The remaining three rcenaries froze, their minds completely paralyzed by the sight of their two best strikers turned into skull-shattered corpses in a matter of seconds. The thick, white ash of the terraces swirled wildly around Kai’s boots, turning into a charred, decayed black wherever the oppressive aura of the Desolation Blade touched the ground.
"He's a monster! He’s a hidden high-tier!" the tracker scread, his tactical rebreather rattling violently against his teeth as he stumbled backward.
"Shut up and fire!" the leader roared, his survival instincts forcing his mana core into an unstable, over-clocked state.
The leader slamd his heavy falchion into the basalt floor, channeling his Level 16 Vanguard skill: Iron Fortress. A massive, three-inch-thick wall of compressed, dense tallic mana erupted from the stone path, designed to block a direct kinetic blast from an imperial tank. Simultaneously, the third rcenary, a long-range ranger, leveled a heavy, rune-engraved repeater crossbow at Kai's chest, releasing a volley of three localized armor-piercing explosive bolts.
TWANG-TWANG-TWANG!
The bolts whistled through the ash, trailing arcs of unstable crimson plasma.
Kai didn't dodge. He sprinted straight toward the tallic barrier, his effective Agility of sixty-eight blurring his physical form into a series of overlapping afterimages.
The explosive bolts detonated precisely where his torso had been a microsecond prior, blowing a pair of massive, fiery craters into the basalt floor, but Kai had already cleared the blast radius. He materialized directly in front of the leader's Iron Fortress wall.
With a fluid, heavy rotation of his hips—the exact form Elena had hamred into his muscle mory—Kai drove the Desolation Blade forward in a straight, compressed thrust.
BOOM!
The tip of the obsidian blade struck the center of the three-inch tallic wall. The sixty-nine points of raw, unadulterated Strength behind the strike didn't just pierce the mana shield; it caused the entire structure to shatter outward like brittle glass. The concussive kinetic shockwave tore through the fragnts, throwing the rcenary leader completely off his feet and fracturing his shoulder armor before the sword could even touch his flesh.
"Ranger! Protect my flank!" the leader wheezed, his lungs filled with blood as he rolled across the ash.
The ranger desperately tried to reload his heavy crossbow, his fingers shaking so violently he dropped the plasma bolt magazine into the white dust. He didn't get a chance to pick it up.
Aero-Glide.
Kai executed a high-speed horizontal glide, bypassing the falling shield debris entirely to appear right in front of the ranger's vision. The Desolation Blade arced through the dark in a short, brutal diagonal slash.
SLICE.
The cursed alloy edge cut cleanly through the reinforced leather armor, the ranger’s throat, and the heavy iron fra of the crossbow simultaneously. The ranger didn't even have ti to scream; his body tipped backward, his life-force instantly snuffed out.
[System Notice]
Gained 720 EXP.
Kai didn't pause. Utilizing the montum of his follow-through, he spun on his heel, his violet eyes locking onto the tracking specialist who was currently trying to scale the steep basalt ridge to escape back to the staging ground.
Kai threw the Desolation Blade like a javelin.
The obsidian weapon cut through the ash storm with a silent, terrifying velocity, completely bypassing the air resistance. It pierced the tracker straight through his lower lumbar spine, pinning his body to the stone wall of the ridge like a specin beetle.
"AGHHH! My legs... I can't feel my legs!" the tracker shrieked, coughing up dark foam as the blade's Life Drain began to aggressively siphon his vitality out of his bone marrow.
Kai walked over to the crawling, broken figure of the rcenary leader, his boots crunching lightly against the blood-soaked ash. He looked down at the man with absolute, chilling indifference.
"Please..." the leader wheezed, his eyes wide with a profound, primitive terror. "Vance... Vance has a warehouse... in the lower city... full of C-Rank cores... I'll give you the encryption keys... just let leave the rift..."
"I don't need your encryption keys," Kai said softly. "Your core is worth more to right now."
Kai raised his foot and brought the steel-plated heel of his Tempest Stride boot down onto the leader's chest with the full weight of his sixty-nine Strength.
CRUNCH.
The breastplate caved in completely, terminating the rcenary leader's lifeline instantly.
[System Notice]
Gained 800 EXP.
Kai walked over to the ridge, pulling the Desolation Blade out of the tracker's dead spine with a clean, tallic schlit. The tracker's body turned gray and brittle, crumbling into dust as the last drops of his vitality were pulled into the sword's core.
[System Notice]
Gained 750 EXP.
[System Notice]
Level Up! You have reached Level 9. All base attributes increased by 2. Mana and HP fully restored.
A magnificent, searing torrent of violet light exploded from Kai's chest, his internal mana ridians expanding to accommodate the massive milestone growth. He stood amidst the five dead rcenaries, his skin pulsing with a faint, dominant purple static. He raised both palms into the air, his SSS-Rank talent awakening fully within his eyes.
"System," Kai commanded. "Extract everything."
[System Notice]
Extraction successful.
Acquired 180 Evolution Points (EP) from Awakened Faction Entities.
Acquired Material: 5x Refined Core Fragnts (D-Rank).
Total EP: 387
Kai opened his internal status screen, a dark, completely satisfied smile splitting his face as he looked at the tric that mattered most.
INFINITE EVOLUTION SYSTEM
Host: Kai Raven
Level: 9 (740 / 3,500 EXP)
Talent: Eye of the Primordial Sovereign (SSS-Rank)
Class Path Synthesis: 99.9% Complete (Locked)
HP: 280 / 280
MP: 28 / 28
Strength: 56 ( 15 from Desolation Blade)
Agility: 53 ( 12 from Tempest Stride - Zephyr, 5 from Desolation Blade)
Endurance: 55 ( 3 from Tempest Stride - Zephyr)
Evolution Points (EP): 387
With his equipnt modifiers, his baseline effective Strength sat at seventy-one, and his Agility was seventy. He was exactly one level away from hitting Level 10—the threshold where his SSS-Rank class would finally break its chains.
Before he could step away from the blood-stained terrace, a massive, deafening roar echoed from the deep, crimson-lit fissures further down the staircase. The sound was accompanied by a thick, heavy wave of pure, toxic Abyssal Fog that began to roll over the ridges, turning the white ash into a dark, pulsing purple slurry.
Kai looked down into the maw of the deeper sectors, his violet eyes flashing with a predatory, calculated interest. The rcenaries were dead, but the true monsters of the Abyss were finally answering his invitation.
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