The brilliance of the auction hall now felt irritating to Aryan's eyes, as if the place itself wanted him gone. The Shattered Eye of the Abyss rested safely inside his Dimension Inventory, yet its presence echoed relentlessly within him. Thump. It wasn't his heartbeat. It was the Void. Aryan exhaled slowly, compressing his Void Energy deep within his core. Here, even a single slip would expose him to everyone. "Not here," he reminded himself. "Not now."
The auction had ended, and the hall filled with movement. Wealthy hunters stood up from their seats, their confidence reflected in gleaming armor and expensive artifacts. Laughter, arrogance, and quiet competition mixed freely in the air. To most of them, this night was nothing more than another display of power. Aryan remained seated. He had learned early that the real danger never lay in the spotlight, but in what followed after it faded.
"Congratulations… or should I warn you?" Kabir's calm voice sounded beside him. Aryan didn't turn his head. "That depends on what you see." Kabir adjusted his HUD glasses as faint red warnings scrolled across his vision. "My system classified that stone as an anomaly," he said quietly. "And my system doesn't issue errors lightly." Aryan replied without emotion, "You trust machines." Kabir smiled faintly. "And you trust the Void. Both are dangerous choices."
A few steps away, Sneha stood silently. She wasn't trying to listen, yet she couldn't look away. When Aryan had claimed the stone, she had felt something she couldn't explain—not mana, not pressure, but something deeper. It was like standing at the edge of a bottomless pit and realizing the pit was aware of her presence.
At the far end of the hall, Rahul Mehra stood rigid. There was no smile on his face, only venom. He hadn't lost money tonight. He had lost face. An F-Rank, a nobody, had stood above him in front of people who mattered. "An F-Rank…" Rahul muttered through clenched teeth. A subordinate leaned closer and whispered, "Sir, the vehicles are ready." Rahul's eyes hardened. "He doesn't leave tonight." This was no longer about the stone. It was about authority, and Rahul Mehra never allowed weakness to be remembered.
Aryan exited the Grand Villa. Outside, the air felt different—dense, cold, heavy. The city lights seemed distant, muted, as if reality itself had taken a cautious step back. As he reached the turn of a narrow alley, the Abyssal Eye reacted. Thump. For a brief instant, the world blurred.
He stood in infinite darkness. There was no sky, no ground, only a massive fractured eye—broken, yet alive. "Bearer." The voice wasn't sound; it was existence pressing directly against his soul. Aryan didn't summon Vedna. He didn't use Void Step. He simply stood. "I am not your master," he said calmly. "And you are not mine." The eye observed him, not with hunger or malice, but with evaluation. "Not yet…" the abyss trembled. "But you are approaching." The vision shattered.
Aryan was back in the alley. Cold residue coated his palms, not sweat but Void condensation. His breathing remained steady. So it notices, he thought. But it hasn't claimed me. That was good. Claiming meant ownership, and Aryan belonged to no one.
"Stop right there." Four figures emerged from the darkness. No flashy armor, no guild insignia—professionals. Aryan's expression didn't change. "Rahul sent you?" One stepped forward. "You ask too many questions." Aryan nodded. "Then you're the wrong people." He took one step. The man lunged, then suddenly lost balance, slamming into the pavement as if the ground itself had betrayed him. The other three froze. "Leave," Aryan said quietly. "And tell him this—I am not hunting tonight." Three seconds later, they fled.
Far away, inside the Viper Guild Headquarters, Vikram abruptly looked up from his desk as reinforced glass windows rattled. "This pressure…" he muttered. "That boy is changing." He had seen many prodigies in his life, many monsters. But this felt wrong. "If he truly resonates with the Abyss," Vikram said slowly, clenching his fist, "then he won't grow like others. He'll reshape things." For the first time in years, unease settled in his chest.
At the Hunter Association Headquarters, a silent alert appeared on a restricted terminal. Unknown Void Fluctuation Detected. Location: Grand Villa Zone. Threat Classification: Unstable. Two senior analysts studied the screen. "No mana surge," one said. "No spatial collapse." The other frowned. "Then what triggered it?" The cause remained unidentified. "Log it and keep it quiet," the senior ordered. "Some things are better observed, not announced."
Back on the streets, Aryan stopped at a narrow bridge overlooking a dark canal. His reflection stared back at him—calm, controlled, unreadable. "Level 999," he whispered. The Void within him tightened slightly, acknowledging an inevitable truth. "It's not about strength anymore," Aryan continued softly. "It's about authority." Breaking limits wasn't enough. He would need to rewrite them. A faint, humorless smile appeared. "Good," he said. "I was getting bored following rules anyway."
He turned away, footsteps steady, presence perfectly concealed. Behind him, the water rippled unnaturally for a brief second, as if something beneath the surface had looked up—and lost interest. Somewhere deep within the Void, the answer came not as words, but as silence.
---
The city did not notice Aryan walking away, but the systems watching the city did.
Far above Jaipur, inside a sealed satellite command center operated jointly by the Hunter Association and the Government, a silent alert pulsed across multiple screens. There was no alarm, no red warning—just a soft anomaly marker blinking steadily. Analysts stared at the data in confusion. There had been no Dungeon activity, no spatial rupture, no mana surge exceeding legal thresholds. And yet, something had disturbed the balance.
"This fluctuation doesn't follow known mana laws," one technician said quietly. "It isn't elemental. It isn't divine. It's… empty."
The senior supervisor frowned. "Empty doesn't trigger readings."
"That's the problem," the technician replied. "It didn't register as power. It registered as absence."
The report was archived under restricted classification, buried beneath higher-priority threats. Still, a note was added at the bottom of the file:
Observe subject if recurrence detected.
Elsewhere, inside a high-end private clinic reserved for elite hunters, Sneha Verma sat alone in a quiet recovery room. She hadn't been injured. She hadn't even been tired. Yet her mana circulation refused to stabilize. Every time she closed her eyes, she felt it again—that pressureless depth, that sensation of standing before something vast and indifferent.
"He wasn't normal," she murmured. "Not strong… not weak. Just wrong."
Her fingers clenched unconsciously. For the first time since her awakening, Sneha felt uncertainty about her own growth.
Across the city, in a dimly lit luxury car speeding through the night, Rahul Mehra stared at the passing streets without seeing them. His reflection in the tinted window looked unfamiliar—jaw tight, eyes dark, pride fractured. He replayed the scene again and again. The bids. The silence. The way people had looked at him afterward.
An F-Rank.
No—someone pretending to be F-Rank.
"Find him," Rahul said suddenly.
His escort hesitated. "Sir?"
"I don't care how," Rahul snapped. "Track licenses, surveillance, dungeon logs. I want everything. If he thinks tonight ends this, he's wrong."
Deep inside, anger twisted into something uglier. Fear.
Meanwhile, Aryan walked alone beneath flickering streetlights, hands in his pockets, steps unhurried. Each breath was controlled, every trace of Void Energy sealed behind layers of suppression. To the world, he was just another low-rank hunter returning home after an unremarkable night.
But within him, the Void was awake.
Not raging.
Not demanding.
Waiting.
The Shattered Eye of the Abyss pulsed faintly inside his Dimension Inventory, no longer calling, no longer testing. It had acknowledged him. That alone was dangerous. Aryan understood this better than anyone.
"Soon," he whispered, stopping briefly at a quiet intersection. "When I'm ready."
He resumed walking, blending into the city as naturally as a shadow at dusk. Above him, clouds drifted slowly across the moon, obscuring its light for just a moment longer than normal.
No one noticed.
But the world had begun to shift—and once something moves, it never truly returns to stillness.
---