It was time to use this superiority.
I moved my left arm.
And when I did, the winds, the ground—everything—shattered.
The rest of my body refused to move. Like it was frozen. No, like it knew it wasn't ready.
It didn't feel like I had gained a new limb.
It felt like I had become an extension of the arm.
The creature stood frozen, shaking.
It couldn't move either.
We were both grains of sand beneath the gravity of something far beyond us.
The arm wasn't just powerful. It was absolute.
The moment I moved it, the world responded. Not with resistance. It was submission. The air collapsed inward. The horizon folded. Space itself felt like it flinched.
I didn't black out. I didn't feel myself fall.
My mind was pulled. Wrenched from the limits of body and breath, cast outward like a thrown blade into a realm that didn't belong to flesh or time. Reality peeled back.
I was no longer in the desert, nor on Earth. I stood in an endless expanse where physics whispered but didn't rule. Stars pulsed like veins of a living god. Galaxies spun in silence, not bound by gravity but by something deeper. Black holes hovered like ancient thoughts—slow, heavy, observing.
And I was nothing.
Yet I was present. Pulled here because I had touched something I wasn't meant to.
Or maybe... because I was meant to.
At the center of that expanse stood a silhouette. Motionless. Impossibly still. A humanoid outline darker than the void around it.
Only its left arm was visible. The same shape. The same impossible glow—like mine.
It didn't move. Although unlike me, it could. It just didn't have to.
Its presence warped everything. Like the entire cosmos was a ripple around a fixed, dominant point.
And then it spoke.
"Why did you use me? Use yourself... against such a pitiful creature?"
The voice wasn't loud.
It was a force. A sound that tore through existence like reality was paper.
I couldn't speak. Couldn't even breathe.
The Voices. The Seraph. The System.
None of it mattered here.
Next to this... they were whispers.
"You betrayed yourself," the figure said. "Though it is your first time, I—or you—will show mercy."
It raised its arm. Just once.
"I will restore what you lost. But understand this."
The stars dimmed.
"The requirements for achieving the Form again... have moved."
The world returned.
I blinked, coughing once as air slammed back into my lungs like a punch. I was falling—but only for a moment. The shockwave caught me.
I hit the dirt.
And stayed down.
Not from pain. Pain was not something that was a cause of trouble for me.
Only silence.
I forced myself upright, body trembling slightly. My left arm pulsed once, then dimmed.
Ahead of me, there was nothing.
No dunes. No rock. No terrain.
Just scorched glass where the desert used to be.
Whatever was there—sand, ruin, life—was now gone. Vaporized by something that didn't just destroy, but denied existence itself.
The creature was gone.
Not dead. It was unmade from reality.
I didn't know how long I'd been still. Maybe seconds. Maybe more. The wind didn't move. The sky didn't blink. Nothing dared follow what had just happened.
The system responded.
[Skill Evolved – Crown]
– Crown now consumes no mana to activate or maintain.
– Crown manipulation has been improved.
[Item Obtained – Blade of Kaldrith]
– Tier: Forged
– Description: A matte black katana, unnaturally dense. Forged from the core of Kaldrith. Bound to the one who unmade it.
I stared at the notifications.
So that was the name of the creature—Kaldrith.
Decent.
Weapons had tiers, just like abilities. And just like abilities, tier alone didn't define power.
Ashen, Forged, Seared, Vestige, Exalted, Legendary.
That was where the System stopped.
If you didn't count Primordial.
There was a dialogue prompt beneath the item:
[Would you like to bind this item to you?]
A soulbind.
I held off. Chose to inspect it first.
I summoned the blade with a thought.
It appeared in my hand.
Weightless. Lean, though slightly longer than standard. A katana. Its balance was flawless. The grip pulled cleanly into my palm like it had always belonged there.
The Forged tier made sense. It was plain, featureless. No glow, no arcane markings. But its edge...
It felt like it could cut steel. Not by force—but by certainty. The kind of sharpness that didn't waste breath.
I also sensed something else. A pull. Subtle, but there.
Elemental affinity.
That was likely why it wasn't Ashen. It held potential. Nothing explosive. Nothing flashy. But if I learned to channel it... maybe.
This wasn't just a blade.
It was a conduit.
And now, I had something in one of my four slots.
A katana, nonetheless.
But it seemed my actions had consequences.
It was strange.
The System had given me the power to use the partial transformation—but then I was punished for using it.
That being—whatever it was—made it harder to reach the True Vessel prerequisites I'd seen in my ability screen.
I opened the System.
Accessing my Hellbringer skill.
[Form] – True Vessel
[Skill] – The First
[Form]
True Vessel
Description:
Once prerequisites are met three times, due to the owner's incapability, the user assumes the mantle of a Primordial Being — The Hellbringer.
I also felt it. A distance. Growing.
Like the Form had stepped away from me. Or like I had been pulled back.
There was nothing I could do about it. Not right now.
And on top of that... I had another problem. The entire terrain had been erased from existence.
Not broken. Not destroyed.
Gone.
But then again—I did have a Legendary skill.
Maybe I could say this was mine. That it was an ultimate technique. Some hidden finisher unlocked mid-battle.
Would that be believable?
...Probably not.
But I'd have to try.
And then I saw them.
It seemed they had survived, just far enough to avoid being caught in it.
They arrived a minute later.
Three shadows walking slowly across the scorched glass, like they weren't sure they were allowed to be here.
Joy was the first to speak. Her voice was quiet and steady.
"...You're alive."
Team leader, Eitan, didn't answer at first. He scanned the surroundings.
No dunes. No corpses. No sign of a battle.
Just mirrored ruin stretching in every direction.
He looked at me for a long moment. There was no hostility, no fear. Only evaluation.
Then he gave a single nod.
"I'll update the report," he said. "No further questions."
Joy met my eyes. Her expression was unreadable, but I could tell she understood something had shifted. She chose not to ask.
The last to speak was Calen. He stepped forward, eyes wide with curiosity.
"What kind of skill was that?"
I let the silence sit for a moment before replying, my voice flat.
"An ultimate technique. Requires full mana capacity. It drains everything."
Calen blinked.
"Like… everything?"
"Everything," I said again. "I was lucky to survive."
I held up the katana. It was still weightless. Still cold.
"I used a Higher Carapace Core I salvaged from one of the scorpions. That's what pushed it over."
I lied, I had to.
Joy tilted her head slightly. I saw it in her eyes—calculations, a flicker of understanding.
But she nodded once. "Makes sense."
That was the end of it. No one said anything more.
Eitan turned and started walking toward the ridge.
"Let's move." he said "We still need to sweep the original site."