The pulse in Cain's chest had now faded, leaving only a warmth that lingered like the afterglow of a divine gaze.
But soon after, something else began to stir.
Not within the fragment.
Within him.
It started as a dull ache.
Not pain, but as a need.
A hunger.
The kind not quenched by food or water.
He had certainly felt it before as a mage, the feeling of mana deficiency.
It thrummed through his veins, deep and primal, whispering of something vital just beyond reach.
Cain frowned, pressing a hand against his sternum as he stepped away from the half-collapsed garden wall. The sky had shifted from night to the faint shimmer of dawn, painting the horizon with soft hues of amber and violet.
The wind carried no scent, but it pulled at him.
And the hunger followed.
His feet moved before his mind fully caught up, taking him down the dirt path, past the collapsed cottages, across the remnants of what had once been the town square.
Until finally, he stood at the shattered ruins of the old clock tower.
Or what little remained of it.
Charred wood. Cracked stone. Ash and splinters. The large bronze bell that once rang at sunrise lay bent in half, melted to the side like wax.
Cain narrowed his eyes, stepping cautiously across the debris. Something was here.
He felt it.
As if a heartbeat beneath the rubble.
Then, with barely a flick of his fingers, he parted the loose stones, revealing a soft glimmer beneath. The light was faint, like a dying ember, flickering within a fractured crystal core.
A shard of Ether Crystal.
Recognition flashed like lightning in Cain's mind.
In a moment, memories flooded him—memories from this life, and from the one before.
The clock tower had technically been a magic equipment, barely standing even before the attack.
And yet, it had functioned thanks to a single, precious Ether Crystal embedded deep within its mechanisms. A gift from a passing noble, given not out of charity—but annoyance. The lord had grown tired of visiting a village without a working timepiece.
It had irked his sense of order.
Cain had never cared for the story.
But now, the fragment of that Ether Crystal pulsed in his hand, and the hunger within him sang.
He closed his fingers around the broken crystal, and everything changed.
Mana.
Real mana.
Pure, untethered, ambient energy—not leashed by divine filters or shaped through god gems, but the natural flow he had once commanded with mere will and knowledge.
It surged into him, threading through the pores of his skin like fine silk.
His back straightened.
His heart raced.
His mind lit up.
And alongside that familiar current came something else—something far newer. A pulse that did not belong to any chant or incantation. It was constructed, not woven.
A spell.
No, not a spell.
A Gem Skill.
Cain's breath hitched. His body moved on instinct, his right hand rising. Mana flared at his fingertip, drawn from the Ether Crystal and something deeper—something that remembered how to shape reality.
A tiny mote of golden-white light appeared on the tip of his finger, swirling gently like a firefly trapped in a glass bead.
The air shimmered.
The hunger vanished.
And with a whisper, Cain spoke the word that surfaced in his mind as if a child's first cry...
"Illuminate."
The mote burst outward, hovering in front of him like a miniature star. It floated up, casting soft light over the wreckage, banishing the gray morning fog with radiant warmth.
The spell—no, the Gem Skill—remained stable.
Cain staggered a half step back, stunned.
He could still cast.
Not as he once did—this was no incantation drawn from deep-seated mana circuits. There were no glyphs, runes, multilayered magic circles or chants.
The method was different. Cruder, simpler in form, but just as potent in its own way.
It was built into the mana.
Constructed.
Layered.
Enforced.
Cain held his hand up to the floating mote of light and felt its warmth brush against his skin.
Not hot. Not dangerous. Just… real.
"…So this is how they shaped magic in this world," he murmured.
The spell structure had none of the elegance of true magecraft, none of the complexity. But it was effective. Immediate. Prepackaged. Like a tool anyone could use—assuming they had the right affinity, or the right god gem.
Cain's lips twisted into a smirk.
"It's magic… for cattle," he muttered.
A simplified, limited system. Caged mana shaped into artificial miracles. One-size-fits-all power. Enough to make the masses feel gifted, but never enough for them to rival the gods.
He hated it.
But he also understood it.
And more importantly… he could use it.
He had activated a Gem Skill without being bonded to a god gem. No priest. No divine sigil. Nothing but a broken Ether Crystal and the fragment of the abyss in his soul.
That meant something had changed.
Or rather, something had awakened.
The approval from earlier… the warmth that had washed through him when he made his vow beneath the stars. The fragment of Annihilus was stirring again. Not with raw power—but with potential.
Cain could feel it, like the pulse of a second heartbeat—steady, hidden, patient.
This wasn't the true power of the Primordial Progenitor. Not yet.
But it was the start.
He looked down at the fading shard of the Ether Crystal in his palm. Its light was dimming, spent from the brief surge.
But Cain no longer felt that hunger.
The emptiness inside had been fed.
And something inside him whispered:
There will be more.
He stood there for a moment longer, the soft light of Illuminate dancing in the mist, before he snapped his fingers. The mote blinked out instantly, plunging him into the quiet shade of dawn once more.
The hunger might return.
But now he knew how to feed it.
Cain turned from the rubble and walked back toward the cottage.
He would rest.
He would rebuild his strength.
And then?
Then he would hunt.