Neo kept descending through the dark stairs for what felt like far longer than it should have taken before, at last, a light appeared below.

’Finally. Something.’

He slowed instead of rushing toward it.

Light only meant he could see better. It did not mean the place was safe. A Soul Beast hidden in a lit room could kill him just as easily as one hidden in the dark, and Neo had no intention of getting this far only to die because he relaxed too early.

He moved down the last stretch with care, each step measured, his sword ready in hand.

When he reached the bottom, he stopped in the shadow just outside the room and narrowed his eyes, studying the space before entering.

No Soul Beast.

That was the first thing he confirmed.

Only an empty chamber, bare stone, old dust, and something lying on the floor near the center.

It was glowing.

Neo stayed where he was for another breath before stepping inside. The room remained still. No sound beyond the faint scrape of his own boots against the floor. As he drew closer, the object took shape.

A dark orb.

Or something close to one.

It looked metallic at first glance, but not in the clean way forged steel looked metallic. This was black, smooth in some places, uneven in others, as though the surface had flowed and hardened without ever deciding what shape it wanted to keep.

Neo crouched slightly and reached toward it.

A heavy thomp sounded behind him.

He turned at once.

A Soul Beast stood near the entrance.

Neo had not heard it approach. Had not felt it enter. That alone put a weight in his chest he did not like. His attention flicked up for an instant, and there, in the darkness above, he caught the outline of a nest pressed into the ceiling stone.

So that was where it had come from.

His focus dropped back to the creature.

It had the shape of a man, if a man had been worn down by hunger, time, and something worse than either. Its skin was gray and dry, stretched over a body that looked lean without ever seeming weak. A ragged robe hung from it in strips, the kind of rough old garment a beggar might have worn in another age. In one hand it carried a sword unlike any Neo had seen before.

The blade was lined with jagged teeth.

Neo held its stare for a moment, then shifted away from the orb.

The Soul Beast eased.

Its posture lowered, not calm exactly, but less ready to spring.

Neo moved one step toward the orb again.

The thing changed at once.

Its shoulders tightened. The sword lifted slightly. Violence returned to its frame like it had only been waiting for an excuse.

Neo’s mouth curled faintly.

’So you’re guarding it.’

He took another slow step, not toward the beast this time, but toward the orb.

The creature’s response came immediate.

’Yeah. I thought so.’

Neo rolled his wrist once around the hilt of his sword.

"If I want that thing," he muttered, "I guess I have to go through you first."

Soul Essence moved through him the next instant.

Beast Strength answered the call at once, heat and force flooding through his limbs, tightening muscle over bone until his body felt heavier in all the right ways. He had saved his essence for exactly this kind of fight. A place he did not understand. A creature he had never seen. Something valuable on the ground.

The Soul Beast felt the change in him.

It moved before Neo did.

One instant it stood across the chamber. The next it was already on him, far faster than a thing with its frame had any right to be. The toothed blade flashed through the room and raked across Neo’s arm.

Slash.

Pain bit across his skin.

Not deep. He had twisted away in time, but only barely.

Warm blood slid down his arm as Beast Regeneration stirred at once, drawing on more of his Soul Essence to begin knitting the wound.

’Fast...’

Neo gave ground instead of trying to meet it head-on again.

The thing pressed immediately, sword coming in short, vicious arcs that carried more force than its thin body suggested. Neo parried one strike and felt the impact run through his wrist. He ducked under the next and cut for the ribs, but the beast twisted away with jerking precision and drove a kick toward his knee hard enough to make him retreat another step.

The toothed blade came for him again.

Neo slipped back, but not far enough this time. The edge bit into his shoulder, and when it dragged across him, the strange teeth on the weapon tore at the wound instead of cutting clean through it.

He hissed and jumped back.

The sword did not just wound.

It worried the flesh open with every hit.

Neo circled right, forcing the creature to turn with him. The orb stayed near the middle of the room, dark and waiting, and each time Neo angled closer to it, the Soul Beast reacted first, stepping into the line between him and the prize without even thinking about it.

That was enough.

Neo stopped trying to win the fight directly.

He let the creature drive him back three more exchanges. Let it think the pressure was working. Let it taste small pieces of control. Every time he shifted toward the orb, its response sharpened. Every time his sword drifted that way, the beast abandoned better angles just to keep itself between him and the black sphere.

Its weakness sat in the center of the room.

Not the orb.

Its need to protect it.

Neo took another slash across the side, light this time, almost by choice. He stumbled farther back than he needed to and put a little more strain into his breathing.

The Soul Beast followed.

Its sword came down in a vicious diagonal cut aimed to split him open from shoulder to waist.

Neo met it this time.

Steel rang.

He gave way under the force just enough to sell it, twisted out from under the blade, and darted straight toward the orb.

The reaction came instantly.

The Soul Beast lunged after him without even trying to think.

Neo raised his sword as if he intended to bring it down on the black metal sphere.

The creature threw itself between them.

That was the moment Neo had been waiting for.

He abandoned the feint at once, pivoted on his front foot, and drove his blade forward with everything Beast Strength had loaded into his frame.

The sword punched through the Soul Beast’s back and out through its chest.

The thing convulsed.

Neo stepped in closer, keeping the body on the blade, and forced it deeper until the point struck stone beneath.

The creature shuddered hard once, the toothed sword slipping from its hand.

Its mouth opened.

No sound came out.

[You have slain Ragged Duelist - Vein]

The body lost what little held it upright and sagged down the length of Neo’s blade.

He yanked the sword free and let the corpse collapse to the floor.

For a moment he only stood there, chest rising and falling harder than he liked, one arm bleeding, shoulder stinging, Soul Essence already burning away under Beast Regeneration to close what the jagged weapon had opened.

"Annoying bastard," he muttered.

The room stayed still.

Nothing dropped from the nest above. Nothing answered the death of the thing on the floor.

Neo crouched beside the corpse, expecting the Soul Core first.

What he found before that made him pause.

The sword had not disappeared.

Neither had the ragged robe.

His eyes moved between the two.

’A Soul Relic? Two of them?’

That alone made the fight feel heavier in retrospect. Stronger beasts dropped cores. Better ones could leave something behind.

The notifications appeared a heartbeat later.

[You have obtained Soul Relic: Gravebite]

[Rare]

[Description: A sword once carried by a wandering knight. After countless duels and endless impact, the blade grew teeth of its own. Repeated strikes from this weapon build toward a bleeding wound.]

Neo stared at the blade again, this time with more interest.

Gravebite.

That was a much better name than ’toothed sword.’

A second line appeared.

[You have obtained Soul Relic: Vagabond’s Rag]

[Common]

[Description: A beggar’s worn robe, held together by age and stubbornness. Offers minor protection against physical blows.]

Neo let out a soft breath through his nose.

"That one sounds about as depressing as it looks."

He set both relics aside for the moment and reached instead for the Soul Core as it surfaced from the corpse. The light inside it pulsed with that same familiar glow, and Neo consumed it without hesitation.

[You have consumed Ragged Duelist - Vein]

[+2 Souls]

[Soul-Window]

[667/1000]

Neo watched the numbers for a beat.

Still not enough.

Close, though.

Another line appeared.

[New Secondary Class Available]

[Ragged Duelist - Vein]

[Abilities: Hunger]

Neo stared at the window.

Then at the corpse.

Then back at the window.

"Hunger?" he muttered.

The thing had nearly cut him to pieces, guarded the room like some starved fanatic, and this was what it left behind.

Hunger.

Neo almost felt like the Soul Window was making fun of him.

He dismissed the offer without even pretending to think about it. The class itself might not have been useless, but it sure as hell wasn’t anything worth replacing one of his current ones for. That left him with an unpleasantly simple truth.

Getting a good secondary class wasn’t just about killing something strong. There was luck in it too.

And his luck, as usual, had decided to show up only when it found the timing funny.

Neo let out a quiet breath through his nose and looked toward the black orb in the middle of the room again.

The creature had died trying to keep him away from it.

That made it worth more than the room itself.

Neo walked toward it, slower this time, his attention resting on the strange dark surface as it caught the faint light and gave almost none of it back.

He stopped over it and tilted his head slightly.

"I suppose it’s time to see what that guy was protecting, hm?"