The howling wind of the upper chasm ceased entirely the mont Kai dropped past the cloud ceiling of Sector 4. The Ashen Terraces stretched out beneath him like a staircase for giants, carved from cracked basalt and covered in a thick layer of bone-white ash that drifted like snow.
Aero-Glide.
A single cushion of pressurized azure wind exploded beneath Kai’s feet a ter before he touched the ground. He landed flawlessly on a jagged ledge of basalt, his boots leaving nothing more than a faint ripple in the shifting white dust.
[System Notice]
Host has entered Sector 4: Ashen Terraces (Tier-2 Cataclysm Risk).
Atmospheric Mana toxicity: High.
Innate Skill 'Void Shroud' has sealed Host's internal ecosystem. Toxicity neutralized.
Kai slowly straightened his posture, his violet eyes scanning the desolate, gray topography. The terraces were vast, separated by steep drops and riddled with dark, yawning fissure vents that belched warm, violet-tinted gas into the air.
He didn't take three steps before his SSS-Rank talent, Eye of the Primordial Sovereign, caught a rhythmic vibration pulsing through the rock. It wasn't the natural shifting of the rift. It was the deliberate, stealthy advance of multiple heavy entities.
From the shadows of a sulfur-stained ridge three hundred yards away, five figures stepped into the open.
They weren't academy freshn, nor did they wear the clean, standardized uniforms of the imperial vanguard. They wore mismatched, rugged combat gear forged from the carapaces of subterranean monsters, heavily modified with illegal kinetic dampeners. Their faces were obscured by tactical rebreathers, and their shoulder guards bore the crude silver stencil of a snarling canine—The Bloodhounds, one of the most ruthless independent rcenary guilds operating in the southern underworld.
[Entity: Bloodhound Tracker - Elite]
Rank: D-Rank Awakened (Level 16)
HP: 680 / 680
Primary Class: Iron Vanguard (Tier 1)
Danger Level: Negligible.
[Entity: Bloodhound Striker - Elite]
Rank: D-Rank Awakened (Level 17)
HP: 590 / 590
Primary Class: Dual Assassin (Tier 1)
Danger Level: Negligible.
The leader of the group, a hulking man wielding a massive, chain-linked heavy falchion, checked a glowing tactical display mounted to his forearm. He looked at the device, then looked up at Kai, a gruff, distorted laugh echoing through his rebreather.
"The tracking array didn't lie," the leader said, his voice carrying the gritty nonchalance of a seasoned killer. "Marcus Vance said you’d step off the main path the second you hit the dirt. An F-Rank unawakened kid walking solo into the Terraces... I don't know what kind of political grudge the Commander has against you, brat, but half a million credits is the easiest payday my crew has seen all winter."
The four rcenaries flanking him spread out smoothly, drawing their weapons with practiced efficiency. The two strikers faded into the shifting white ash, their Shadow Blend skills turning their bodies into faint, translucent outlines against the gray rock.
Kai stood perfectly still, his hands remaining in his pockets. His Void Shroud maintained his false F-Rank tric, leaving the rcenaries entirely blind to the explosive, coiled density of his actual statistics.
"Half a million credits," Kai murmured, his tone dry and entirely unimpressed. "Marcus is getting cheap. He sent three Level 18 executioners into the crags, and they didn't even last five minutes. What makes you think five Level 16s will do any better?"
The rcenary leader froze, his eyes narrowing behind his tactical visor. The information about Alpha Team's demise was supposed to be a highly classified imperial secret. The fact that this kid knew the exact level and size of the squad that had vanished was an imdiate, jarring red flag.
"Don't let him talk! Flush the target!" the leader roared, his instincts screaming at him to end the contract imdiately.
The two hidden shadow strikers detonated forward from the ash, materializing on Kai's left and right flanks simultaneously. Their twin daggers, coated in toxic green paralytic fluid, tore through the air in a synchronized Pincer Gouge aid at his hamstrings and lower back.
They were fast, moving with the optimized agility of Tier-1 professionals.
But to Kai’s sixty-eight effective Agility, their hyper-coordinated assassination attempt looked like a pair of insects trapped in amber.
Kai didn't even draw the Desolation Blade.
He took a single, short step backward, his body shifting perfectly into the narrow kinetic blind spot between the two incoming blades. The daggers missed his uniform by less than a milliter, the green poison vapor hissing harmlessly against his passive aura.
Before the two assassins could reset their weight, Kai’s hands snapped out of his pockets. He grabbed both of their wrists simultaneously, his effective Strength of sixty-nine clamping down on their forearm armor like hydraulic industrial presses.
CRACK.
The reinforced monster-hide bracers shattered instantly under his grip, the bones beneath snapping like dry twigs. The two strikers let out a simultaneous, agonized shriek, their daggers slipping from their useless, broken fingers.
"What the—?!" the rcenary leader gasped, his brain entirely failing to process how an unawakened F-Rank baseline human had just physically overpowered two Level 17 assassins with his bare hands.
Kai didn't give them ti to analyze the anomaly.
With a brutal, sweeping motion, he swung both assassins inward, smashing their skulls together with a sickening, tallic THUD. The sheer physical velocity of the collision shattered their tactical visors, their eyes rolling back as their lifelines instantly went dark.
[System Notice]
Gained 720 EXP.
Gained 750 EXP.
Kai released the two limp corpses, letting them slide into the white ash like discarded sacks of stone. He slowly reached down, his fingers wrapping firmly around the hilt of the Desolation Blade. As the pristine black alloy cleared the scabbard, a heavy, suffocating pressure dropped across the basalt ledge, the passive Life Drain aura causing the surrounding white ash to curdle and turn black.
Kai looked up at the remaining three rcenaries, his violet eyes glowing with a cold, absolute hunger in the dim light of the abyss.
"Two levels left," Kai said softly, his body leaning into an explosive sprint posture. "Let's see if your cores have enough density to bridge the gap."
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