"Daddy!"
Yukihi shouted, running through the wreckage as if she already knew exactly where to go.
She found Haru lying there, his skin pale, almost gray, his whole body trembling in weak convulsions while black veins filled his skin.
Isabela, Kira, and the guard ca running right behind him, and stopped when they saw his state.
"Haru!" Isabela fell to her knees, but Yukihi had already positioned herself and raised her hands over his chest, concentrating everything she had.
A white bubble of pure mana ford around the two of them, isolating everything from the outside, and inside the bubble the light was so intense that Isabela had to cover her eyes.
Yukihi’s tail began to glow, not with ordinary light but with sothing golden and dense that seed solid, and then the tail began to gradually disappear, dissolving from the tip towards the base while all that energy concentrated in her hands, forming a small, pulsating sphere. She placed the sphere on Haru’s chest and pushed, the light sinking into his skin and going straight to the center of his body.
Although Haru hadn’t seen it yet, the system didn’t stop with notifications:
```
[Essence of the Sun: Detected]
[Primordial Energy Source Identified]
- Foreign Entity: Feeding on Primordial Energy
[Regeneration: Accelerating]
[HP: 8%...25%...40%...58%]
[Mana Boosting: 8%....40%...58%]
[Restoration in Progress...]
```
Haru’s body began to levitate slowly, rising about twenty centiters off the ground as golden light coursed through all his veins, replacing the black. Just when it was about to end, when it seed the regeneration was about to complete and the spirits were about to be expelled from his body...
```
[ERROR]
- Spiritual Contract: [DEVOURING COVENANT: ACTIVE]
[Clause: "Consu in exchange for strength"]
[Contract Status: BINDING]
[Entity Expulsion: [BLOCKED]
Sothing went wrong. The pact was still active; the words Haru had spoken prevented the spirits from escaping because now there was real food, enough primordial energy to feed entities that would normally need to devour dozens of people to sustain themselves.
Inside Haru’s body, invisible to those outside but perfectly clear to the spirits, they moved towards the golden light that had just entered and plunged into it like hungry animals finding a water source in the desert, beginning to feed directly on the Essence of the Sun.
The light never stopped shining; it was too much energy, more than they could consu at once, and then sothing unexpected happened: the light was enough to illuminate Haru from the inside out, regenerating every destroyed cell, every punctured organ, every cracked bone, and there was still enough food for the spirits to completely satiate themselves without needing to continue devouring the host.
His body slowly descended back to the ground, the mana bubble dissipated, and everything fell silent.
Yukihi fell seated, exhausted; now she had no tail. Isabela caught her before she fell completely, and suddenly Yuki glowed and shrank in Isabela’s arms, as if her years had been reduced...
Now she looked like a 5 or 6-year-old child...
"Yuki... you..."
Haru blinked, once, twice, his vision blurry as he tried to process the light and shapes around him. He blinked a few more tis until he could focus properly.
``` [Spiritual Contract: Active]
- More information in Skill tab
```
He read quickly, processed slowly, and saved it to think about later because he had more important things to do now.
He stood up unsteadily, his legs trembling as if they hadn’t been used in days, and looked around at the completely destroyed field, craters, smoldering debris, scattered bodies, the Vandris mansion collapsed in the background.
He saw Isabela, her clothes torn and stained with blood and mud, looking at him as if she couldn’t believe he was really there. Kira stood beside her, his fox ears lowered, his expression relieved but restrained. Yukihi, younger now, her eyes fixed on him, filled with tears.
The guard at the back covered his face with his hands, crying with pure emotion; seeing soone co and go was almost impossible to process.
Yukihi stumbled to him, grabbed his waist tightly, and began to cry loudly, sobs shaking her entire small body as she repeated "Papa, papa, papa" incessantly.
Isabela ca soon after, hugging them both without saying anything because she had no words for it, and Kira closed the circle from the other side, her hand trembling as she touched Haru’s shoulder. The guard also ca to complete the hug, crying like a child.
Haru stood there in the middle of the collective hug, still processing that he was alive, that it had sohow worked, and felt sothing wet running down his face, realizing too late that he was also crying.
The silence lasted a few more seconds until Haru noticed sothing strange, a feeling of... the wrong fabric? She looked down.
"Panties."
Pink, with a bow, nothing else, just that.
"...WHY AM I WEARING PANTIES?"
Kira took a step back. "When you passed out on the airship I had to put sothing on you... it was weird seeing you walking around naked..."
Haru blinked, confused. "Airship?" He didn’t rember how he got on the airship, he only vaguely rembered piloting that thing until he ssed up Kaelthar.
Kira replied, "I... I’ll tell you later how we got in there, but first..."
Isabela turned red to her ears. " WHY DID YOU GIVE HIM MY PANTIES AND NOT YOURS!?"
The guard next to them stared at the commotion with the look of soone who thinks they know sothing, but has no way to prove it.
Yukihi released Haru’s waist, looked him up and down with that absolute childlike innocence, and declared with total conviction: "Papa looks handso!"
Haru started laughing, unable to hold it in. It started softly but grew louder until it beca an uncontrollable laugh that made him double over and clutch his stomach.
He laughed until he couldn’t breathe properly anymore, until the tears that had been tears of relief turned into sothing between hysteria and pure, absurd joy at being alive. He fell to the ground, still laughing, and managed to say between laughs:
"I survived... I killed a level 15 player... I made a pact with spirits... I lost my legs... I regenerated... and I’m wearing Isabela’s panties with a bow..."
Kira started smiling, a rare occurrence, and Yukihi laughed along without quite understanding why, but feeling the good energy. Even Isabela, mortified and red-faced, let out an involuntary laugh before lightly kicking Haru in the shoulder.
"IDIOT!"
"Take that, universe," Haru thought as he stood up, "it gave another chance to harem everyone..."
He had barely finished the thought when the system flashed in front of him with a large notification that covered half his vision:
```
[PLAYER ELIMINATED]
◊ Na: Kaelthar Nova Umbra
◊ Level: 15
◊ Loot Access: RESTRICTED
◊ Override Required...
◊ Override: GRANTED (Player Eliminator Bonus)
```
[QUEST COMPLETED]
[REWARDS]
◊ 3 Skill Slots
◊ Inventory Tab Unlocked
◊ 16,500 XP (Level 16)
◊ Trait Absorbed: Mana Efficiency
└─ Reduces mana consumption of all skills by 15%
◊ Skill Option Available (Choose 1):
Micro Spatial Compression
└─ Compress small objects (max 5kg)
Duration: 5secs.
Cooldown: None | Mana: 50 per use
├─ Kinetic Amplification (Short)
Amplify kinetic force of one strike by 3x for 0.5 sec.
Works on punches, weapons, throws.
Cooldown: 8 sec | Mana: 80 per use
└─ Weight Reduction (Montary)
Reduce weight of self OR target by 70% for 3 seconds.
Enhanced mobility, jumps, speed.
Cooldown: 15 sec | Mana: 100 per use
[SELECT ONE SKILL]
```
Haru read quickly, analyzed the options, and ntally chose [Micro Spatial] Compression without hesitation because it was the most useful in the long run to carry.
```
[Selection Confird: Micro Spatial Compression]
[Skill Added to Slot]
[New Stats Available]
```
He was about to close the interface when the screen flickered, not with the system’s normal blue glow, but with sothing wrong, broken, and then it went completely black as if it had been turned off.
Haru frowned. "What—"
Letters began to appear slowly, one by one, forming words that definitely weren’t from the system interface because the font was different, older, heavier.
[- - - - - - - - - -]
𝓘 𝓢𝓪𝔀 𝓮𝓿𝓮𝓻𝓲𝓽𝓱𝓲𝓷𝓰, 𝓗𝓪𝓻𝓾 𝓜𝓲𝔃𝓾𝓴𝓲...
𝓨𝓸𝓾 𝓬𝓻𝓸𝓼𝓼𝓮𝓭 𝓵𝓪𝔂𝓮𝓻𝓼 𝓽𝓱𝓪𝓽 𝓭𝓸 𝓷𝓸𝓽 𝓫𝓮𝓵𝓸𝓷𝓰
𝓛𝓲𝓯𝓮 𝓽𝓻𝓪𝓭𝓮𝓭 𝓯𝓸𝓻
𝓢𝓸𝓸𝓷, 𝓘 𝔀𝓲𝓵𝓵 𝓬𝓸𝓵𝓵𝓮𝓬𝓽
- 𝓣𝓱𝓻 𝓘𝓷𝓮𝓿𝓲𝓽𝓪𝓫𝓵𝓮,
[- - - - - - - - - -]
```
Haru’s eyes widened, his blood running cold as he read it twice to make sure he understood correctly.
"Death!?"
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