm and yanked him toward the treeline.
The group ran.
Sasesh stumbled through the tangled swamp underbrush, his limbs still sluggish from the explosion. Professor Sanders clung to his arm, dragging him between twisted roots and low-hanging vines. Around them, the others sprinted in grim silence.
Bryan and Miriam flanked Amanda, each supporting one side of Kyle's limp body. His leg was gone from the thigh down, a slick stump wrapped in Amanda's glowing hands. Blood still seeped between her fingers despite her desperate healing. Her face was pale, eyes wide and glassy, mouth muttering half-prayers and fractured spells.
Sasesh's vision blurred as he struggled to keep pace. Why are we retreating? his mind asked. We had a plan. We had the numbers. The skills. We could've—
The ringing in his ears was still a high pitched whine. His thoughts swirled in confusion and disbelief.
Up ahead, Nadean was moving faster than anyone, weaving through trees like she'd run this path before. Her silhouette blurred into the mist, vanishing beyond the thickening swamp.
Sasesh forced his legs to keep going, stumbling over roots and half-sunken logs. Professor Sanders was still beside him, not speaking anymore—just focused on dragging him forward.
Then, like a punch to the skull, the ringing in Sasesh's ears stopped.
Sound returned in a rush—the slap of footfalls against wet ground, Amanda's choked sobbing, the grunts of strain from Bryan and Miriam as they carried Kyle.
"No, no, no," Amanda whimpered, her magic surging brighter. "You're not going to die, you hear me? You're not—just hold on, Kyle, please—"
Sasesh looked over, his breath hitching. Kyle's face was pale from blood loss. Amanda was pouring everything she had into the wound, but it was clear—this wasn't something her magic could undo entirely. The leg was gone.
They kept moving, the darkness of the swamp swallowing them again. No one spoke a word. The shock of what had just happened was still sinking in. Sasesh felt it too, bitter and sharp beneath the adrenaline. They had been completely wrong. Kharvaxis wasn't just stronger than them. It had been operating on an entirely different level, and the truth of how badly outmatched they were settled over him like cold mud.
Sasesh looked ahead but couldn't see Nadean anymore.
The trees thinned ahead.
The group burst into a clearing they hadn't passed through before—a ring of open space framed by thick moss-laced trunks. Vines curled low over scattered brush, but what caught Sasesh's eye wasn't the trees or the silence.
It was Nadean, standing in the middle of the clearing, running toward them with a strange look of relief spread across her face. Behind her came four figures—three tall, broad-shouldered men and one much thinner man whose skin looked so pale it was nearly translucent in the morning light.
Sasesh's breath caught.
On the far side of the clearing stood a palisade—tall wooden stakes driven deep into the earth encircling what looked like a hidden stronghold. A wide gate marked the center, slightly ajar, revealing glimpses of movement beyond.
Panic flashed in Sasesh's gut.
This wasn't the place to fight. They weren't ready.
His eyes scanned the faces of the four approaching figures but he didn't recognize any of them.
Nadean reached them and slowed to a jog, hands raised in reassurance. "It's okay!" she called out. "You can stop running—we're safe now!"
The others slowed, panting and bloodied, collapsing into the edge of the clearing in wary exhaustion.
Sasesh stepped forward, teeth clenched. "Who are they?" he demanded, eyes locked on the approaching men. "How do you know we're safe?"
Nadean's relief faltered just slightly, her breath still ragged. "I found them… while I was running. I didn't know where I was going—I just ran, and then I saw the wall." She gestured behind her. "I ran straight to the gate and started shouting. At first they didn't trust me, but after a minute, these four came out. They listened."
Sasesh's gaze narrowed. "And you just believed them? After what happened last time? The last people we came across killed Cade in cold blood, remember?"
Nadean winced but held her ground. "This is different, Sasesh. They didn't try anything. They said Kharvaxis and the other Lords can't enter this area. Something about the terrain or a barrier—they said it's safe."
As she spoke, the thin, pale-skinned man stepped forward, leaving the three larger men behind. His movements were slow and deliberate, and when he reached the group, he offered a placid smile.
"You've had a rough time," he said, voice calm and oddly soothing. "But you're safe now. This area's protected. We've carved out a foothold here, away from the Lords and other monsters in this swamp. You can rest. Recover. We have food, clean water, and a healer inside."
The group glanced at each other warily, doubt flickering in exhausted eyes.
The man didn't press. He simply nodded, as if understanding their hesitation. "I know this Tutorial has been… cruel," he said. "But we humans have to stick together. No one will harm you here. We've made sure of that. The System may want bloodshed and turmoil, but we do not."
His pale eyes swept across them, lingering briefly on Kyle's unconscious form, then Amanda's drained expression, then on Sasesh himself.
"My name is Richard," he said smoothly, extending a hand in greeting. "Welcome to Camp Persistence."