The energy from the Beast Lord's heart-stone didn't just sit in Elian's veins; it roared through them. It felt like pressurized steam, scouring the insides of his meridians and making his silver-sleeved arm glow so fiercely it cast long, dancing shadows against the ravine walls. Every breath he took felt like inhaling ozone.
In the distance, the fifty remaining Shadow Hounds stood paralyzed. They watched him with a mix of primal terror and predatory instinct, their eyeless heads tilted as they tracked the violent surges of ether radiating from his body. They were weary, but they were trapped—and a trapped beast is the most dangerous.
Elian forced himself to stand. His muscles screamed, but the "Tireless" state pushed the fatigue into a corner of his mind. He looked down at the remains of the Beast Lord. Unlike the lesser Hounds that turned to ash, the Lord had left behind a carcass of immense value.
With a flick of his wrist, he activated his Void Storage. The purple heart-stone, the jagged bone-plates, and even the perfectly dissected shadow-claws vanished into the silver mist of his soul. In the markets of the human cities, these materials would be worth a fortune; here, they were the raw components for his future growth.
He centered his thoughts, calling up his internal status.
[Current Progress: Star Level 0 (98.9% to Star Level 1)]
[Status: Evolutionary Threshold Imminent]
He was on the brink. One more push, one more surge of ether, and he would officially cross the threshold into the first rank of the Awakened.
Elian turned his gaze back to the two standing warriors. Their armor was cracked, and their movements were stiff, but they lowered their halberds the moment his eyes met theirs. Behind them, the two injured warriors were struggling to sit up, their etheric forms flickering as they tried to self-repair.
"Get up," Elian rasped, his voice sounding deeper, vibrating with the stolen power of the Beast Lord. "We aren't done."
The fifty Shadow Hounds sensed the shift. The death of their leader had briefly broken their spirit, but the lingering scent of Elian's blood and the sheer proximity of his raw energy acted like a flare in the dark. The largest of the stragglers let out a high-pitched, warbling cry.
It was a command.
The Hounds stopped retreating. They fanned out in a perfect semicircle, their claws digging into the purple earth. The air in the ravine grew heavy as fifty Tier-2 souls synchronized their intent. They knew if they didn't kill this boy now, he would become something they could never touch.
Elian raised the Phase-Shard. The blade, fed by the recent extraction, hummed a low, hungry note. The silver light on his arm began to pulse in time with the Hounds' breathing.
"Hold the center," Elian commanded the two warriors. "Don't let them surround us."
The shadows in the ravine suddenly seemed to boil. As if moved by a single mind, all fifty beasts launched themselves forward at once. It was a wave of black fur, snapping jaws, and sharpened bone, descending on the small group from every angle.
The silence of the ravine was shattered by the roar of the swarm. Elian braced his feet, his 13-Star soul screaming for release as the wall of monsters closed the gap.