That golden light.
Rod's heart surged.Saved—!
He was just about to do what he'd done last time—rush in, grab the blade of light, and skewer the thing—when the gold flickered out.
The monster—split neatly in half—turned and took a step toward him.
Boom.The ground seemed to heave. One half of its body dragged along the dirt, the other half reared upright; only the lower torso still clung together.Black, viscous matter poured from the torn edges. Two red-glowing eyes, now at grotesque angles, fixed on him from different corners of its sundered head.
Not dead.
Cold exploded through Rod's soul. He clenched the gun, acting on pure reflex.Soul pressure spiked; the muzzle flared.
Bang!
A white lance cracked into the beast's flank. The true-silver round drilled into the tarry mass inside it and detonated, blasting chunks of black sludge into the air.
The monster staggered, then steadied—still crawling his way.
Bang bang bang bang bang!
Five shots in a blink. Magazine dry.
All five drilled into the split seam, each detonation flashing silver; ancient filth sprayed like firecrackers tossed into a cesspit that'd been ripening for ten thousand years.
Click.Rod stripped the housing at light speed and fed in seven more rounds.
Bang bang bang bang bang bang bang!
Seven shots, near-simultaneous, all slamming the same wound.
His focus narrowed to a needle's point. Energy flowed like breath—like muscle memory—endless, automatic.
Click.Seven more in. Seven more out.
By the next volley, Rod felt aflame—soul thrumming, power surging.Even Raven was heating under the strain, flirting with overload.
Bang bang bang bang bang bang bang!
At last, the creature collapsed.When its massive body hit the ground, the insides were nearly blown hollow.
A strange keening rose in the air—something pulling away.The corpse began to evaporate. Black grit lifted in sheets; even the spilled sludge broke down.
For a moment, a storm of soot veiled everything.Even so, Rod clearly saw a huge black line—woven from those motes—plunge into his chest.
On the black altar, a flame flared up—larger than any he'd seen before.A black fire.
Moments later, the dust was gone, dispersed into nothing.The dream returned to what it had always been: gray-white mist flowing over colorless earth, quiet and endless, as if time itself had thinned out to the horizon.
Calm.As if the invasion had never happened.
But the racing mind, the hot weapon in his hands, the weight of the silver rounds—those said otherwise.This had been real.
Finally.It was over.He'd lived.
Another crisis survived.
Rod exhaled long and slow. The second he let himself relax, exhaustion crashed over him like a tide.He wanted to drop and sleep right there.
He couldn't.There was work to do.
He looked up at the fist-sized flame on the altar.
[Soul of Twisted Flesh][A fragment of the dark aspect of Twisted Flesh][Black blood swaddles bone and dead souls—sloughed-off "spirit matter" from a greater being, drifting for ages in the River of Ever-Death until it becomes a monster.]
Rod frowned.
This one was tied to… something bigger. Something you didn't say aloud.He memorized every character, to parse later.
He risked half a second of listening—and recoiled.Only a chorus of babble and mind-gnawing whispers.
He cut it off immediately.From now on, unless the soul had been human, he wasn't listening.
He hopped down and approached the obelisk.Unlike last time, it wasn't healing quickly.Cracks webbed the blue-gray face, claw-gouges everywhere. Fine azure dust gathered from the air and seeped into the fissures—painfully slow.
The ache in his head continued, a steady throb—much less than at first, but there.Of course. He and the obelisk were bound.Maybe… the obelisk was his soul.
He touched the surface.Night welled up once more: a depthless sky, the scatter of lights.
So this is the inside of me?
And everything outside—altar, inscriptions—those were the things that "belonged" to him?
Then why did the outer stuff present itself in words he could grasp…while the inner stars still used those unknown scripts?
No answer.He filed it away for later.
His gaze slid to the center—Dark Devourer, the crimson star—and the faint blue glimmer nearby.
He couldn't feed anything more to Dark Devourer.Only the pale-blue point would take fuel.
He focused.The glow sank; a black aperture opened.
Inside drifted six ash-like flames—the minor souls he'd tossed in last time.
He willed, and the new black fire rose from the altar and shot into the sky, arcing across the void—then plunged into the waiting hole.
In an instant, the hollow caught—all seven flames bursting into one, igniting the star.
Its light stabilized from wavering blue to a deeper, cooler greenish-blue.
Now two stars burned in his night.By their glow, the rest were barely there.
Text surfaced from the lit point:
[The Icy Azure][State: Weak flame, near depletion][Star-skill: Revival of the Soul][Infusion: Unknown][Unknown][Unknown]
He couldn't read half of it. And the phrasing wasn't uniform.But what stabbed him was "Weak flame, near depletion."
Dark Devourer said "Eternal flame."Why was this one dying the moment he lit it?
Not enough souls?
Maybe.But even as he thought it, he could feel the change.His fatigue was draining off; the stabbing in his nerves softened.Even the obelisk's healing ticked a hair faster.
So this star restored and mended—at least in part.He'd have to decode the rest soon.
He withdrew his hand. Night vanished; cracked stone returned.
"I also need a way to heal the obelisk faster. If there's another invasion and this thing shatters, I'm done."
Left face, touch.Black seeped down the surface, settling to about halfway—same as before.
Right face—different.The gold that had once pooled to a third… was now barely a tenth, a thin film.
He couldn't help thinking of the golden light that had twice saved him.
"It comes from here? A kind of failsafe—kicks in when I'm about to die? And now… it's almost used up?"
Bad news.
He touched the final side.Blood traced down from the tip again, gathering into red characters.He couldn't read them, but at least they'd stopped strobing like an alarm.He copied the shapes and pulled himself out of the dream.
For the moment, the crisis had passed.
The next stretch of days was—astonishingly—quiet.
The atmosphere at Kingworth was good. Everywhere Rod looked he saw care, craft, intention.The place had everything. The teachers were competent and, more importantly, decent.All the headaches he associated with campuses… didn't seem to exist here.
Most basic needs were covered.Even students on the lowest stipend could get by.
Better, of course, cost money.But there were salary exams—climb from Grade Nine all the way to Special.It wasn't so much "tiered privilege" as a way to tell the stragglers: effort pays off.
If not for the mess he was in, Rod could've happily stayed forever.
He couldn't. Not now.There was too much to do.
First, study—hard.Knowledge wasn't just power; it was survival.He needed a deeper map of the world, the kingdom, the city—so he could plan and live.
Second, train—harder.The invasion fight had stripped him bare: no technique, no real strength.If there was a next time—and there would be—he couldn't count on golden miracles.
Third, money.Forty-two sox a week wouldn't cut it.He couldn't even afford ammo, let alone gear.
So his days settled into a rhythm.Classes by day.Common Tongue and Old Speech by night.A loop through the dream before bed, pondering the philosophy of not dying.
He hung out with Wayne and Greenhair just enough to keep them from sulking into his room permanently.
It was… busy. In a good way.
Only Kashan was a nuisance.She'd fully grown into her "Group Ten big sister" persona—bossy, uncompromising, and universally feared.
To be fair, she was just pushing everyone to study and meet training quotas.Her tone was arrogant, her methods blunt, her phrasing terrible—but the goal was sound.
Growth hurts. Slacking is easy—and fun.If it were just about careers, he'd say take your pick; there are a hundred paths to glory.But with nations at stake and humanity on the line… a bit of pressure was hard to argue with.
On that, he and Kashan stood on the same side.
He even tossed out a little slogan to comfort Wayne and Greenhair when they were dying in drills:
"Bleed less in war by crying more in peace."
It spread fast.Kashan loved it; Rod's work ethic won her over completely.He became one of the few people she didn't chew out.
Time smoothed the edges.Group Ten warmed to him—friendly, bright, full of that young, springy hope.
What drove him mad was how Kashan started treating his dorm like hers.She'd barge in without knocking to study or do paperwork, store half her junk there, and either swing by to grab it or order him to deliver.
If she hadn't paid the Firehammer Street water-tower bill, he'd have changed the lock.
Still—small stuff.
Rod wasn't disciplined because he was morally superior.He just didn't want to die.
Peace, however, didn't last.
On the fourth day after the investigation, the Inquisition summoned him again—same deal: exact time, exact place, answer their questions.
This time, it wasn't just Inspector Lauren.A swarm of men in black came with him.
Their questioning had no pleasantries.They treated him like a suspect.
In the end, he wriggled through on amnesia and a few carefully chosen gaps—but the danger felt closer than ever.
The second problem: his second star really was burning out.Its light dimmed by the day, edges going transparent.
Panic pricked him.He'd just lit the thing—he couldn't let it die.
But where was he supposed to find more souls on short notice?
He couldn't exactly go on a murder spree in the academy.Even if he'd lost his mind, the place had layers of defenses he hadn't even seen.He'd be in chains within minutes.
So… what now?