The mask locked into place with a sound like bone snapping back into joint.
SFX: KRAK—CLICK—
Levi felt it instantly.
A white-hot surge detonated at his face and thundered downward through every vein. The harvested berserker essence he had carried since Kargan's defeat ignited—not fragmented anymore, not resisting—but fused.
Iron Skin crystallized.
Not a skill.
A state of being.
His flesh condensed into something ancient and absolute, dense as primordial hide. Blades that once threatened now registered as pressure alone. Only the heaviest blows would ever reach bone again.
Blood Rage followed—no longer a thing he summoned.
It simmered.
A living ember at the edge of thought, waiting for permission to burn.
Then came the cost.
Kargan's presence rolled through his mind like grinding stone, no longer distant or broken, but whole—vast, heavy, intimate.
At last.
Whole again.
Let us paint the bones red.
Levi's lips parted beneath the mask's fanged edge.
A laugh escaped him.
Low. Broken. Manic.
His voice—and not his—layered together in savage harmony.
Aria froze mid-step as the platform trembled. "Levi?"
Mira seized her arm, dragging her toward the southern ramp. "Later. Run. Now."
The final wave surged up from below.
Dozens of Black Fang elites boiled onto the ramp—tusks gleaming, axes raised, ancestral fury blazing in their eyes. The spire screamed around them, upper levels collapsing in avalanches of bone and stone.
SFX: ROOOOAR—CRACK—BOOM—
Dust choked the air, wards failing in crimson flashes.
Levi turned to face them.
The ramp was narrow.
Perfect.
He stepped forward alone.
The first berserker reached him with a bellow, swinging a double-headed axe meant to split pillars.
Levi didn't dodge.
The blade struck his shoulder—
SFX: CLANG—SKREEE—
—and rebounded. The edge notched. Iron Skin held without a scratch.
Levi answered.
His spear thrust once—shadow-infused, precise—and punched through breastplate, heart, spine.
Harvest followed instantly.
Shadows flooded the dying warrior, tearing essence free in visible crimson ribbons.
SFX: RIIIP—HISS—
The body hit stone already empty.
More came.
Levi waded into them.
Shadow-step blinked him through the press like living smoke. Blade-dance turned the spear into a storm—haft cracking jaws, edge carving torsos. Blood Rage ignited at a thought.
Strength tripled.
Speed blurred.
Pain became fuel.
He laughed again—louder this time—booming from the mask's draconic maw, joyous and unhinged.
Axes sparked harmlessly off his body. Tusks scraped against him and failed. He harvested as he killed—souls ripped free mid-scream, essence crashing into him in intoxicating waves.
The mask's white ethereal mane whipped violently around his head.
Beneath it—
His own hair bleached in seconds, dark strands draining to frost-white, spilling out in frozen flames that danced in perfect resonance with the mask's.
Kargan roared approval inside him.
Yes.
Take.
Claim.
They are nothing.
A shaman hurled a rage-bolt.
SFX: THOOM—
It cracked against Levi's chest and dissipated.
He seized the caster by the throat, lifted him kicking, and drank him dry. Another tried to flee—shadows speared out, dragging the screaming body back for harvest.
The ramp became a slaughter-sluice.
Bodies piled.
Blood steamed on black stone.
Behind him, Aria and Mira fought—Mira's illusions fracturing the battlefield, Aria severing ward-lines to prevent reinforcements—but the massacre was Levi's alone.
When the last guard fell, silence rang louder than horns.
Levi stood amid carnage, chest heaving, spear dripping. The mask's eye slits glowed faint violet.
His voice—gravel layered over steel—echoed off the walls.
"Clear."
Mira stared, face pale beneath the dust. "You just… ate an army."
Aria's gaze was fixed on the white hair spilling from beneath the horns. "Levi… your hair."
He tilted his head.
Kargan chuckled through him.
"Fits the legend."
They fled as the spire finally gave way—south into neutral ruins, tunnels claimed by no clan, choked with ancient dust and broken script. Hours passed in taut silence before they found a sealed alcove and buried the entrance beneath fallen stone.
Safe.
For now.
Levi reached up and lifted the mask.
It resisted—just a little—like peeling something that wanted to stay attached.
The white mane faded, turning lifeless as it fell away.
His hair remained frost-white, wild and untamed.
He summoned a pool of shadow, smooth as still water, and looked.
The reflection stared back.
Striking.
Features honed past human limits into something predatory and regal. Cheekbones sharp as blades. Jaw clean and strong. Lips curved into a half-smile that held no warmth.
And the eyes—
Crimson.
Faintly glowing.
Pupils slitted like a hunting beast's.
Kargan's mark.
Permanent.
Levi touched his face. Flawless. Cold beneath his fingers, like polished marble. Power thrummed deeper than ever before.
Aria approached carefully and reached out. Her fingers brushed his cheek.
Cold.
"Are you still in there?" she asked quietly.
Levi met her gaze.
"More than ever."
Mira leaned against the wall, arms crossed. "You look like a war god carved from nightmare. Careful. Power like that starts making its own decisions."
Levi replaced the mask.
The world sharpened instantly. Kargan purred with satisfaction.
Yet even with it off, the thought remained—cold, precise, undeniable.
There were nine great clans in the mid-Abyss.
Nine champion relics.
Masks. Blades. Crowns.
Souls like Kargan's.
If one relic could do this—
What could nine give him?
The ambition crystallized. Not a whisper.
A blueprint.
Far behind them, deep in Fang territory, horns sounded—long, carrying notes of mobilization.
SFX: BWAAAAH—BWAAAAH—
The Black Fangs had tasted loss.
The hunt had begun.
Levi shouldered his spear, white hair spilling beneath the mask's horns like frozen fire.
Let them come.
He was only getting started.