The Shadow Hound didn't leap; it exploded forward.
It moved with an unnatural, liquid speed, closing the twenty-meter distance in the blink of an eye. Its jaws opened impossibly wide, revealing rows of jagged, smoky teeth aimed directly at my throat.
Time seemed to slow down, not because of the System, but because of pure, unadulterated adrenaline flooding my veins.
[WARNING: Impact in 0.5 seconds.]
I didn't try to dodge. With my pathetic Agility stat of 6, trying to outrun a Level 5 magical construct was pointless. Instead, I planted my feet, leaned back, and threw the heavy, rusted rebar with every ounce of my meager Strength.
But I didn't throw it at the Hound.
The heavy iron bar spun awkwardly through the damp air, flying high over the creature's head. The Hound didn't even flinch, its red, glowing eyes locked entirely on its prey. It thought I had missed. It thought I was just a panicked, weak noble throwing a desperate, pathetic strike.
It didn't look up.
The rebar slammed into the ancient, rusted iron bracket supporting the crumbling masonry of the ceiling, exactly five meters ahead of me.
For a fraction of a second, nothing happened. Then, a sharp, metallic SNAP echoed through the tunnel.
The bracket, already eaten away by centuries of corrosive moisture, gave way under the sudden impact. The heavy stone archway it was supporting groaned, a terrible, grinding sound of rock sliding against rock.
The Hound was mid-air, its jaws inches from my face, when the ceiling came down.
Tons of solid rock, petrified slime, and rusted iron rained down like a localized meteor strike. I threw myself backward, hitting the wet cobblestones and rolling as far away as I could. Dust and debris exploded outward, blinding me and choking my lungs. A chunk of stone the size of a fist clipped my shoulder, sending a spike of blinding pain down my arm, but I kept moving.
The deafening roar of the cave-in lasted only a few seconds, followed by the splash of heavy debris falling into the toxic river beside the walkway.
When the dust finally began to settle, illuminated faintly by the surviving patches of bioluminescent moss, the tunnel ahead of me was completely blocked by a jagged wall of rubble.
I lay on my back, gasping for air, my heart hammering a frantic rhythm against my ribs.
Did I get it?
A low, vibrating whine cut through the silence. It sounded like tearing metal mixed with the whimper of a dying animal.
I pushed myself up onto my knees, clutching my bruised shoulder. Through the settling dust, I saw it. The Shadow Hound wasn't dead. The rear half of its smoky, unnatural body was crushed beneath a massive slab of stone. Its front legs clawed desperately at the ground, its shadowy form flickering and destabilizing like a bad television signal.
The blue interface popped up again.
[Target Status: Critically Injured. Immobilized.]
[Threat Level: Low.]
I slowly got to my feet. My whole body ached, and the heavy chains connecting my wrists clinked as I walked toward the trapped beast. It snapped its jaws at me, a pathetic, desperate attempt to intimidate, but it couldn't reach me.
"You should have looked up, buddy," I rasped, my voice barely recognizable.
I needed Mana. The System said I could absorb it from defeated biological entities. This thing was a 'construct', but it was made of magic. It had to have something I could use.
I stepped closer, staying just out of reach of its snapping jaws. I raised my hands, bringing the heavy iron chains connecting my wrists down over the Hound's neck. It thrashed, its shadowy form burning cold against my skin, but it was pinned. I planted my boot on its head, pulled the chains tight, and twisted.
It was a brutal, ugly thing to do. The Arthur of the past would have fainted at the sight of grime, let alone strangling a shadow monster in a sewer. But I wasn't that Arthur anymore. I was a guy who wanted to live.
The Hound let out one final, high-pitched screech, and then its form shattered.
It didn't leave a body. It simply exploded into a cloud of dense, black mist that washed over me. I braced myself, expecting pain, but instead, the mist felt incredibly warm. It seeped into my skin, rushing through my veins like a shot of pure espresso. The exhaustion in my muscles vanished, replaced by a sudden, electric hum of energy.
[DING!]
[Entity 'Shadow Hound' Defeated.]
[Experience gained. Level Up threshold not met.]
[Absorbing ambient Mana...]
[Mana Restored: 5/10]
I let out a long, shaky breath, looking at the glowing blue '5' on my screen. I wasn't empty anymore. I had fuel.
But the System wasn't done. A new, golden prompt appeared, flashing brightly in the dim tunnel.
[Loot Drop Detected: Shadow Core (Fragment).]
[Do you wish to extract and Edit the core? Cost: 5 Mana.]
I stared at the spot where the Hound had died. Floating a few inches above the wet stone was a small, jagged crystal, pulsing with a faint, dark purple light.
Extract and Edit. This was it. This was the true power of the Reality Editor class. I didn't just loot items; I could alter them before absorbing them.
"Yes," I commanded.
My Mana instantly dropped from 5 back to 0. The blue interface expanded, projecting a detailed schematic of the glowing crystal.
--- ITEM CODE ---
Name: Shadow Core Fragment
Origin: Shadow Hound
Contained Skill: [Bite - Lvl 1], [Shadow Meld - Lvl 1]
Status: Unstable
-----------------
Below the stats, the familiar blinking cursor appeared.
I had 0 Mana left, which meant I couldn't change the fundamental nature of the item like I did with Elara's sword. The System seemed to inherently know my limits. A new prompt appeared.
[Insufficient Mana for deep structural editing. Permitted Action: Isolate and Absorb one contained Skill.]
I had a choice. [Bite] or [Shadow Meld].
Bite was useless to me. I wasn't going to go around chewing on people's necks, and I didn't have the jaw strength to make it effective anyway. But [Shadow Meld]... that was different. Elara was hunting me. Her guards were hunting me. In the Undercity, stealth was survival.
I mentally selected [Shadow Meld].
[Skill Isolated. Absorbing...]
The purple crystal shattered into dust. The dark light shot directly into my chest. For a terrifying second, my vision went completely black, and the air around me turned freezing cold. I felt a strange sensation, as if my very cells were shifting, learning a new, unnatural rhythm.
Then, the cold faded, and my vision returned.
[Skill Acquired: Shadow Step (Modified from Shadow Meld).]
[Type: Active / Movement]
[Cost: 2 Mana per use.]
[Description: Allows the Host to instantly teleport between two points of darkness within a 10-meter radius. Host is momentarily intangible during the transit.]
I read the description three times. Teleportation. It wasn't just hiding in the shadows; the System had modified the monster's basic camouflage skill to fit my class, turning it into a short-range blink. It was an incredible escape tool.
The only problem was the cost. Two Mana per use, and I was currently sitting at zero again.
I closed the screens with a thought. I needed to move. The cave-in had been loud—loud enough to echo through the entire layer of the Undercity. If Elara had sent trackers down here, they would definitely come investigating the noise. And if there were more Shadow Hounds...
I climbed over the rubble of the collapsed ceiling, my chained hands making it difficult, but the adrenaline and the lingering warmth of the absorbed Mana kept me going.
As I reached the top of the debris pile and looked down the continuation of the tunnel, my breath caught in my throat.
The tunnel didn't just continue into endless darkness. About a hundred meters down, the architecture changed. The narrow sewage pipe opened up into a massive, cavernous space. And in the center of that space, flickering weakly against the crushing dark, was a light.
It wasn't the eerie green of the bioluminescent moss. It was the warm, flickering orange glow of a campfire.
People. There were people down here.
I touched the cold iron of my chains. If there were people, there might be tools. A blacksmith, a thief, anyone with a file or a lockpick. But people in the Undercity wouldn't be friendly citizens. They would be outcasts, murderers, and monsters in human skin.
I gripped my rusted rebar tighter. I had survived the execution, and I had survived the Hound. Now, I had to survive the locals.
I began my descent toward the firelight, stepping softly into the shadows.