Days slipped by after the horde. Time blurred into pain, hunger, and silence.
Kael lay hidden beneath a canopy of mossy stone, his body bruised and broken. The wounds from the Bloody Hounds had festered, slow to heal. He dared not travel—not in this state. The Fogveil Ring was no place for the weak.
He had hoped someone from the party made it back. That help might come. He hoped that they would send a rescue party. But each sunrise without rescue chipped away at that hope, leaving only silence and the gnawing bite of hunger.
His rations were gone.
If the monsters hadn't killed him, starvation surely would.
The carcasses of the slain hounds still surrounded him, their blood dried into the earth, their twisted bodies stiff, and weren't fully rottened due to the presence of chaos energy stored in them.
And Kael, desperate, turned his gaze to them.
*****
The chaos energy that tainted the soul beasts—the unstable force that corrupted animals and warped plants—was poisonous. Every soul hunter was taught to avoid consuming beast flesh. The textbooks spoke of seizures, mutations, and even death. Chaos energy was the reason soul beasts existed.
And yet, in those same monsters, their cores carried a purified version of that chaos: Soul Energy.
The first Soul Hunters had discovered the soul energy by accident, and consequent exposure led to transformation—soul weapons, affinities, evolution. But it was only the refined energy that gave power. Not the raw chaos energy
****
Kael had no more hope, there was no food and no assured rescue.
So he made a choice.
"If there's even a sliver of survival in this…" he muttered, staring at the hound's corpse, "...I'll take it."
He carved away the fur, slicing off a chunk of the beast's flesh. His hands trembled—not from fear, but hunger and weakness. He closed his eyes, clenched his jaw… and bit down.
The taste was foul. Rot and copper and bitterness all at once. He forced himself to swallow.
Seconds later brought agony.
His body convulsed. Heat surged through his veins like wildfire. His organs clenched and twisted, His skin itched and then burned. Kael screamed, writhing in pain and clawing at the dirt as chaos energy flooded him.
Every cell rebelled.
It was death. It should have been death.
But just as the edges of his vision blackened, a strange stillness fell.
Then—
"Chaos Energy Signature Detected. Initiating Adaptive Bioconversion Protocol..."
The voice was clear, emotionless. It echoed directly in his mind.
"Raw Chaos Energy levels critical. Stabilizing... Transfer stabilized Chaos Energy to Soul Weapon Matrix? [Y/N]"
He didn't understand. But his soul, clinging to life, roared back one answer: "Yes."
Instantly, the pain flared into something deeper, more violent. As if his very essence was being pulled apart, reformed. The energy surged inward, not burning now—but reshaping.
His scythe lay dormant, flickering and then reacted.
It drank the chaos like a starved beast, pulsing with light. A foreign connection bound them together. Kael felt it not with his hands, but with his soul. His weapon drank deep from the storm within him and changed.
When the light finally dimmed, Kael lay still.
Unconscious. But alive.
The soul weapon that had once barely held power... now burned steady with a strange, dark glow.
Something had changed.
Kael stirred.
The world returned slowly, like a fog lifting from his mind. For a fleeting moment, he thought it had all been a dream—the pain, the voice in his head.
But reality clung to him like sweat.
His body no longer trembled. The crushing fatigue was gone. The hollow pangs of hunger had vanished. In their place was a strange, seething energy—his muscles brimmed with life, every fiber charged and responsive.
He sat up sharply.
"What... happened to me?"
Kael clenched his fists. His veins thrummed with power. It wasn't just survival—he was stronger. Considerably stronger.
With a flash of will, he summoned his Soul Weapon.
The Soul Scythe manifested before him—but it was no longer flickering.
The blade had darkened slightly, sharper and more defined. The faint, inconsistent glow it once gave off was now steadier, deeper. A presence pulsed within it.
The interface from earlier glowed softly in the corner of his vision:
[Soul Weapon Potential: Dim Soul — Achieved]
He exhaled, chest rising and falling with disbelief. The weakest Soul Weapon potential—the Flickering Soul—was known to be stagnant, incapable of evolution.
But his had changed.
Kael's hands trembled, not from fear, but from something far more dangerous.
Hope.
Suppressing the storm of emotions building in his chest, he focused his soul energy inward, channeling it into the depths of his core.
A moment passed.
Then the air around him shifted—dark wisps curled around his shoulders. The shadows thickened unnaturally around his form, drawn to him like he was the center of their universe.
Affinity awakened…
[Affinity: Shadow]
His breath caught in his throat. Shadow Affinity. A rare and deadly element. Something completely impossible for one with a Flickering Soul—until now.
Kael stood frozen, overwhelmed. What once was a curse, a roadblock, had become a doorway.
His mind drifted to what his instructors used to say:
"Flickering Soul Hunters don't awaken affinities. If they do... they don't stay Flickering for long."
Kael finally understood.
The soul weapon potential of this world followed a rigid hierarchy—nine tiers that determined a Soul Hunter's destiny.
• Flickering Soul
• Dim Soul
• Faint Soul
• Bright Soul
• Refined Soul
• Mythic Soul
• Astral Soul
• Eternal Soul
The stronger the soul potential, the faster soul energy could be absorbed and refined, allowing advancement through the cultivation ranks—from the First Rank all the way to the Ninth.
But no one had ever ascended beyond their awakened potential.
Until now.
He had done what was believed to be impossible.
And the source of that change was no mystery.
As if summoned by his thoughts, the ethereal interface returned—clearer, more structured than before:
[Chaos System — First Form: Unlocked]
Features:
• Chaos Energy Extractor
Automatically extracts residual Chaos Energy from any slain Soul Beast.
• Chaos Energy Converter
Converts extracted Chaos Energy into usable CE Units.
• CE Unit Storage
Stores Chaos Energy Units (CEU) for future use.
• Soul Weapon Evolution
CE Units can be consumed to upgrade the user's Soul Weapon Potential.
Progress:
Next Potential Rank: Faint Soul
CE Units: 100 / 1000
Next Unlock: Chaos System – Second Form
Requires:
— Refined Soul Potential OR
— 500,000 CE Units
Kael blinked.
This… System—whatever it truly was—defied everything known about Soul Hunter evolution. Its origin was unknown, its motives unclear.
But it had saved his life. No—rewritten it.
And Kael made a silent vow.
"I don't know where you came from… but I'll use you. I'll climb. I'll survive. I'll break every limit they set on me."
He clenched his fist, shadows flickering behind his knuckles.
He didn't linger.
No longer willing to tempt fate, Kael began the long trek out of the Fogveil Ring.
With his knowledge of the terrain and the habits of Soul Beasts, he skirted danger, navigating old hunter trails and animal paths. He noted strange occurrences as he moved: fog growing unnaturally dense, packs of beasts growing larger, more organized.
The Fogveil Ring was changing… mutating.
Still, Kael pressed forward.
He didn't avoid all combat. No—he hunted lone Soul Beasts and smaller packs. He had to understand what his new power could do.
Each encounter was a test. Every strike with his scythe more precise. Every use of his shadow affinity more fluid. The chaos energy extracted from each kill funneled into his system, each CE unit building toward his next leap.
On the fourth day, during a skirmish with a pair of Shadow-Tusk Boars, it happened.
As he drove his blade into the neck of the second beast, a surge exploded inside him and his soul core flared, light bursting from his chest.
[Cultivation Breakthrough Achieved: Second Rank Reached]
His body adjusted violently. Bones hardened, senses sharpened, his soul energy pool expanded rapidly. The system hummed in satisfaction.
CE Units Gained: +50
Total: 150 / 1000
The hunger for growth ignited inside him. Not greed, but purpose.
He kept some of the cores he harvested—he would sell them in town, gain funds, equipment, maybe information.
But more importantly, he was learning who he truly was when unshackled by fate.
By the seventh day, the edges of the Fogveil began to thin.
A familiar trail. A familiar scent in the air.
Civilization was near.
Kael stood at the ridge overlooking the lowlands that led toward town. The setting sun painted the sky in warm orange streaks, casting long shadows behind him.
He looked at his hands—at the scythe that had once trembled.
Now, it pulsed with power.
He had come into the fog a weakling… a background character in another man's story.
But now, something deeper stirred in him. A whisper carried on the winds.
This is only the beginning…