(Step) “Wea-” (Parry) “-ken.”
[-50 AWN]
Mumyo intercepted the diving Shrieker’s claws. There was no clang of metal on bone, only the dull thud of a concept taking root. The creature shrilled, its movements turning sluggish as the narrative weight of the keyword settled into its muscles.
Kage didn't waste the opening. He pivoted on his heel, the ash crunching like dry snow under his boots.
The black blade, weightless as smoke, painted a line through the air on grey canvas. It bit into the Shrieker’s neck, solidified for a microsecond to deliver the kinetic payload, and then vanished back into a shadow.
[-104 HP]
[XP Gained: 840 (Level Disparity Bonus +20%)]
Kage exhaled and checked his periphery instantly, but the hillside remained silent. The other bats hanging from the petrified trees didn’t stir.
He leaned back against the blackened, glass-like trunk of a dead tree and slid down until he was sitting in the drift.
HP: 370/370
AWN: 82/850
He was running on fumes, as it was his third kill in ten minutes. The "Cadence" style was powerful - it allowed him to solo mobs twelve levels higher than him without taking a scratch, but it burned Awen like jet fuel. He had roughly 10% left. One more bat would have left him dry, forced to rely on basic attacks and dodge-rolling like a plebeian full-dex souls character.
Kage eyed the stack of [Anya’s Distilled Clarity] in his inventory.
He did the mental math in a heartbeat. Drinking a potion now would save him roughly forty seconds of downtime. Forty seconds per cycle, extrapolated over an example four-hour grind, meant an extra 20% XP yield.
For operational efficiency, Kage reasoned, his finger hovering over the vial. It’s a justified expense.
But he didn't summon it.
His gaze drifted to a new entry in his Lexicon, a parting gift from the Gorefang. [Rest]. He hadn't tested it yet.
Hypothesis, the Operator thought, overriding the impulse to spend money. If I enforce a narrative of accelerated recovery, does the passive regeneration scale?
He closed his eyes, centering his breath. He needed to link the concept of stillness not to stopping, but to blooming. He held the intent, letting the Awen build up a bit more, and whispered the couplet into the ash-choked air.
Title: A boost to Dormancy
"This rest brings breath into the light,
To give the spirit’s growth its might."
[Truth Factor - High. Recovery requires cessation of output. Multiplier applied.]
[-150 AWN]
A blue flash pulsed through his veins, cold and rushing like a broken dam.
[Out of combat HP and Awen Regeneration: +45/sec]
His Awen bar rocketed upward, and a satisfied smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth. It was cheaper than potions and much faster than base, passive regen.
With the tank refilling at warp speed, he flicked his finger to pull up the external browser overlay. The semi-transparent window floated amidst the falling ash, connecting him to the chaos of the real-world forums.
The headline on the general discussion board made him snort.
[TOPIC: WTFF?? WORLD BOSS 'GOREFANG' BUGGED?? NO RESPAWN?]
Started by: Argent
We’ve been camping the Fields for hours. The spawn timer is broken. Devs, fix your game. My guild needs the loot table.
Kage scrolled through the replies. Most were calling the OP crazy, some were speculating about hidden timers.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
"He's not bugged," Kage whispered to the empty air, a sardonic smile touching his lips. He's retired.
He had rewritten the story. By feeding the System a conclusion (the Master has returned) he had closed the book. Gorefang was simply... done. The narrative arc was complete, so the System had no reason to spawn him again.
I deleted content, Kage realized, the gravity of it hitting him again. Permadeath for recurring events.
He closed that thread before his conscience could decide to be annoying. He switched tabs to the RMT index.
His smile vanished.
[Gold Exchange Rate: 1 Gold = $467.5 USD]
The curve was dipping. The initial rush of the game launch was settling. Inflation was creeping in as more players reached the point where they could farm raw currency. The massive windfall he’d made from the Pauldrons was a unicorn event. He couldn't replicate it.
"Sustainability," Kage murmured, watching his Awen bar tick past 700. I can't rely on jackpot drops. I need consistent yield.
He closed the browser. The "Safety" he had felt was real, but it was fragile. He had bought six months of peace for his mother.
He needed to treat this zone like a job site.
He stood up, brushing the grey flakes from his knees. Awen at 100%.
[Experience: 4435/4687]
One more kill. Just one more oversized bat, and he would hit Level 15. That meant a new skill slot, stats.
Kage looked out over the landscape. The Ashenvale Foothills were disturbing. Not in the "scary monster" way, but in the "wrong geometry" way. The ground wasn't dirt; it felt soft, like layers of deposited sediment. The trees weren't wood; they looked like lightning strikes frozen in obsidian.
And the smell.
His Synesthesia, dormant while he was checking the forums, flared up as he focused.
The air smelled like burnt parchment and drying glue. It tasted like ink on the back of his tongue, bitter and metallic.
"Why?" Kage frowned, tapping the hilt of Mumyo. "It should smell like… ash."
The system was rendering something other than a volcano, and his Artistry stat was trying to tell him what it was, but he lacked the context.
Whatever. Experience first, art critique later.
He started walking, keeping his profile low. The ash muffled his steps.
Then, he saw it.
About ten yards to his left, a fissure glowed beneath the dust.
[Grom's Oath-Pick: Hidden node detected]
Hm?
Kage stopped. He had kept [Grom's Oath-Pick] equipped in his dormant Life Tool slot ever since he acquired it, effectively ignoring it until this moment. He remembered the flavor text—'Passively reveals hidden or illusory rock formations within your line of sight'—but he hadn't expected the "reveal" to be this aggressive.
This was the first time the System had actually rendered it for him (except for the Grom's quest completion).
The ground looked like cracked stone. But to Kage, a subtle gold wireframe now overlaid the world, pulsing with a rhythmic light that beat like a buried heart. He blinked, genuinely surprised by the intrusion on his UI.
[Resource Node: Calcified Memory Vein (Rare)]
Requires: Mining Tool.
"Jackpot," he whispered.
It was his first real attempt at mining, and the algorithm had handed him a Rare node immediately. He reached for the pick but paused. His time gathering herbs for Anya had taught him a consistent mechanical rule. If Verse-Crafting increased yield on flowers, logic dictated it would do the same for ore.
Maximize the ROI.
Rare nodes in high-level zones were money. Pure money.
He glanced up. The nearest Ash-Shrieker was hanging upside down from a blackened spire forty feet away, wrapped in its leathery wings. It was asleep.
Safe.
Kage unequipped Mumyo, feeling the strange loss of "presence" as the sentient sword vanished, and manifested the pickaxe.
He knelt by the fissure. "Gently," he told himself.
He raised the pick. He aimed for the edge of the golden pulse, intending to pry the calcified outer shell away from the ore.
Title: The Stone's Confession
Poem: "Let guarding stone Weaken and shear, / To Shape the hidden treasure here."
[-100 AWN]
He swung.
Clink.
The strike was perfect. The pick bit into the stone.
But the reaction wasn't.
The ground flinched, and a shockwave traveled up the handle of the pick, nearly jarring it from his grip for a second. The golden light in the fissure flared to an angry, blinding crimson.
Kage’s eyes widened. "Oh, you have got to be kid—"
The fissure exploded.
There was no fire, no shrapnel. Instead, a geyser of pressurized white steam blasted vertically into the air, screaming like a tea kettle from hell.
But that wasn't the worst part. The interface scrambled.
A human sound, amplified to high decibels. It tasted like blood in Kage's mouth. It felt like a heavy iron door slamming shut on his fingers.
That was NOT a rock, Kage realized, stumbling back, clutching his ringing ears.
The scream tore through the silent atmosphere of the Ashenvale Foothills, echoing off the obsidian trees, shattering the delicate peace of the grey world.
SCREEEEEEEEEEEEE—
Then, just as quickly as it started, the steam vented, and the silence returned.
But the damage was done; around him, the petrified forest woke up.
The Ash-Shriekers hunted by sonar, by listening to the subtle shifts in the wind. Kage knew this from the first fight. They lived in a world of delicate acoustics.
He had just set off a sonic flashbang in a room full of people wearing night-vision goggles.
Skree-REEEE!
Skree!
SKREEEE!
Dozens of heads snapped up. The shrieks were pained. Confused. The scream from the ground had scrambled their echolocation. They were thrashing, blind and disoriented, their sensory organs overloaded.
And in that ocean of white noise and pain, there was only one "quiet" spot. One solid object that wasn't vibrating with the echo of the scream.
Kage.
He stood by the vent, the pick still in his hand. To their ruined sonar, he was the anchor. The anomaly. The source of the pain.
Ten heads unnaturally locked onto him in perfect, creepy sync amidst a world of grey.
Kage looked up. The sky, previously empty, was suddenly filled with the frantic beating of leathery wings.
"I'm dead," Kage summarized, his voice tight. He banished the pick and summoned Mumyo. The black sword snapped into his hand, the red vein on its spine pulsing rapidly, sensing the spike in its master’s heart rate.
Ten Level 26 bats.
He was Level 14.
Bad math, the Operator in his head noted dryly.
Then change the equation, the Prodigy whispered back.
The first three Shriekers folded their wings and entered a dive, screaming for blood.