The deep tunnels became Arlan's world. Time lost meaning measured in sunrises, replaced by the slow drip of water and the rhythm of his own heartbeat. He found a niche—a dry, high cavern with a narrow entrance, easily defensible. A small, clear underground stream provided water. Blind cave fish and luminescent fungi, purified by a wisp of Voidfire, became his sustenance.
His first priority was mastering Aethelbrand.
The sword was an extension of his will, but its law was profound. He started simply. Holding the blade, he focused on a stalactite. He didn't swing to cut the stone. He focused on the connection of the minerals holding it together, the bonds of crystal lattice.
He swept the grey blade in a gentle arc, not touching the stone.
A whisper-thin grey line appeared across the base of the stalactite. There was no sound. The severed section simply slid free and crashed to the floor. The cut surface was perfectly smooth, mirror-like, and felt… dead, as if the very potential for it to rejoin had been erased.
Severing. It was absolute.
He practiced on smaller things. A pebble, severed into two perfect halves that could never be glued. A stream of water, where a single pass of the blade created a permanent, air-gap severance in the flow for a full minute before the water found a new path.
He learned the cost. Each use of the sword's innate law drained not just his mana, but something else—a tiny sliver of his own vitality, his connection to the world. It was the "price" the skeleton had warned of. He could feel it, a slight hollowing with each cut. It was negligible now, but used recklessly, it could sever his own lifeline.
The sword became part of his martial dance. He integrated it with his spatial and darkness abilities. A Voidstep behind an imaginary foe, followed by a silent, severing strike. An Umbral Shroud to hide the blade's deadly grey gleam until it was too late.
His body healed fully in the quiet darkness. His mana regenerated, reaching its peak capacity of 4500, then pressing insistently against the ceiling of the 3rd Order. The bottleneck was a wall of shimmering pressure in his soul. The Universal System's prompt was a constant, golden itch.
Breakthrough Quest Available (3rd -> 4th Order): Shatter the Mortal Shell.
Objective: Comprehend the nascent form of your Aura. Manifest a domain of influence that reflects your primary affinity and intent.
Standard System Class Offerings (Upon Success): Spatial Blademaster, Umbral Phantom, Voidfire Weaver.
Warning: External contract interference detected. Standard offerings may be altered or replaced.
His divine contract pulsed in response, a dark, enticing promise. It did not offer a choice of classes. It offered a forging.
The path of the God of Shadows is not one of acceptance, but of usurpation. You will not receive an aura. You will carve a territory from the darkness itself. You will not be offered a class. You will become a definition. Break the System's mold. Forge your own Order.
The idea was terrifying. It meant rejecting the universal path, the structured safety of the System, in favor of something personal, unique, and utterly without guideposts. It was the ultimate act of negation against the world's rules.
It was also the only path that felt true to the cold, severing thing he was becoming.
He sat in the center of his cavern, Aethelbrand across his knees. He closed his eyes and dove deep into his Chaos-Anchored Void Lattice Core.
He saw the three affinities: Silver Space, Black Umbral, Purple Voidfire, held in tense equilibrium by the grey, pulsing Fragment of Negation. He saw his intent: To Break.
An Aura, as the System defined it, was a passive field of influence, a broadcast of one's power that could intimidate, empower, or alter the environment. A Spatial Blademaster's aura might sharpen the air. An Umbral Phantom's would dim the light.
He did not want to broadcast. He wanted to consume. To define a space not by what it was, but by what it denied.
He focused on the Fragment. He didn't ask it for power. He imitated its nature. He took his intent to break, his affinity for space that could be folded and cut, his darkness that could absorb, and his voidfire that could consume, and he wove them together not into a field, but into a conclusion.
He declared, with every fiber of his will, that within the bounds of his spirit, the rules of others held no sway. That this was a place where connections could be severed, where light could be negated, where space was his to command.
He didn't expand his power outward. He drew a line around himself.
In the silent cavern, the air died.
Sound ceased to travel. The gentle glow of the luminescent fungi snuffed out, not from darkness, but from an absence of luminescence as a concept. The very air grew still and cold, not because it was frozen, but because the energy of molecular motion was leeched away.
Around Arlan, in a sphere three meters in radius, a Zone of Nullification flickered into existence.
It wasn't an Aura. It was the opposite. It was an Anti-Aura. A bubble where the normal laws of magic and physics were suggestions, which his will could sever at a moment's notice.
Inside it, he was absolute. Outside it, the world remained unchanged. It was not a domain seed—that came at the 6th Order. This was something cruder, smaller, but fundamentally other.
The Universal System recoiled. Alarms flashed in his vision.
Error. Breakthrough parameters unrecognized.
Mana signature deviant. Soul resonance aberrant.
Class assignment impossible.
Designating: Anomaly 4th Order.
New Classification: Void Scion (Unique).
Authority granted: Negation Zone (Primitive).
His divine contract shimmered with dark satisfaction.
He had done it. He had broken the standard path. He was now the equivalent of a 4th Order, but his "class" was a unique title granted by a confused System, and his authority was a blasphemy against cultivation norms.
Power flooded him. Not just an increase in mana capacity, but a qualitative shift. His senses sharpened. He could feel the fragile threads of connection in the stone around him, the tenuous bonds he could sever with a thought and a touch of Aethelbrand. His Voidstep range doubled. His control over Umbral and Spatial energies grew more instinctive, more absolute.
Personal Status - Arlan Thorne
Contract Holder: God of Darkness and Shadows
Order: 4th (Anomaly - Void Scion)
Rank: 1 (Early)
Mana Capacity: 7000/7000
Core: Chaos-Anchored Void Lattice (Stable)
Authority: Negation Zone (Primitive) - 3m radius.
Weapon Bond: Aethelbrand (Severing Edge) - Synchronization 12%.
Sundered Shield Fragment Bond: 5%
He stood, the Negation Zone dissolving back into his core as he willed it. He felt… whole. Solid. The desperate, hunted edge was still there, but now it was backed by the cold certainty of a predator who had grown new fangs.
He had taken the first step on a path of his own making.
Now, it was time to use it.
He had been in the deeps for weeks, perhaps a month. The world above would have changed. Vance would have consolidated or faced rebellion. The Accord would be licking its wounds or pressing new schemes. His friends were out there. Lyra was in a cage.
He gathered his meager possessions: the bone knife (recovered from a fold in his uniform), Theron's map, now memorized, and Aethelbrand in its simple sheath on his back.
He took one last look at his dark sanctuary, then turned towards the tunnels that, according to the map, eventually wound upwards to the underbelly of Sky-Crest City's industrial sector.
He was done hiding.
As he walked into the dark, a final, system-wide notification pulsed, not for him, but for the entire region. He paused to read it.
Regional Broadcast (Celestial Ascension Authority):
By the order of the Council of First Families, and in light of the recent instability, the Celestial Ascent Academy will undergo a period of reconstitution. Head Proctor Iliana Vance has stepped down to focus on recovery from her injuries. Interim leadership has been appointed.
Furthermore, to strengthen ties with our ancestral heritage and secure future stability, the long-sealed Starfall Gate—a portal to the Shattered Sanctum, a realm of ancient trials and inheritances—will be opened in one month's time. Qualification for entry will be determined by the upcoming Gate-Selection Melee. All eligible scions of Great Families and top-ranking academy students are encouraged to prepare.
The future belongs to the strong, the pure, and the legitimate.
Arlan's cold smile returned. Stepped down? She was regrouping. And this "Starfall Gate"? It reeked of Accord manipulation—a way to gather the most promising young assets of the great families in one place, perhaps to indoctrinate, or to cull. And it was a perfect opportunity for the "legitimate" powers to sideline anomalies and commoners like him.
But he saw something else. An opportunity.
The "Shattered Sanctum" sounded like a place where powerful things were left behind. Like swords named Aethelbrand. Where secrets were buried. And where the heirs of the families who had condemned him would walk, arrogant and secure.
The message was clear: the old order was closing ranks, using tradition and inheritance to solidify their power.
Arlan Thorne, Void Scion, Bearer of Negation, Severer of Bonds, looked at the notification and made a decision.
He would qualify for their Gate-Selection Melee.
And he would walk through their Starfall Gate.
Not as a scion.
But as a shadow.
And inside their precious Sanctum, amid the ancient trials, he would create a new chaos:
That the strongest chains are not made of law or legacy, but of expectation. And he was very, very good at breaking expectations.
He continued his walk, the only sound the soft, definitive tread of his boots on ancient stone, and the silent song of a severing blade on his back.