Jaxen took a step back, his face pale. The flame he had nurtured for years, his pride and joy, had been snuffed out like a candle in a vacuum. "You... you're using some kind of forbidden artifact! Guards! There's a heretic in the Slums!"
Kaelen didn't wait for the logic of the world to catch up to him. His heart—no, his Core—was thrumming with a vibration so violent it made his teeth ache. He turned and bolted, weaving through the narrow, rain-slicked alleys of the Lower Ring.
Behind him, the golden rain intensified, and the rhythmic clanking of steel armor signaled that the Royal Guard was responding to Jaxen's scream.
He didn't stop until he reached the "Graveyard of Gears," a junkyard of ancient, rusted magi-tech outside the city walls. He collapsed inside the hollowed-out shell of an old Titan-Class golem.
"Status," Kaelen wheezed, the word feeling instinctively right.
The cold, ethereal screen flickered into existence before his eyes, translucent and humming with a dark violet hue.
[Host: Kaelen Voss] [Race: Human (Dormant Primordial)] [Level: 1 (Fledgling of the Void)] [Cultivation Technique: None] [Core Capacity: 0.0001% / 100%]
[Passive Skill: Absolute Consumption (Rank: EX - Sealed)] Description: The Host does not store mana; he devours it. All external energy directed at the Host is converted into 'Void Essence'.
[Warning: The Void Core requires constant 'feeding'. If the capacity drops to 0% for too long, the Core will begin to consume the Host's life force.]
Kaelen's blood ran cold. The power that had saved him was also a death sentence. He wasn't just a cultivator anymore; he was a predator that couldn't afford to stop hunting.
"So, I don't cultivate the stars," Kaelen whispered, a manic laugh bubbling up in his throat. "I eat them."
He looked at his hand. A faint, swirling mist of black particles danced around his fingertips. He touched a rusted plate of the golem—a piece of metal infused with centuries of residual mana.
[Mana Residue Detected...] [Consume? Y/N]
"Yes," he hissed.
The metal groaned. The rust turned to grey ash, and a stream of pale blue light flowed into Kaelen's palm. A surge of pure, raw energy hit his nervous system like a lightning bolt. His muscles tightened, his vision sharpened, and the constant, gnawing ache in his chest eased—just a little.
[Core Capacity: 0.0005%]
It was a drop in an ocean, but it was his drop.
"Kaelen Voss!"
The voice boomed through the junkyard. It was Commander Harlen, the man who had overseen Kaelen's exile. He stood at the entrance of the scrapyard, his spear glowing with a fierce, holy light. "By order of the High Alchemist, you are to be detained for questioning regarding the theft of Royal Mana."
Kaelen stood up, the shadows of the Titan-shell clinging to his cloak. He wasn't the weak scholar they had discarded anymore. He was a starving beast who had just found a buffet.
"Questioning?" Kaelen's eyes glowed with a faint, void-purple light. "I don't think so, Commander. I'm still hungry."