Chapter 136
Daelan
I feel different.
Not in the way I expected...not like a rush of power, not like something clicking into place. It's quieter than that. Deeper.
Like I've been holding my breath my whole life and only just realized it.
I open my eyes.
The void is gone. No—I am the void. The darkness doesn't surround me anymore. It is me. Every shadow in existence feels like an extension of my body, a limb I never knew I had.
I can feel them breathing, pulsing, waiting.
I lift my hand. It's solid. Real. But when I focus, just slightly, it dissolves into smoke, into shadow, into nothing. Then back again.
Huh.
I can't believe I did it.
For a moment, I just stand there, staring at my hand like it belongs to someone else. The hand that held a dagger in Sector Z. The hand that signed a mana oath scroll in Richard Morne's office. The hand that's touched her face a thousand times.
I'm S class.
The thought still doesn't fit right in my head. It's too big. Too impossible.
