As heavy as it was, the dark wasn't empty at all. That was the first thing Nnael realized about this new hell.
In the white void of the Celestial Author's domain, silence was clean. Here? Silence was a pressure, pressing down on the damp thatch roof of the cottage, leaking through the cracks in the stone walls like water.
He lay on the straw mattress, staring up at the ceiling he couldn't see. His body, this pathetic, shivering, malnourished cage of meat, ached. It was a bone-deep ache, the kind that comes from muscles that have atrophied from fever and a stomach that hasn't seen a real meal in weeks.
Nnael tried to flex his hand. The movement was sluggish, weak like baby's grip.
"Pathetic," he whispered, the word scraping his dry throat.
He closed his eyes, ignoring the cold draft that tickled his feet. He needed to work. The Reaper had given him a joke, a punchline disguised as a gift. Pore-Breathing. Z-Rank. A skill for bottom-feeders and worms.
But worms survived while lions starved.
Focus.
He didn't have a System Interface anymore. No blue screens. No soothing chimes. No Kirana. Just the biological reality of his own skin. He visualized the pores on his arms, on his chest, on his neck. He imagined them not as skin, but as millions of tiny, starving mouths.
Open, he commanded.
Nothing happened.
Open, you damn useless sacks.
He pushed his mind outward, trying to force the skill to activate. For an hour, there was nothing but the sound of the wind outside and the soft snoring of Mina from the other room. He felt foolish. He felt like a fallen god playing pretend in the mud.
And then, the pain hit.
It wasn't a sharp pain. It was a crawling, burning itch that started at his fingertips. It felt like someone was dragging a needle across his nerve endings slowly and deliberately. He begun to feel something like air flowing over his body. What's this? He thought, is it what they called mana? He then remember what the Reaper explained.
<
He chanted softly, barely a whisper.
He gasped, his back arching off the straw. The air in the room… it wasn't just air. It was thick and wet.
Nnael gritted his teeth, sweat breaking out on his forehead. The atmosphere in the Duchy of Valerius was saturated with it, the Blight. The Sea of Mists wasn't just a border, it was an infection that had seeped into the water cycle. The humidity in the room tasted metallic, like old blood and rust.
Abyssal Moisture.
Most mages filtered this out. They used high-tier lungs and refined meditation techniques to sip only the purest Mana. Nnael? He was drinking the sludge from the gutter.
Every breath his skin took felt like inhaling broken glass. The Abyssal traces burned his unrefined circuits, searing the pathways that had been dormant for a lifetime. It was agony, like a torture.
But he felt it was working.
He lay there for hours, shaking, sweat soaking the thin linen of his tunic. He felt a microscopic trickle of energy entering his bloodstream. Not golden, solar mana. This was grey, cold and dirty. It entered his capillaries, fighting his white blood cells, forcing his body to adapt or die.
More, he thought, his mind a haze of pain and determination. Feed me.
By the time the grey light of dawn began to bleed through the window shutters, Nnael collapsed back onto the straw, panting. His skin was red and raw, as if he'd been scrubbed with sandpaper.
But deep in his chest, in the hollow space where a Mana Heart should be, there was a single, faint pulse. A spark in the wet ash.
Nnael laughed a dry wheezing sound. He had enough energy to light a candle, maybe. Or kill a fly if he concentrated really hard.
"Nnael?"
The old door from the other room creaked. The scent hit him before she did, warm dough, sleep, and that overwhelming, sweet smell of milk.
Mina stood in the doorway, lifting the curtain up, silhouetted by the pale, amber light of the morning sun. It hung low in the sky, a cheerless watcher.
"You're awake," she breathed, rushing to his side.
She was wearing her night shift, a thin, worn piece of fabric that did nothing to hide the heavy, soft collapse of her body. She sat on the edge of the bed, the mattress groaning under her. She reached out, her hand cool against his fever-hot forehead.
"You're burning up again," she whispered, worry etching lines into her face. She leaned closer, and Nnael was suddenly suffocated by her presence. Her breasts, heavy and loose beneath the fabric, brushed against his shoulder as she checked his temperature.
Boobs, more boobs. His cock throbbed, tenting beneath his pants. He felt a jolt instinctive reaction of his body, like a sharp, hungry pang in his gut.
"I'm fine, Mother," he lied, his voice raspy. "Just… the fever breaking."
"You're soaked in sweat," she murmured, her thumb brushing his cheek. She looked at him, her eyes dark and wet with a mix of relief and something else. Something desperate. She was a widow in a world that ate widows. He was her only anchor. Her need for him was a palpable thing, a humidity that rivaled the Abyssal air.
"We need to get you clean," she said, pulling back slightly, though her hand lingered on his chest, right over his heart. "If the… if the neighbors see you like this, they'll talk. They'll say you're blighted."
"Let them talk," Nnael said, closing his eyes.
"No," a sharp voice cut through the soft air.
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