Chapter 28 — Will of the Weak
Power did not leave Galen Mor all at once.
It bled out of him.
At first, he thought it was shock. The kind that followed severe injuries, the hollow ringing in his ears, the strange lightness in his limbs. He tried to draw in breath—and found nothing answering him. No wind. No familiar current responding to instinct. His chest tightened. Panic surged.
That was impossible.
Wind had always been there.
Even when exhausted. Even when wounded. Even when afraid.
He tried again, forcing his will outward.
Nothing.
His vision swam. The battlefield blurred into warped silhouettes and drifting stone. The screams around him felt distant, muffled, as though submerged underwater. His body trembled—not from pain alone, but from something far worse.
Absence.
His blessing was gone.
Not suppressed. Not disrupted.
Gone.
"No…" His lips moved soundlessly. His mind screamed louder than his voice ever could.
Memories crashed into him—years of training, the first moment the wind answered him, the academy instructors calling him gifted, the way others stepped aside when he walked past. Authority. Identity. Superiority.
All built on that power.
And now there was nothing.
Agony followed the realization. A deep, tearing pain erupted from his chest, radiating through his spine and skull. It felt as though something fundamental had been ripped out of him, leaving behind raw, bleeding emptiness. His heart spasmed. His nerves screamed.
Galen convulsed violently, fingers clawing at stone as his consciousness fractured.
Wind did not answer.
The Rift did not care.
His scream finally escaped—short, broken, stripped of command—and then darkness swallowed him whole.
He collapsed.
Not as a leader.
Not as a Mid-Tier C.
But as a powerless body among many others falling.
—
Alex felt it the instant Galen went still.
Something inside him settled.
The violent pressure crushing his chest eased just enough for him to breathe. The Abyssal Wind coiled deep within him, unstable, compressed, dangerous—but quiet for now. His vision pulsed dark at the edges. Blood dripped from his nose, spattered across the fractured stone.
Then the world paused.
Not the Rift.
Not the battle.
Only him.
A cold, absolute presence descended within his mind.
==========
[Congratulations on completing hidden quest: Will of the Weak]
[Reward granted: +100 EXP, Path to Strength]
[Do you want to claim reward now?]
[Yes] [No]
Alex stared at the words, breath shallow.
Hidden quest.
Although he had seen this for many time
But the name… Will of the Weak.
It felt personal.
His fingers trembled. The Rift roared around him, cadets screaming, platforms collapsing, elves closing in—but this moment belonged only to him.
He chose.
Yes.
The instant his selection registered, pain detonated inside his skull.
Alex gasped, clutching his head as forbidden knowledge flooded into him like molten iron poured directly into his brain. His knees buckled. He bit down hard to keep from screaming.
Images. Concepts. Principles.
Devour.
Assimilation.
Hierarchy through consumption.
Not spells. Not instructions.
Truths.
Raw, alien understanding that twisted his perception of power itself. That strength was not bestowed—it was taken. That weakness was not shameful—it was fuel. That systems were cages unless one learned how to tear them open from the inside.
He didn't understand most of it.
Not yet.
It was too vast. Too deep.
So he did what he had always done.
He focused on survival.
On the main dish.
The system stabilized as the pain receded just enough for thought to return.
Alex exhaled shakily and summoned it.
System preferences.
The world dimmed again.
==========
[Ancient Demon System — Preference Interface]
[Name: Alex Rim]
[Race: Human (Corrupted)]
[Rank:F (late )
[Level: 1]
[EXP: 100 / 200]
Alex froze.
He is now an late rank F blessed a step away from E rank
That hadn't existed before.
His gaze dropped instinctively.
The system responded.
==========
[New Slot Detected — Blessing Assimilation Slot]
[Status: Occupied]
[Blessing: Wind Element — Fragmented Core]
[Origin: Galen Mor]
[State: Corrupted / Unstable]
[Compatibility: LOW]
[master ability to increase compatibility ]
His breath hitched.
Blessing slot.
Not borrowed. Not mimicked.
Stolen.
Integrated.
Alex's hands trembled as more information surfaced unprompted.
==========
[Abyssal Wind — Dormant]
[Description: A corrupted elemental manifestation altered by Abyssal Essence]
[Characteristics: Sharp, chaotic, predatory]
[Deviation from Standard Wind: 78%]
[Warning: User lacks control proficiency]
[Warning: Internal damage possible]
"That's… not normal," Alex whispered.
Instinctively, he reached for it.
The moment he tried to draw on the wind, the air around him screamed.
Not flowed.
Screamed.
Black currents erupted violently, razor-thin pressure slicing the air instead of guiding it. Stone hissed as edges were shaved clean. The wind did not lift—it tore.
Alex recoiled instantly, heart hammering.
This wasn't Galen's wind.
This was something else.
Dangerous.
Hungry.
Unstable.
If he kept forcing it, it would kill him before the elves ever could.
He shut it down.
Hard.
Breathing heavily, Alex forced his shaking body to move. The Rift had not paused for his awakening. Platforms were collapsing faster now. The ambient hum had risen into a violent shriek. Cracks spiderwebbed across the floating terrain as though the Rift itself were breaking apart.
The elves reacted instantly.
They retreated—not in panic, but with calculated precision—herding cadets unintentionally toward unstable zones. One misstep meant death. Cadets screamed as slabs tilted, sending bodies sliding toward the abyss.
"FALL BACK!"
"STAY TOGETHER!"
"HELP—!"
A cadet with lightning blessing tried to leap between platforms and misjudged the distance. The Rift twisted gravity mid-jump. His body slammed sideways into a rotating slab with a sickening crunch.
Another student attempted to erect an earth barrier. The Rift rejected it. The construct shattered inward, impaling its creator.
Blood misted the air.
Alex joined a small cluster of survivors instinctively, keeping his head down, his movements precise. He didn't lead. He didn't speak. He watched.
Controlled panic was better than command.
Then the Rift convulsed.
A thunderous crack split the air as several massive platforms shattered at once. The White Rift's glow flickered erratically. Space warped. Gravity buckled.
"The Rift's collapsing!"
"We're not getting extraction—MOVE!"
Instructors were nowhere in sight.
The battlefield had become pure survival.
Alex moved with the group until instinct screamed at him to stop.
Danger.
Not from the elves.
From above.
The Rift convulsed violently.
A thunderous crack split the air as several massive platforms shattered at once, the White Rift's glow flickering erratically. Gravity twisted. Space buckled inward like collapsing lungs.
"The Rift's collapsing!"
"MOVE—NOW!"
Alex felt it before he saw it.
A massive slab tore loose above them, spinning wildly, shadow swallowing the survivors below. Cadets screamed, scattering in blind panic. Someone tried to raise a shield—too slow.
Instinct surged.
The wind inside Alex answered.
Black pressure clawed at his chest, desperate, violent, begging to be unleashed.
No.
Alex slammed the feeling down with everything he had.
The slab shattered anyway.
Not cleanly.
Not elegantly.
The Rift itself warped—gravity spasmed, space folded—and the slab collided with another drifting mass mid-fall, exploding into debris as the unstable environment rejected its momentum.
Stone rained down.
Alex was thrown backward hard, slamming into jagged ground. Pain tore through his ribs. His vision burst white. Blood filled his mouth.
chaos and collapse spread among the rift
The survivors scrambled away, screaming, some injured, some dragging others, none looking back. Alex lay still for half a second longer than was safe, forcing the Abyssal Wind back into dormancy as it raged uselessly inside him.
Not now.
Not here.
The Rift collapsed inward violently, swallowing pathways, twisting space. Alex dove across a narrowing gap as gravity inverted, his body slamming into stone hard enough to crack bone.
He rolled.
Fell.
The world twisted.
Then—
Nothing.
—
When the survivors were finally pulled from the collapsing Rift hours later, chaos ruled the extraction zone.
Cadets were missing.
Dead.
Broken.
Galen Mor was carried out unconscious, his face pale, his body trembling even in sleep. He never woke during transport.
Leon stood among the recovered students, silent, eyes scanning the names being called.
Alex Rim was not among them.
No body.
No signal.
No trace.
Only a fractured Rift scar slowly sealing itself shut.
And somewhere beyond it, something ancient breathed.
—