The wind stopped. The air tasted of wet ash and old rust. Three Ghoul Hounds stood ten yards away. Their claws scraped the cold stone. Thick saliva dripped from their exposed teeth, hitting the dirt with soft, acidic hisses. They did not look at Lin Chen. Their empty eye sockets faced the basin. The scent of the witch's fresh blood overpowered his human scent.
Lin Chen kept his head perfectly still. He shifted his grip on the iron dagger. The metal handle felt sticky with his sweat.
He could not kill all three quietly with a dull blade. He could not use Ghostfire Gaze three times in rapid succession. His left eye still throbbed from the first use, a dull ache pulsing behind his optical nerve.
The hounds stepped forward. The lead beast placed its paw on a loose slab of slate. The stone clicked.
Lin Chen triggered Phantom Shift.
His calf muscles vibrated. The gray mist around him blurred into streaks of pale light. He bypassed the physical space. He appeared directly beside the lead hound's right flank.
He drove the iron dagger upward. He aimed right behind the jawbone, aiming for the brain stem. The dull tip pierced the rotting skin and slid into the skull. He twisted his wrist sharply and pulled the blade out. Black, foul-smelling blood sprayed across his boots. The hound dropped without a sound.
The wet thud of the body hitting the dirt alerted the other two.
They snapped their heads toward him. The closest one lunged. Its jaws opened wide, aiming for his throat.
Lin Chen stared directly into its empty sockets. He pulled the cold energy from his nervous system.
"Burn."
Pale green fire ignited inside the leaping beast's skull. The hound crashed into the dirt at Lin Chen's feet, its momentum carrying it forward until its snout hit his shin. Dead.
A sharp spike of pain pierced Lin Chen's left eye. Another drop of dark blood rolled down his cheek. He wiped it away with the back of his hand.
The third hound barked. A short, guttural sound that echoed off the broken mausoleums. It crouched to spring.
The blue system screen hovered in his peripheral vision.
[Phantom Shift Cooldown: 4 seconds remaining.]
Lin Chen didn't wait. He forced the energy through his legs again. He mentally commanded the shift.
[Warning: Consecutive use without cooldown will cause severe muscle tearing.]
The world blurred again.
Agony ripped through his right thigh. It felt like a serrated blade slicing through his hamstrings. He gritted his teeth, swallowing the groan that rose in his throat.
He appeared directly above the third hound. Gravity pulled him down. He brought the iron dagger down with both hands, driving it straight into the beast's spine. A wet crunch echoed in the dark. The hound's back legs gave out. It twitched twice and went completely still.
Lin Chen fell to one knee. He let go of the dagger. He grabbed his right thigh. The muscle spasmed violently beneath his rough pants. He took three short, ragged breaths.
Three bodies. Ten seconds. He survived.
A deafening roar shook the ground beneath him.
Lin Chen forced his head up. Down in the basin, the Giant Wight fully ripped its torso from the earth. It stood twenty feet tall. Rusted armor plates clung to its massive ribs. It raised a skeletal arm the size of a tree trunk and swung it at the woman in the black cloak.
The woman did not step back. She stood inside the glowing red circle. She flicked her silver blade.
A crescent of dense, dark purple magic shot from the edge of her sword. The magic hit the Wight's forearm. The sound resembled a cannonball striking a stone wall. Bone fragments the size of human heads rained down.
The Wight staggered. It roared again, opening a jaw wide enough to swallow a horse.
The woman chanted faster. Her voice cut through the roaring wind. The guttural syllables carried a heavy, oppressive weight. The red runes on the ground crawled upward. They wrapped around the Wight's legs like burning chains, searing into the bone.
Lin Chen looked past the fight. He focused on the stone altar.
The black crystal pulsed rapidly. The air around it warped, distorting the stone behind it. The system prompt flashed again.
[Recommendation: Absorb for system upgrade and expansion of fusion slots.]
He needed that crystal. An extra fusion slot meant combining three items, or holding a secondary skill without destroying the first.
He measured the distance. Thirty yards of open ground. A steep slope down into the basin.
The Wight thrashed against the red chains. It raised both of its massive fists and slammed them directly into the dirt.
A shockwave of dead mana exploded outward. The force of the blow tore the ground apart, sending chunks of rock and thick gray dust flying in all directions.
The woman raised her bleeding left hand. A semi-transparent black shield materialized a foot in front of her. The shockwave slammed into the shield. The impact shattered the remaining stone pillars around the basin edge. A cloud of thick dust swallowed the entire depression.
Lin Chen stood up. His right leg burned, but the muscle spasms had stopped.
He moved. He half-ran, half-slid down the muddy slope. The roaring of the monster masked the sound of his boots hitting the dirt. The dense dust cloud hid his silhouette.
He kept his eyes locked on the faint purple glow of the woman's shield and the pulsing black light of the crystal.
Fifteen yards. Ten yards.
The dust began to settle. The woman pushed the Wight back with a concentrated blast of dark fire from her palm. She turned her head slightly. She was looking toward the altar.
Lin Chen triggered Phantom Shift. The cooldown had reset.
He vanished from the moving dust.
He reappeared directly beside the stone altar. The temperature here dropped significantly. The black crystal sat inches from his chest. It hummed with a heavy, sickening vibration.
He reached out and grabbed it.
The crystal was freezing. It felt like grabbing a block of solid ice with bare hands. The cold bit into his palm.
[Ancient Ritual Core acquired.]
[High-density magic anomaly detected. Absorbing...]
The solid crystal dissolved instantly. It turned into a thick, black mist that sank directly into the pores of his right hand. Black veins bulged under his skin, traveling up his forearm before fading away.
[System upgrading.]
[Fusion Slots Available: 2]
[New Function Unlocked: Skill Evolution. (Host can now feed identical or highly compatible fragments to existing skills to increase their Tier.)]
The red runes covering the basin floor flickered violently. The light died. The ritual circle shattered into a fine red mist. The altar beneath Lin Chen's hand cracked down the middle.
The woman spun around.
The hood of her velvet cloak fell back. Long silver hair whipped through the dusty air. Her eyes, glowing a dangerous, unnatural violet, locked onto Lin Chen.
The dust cleared. She saw a young man in a filthy gray cloak, standing by her ruined altar, holding nothing.
She did not ask who he was. She did not yell.
She pointed her silver blade directly at his chest.
A spear of jagged dark ice materialized in the air in front of her. It shot forward with the speed of a fired arrow.
Lin Chen did not try to block. He had no mana core. He had no shield.
He triggered Phantom Shift.
The ice spear smashed into the stone altar. The altar exploded into a shower of sharp shrapnel. Stone fragments tore through the empty air where Lin Chen had stood a fraction of a second before.
He reappeared fifteen yards away, behind the base of a collapsed obelisk near the edge of the basin.
His right leg gave out entirely. He fell hard into the mud. The torn muscle in his thigh flared with a blinding agony. He bit down on his sleeve to muffle his breathing.
The Giant Wight, freed from the binding runes, charged at the woman. Its massive shadow fell over her.
She cursed in a sharp, unfamiliar language. She turned her attention back to the beast, raising her shield just as the skeletal fist crashed down. The impact shook the ground.
Lin Chen did not look back to watch the rest of the fight.
He pushed himself up using his hands and his good leg. He leaned heavily against the cold stone of the obelisk. He pulled himself over the edge of the basin and limped into the dense, suffocating mist of the Black Wastes.
He walked for twenty minutes, dragging his right leg, until the sounds of explosions and roaring faded into nothing.
He found a hollowed-out family tomb. The stone door was missing. The interior smelled of dry rot and old bones. He crawled inside and leaned against the back wall. He pulled his gray cloak tight around his shivering body.
He opened his right hand. Faint black lines still traced his veins.
He summoned the system screen.
[Host: Lin Chen]
[Mana Core: Shattered]
[Current Spells:
1. Ghostfire Gaze (Tier 1 - Mutated)
2. Phantom Shift (Tier 1 - Mutated)]
[Fusion Slots Available: 2]
[Evolution Material Required for Tier 2: 0/3 Low-Tier Fragments]
Lin Chen stared at the glowing blue text in the dark tomb. He rested his head against the cold stone. He reached into his boot and pulled out his iron dagger. He laid it across his lap.