The caravan wagons raised a cloud of dust on the mountain road, vanishing around the eastern bend as if fleeing a plague.
Only the wind and the snapping banners remained at Ash Limit.
Kael stood in the center of the square. Supplies were piled around his feet like a small hill. He did not head north immediately.
Turning around, he dragged the massive canvas-wrapped bundle and the food pile, kicking open the door to the outpost's main building.
He didn't need courage. He needed data.
In the corner of the kitchen, he pried up a dust-covered iron plate. A wave of cold, damp mildew rushed out. A cellar.
Kael tossed hundreds of pounds of dried meat and fat down into the dark, then jumped in himself.
Clang.
The iron plate slammed shut overhead, the bolt locking tight. The world plunged into absolute darkness, broken only by the low moan of wind through a ventilation shaft.
Kael lit a candle. The flickering flame illuminated the narrow granite space. He untied the canvas on his back. The Monolith crashed to the floor with a dull thud. The black, ultra-dense iron block gleamed coldly, like a tombstone.
Kael sat cross-legged. He grabbed a slab of dried beef.
Meat like this—rations preserved for long marches—usually had to be chopped up and boiled for half an hour, or soaked in saliva before it could be swallowed. Biting it directly was harder than gnawing on wood.
Kael didn't reach for water. He opened his mouth like a precision industrial grinder and bit down.
Crunch.
The grating sound echoed in the cellar—tendons and dried fibers being torn apart by brute force. Expressionless, he chewed, grinding everything down with terrifying jaw strength, then followed it with a spoonful of white, congealed fat.
Greasy. Gamey. Revolting. He swallowed it anyway.
[ Gluttony Ritual — Running ]
His stomach instantly became a blast furnace. That familiar, organ-scorching heat exploded through his blood vessels.
Pain. Good. Pain was a byproduct of growth.
Kael tossed aside the scraps and seized the Monolith with both hands. Muscle fibers writhed and tightened beneath his skin like snakes.
"Up."
The iron block—hundreds of pounds—rose overhead. Sweat burst out instantly, dripping onto the cold stone floor and pooling into dark patches.
In this unseen cellar, time lost all meaning. Only repetition remained.
The tearing of food. The sound of swallowing. The crash of iron hitting stone. Heavy breathing.
This wasn't eating. It was fueling a furnace. This wasn't training. It was reforging flesh.
Until the last keg of ale was drained dry. Until the Monolith swung through the air with a whistle.
Kael finally stopped. In the darkness, he exhaled a breath of scalding white vapor that lingered in the candlelight.
The system panel lit up on his retina.
[ Strength: 2.8 → 3.1 ] [ Agility: 3.0 → 3.0 ] [ Vitality: 2.7 → 3.0 ]
The 3.0 threshold. Agility remained stagnant, capped by his current physiology—but Strength and Vitality? They had finally shattered the mortal ceiling.
Kael clenched his fist. His knuckles cracked—not bone grinding, but dense muscle compressing the air itself.
He picked up the dark red longbow. It had never been a burden to him. But this time, when his fingers hooked the string, it felt different.
Perfect resonance. The bow seemed to fuse with his bones, becoming an extension of his arm. It trembled faintly in his palm, transmitting a pulse not of mechanics—but of flesh-bound hunger.
It was hungry. So was he.
Kael did not leave immediately. In the lower-right corner of his vision, blue numbers flickered. They represented everything he had gained along the way.
[ AETHER POINTS: 10 ]
It was a small fortune. But standing at the threshold of an unknown fog, this was the moment to go all in.
He glanced at the skill tree. [ BASIC ARCHERY ] and [ EARTH BREATH STANCE ] were already at EXPERT. To push either of them into MASTERED would require a cost he couldn't even afford to think about right now.
His gaze moved downward and stopped on the one true weakness in his build—and also the most violent skill he possessed.
[ IRON BREAKER STYLE ] Current Level: Adept
This style was not limited to a specific weapon. It was an encyclopedia of destruction—covering blunt weapons, greatswords, shield bashes, and even bare-handed joint disassembly. From Novice to Adept had cost him 5 points. That was merely the entrance fee. From Adept to Expert…
[ UPGRADE TO EXPERT ] [ COST: 10 AETHER POINTS ]
Exactly enough. Total bankruptcy.
"Upgrade."
Kael issued the command in his mind.
[ AETHER POINTS: 10 → 0 ] [ INITIATING NEURAL REWRITING… ] [ DOWNLOADING COMBAT DATA: LIMIT BREAKER PROTOCOLS… ]
If the previous upgrade had felt like his brain being submerged in ice water, then this time it was as if someone were carving into his cerebral cortex with a red-hot chisel.
"Ghh—!!"
Kael's body arched violently, a suppressed roar tearing from his throat.
This pain was invasive. The system wasn't merely teaching him how to exert force—it was forcibly unlocking his body's protective limiters. Normally, the human muscular system only outputs around thirty percent of its full capacity to prevent self-destruction. What was being written now was knowledge—teaching his nervous system how to burn through that fuse in an instant.
Several minutes later, the electric agony faded. Kael was drenched in sweat, gasping for air, his muscles still twitching from residual shock.
[ SKILL: IRON BREAKER STYLE (EXPERT) ]
Active/Passive: Concussive Transfer — Optimizes kinetic energy transmission. Heavy strikes no longer act solely on the surface of a target, but generate penetrating shockwaves. Even if external armor remains intact, internal bones and organs will be pulverized. (Effect: Strike the surface to shatter the core.)
Active/Passive: Flow State — Reaction Speed +30%
Active: SUNDER — Releases all neurological safety locks on the body. Instantly synchronizes and overclocks every muscle fiber, unleashing a full-force strike that exceeds physical limits.
[ SYSTEM WARNING ]: EXTREMELY DANGEROUS. DO NOT USE UNLESS ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY. Side Effect: The recoil force generated by this skill will cause irreversible tearing damage to all muscle fibers (Grade IV muscular rupture). Upon activation, the host will immediately enter a paralyzed state and completely lose combat capability.
Kael stared at the red warning text, his expression grave.
This was a double-edged sword. To destroy the enemy, he had to destroy himself first.
"A trump card," Kael muttered.
He had no priest, no healer, no potions. Using this meant handing his life over to luck. But that was exactly what he needed. Faced with the terror of the unknown, only this kind of absolute violence could offer even a sliver of reassurance.
After everything was done, Kael took a deep breath, calming the nerves that still twitched beneath his skin.
He pushed open the iron plate above him. Light poured in.
He slung the Monolith onto his back, took up the bow, and walked out of Ash Limit.
The wind still howled. The banners still snapped. To the north, the gray fog stood like a wall, blocking all sight.
Kael stood before it.
This time, he did not display the confidence or power that came with an upgrade. Instead—he stopped.
No intelligence. No walkthrough. No save point.
Until now, he had survived by relying on a prophet's advantage, bulldozing through danger again and again. But now, that advantage was gone. The fog before him—something that had swallowed five thousand regular soldiers—was absolute unknown territory.
The heat of his recent power-up drained away the instant the cold wind swept past. The fingers gripping his bow loosened slightly, trembling beyond his control.
His scalp tightened, as if an icy needle were sliding slowly down the back of his neck.
Gulp.
He swallowed, his throat dry. His breathing—once steady as stone—fell apart, turning short and rapid. His body was rejecting the danger ahead on pure instinct.
"…I can't see through it."
His foot scraped the ground, as if trying to step forward—but his muscles were stiff, unresponsive.
"No Aether points left. My final skill is basically suicide… If I run into something I can't even comprehend, can I really make it?"
The weight of the unknown came crashing down like a mountain.
Unconsciously, he turned his head eastward.
That was the downward mountain road. That was where sunlight lay. That was the direction the caravan had gone.
If he turned back now, it would only take one day to reach Fort Oakhaven.
Kael's gaze lingered on that road for a long time. His pupils dilated slightly—betraying a dangerous hint of longing.
"…Maybe Varn was right." "Maybe I shouldn't force this right now."
For that brief moment, the man who had been cold as iron all along looked strangely thin from behind. Like a gambler who had lost every last chip and was about to wager his own life—hesitating for a fleeting second before the final reveal.
The wind kicked up sand and dust, stinging his face.
Five full seconds passed.
Then Kael let out a rough, beastlike breath, as if wrenching his head back by sheer force of will.
"…There's no way back."
His voice was hoarse, fractured. He pulled his hood lower and took a step forward.
The step was unsteady—like a condemned man walking to the gallows. He stumbled forward, plunging straight into the gray-white void.
[ AREA TRANSITION ]
[ Leaving: Ash Limit ]
[ Entering: Imperial Trade Highway (Fog Vacuum Zone) ]
[ WARNING: VISUAL / AUDITORY CAPABILITIES SEVERELY LIMITED ]