Kev narrowed his eyes. The skill... [UNIQUE SKILL: CELL MANIPULATION]... still bore the question mark beside its name in the System menu. It was his greatest strength and his greatest mystery.
He looked to the yawning void below—the Sixth Abyss, ready to return.
Time here was a broken thing. Days lasted seconds, nights stretched into years. Kev could no longer tell how long he had been here. But in Noctera, sixteen years had passed.
The wind crawled over the stony city, nestled on the northern edge of the Mystra Realm. Horse hooves clacked across old roads, and market stalls buzzed with dull noise. This urban shell hadn't changed in two decades—but Kev had.
He stood atop a crumbling spire, his heavy black cloak snapping behind him like a void-flag. His crimson eyes scanned the city he once called home. The air felt thin, weak, after the density of the Abyss. His shadow writhed faintly beneath his boots, whispering silent warnings only he could hear.
Noctera didn't know it yet, but something ancient, forged in the deepest darkness, had returned.
"I know you're watching," he muttered, his voice a low, gravelly sound born of silence.
He stepped into the shade cast by the spire, dissolving into nothingness.
[SKILL: SHADOW MOVEMENT]
Far away, beyond snow-drenched mountains, rivers of glowing Mana, and forested fortresses, stood the capital of the Northern Kingdom of Mystra. And within its towering obsidian citadel, Collen Koran sat.
One of the Three Kings of the Koran Clan, he stared out from his throne-like seat. A long, curved scar ran down his neck—a mark from a forgotten war. He radiated a perfect, terrifying calm, but the air around him trembled with suppressed, dark energy.
A kneeling messenger spoke low. "The subject has returned to Noctera. Sixteen standard years passed… but the System clocked his time at ten."
Collen's eyes—the color of polished steel—narrowed slightly. "So he chose the Adventurer's Path. "
A second voice emerged—a young man in crimson robes, bearing a complex snake tattoo down his arm. This was Dorrell, one of Collen's two disciples.
"Shall I move, Master?" Dorrell asked, his voice smooth and eager.
Collen did not answer at first. He opened a scroll—crude drawings of Kev as a small, terrified child.
"We were careless," Collen murmured, his fingers tracing the sketch. "Now he walks again, and that bastard Ken will start to bark."
He handed the scroll to Dorrell. "Find him. And restrain him. Do not kill him."
Dorrell paused, a flicker of confusion crossing his face. "Master, who is this boy that warrants such caution?"
The atmosphere instantly fractured. The subtle tremor in the air around Collen intensified, cracking the stone of the floor tiles near Dorrell's knees. A pure wave of pressure descended, a force that pressed the air out of Dorrell's lungs.
Dorrell gasped, his voice cracking with the effort of speech. "I—I apologize for asking, Master."
"Know your place, Dorrell," Collen said, his voice flat but carrying the weight of a mountain. The pressure vanished, leaving Dorrell kneeling, shaking slightly, but already his predator's composure was returning.
Meanwhile, Kev sat across from a cloaked figure in a ruined tower at Noctera's edge. The stranger's face was hidden by shadow and decay, but his voice slithered like mist.
In front of them lay about twenty corpses. They were not Abyss shadows; these were flesh-and-blood cultists, recognizable by their faded black and gold tunics. The battle had been recent, swift, and brutal.
"They know," the last surviving cultist whispered, spitting blood onto the stone.
"I figured," Kev replied, calmly sharpening a black dagger forged from condensed Abyss essence. "What does the Koran Clan want from me?"
The man trembled violently. "I—I don't know, but they will send someone... powerful."
The cloaked stranger leaned forward. "And you, child? Are you ready?"
As the cultist tried to reply, "Ready for wha—" his statement was cut short. Kev's hand moved not with the dagger, but with a terrifying, liquid speed. His fingers molded, the bones and flesh shifting as the [CELL CONTROL] skill activated, shaping his hand into a dagger-like spike.
The cultist's blood splashed Kev's cloak.
Kev's red eyes flickered. He registered the kill, the splattered blood, the dying tremor, with the same cold detachment he used to analyze a System log. The expected human reaction—disgust, shock, trauma—was absent. He felt nothing. He knew this was wrong, a monstrous consequence of the Abyss, but he didn't care.
Then, without a sound, he vanished into thin air.
That night, a whisper swept through the city, carried on an unnatural fog: Dorrell had arrived.
He walked openly—tall, armored, his snake tattoo faintly visible beneath his dark cloak. He didn't hide. He wanted the entire city to feel his presence, to know the capital's attention had settled here.
The city did not yet know it stood between two storms.
High above, Kev stood at the peak of a shattered bell tower, eyes locked on the General-ranked man sent to collect him.
His voice, amplified by the silent Shadows within, echoed in the dark streets:
"If they want me... they'll have to bleed for it."
As the last syllable faded, Kev reappeared directly in front of Dorrell. The transition was instantaneous, violent.
The fog lay thick tonight, breathing, alive, laced with raw Aura.
Dorrell, one of the two prized disciples of Collen Koran, chuckled, his silver hair slicked back.
"You walk like prey, but smell like something far more interesting," Dorrell said, licking his lips with predatory enjoyment. "Kev, isn't it? I was told you'd be cautious, unstable. But you're just walking out into the open. Are you offering yourself, or testing me?"
Kev didn't answer immediately. His red eyes narrowed, assessing the threat. "Who are you?"
Dorrell smirked wider. "Dorrell. A Hunter from the Hunter Path, and a Low General. But I can't use Energy Amp yet."
"Ahhh. They sent a Low General Rank against me. What the fuck do you people want with me?"
Dorrell's smile dropped, replaced by a momentary, professional blankness. "You genuinely do not know, do you? I guess I am not allowed to tell you then." His smile returned, wide and sharp, as if he had just sighted prey. "And you're still only a Peak Soldier Rank, yes? How unfortunate for you."
Dorrell's Aura surged, thick and predatory.
Hunter Path energy leaked into the air. Unlike Kev's Adventurer Path, which fed on Ether—the energy of origin, mysterious and tied to realm conquest—Dorrell's power was fueled by disciplined Aura. Hunters grew stronger through kill-count and survival instincts; their power sharpened senses, enhanced reaction, and boosted physical functions. They were built to track and kill.
Kev clenched his jaw. His Adventurer Path was rarer—and riskier. It required constant danger, motion, and sometimes... irreversible losses.
Dorrell circled him like a beast. "You know... I expected something broken, something hiding. But you're standing tall. Strange. Collen said you were unstable."
"You came to toy with me?" Kev asked calmly, fingers twitching near his newly sharpened blade.
The wind howled across the shattered stone streets as silence settled.
Kev's red eyes narrowed. [ANALYSIS: SHADOW EYE ACTIVE]
"...General level, huh," Kev muttered under his breath, the million silent voices concurring. "You Koran bastards, I guess I should investigate you guys myself.