Chapter 3: The Singularity Awakens
Pain was a familiar companion to Kaelen, but this was different. This wasn't the stinging heat of a blade or the dull ache of a broken bone. This was the sensation of being unmade.
Inside the pitch-black void of his consciousness, Kaelen felt as if his very soul was being fed through a meat grinder. The liquid darkness that had erupted from the box was now coursing through his body, not through veins or arteries, but through the empty spaces where mana pathways should have been.
[Integration: 14%... 32%... 68%...]
The mechanical, hollow voice echoed again, vibrating in the marrow of his bones.
[Error: Physical vessel contains insufficient vitality. Host is failing to sustain the Singularity. Initiating emergency life-force extraction from the surrounding environment.]
In the physical world, the air inside Kaelen's dilapidated shack began to warp. The temperature plummeted until frost formed on the rotting floorboards. A localized vortex of shadows swirled around Kaelen's unconscious form. Outside, the rats that lived in the walls let out tiny, muffled squeaks before turning into withered husks. The very moisture in the wood, the heat in the air—everything was being sucked into the black hole centered in Kaelen's chest.
Suddenly, Kaelen's eyes snapped open.
They were no longer gray. They were twin pools of infinite, light-devouring abyss.
He didn't stand up; he levitated an inch off the floor, his back arching as the final drop of the black liquid merged with his heart. A silent explosion of dark energy rippled outward, shattering the few clay pots in his shack and blowing the door off its rusted hinges.
Kaelen slammed back onto the bed, gasping for air. His lungs felt like they were filled with cold mercury.
[Integration Complete.]
[Rank 0 (Null) evolution triggered.]
[Path Identified: The Eternal Eclipse.]
[Current Status: Rank 0 - Early Phase (The Void Vessel).]
Kaelen clutched his chest, his fingers digging into the skin. Beneath his palm, he felt a rhythmic thrumming—not a heartbeat, but a steady, gravitational pulse. He staggered to his feet and looked at his hands.
The bruises from the morning's training and the deep gash on his shoulder from the alley fight were... gone. In their place was smooth, pale skin, looking as if it had never known a day of labor. But when he clenched his fist, the air around his knuckles distorted. He felt a density in his muscles that defied the laws of biology.
"What... is this?" he whispered. His voice sounded deeper, carrying a faint, metallic echo.
He looked at the floor. The black box was gone, reduced to a pile of fine gray ash.
Kaelen closed his eyes and tried to sense his "core," the way he had seen practitioners do. Usually, a Rank 1 core felt like a warm sun. Kaelen's core was a cold, silent drain. It didn't produce mana; it hungered for it.
He focused his mind, willing the energy to move. A wisp of black smoke began to curl around his fingertips. It wasn't fire, it wasn't shadow, it was nothingness given form. He touched the edge of his wooden table with a smoke-shrouded finger.
Without a sound, a perfect, circular hole was erased from the wood. No splinters, no burn marks. The matter had simply ceased to exist.
Kaelen's breath hitched. "Ultimate destruction."
But the exertion caused a wave of dizziness to hit him. His stomach growled with a ferocity that made him double over. The "Singularity" had healed his body, but it had consumed every ounce of his caloric energy to do it. He was starving.
The next morning, Oakhaven felt different.
To the rest of the world, Kaelen was still a Null. He had no "Aura," no "Mana Signature." To any Ranker scanning him, he would appear as an even deeper void than before. But to Kaelen, the world was now painted in colors he had never seen.
He could see the mana in the air—thin, translucent ribbons of blue and green. He could see the muddy yellow glow of the Rank 1 guards at the gate, and it looked... delicious. A primal, predatory instinct in the back of his mind wanted to reach out and pull that light into his own chest.
He suppressed the urge with a shudder. He needed food, and he needed answers.
He limped—half-faking the injury to maintain his "weak Null" persona—to Vance's forge.
The old blacksmith was already there, hammering away at a piece of glowing bronze. He stopped the moment Kaelen entered. Vance's sharp blue eyes narrowed, scanning Kaelen from head to toe.
"You look different, boy," Vance grunted, setting his hammer down. The heat of the forge seemed to avoid Vance, as if the flames themselves were intimidated by him.
"I survived the night," Kaelen replied, picking up the bellows.
Vance walked over, his wooden leg thumping heavily on the stone floor. He grabbed Kaelen's left arm—the one that had been stabbed the night before. He yanked up the sleeve.
The skin was perfect. No stitches, no scars.
Vance's expression didn't change, but the air in the forge suddenly became heavy. "That box your parents left. It finally ate you, didn't it?"
Kaelen froze. "You knew what was in it?"
Vance turned back to the anvil, his back to Kaelen. "I knew it was a curse. In this world, there are two types of people: those who are part of the system, and those who are a mistake in the system. You just became the latter. The 'Zero' is no longer empty, Kaelen. It has become a negative."
"I don't understand," Kaelen said.
"You don't need to," Vance said, his voice dropping to a low, dangerous rumble. "But listen well. The Azure Sky Sect didn't come here yesterday for a parade. They are searching for a 'Cursed Omen' that appeared in the prophecies. A shadow that will swallow the light. If they find a boy with no mana core but the ability to erase matter, they won't recruit you. They will vivisect you."
Kaelen's jaw tightened. The image of the silver-haired girl came back to him—the coldness in her eyes. She was the "Light." And he was now the "Shadow."
"How do I hide it?" Kaelen asked.
Vance reached under a pile of scrap metal and pulled out a heavy, dull iron ring. It was covered in rusted runes. "Wear this. It's a Seal of the Mundane. It will simulate a weak, broken mana pulse. To anyone under Rank 5, you will look like a Rank 0 who tried to cultivate and failed miserably, damaging his soul. It's the best disguise for a monster like you."
Kaelen took the ring. As he slid it onto his finger, the dark thrumming in his chest was muffled, pushed down into a deep corner of his soul. He felt "normal" again.
"Why help me?" Kaelen asked, looking at the scarred old man.
Vance let out a short, dry laugh. "Because I want to see what happens when the 'Zero' finally meets the 'Pinnacle'. Now, get to work. We have a shipment of blades for the City Guard, and the deadline is sunset."
The day passed in a blur of heat and steel. But as the sun began to dip below the horizon, painting the sky in shades of bruised purple and orange, a scream tore through the slum district.
It wasn't a normal scream of a mugging. It was a scream of pure, soul-shattering agony.
Kaelen dropped his hammer. Through the open door of the forge, he saw people running in terror. In the distance, a pillar of black-green fire erupted into the sky.
"Beast! A corrupted beast is in the Narrows!" someone shouted.
Oakhaven was built near the Abyssal Range, and occasionally, a beast would wander too close and become "Corrupted" by the dark miasma of the mountains. A Corrupted Beast was twice as strong and ten times as violent as a normal magical beast.
Vance cursed, reaching for a massive, soot-covered claymore leaning against the wall. "Stay here, boy. That's a Rank 2 threat. The City Guard will handle it."
But Kaelen's "Null Singularity" was pulsing. It wasn't fear he felt; it was a frantic, starving hunger. The corrupted energy in the distance was like a banquet calling to him.
Against every instinct of self-preservation he had developed over sixteen years, Kaelen didn't stay. As soon as Vance limped out toward the chaos, Kaelen slipped out the back door.
He moved through the shadows of the alleyways, his speed nearly triple what it had been the day before. He arrived at the scene just as the City Guard was being slaughtered.
The "beast" was a Shadow-Stalker Wolf, but it had changed. It was eight feet tall, its fur matted with a bubbling, acidic slime. Its eyes were glowing with a sick, necrotic green light.
Three Rank 1 guards lay in pieces on the ground. A Rank 2 Captain was fighting for his life, his blue aura flickering as the wolf's corrosive breath ate through his mana shield.
"Help!" a voice cried out.
Kaelen looked to the side. Trapped under a collapsed merchant stall was a girl. She wasn't the silver-haired goddess from the carriage. She was younger, perhaps fourteen, with messy auburn hair and bright, amber eyes filled with tears. She was a commoner, a nobody.
The wolf turned its head, sensing her fear. It ignored the wounded Captain and began to prowl toward the girl, a trail of black slime dripping from its jaws.
The Captain tried to move, but his leg was pinned by a fallen beam. "Run, kid! Run!"
Kaelen stood in the shadows, his hand on the bone shiv in his pocket. I should leave. I'm Rank 0. This is suicide. If I use my power, Vance says they'll hunt me.
The wolf crouched, its muscles coiling for the killing pounce. The girl covered her eyes, sobbing.
Fuck the rules, Kaelen thought.
He didn't pull out the shiv. He took off the iron ring Vance had given him.
Inside his chest, the dam broke. The Null Singularity roared to life.
The Shadow-Stalker Wolf leaped, a blur of necrotic green and black.
Kaelen didn't move until the beast was inches away. He stepped forward, his right hand shooting out, not to punch, but to grasp.
"Consume," Kaelen commanded.
His hand met the wolf's snout. The moment contact was made, the necrotic green energy—the corruption that could kill a Rank 2 warrior—wasn't resisted. It was inhaled.
The wolf's eyes widened. Its massive body froze mid-air. The black-green flames covering its fur began to flow into Kaelen's palm like water down a drain.
The beast tried to howl, but its very vocal cords were being dissolved into energy. In three seconds, the eight-foot monster began to shrivel. Its flesh, its bones, its very soul were being pulled into the microscopic black hole in Kaelen's chest.
The Rank 2 Captain watched in stunned silence, his jaw dropping. He didn't see a boy fighting a wolf. He saw a boy erasing a wolf.
By the time Kaelen stepped back, the Shadow-Stalker was gone. Only a handful of gray dust remained, scattering in the wind.
Kaelen stood there, his skin glowing with a faint, dark translucence. He felt an explosion of power.
[Aura consumed.]
[Host reaching Rank 0 - Mid Phase (The Void Vessel).]
[New Ability Unlocked: Void Perception.]
Kaelen quickly slid the iron ring back onto his finger, the dark glow vanishing instantly. He felt the hunger subside, replaced by a cold, efficient strength.
He turned to the girl under the stall. She was staring at him, her amber eyes wide with a mix of terror and something else—gratitude? Awe?
"Are you okay?" Kaelen asked, his voice low.
"You... you saved me," she whispered.
Before Kaelen could respond, the sound of many armored boots echoed from the main street. The high-level reinforcements were coming.
"Don't tell them it was me," Kaelen said to the girl, his gaze sharpening. "If you do, they'll kill us both. Tell them the wolf just... exploded from the corruption."
He didn't wait for her answer. He vanished into the darkness of the Narrows just as the silver-white knights of the Azure Sky Sect arrived.
Kaelen didn't know it yet, but the girl he had just saved wasn't a commoner. She was Elara, the runaway youngest daughter of the Empire's greatest Merchant House, hiding in Oakhaven to escape an arranged marriage with a prince.
And for the first time in his life, Kaelen hadn't just survived. He had hunted.
The Zero was beginning to count.