Neo kept moving. Whatever that sensation had been, dwelling on it inside a Breach would be stupid. He scanned the ground first, then the broken streets and the blind corners ahead.
He appeared in what looked like the outer edge of a ruined district. Wide stone roads ran forward in uneven lines, cracked and split where the ground had shifted long ago. Half-broken walls rose on either side, and roofless houses stood in pieces with their upper floors gone and their interiors exposed to the dead gray light hanging over the whole place. Nothing about it felt grand, only old, empty, and wrong in a practical sort of way.
Like the remains of somewhere abandoned and then copied badly.
Neo adjusted his breathing and kept walking.
Behind him, he could still pick up movement. Other people who went through the First Resonance had crossed after him. Most were in groups, just like outside. Their voices carried in fragments through the ruined streets before fading into the strange silence of the Breach. Neo did not look at them for long. Seeing them only made him more certain he had chosen correctly.
He was better off alone.
One hand drifted near the place where the sword rested inside his soul. His body still held faint traces of yesterday's damage, but it was good enough. More than good enough. What mattered now was getting used to this. Real combat.
He had not come in to stare at broken walls.
He had come in to test himself and get stronger.
Neo turned a corner, boots scraping lightly over loose stone.
Then he stopped.
A figure stood ahead in the middle of the street, framed by the shattered remains of two leaning walls.
Bones. A skeleton standing in the middle of the street.
Neo's pale yellow eyes narrowed. He stayed still, watching it.
The thing had a rusted sword hanging from one hand,its frame little more than old bone held together by whatever force still animated it. It moved once, turning its skull slightly as if listening rather than seeing.
It had not noticed him yet.
Neo reached inward on instinct and felt the common relic answer. Light flickered across his hand, and the sword formed there with a clean, familiar weight. He adjusted his grip and began to move.
He advanced in slow, careful steps.
The skeleton gave no sign it had sensed him until Neo was already close.
By then it was too late.
He swung once.
The blade cut through the neck cleanly enough that the skull spun away and bounced over the broken stone. The rest of the body lost its shape a second later, collapsing in a dry clatter.
Neo stared at it.
So that was it.
No dramatic last struggle.
[You have slained a Skeleton - Ember]
He crouched and found the Soul Core among the fallen bones. Small. Faintly glowing. He consumed it at once.
[Soul-Window]
[Has consumed an Ember Soul Core, +1]
[126/1000]
Neo's eyes lingered on the number.
'Only one.'
That part was obvious. Same rank, same low level. Still, it also made something else painfully clear. The Duskmane had been far beyond this. And Roderic had killed it alone.
The difference between them sat badly in his chest.
Another line appeared.
[Class available: Skeleton - Common.
Abilities: Stiff Body Do you wish to learn?
Description: Your body feels stiff after a while.]
Neo stared at it for half a second. 'Yeah. I'd rather punch myself in the balls.'
Neo dismissed it without hesitation. He didn't want to fill the secondary class with garbage.
A second skeleton appeared not long after.
Then a third.
The next one was less clean. He tried to cut it diagonally and the blade caught between ribs. The skeleton swung its rusted sword at him, but the movement was worse than half the street fights Neo had seen in Zone 0. He yanked his weapon free, kicked it hard enough to send it to the ground, then drove the blade down through its skull.
After that, the rhythm started to form.
Kill. Core. Move.
A hit here. A scrape there. Nothing serious. Beast Regeneration smoothed over the small mistakes before they could pile up into real damage.
By the time Neo had put down several more, the awkwardness had begun to leave his hands.
After that, the next stretch blurred together.
Neo moved through the outer streets of the Breach with a steadier rhythm than before, turning corners, checking broken walls, listening for the scrape of bone over stone before committing to a path.
The skeletons were manageable once he understood them. Their movements came a fraction too late, their swings carried none of the ugly instinct living opponents had, and their bodies gave way the moment he struck cleanly enough. What had felt tense in the first minutes slowly became familiar.
His sword helped with that.
The common relic no longer felt strange in his grip. It answered faster now, almost as if his hand had already started learning its weight properly. He still made mistakes, of course.
Once, a skeleton's blade clipped his shoulder when he stepped in too far. Another managed to rake its fingers across his arm before he cut through its spine and kicked the thing apart. Neither injury lasted long.
The warmth of Beast Regeneration passed through him each time, dulling the damage before it could settle into anything serious.
Every corpse left behind another core, every core brought the same window, and every time the offer appeared, Neo dismissed it.
Street after broken street, ruined corners, half-collapsed houses, strips of dead gray road. Street by street, the shape of the area began to make sense, and with it came a different way of looking at the Breach. It still held danger, but danger was no longer the first thing he saw when he looked around.
By the time he stopped and checked the window again, the number had risen.
[142/1000]
Neo stared at it for a second, then lifted his eyes toward the deeper ruins ahead.
It worked. Just too slowly for his liking.
The outer edge of the Breach was safe enough for beginners, which also meant it was poor ground for anyone who wanted real growth. Neo adjusted his grip on the sword and looked farther in, toward the denser ruins where the streets narrowed and the silence felt heavier.
If he wanted to grow for real, he would have to leave the easy part behind.