Commander Harlen didn't hesitate. To him, Kaelen was a fly—a nuisance to be swatted. He leveled his spear, the [Aegis Point], and lunged. The weapon was a masterpiece of Valerion engineering, etched with runes that gathered the golden rain's energy into a piercing tip of pure light.
"Die in silence, boy," Harlen growled.
The spear thrust forward, moving faster than Kaelen's eyes could follow. In any other chapter of his life, Kaelen would have been skewered. But as the tip of the spear touched his chest, the Void Core didn't just vibrate—it roared.
[Warning: High-Density Mana detected!] [Initiating 'Void Reflex'...]
Time seemed to slow. Kaelen's hand moved instinctively, grabbing the shaft of the spear just below the blade.
"Fool!" Harlen laughed. "That spear is wreathed in Solar Fire! Your hand will—"
The Commander's words died in his throat.
The Solar Fire didn't burn Kaelen's skin. Instead, the golden flames began to spiral violently, like a whirlpool, sucked into Kaelen's palm. The runes on the spear started to crack. The glowing metal turned dull, then grey, then brittle as glass.
"What... what are you doing?" Harlen gasped, trying to pull the weapon back. It was stuck, held by a gravitational force that defied physics.
"I told you," Kaelen looked up, his irises completely replaced by swirling black nebulae. "I'm hungry."
[Absorbing: Solar Core (Rank: Soldier)...] [Conversion Rate: 88%] [0.01%... 0.05%... 0.1%...]
A rush of heat flooded Kaelen's veins. It wasn't the searing pain of a burn, but the intoxicating rush of power. His muscles expanded, and the fatigue of his flight vanished instantly.
CRACK.
The legendary spear shattered into dust. Harlen stumbled back, staring at his empty hands in horror. The weapon that had served him for twenty years was gone—consumed.
[Level Up!] [Level 1 -> Level 2] [Strength +5, Agility +3, Perception +4] [New Skill Unlocked: 'Void Step' (Short-range flicker)]
Kaelen felt light, as if gravity had lost its hold on him. He took a single step toward the Commander, and his body blurred, reappearing inches from Harlen's face.
"The Kingdom called me a waste of blood," Kaelen whispered, his hand hovering over the Commander's heart. "But it turns out, the Kingdom is just... fuel."
Harlen tried to scream, but Kaelen didn't kill him. He didn't have to. He simply touched the Commander's chest and drained every ounce of cultivated mana from his body. Harlen collapsed, not dead, but "Mortal" once again—his years of training erased in seconds.
Kaelen stood over the fallen soldier, feeling the raw energy of the world pulsing around him. For the first time, he wasn't afraid of the golden rain. He looked at the Inner City walls, where the elite lived in luxury, powered by massive Mana Reactors.
To everyone else, those walls were a fortress. To Kaelen, they looked like a Grand Feast.
[Core Capacity: 0.5%] [Current Objective: Locate a 'High-Grade' Mana Source to stabilize the Void Core.]
"The Academy," Kaelen said, a cold smile forming on his lips. "They have a library full of enchanted scrolls. Let's see how they taste."