The cavern breathed around me. Shadows stretched unnaturally along the walls, curling like smoke in a storm. Every step I took sent a faint vibration through the stone floor, and the system pulsed in my mind, almost impatient.
First threshold reached.
I didn't bother celebrating. There was no one here to see it, no one to applaud. The monsters ahead were all that mattered.
A pair of jagged silhouettes emerged from the mist. Two quadrupedal beasts with claws like sharpened glass and eyes that shimmered violet in the dim light. The system interface flickered once.
[Enemy: Storm Maw Pack – Level Unknown]
[Threat: Extreme]
I let the purple lightning coil along my veins. Storm Veins, activated.
The creatures lunged simultaneously. Time slowed. Reflexes sharpened. My first strike was a blur, an arc of lightning tearing through one beast's chest, throwing it backward into the jagged walls. The second snapped at me mid-air. I twisted, catching its paw and sending energy crawling along its limbs, dismembering it in a hiss of ozone.
[Experience Gained: 7%]
[Ability Refined: Lightning Step – can now create afterimages that strike independently]
The air around me smelled of rain and blood. My body hummed with energy. Every strike was measured, every move calculated — a dance of storm and shadow.
Deeper in, the corridor widened, revealing a massive chasm spanned by jagged rock bridges, pulsing with electric veins. The system interface glowed faintly, as if marking the next step.
This is where the real test begins.
The creatures waiting weren't ordinary shadows. They moved like living storms, tendrils of lightning coiling around their massive forms. Their presence pressed against my senses, threatening to overwhelm my mind.
But I didn't falter. Aether Conduction hummed in response. A strike of elemental energy collided with me. I absorbed it, redirecting it outward in a jagged beam that shattered the closest creature into sparks of violet light.
[Experience Gained: 15%]
[System Reward: Evolution Progress +2%]
A grin tugged at my lips. The system wasn't just giving me monsters to kill — it was measuring, teaching, preparing me for the thresholds ahead. I could feel the pull of evolution already, subtle and insistent, like the storm whispering that I wasn't far from something greater.
The path ahead narrowed, forcing me onto a single bridge. The storm-born guardians waited, massive as pillars, their lightning arcs forming a cage. My hand brushed the violet shard of the key in my pocket.
The key pulsed, almost alive, resonating with the storm. I whispered to it, more to myself than anything:
"You wanted a storm? Then I'll become the storm."
The lightning in my veins flared, bright enough to blind. The creatures roared. And I stepped forward, alone, into the heart of the cavern.
Outside, far from the forest, the wind shifted. Rumors of the boy with blank stats had already reached the guilds, and leaders far above the city stirred. But none of them could see the pulse that would soon ripple across the continent. Ashura Bellet had taken the first true step, and the storm had just begun.