Through the thick, warm blood running down my face, I watched the monster take a slow step forward. Its heavy boots crushed against the ice, the big ice blade dragging behind it with a low, scraping sound that shook my raw nerves.

Every single breath felt like swallowing broken glass. Standing upright was awful; my broken ribs hurt with every movement, and my legs shook so hard against the frost that it took all my strength just to keep from collapsing back onto the stone floor.

But I forced my jaw to lock, gritting my teeth through the pain as I stared down the black stone giant. This was not supposed to be an impossible wall. Back in the academy exam, I had taken down a Grade 5 monster.

But those were normal creatures. This thing?

This was a nightmare acting as a Gate boss, with the power of a Master High rank. A Master rank was a Master rank for a reason. There were no shortcuts here.

I had been at a big disadvantage from the start of this test, and I knew why. I did not have a strong team. It was just the two of us against the world. The fate had set the board against me the moment I walked in without a proper squad.

But I could not blame anyone else for this. It was my choice to walk this path, and I had to carry the weight. I was not going to stand here and complain about a bad hand when I was the one who dealt it.

A few yards away, Malva lay against the broken wall, completely still. Her chest rose and fell in small, shallow breaths, her face covered in dirt and blood. She was completely out.

Fucking hell, I cursed in my head, spitting a warm glob of blood onto the frost.

Reaching into my void pocket, I pulled out a glowing, high-grade healing potion. I didn’t drink it. Instead, I used my space affinity, to instantly appear right next to Malva’s unconscious form. Kneeling down, I opened her jaw open and poured the liquid down her throat, making sure she swallowed every drop.

Once the potion started working, I lifted her and placed her further back along the wall, tucking her behind the thickest stone. I could not have her getting caught in what was coming next.

Standing back up, I pulled out a second potion and drank it myself, feeling a small spark of energy fight against the deep tiredness.

With a smooth motion, I took off my heavy coat, tossing it directly into my void pocket. I rolled up my sleeves and turned back to face the monster. We stood face to face, thirty feet of blood-stained ice between us.

I have to go all out, I thought, my eyes narrowing as the monster’s red slit-eyes locked onto me. I have to use everything. Every single drop.

I couldn’t even remember the last time I had truly pushed myself to the limits. Maybe back during the trial? But back then, I was weak — a regular human trying to survive.

Even now, I was far from all-powerful, but I had never truly tested the limits of the current me. I was so sick and tired of playing it safe, so tired of holding back just because the powers inside me were terrifying.

How much did it take to kill a monster equal to a Master High rank? Would I die trying to find out? I didn’t know. The only way to get an answer was to fight.

A slow, wild grin began to spread across my bloody lips, breaking through the pain. My long, white hair whipped around my face. I looked straight into the dark face of the stone emperor.

"Hey, bastard," I called out, my voice dropping to a harsh, mocking tone. "Let us fight to see who the real deal is."

The Frost-Monarch let out a low, grinding roar.

The next second was a blur. Neither of us walked. We just vanished from our spots.

Clang!

The center of the yard exploded. My sword clashed against the big ice blade with a shockwave that cracked the frozen floor for twenty yards around us. The force hit my arms, shaking my teeth, but my bloodline flared to life.

My body did not break. Instead, it started taking in the force of the block, turning the impact into fuel for my core. The monster pulled its blade away, swinging in a brutal, horizontal arc meant to cut me in half.

My instinct screamed in my mind. Before the blade even finished its swing, I felt where it was going. I dropped low, the sharp edge cutting off strands of my hair as it passed over me.

Volt Step!

Black lightning burst from my boots. I became a streak of dark lightning, moving right inside the monster’s guard. I gripped my sword with both hands, putting everything I had into it.

Eclipse of the Singularity: First Form — Fractured Eclipse!

Space bent. The yard broke into many overlapping images. To the Frost-Monarch, I was no longer one target. I was in many places at once. My copies closed in from the left, the back, and above, all striking at the same time.

Slash! Slash!

My blades cut deep into the black stone of its body, carving white marks and sending stone chips flying. But the Master High-strength monster did not just stand there. Its freezing mist exploded outward, the wave of dark power breaking my space loop and blowing my copies away.

The force of the blast hit me in the chest.

"Gh!" I gasped, the air knocked out of me as I was thrown back.

But as I slid across the ice, my bloodline adapted. The cold washing over me was pulled into my body — my core turning the freezing temperature into usable mana, using the monster’s own power against it.

My shirt was already half-torn from the previous exchange. I ripped the rest off, showing my chest and shoulders now covered in fresh bruises and closing cuts.

"Lets go one more time," I muttered, my eyes glowing with a dangerous light. I rushed forward again. The Monarch brought its massive blade down in a vertical smash.

Spatial Slip!

Mid-swing, Tempest vanished from my hand. The Monarch’s blade hit nothing but empty air, smashing the ice floor into a crater. A second later, my sword reappeared directly inside the creature’s guard, pointing straight at its neck.

Second Form — Heaven’s Divide!

I cut through space itself. The blade completely ignored the monster’s thick stone armor, the edge landing before the sound of the swing could even echo through the yard. A deep, clean cut severed half of the Monarch’s stone shoulder, black liquid oozing from the wound.

The counterattack had no warning. It just happened.

The Monarch’s big fist flew out like a cannonball. I tried to pull my head back, but my tired muscles could not match my instinct.

Boom!

The impact sounded like two boulders hitting each other. A horrible cracking sound echoed inside my skull as the stone knuckles hit me square in the jaw. The force lifted my feet off the ice and sent me spinning through the air.

The world spun wildly — a blur of dark ceilings and blue pillars, before I hit the frozen floor hard. I landed shoulder-first, rolling across the ice like a broken toy for ten feet until my back slammed into a jagged rock ledge.

"F-fuck..." I tried to speak, but the words only came out as a wet, gurgling sound.

My left shoulder hung loose, ripped out of its socket. My lower jaw was broken, shifted to one side, and the taste of thick, warm blood filled my mouth. I could not move. My vision was swimming with dark spots that threatened to pull me under.

Get up, my mind screamed, but my limbs felt like lead. Get up right now or you are dead!

Deep in my chest, my bloodline fought back. It did not care about the pain. It cared about survival. Suddenly, a sickening Crack echoed through my bones as the bloodline forced my shoulder back into its socket.

Another hard jerk followed as the broken pieces of my jaw ground against each other, fusing back together at a fast, scary speed. It was not a peaceful healing. It felt like someone was using hot pliers on my bones, forcing them to mend by pure will.

"ARRRGH!"

A ragged scream tore from my throat as I pushed my hands onto the ice, lifting my upper body up. But the cost was high. To fuel the fast healing, my core had pulled every scrap of leftover mana from my body.

My mana channels were not just straining anymore — they were screaming in pain, burning from the inside like liquid fire being forced through brittle glass. They were thinning, cracking, ready to break.

I had not survived two deaths just to become a frozen stain on the floor of some forgotten ruins. A shadow fell over me. I looked up through my messy, blood-covered white hair.

The Frost-Monarch was already standing over me. Its red slit-eyes looked down into mine, cold and dead. It did not celebrate. It did not wait. It just raised the big ice blade high above its head, ready to bring it down and end me.

My mind went quiet. I can’t dodge this. My body won’t move fast enough. Volt Step won’t save me.

There was only one option left. The one thing I promised myself I wouldn’t touch unless I was ready to lose a piece of who I was.

"Fine," I hissed through my bloody teeth, a mad, desperate smile breaking across my face. "Let’s burn, you bastard..."

I reached deep into the darkest corner of my core and ripped the seal open. I stopped holding back the hunger.

Soul Flame.

At once, a heavy, suffocating silence fell over the whole yard, drowning out the distant sounds of the ruins. Then, a pitch-black flame with a hollow purple light at its core burst across the dark steel of my sword and quickly spread up, wrapping tightly around my bare arms.

It did not give off any heat. It did not burn my skin. But the moment the fire touched my flesh, the pain in my body vanished — replaced by a scary, hollow numbness.

Then came the whispers.

The emotional drain hit me like a wall. A sudden, scary emptiness washed over me, making me look at the giant blade coming down at my face and think: Does it even matter if I die? The flame did not care about my family.

It did not care about others. It did not care about my survival. It just wanted to eat until there was nothing left of me.

...Or maybe I just had to make them mine. Like I learned after the spar with Zephyr. Accept them, control them.

The Tear of the Drowned King earring in my ear suddenly flared with a sharp, cold light, pulsing against my jaw. Its cold energy snapped into my brain, pulling my mind back from the edge.

"Get a hold, you bastard!" I yelled at myself, forcing my fingers to tighten around my sword until my knuckles went white. I was not going to let the flame control me. I was the one holding the reins. But the fire was starving. It needed fuel.

"Drain... everything!" I snarled out loud.

I used my bloodline’s power to take in energy, pushing it far past its safe limit. I did not just take in the force of hits anymore. I opened my core like a black hole, dragging in every source of power around me.

The cold of the yard? Gone, pulled straight into my body. The leftover mana in the air from Malva’s attacks? Stripped away. The raw ambient mana floating in the air around me? I dragged it all into my core, pulling every loose scrap of energy I could reach into my starving channels.

The temperature in the yard dropped fast, so fast that the remaining stone walls groaned and cracked from the sudden freeze. The stolen energy hit my core, turning into a big, wild wave of dark mana that fed straight into the black flame on my blade.

The fire grew bigger, eating the light around it. With a loud explosion of black lightning and completely warped space, I vanished.

The Monarch’s blade hit the empty ice where I had been, shattering the floor into a big crater. But I was already right in front of its face.

The monster’s reaction speed was scary. Feeling the space shift, it did not try to pull its blade back. Instead, it raised the heavy stone hilt of its weapon to block.

Clang!

Our weapons met in the air. But this time, I did not bounce off. I did not slide back. I held my ground, my bare feet digging into the ice as I pushed against the Master High strength of the giant.

Then, the Soul Flame moved.

Like a living, hungry animal, the black fire jumped from my sword straight onto the Monarch’s ice blade. The moment the flame touched the old, black stone, the magic holding the weapon together did not break — it was eaten.

The big stone sword vanished into a cloud of gray ash, disappearing from the monster’s hands.

For the first time since the fight started, the two red slits inside the monster’s face went wide. It was not just surprised. It felt fear. The flame did not stop at the weapon. It jumped onto the Monarch’s stone fingers, quickly crawling up its thick arms.

Wherever the black fire touched, the giant stone emperor began to lose its form. It was not just melting — its very being, its memories as a boss, its link to the world was being eaten away. It let out a loud, grinding shriek, its body shaking as it tried to shake off the silent fire.

"I told you," I growled, my voice completely devoid of emotion, as I stared into its failing eyes. "...You are going to die."

I stepped forward, closing the distance in an instant.

Slash!

I drove the tip of Tempest straight through the center of its face. The steel went deep into the hollow head, finding the glowing core hidden inside.

I twisted the blade.

"...Die."

The Soul Flame exploded from the inside out. A massive pillar of silent black fire shot through the gaps of the armor, completely eating the ten-foot giant. There was no explosion, no loud bang. Just a quiet, terrifying consumption.

Within three seconds, the tall Frost-Monarch was gone, its body turning into a harmless pile of gray ash on the frozen floor.

The courtyard fell dead silent once again.

I stood there alone in the middle of the ruins, breathing hard, my breath coming in rough, heavy gasps.

My bare chest was covered in healing scars and fresh smudges of black ash. My long, white hair hung loose over my shoulders, wet with sweat and blood. Despite the wreck of my body, I looked unbroken — standing tall in the middle of the destruction.

A low, exhausted grin formed on my face. "Master High... my ass."

I reached into the pile of ash, picking up the big, glowing Grade 5 monster core. With a flick of my wrist, I tossed it into my void pocket.

Turning around, I took a slow step toward the wall where Malva was resting, glad to see the Gate’s heavy feeling finally starting to calm down.

But I didn’t even make it three steps.

"Cough!"

A sudden, hard spasm tore through my chest.

I fell to one knee, coughing up a big spray of dark red blood that stained the white frost under me. From the shadows of the blue pillars, Seris quietly stepped out, her blank eyes tracking my every move.

But I couldn’t even pay attention to her. The pain that suddenly exploded inside me wasn’t from my injuries. It wasn’t from my cracked ribs or my screaming mana channels. It was coming from deeper within — from my very origin path.

Something was cracking inside my soul.