The falling boulder shattered into a million volcanic fragnts upon hitting the solid floor, kicking up a massive curtain of suffocating black soot that temporarily blinded the squad leader. But to Kai’s SSS-Rank talent, Eye of the Primordial Sovereign, the dust was nonexistent. He could see the thermal signatures of the three executioners clearly, their hearts hamring in a rhythmic, frantic pattern of pure adrenaline and dawning terror.
Kai materialized through the curtain of ash like a reaper stepping out of a myth. His Tempest Stride boots left no footprints, made no sounds, and generated no air currents.
The squad leader, his hands still bleeding from the kinetic recoil of his shattered greatsword, desperately reached into his tactical belt to pull a high-tier flash-warp scroll. It was an expensive, single-use ergency escape artifact designed to force a spatial tear even inside a collapsing rift.
"Too slow," Kai's voice drifted into the leader's ear, cold and entirely devoid of human emotion.
Before the leader could unfurl the parchnt, the Desolation Blade arced through the dark in a short, hyper-efficient horizontal slash. Guided by the compressed form Elena had drilled into him, Kai didn't waste an inch of movent. The refined obsidian-black alloy sliced cleanly through the leader's wrist armor, severing his right hand at the joint.
The scroll, still clutched in the severed fingers, clattered uselessly to the floor.
"AAAHHH!" The leader scread, clutching his spurting wrist as he stumbled backward. His tallic wolf mask fell completely off, revealing a face twisted in agonizing pain and absolute despair.
[Target Status]
HP: 210/750 (Crippled: Right Hand Severed / Severe Bleeding)
Before the leader could collapse, the earth-attribute executioner roared in a blind panic, swinging his massive runic warhamr in a desperate, horizontal sweep to protect his commander. The weapon whistled through the air, heavy with the full weight of his Level 18 Strength.
Kai didn't even look at him. He simply pivoted his torso on his left heel, executing a flawless micro-glide with his Tempest Stride boots. The heavy warhamr missed his chest by a hair's breadth, its kinetic wind pressure whipping his black cloak wildly.
Utilizing the montum of his pivot, Kai stepped inside the guard of the hamr-wielder, his effective Strength of thirty-seven driving the poml of the Desolation Blade straight into the center of the executioner's throat guard.
CRACK.
The heavy steel collar of the armor collapsed inward, crushing the hunter's trachea. The earth executioner dropped his hamr, his hands flying to his throat as he fell to his knees, gasping for air that would no longer co.
Kai rolled his wrist, rotating the blade into a downward ice-pick grip. With a short, brutal plunge, he drove the obsidian tip straight through the top of the executioner's helt, piercing the skull core beneath.
[System Notice]
Gained 850 EXP.
The passive skill Life Drain flared with a dark, satisfied hum, pulling a rich current of warm vitality out of the dying Level 18 hunter and flooding it into Kai's system. The minor exhaustion from his continuous high-speed dodging evaporated instantly, his muscles feeling denser and more energized than before.
The shadow assassin, who had been struggling to stand near the base of the fractured Rift Core with a cracked sternum, witnessed the instantaneous slaughter of his two teammates. The rigid discipline of the Vanguard Enforcent Unit completely shattered. He didn't try to attack again; instead, he activated his Shadow Blend skill, turning his body into a translucent, smoky mist as he fled frantically toward the cavern's crumbling exit tunnels.
"You can't hide in the dark," Kai said softly. "The dark belongs to ."
Kai didn't chase him on foot. He extended his left hand toward the fleeing shadow, his violet eyes flashing with a predatory light as he channeled a fraction of his newly expanded mana pool. He didn't have an active magic skill, but his SSS-Rank talent allowed him to manipulate the ambient primordial mana currently saturating his body.
With a sharp clenching motion of his fist, Kai forcibly collapsed the spatial mana threads around the assassin's fleeing vector.
The smoky mist distorted violently as the localized air pressure plumted. The shadow assassin was violently ripped out of his stealth form, tumbling hard onto the sharp obsidian crags, hacking up dark blood as his cracked sternum shifted painfully against his lungs.
Before the assassin could crawl away, Kai materialized directly over him. The Tempest Stride boots planted themselves firmly onto the hunter's shoulder blades, pinning him to the stone floor with the unyielding weight of an iron anvil.
Kai lowered the tip of the Desolation Blade until it rested precisely against the nape of the assassin's neck.
"Wait... please..." the assassin wheezed, his voice muffled by the stone floor. "We were just... following orders... Commander Vance... he has the whole academy... under his thumb..."
"I know," Kai replied evenly.
THRUST.
The black alloy edge slid effortlessly through the spinal column, terminating the shadow assassin's life cycle instantly.
[System Notice]
Gained 850 EXP.
[System Notice]
Level Up! You have reached Level 8. All attributes increased by 2. Mana and HP fully restored.
A glorious, burning heat erupted from Kai's core, his spiritual pathways widening drastically as he hit Level 8. His baseline perception stretched even further, allowing him to feel the macro-collapse of the dungeon accelerating. Large sections of the cavern ceiling were now raining down into the cooled slag lake, and the spatial boundaries of the rift were beginning to fold inward like burning parchnt.
Kai turned his gaze back to the squad leader, who was currently slumped against a fallen boulder, pale from blood loss, staring at Kai as if looking at a primordial demon dressed in an academy uniform.
"What... what are you?" the leader whispered, his lips blue as life faded from his eyes. "An F-Rank... can't do this... The Vance family... will hunt you to the ends of the empire..."
"Let them try," Kai said.
He didn't waste another second on words. With a fluid, short stroke, he silenced the squad leader permanently, completing the total annihilation of Marcus Vance's elite wet-work asset.
[System Notice]
Gained 900 EXP.
Kai stood amidst the three high-tier corpses as the cave groaned around him, the air tearing with tiny, volatile spatial fractures. He held both hands outward, his palms glowing with a brilliant, dominant violet light.
"System," Kai commanded. "Extract everything before the rift collapses."
[System Notice]
Extraction successful.
Acquired 120 Evolution Points (EP) from Awakened Entities.
Acquired Material: 3x Standard Class Core Fragnts (D-Rank).
Total EP: 297
Kai quickly opened his status interface as the ground beneath his boots began to dissolve into empty, white spatial void. The numbers reflecting his rapid cultivation were nothing short of terrifying for a first-year student.
INFINITE EVOLUTION SYSTEM
Host: Kai Raven
Level: 8 (1,100 / 2,000 EXP)
Talent: Eye of the Primordial Sovereign (SSS-Rank)
HP: 240 / 240
MP: 24 / 24
Strength: 24 ( 15 from Desolation Blade)
Agility: 21 ( 12 from Tempest Stride - Zephyr, 5 from Desolation Blade)
Endurance: 23 ( 3 from Tempest Stride - Zephyr)
Evolution Points (EP): 297
His base attributes had reached a terrifying baseline. With his upgraded gear accounted for, his effective Strength sat at thirty-nine, his Agility at thirty-eight, and his Endurance at twenty-six. He was a re two levels away from hitting the Level 10 threshold, and his Class Path Synthesis tric was flashing at an unstable ninety-eight percent.
A massive spatial fracture tore directly through the center of the cavern, swallowing the remains of the dead Rift Core and heading straight for him. The pocket dinsion was officially snapping shut.
Kai sheathed the Desolation Blade with a crisp, echoing click. He didn't look for an exit gate; instead, he allowed his body to fall backward into the encroaching white spatial tear. Thanks to his private decree from the Grand Duke, his survival badge would automatically recalibrate his return coordinates to the secure Reinhardt training wing, bypassing the public pavilion entirely.
As the blinding white light of the collapsing dinsion swallowed his vision, Kai’s lips curled into a cold, predatory smile. Marcus Vance was currently waiting at the academy gates, expecting a report of a dead F-Rank failure. He had no idea his elite killers had just beco the fuel to forge his worst nightmare.
User Comments
0 comments from readers