The scavengers rushed him, blades flashing in the smoke.
Kael met the first with raw instinct, his cracked sword shrieking against rusted steel. The man snarled, shoving forward with brute strength. But Kael's body no longer felt like broken glass. Power burned in his arms. He twisted, drove his blade up beneath the man's guard, and split him open from hip to chest.
The scream rose—then died—ripped away as his soul was torn free. Light streamed into Kael's chest, devoured by the shard in a violent rush.
The Soulforge pulsed.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[ Soul Count: 1,453 → 1,454 ]
Vitality: 15 → 16
Strength: 17 → 18
Will: 21 → 22
Forgecraft: 24 → 25
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
The second scavenger hesitated, eyes flicking to his fallen comrade's hollow shell. Fear touched him, but greed smothered it. He roared and swung.
Kael stepped inside the arc, shadow claws lashing from the ground at his feet. The Wraith Claw ripped through the man's throat, dragging him into the void.
Another soul consumed. Another surge of power.
The third stumbled back, eyes wide. "M-monster! He's eating them!"
Kael didn't deny it. His breath steamed, his veins glowed faintly with forge-light. The shard hammered in his chest like a war-drum. Fear still clawed at his mind, but it was buried beneath a rising intoxication. Every soul tasted like fire. Every pulse made him stronger.
"Run," Kael rasped. His voice was raw, deeper, laced with the shard's whisper.
The scavenger fled.
But more shapes poured from the smoke—five this time, armored in scavenged steel, eyes locked on the glow inside Kael's chest. They had seen the slaughter. They knew the risk. Yet their hunger was greater.
"Take him together!" one barked.
They charged.
Kael moved. Faster than he thought possible. His sword blurred, meeting the first man's strike and shattering it. The second fell to a thrust that drove clean through his armor. The third tried to flank him, but Kael's shadow lashed upward, claws piercing his ribs.
Three souls at once screamed into him.
The surge nearly broke him.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[ Soul Count: 1,454 → 1,457 ]
Vitality: 16 → 19
Strength: 18 → 21
Will: 22 → 25
Forgecraft: 25 → 29
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Kael gasped, staggering as molten heat flooded his veins. His muscles spasmed. His vision doubled, tripled. The shard blazed inside him, unstable, its hunger twisting into frenzy.
The two remaining scavengers froze, terror dawning. They saw his eyes—glowing faintly with forge-light. They saw his veins lit beneath his skin like molten cracks.
"What the hell is he—" one stammered.
Kael roared. Not in words, but in fury, pain, hunger. He swung, shattering the man's skull, and the last turned to run. Too late. The Wraith Claw caught him by the spine and ripped him down.
Five souls. Six. Seven. All at once.
The shard could not contain it.
[ WARNING ] Soulforge Instability Critical.
Containment threshold exceeded.
Host integrity: 79% … 63% … 48% …
Kael collapsed to one knee, clutching his chest. Black fire poured from the shard, his shadow writhing like a living beast. The corpses around him twitched, dragged toward him by an unseen pull.
More, the forge howled. Feed me! Break them all!
Kael screamed, driving his sword into the dirt to anchor himself. His body smoked, veins cracking with black fire. For a heartbeat, he thought he would split apart.
Then, with sheer will, he forced the torrent into the blade. The ground split, fire searing a line through the ash. His vision dimmed—then cleared.
The shard quieted.
Kael collapsed forward, gasping. His body trembled from head to toe. The battlefield was silent again, save for the hiss of cooling stone. Around him lay husks, their eyes wide and empty, their corpses still smoking faintly.
Kael's reflection glared back at him from the blood-streaked blade. His eyes glowed faintly, rimmed with molten light.
He had survived. Barely.
But the truth was clear: the Soulforge could grow without limit—if he could survive the fire without being consumed himself.