The heavy iron door slammed shut, plunging the subterranean chamber into absolute, suffocating blackness. The grinding clank of the lock echoed off the damp stone walls, sealing Seiyuu inside.
He did not call out. He did not pound his fists against the iron. He immediately lowered his center of gravity, drawing his Veridian shortsword in a single, silent motion. The air in the room was foul, thick with the stench of stagnant water, dried blood, and rotting meat.
Deep within the dark, heavy iron chains rattled against the floor.
It was a slow, deliberate sound. A low, wet growl vibrated through the cold air, carrying the terrifying resonance of a massive, unbreathing chest cavity.
Seiyuu closed his eyes and pushed a fraction of his newly awakened mana into his Aetheric Perception.
The darkness peeled away, replaced by the stark, colorless outlines of spiritual density. The chamber was a wide, circular fighting pit. And charging directly toward him was a nightmare forged of butchered flesh and corrupted magic.
The Hollowed stood eight feet tall. It was a grotesque amalgamation of different corpses grafted together with thick, rusted wire. Faded, jagged runes were carved deeply into its pale, dead skin, glowing with a sickly, pulsing crimson light in Seiyuu's magical sight. The runes pumped a false, unnatural life into the dead muscle. The abomination dragged a massive, rusted executioner's blade behind it, the heavy iron gouging a trench into the stone floor.
Seiyuu had slain an Abyssal Weaver in the wild, but that had been a living beast, driven by instinct and pain. This construct felt no pain. It harbored no instinct for self-preservation. Just a pure, blunt instrument of murder.
The Hollowed swung the rusted greatsword in a devastating horizontal arc.
Seiyuu ducked beneath the heavy iron, feeling the wind of the massive blade tear at his hair. He pivoted on his heel, driving his shortsword upward toward the creature's exposed ribs.
The Veridian steel struck the pale flesh and sparked violently, as if hitting solid granite. The corrupted runes flared, hardening the dead muscle to the density of plate armor. The impact sent a jarring shockwave up Seiyuu's arm, nearly knocking the blade from his grip.
Before he could recover his balance, the Hollowed brought a massive, backhanded fist down toward his skull.
Seiyuu threw himself backward, rolling across the damp stone. The fist crashed into the floor exactly where he had been standing, shattering the flagstones and sending a shower of razor-sharp rock shards into the air. One shard caught Seiyuu across the cheek, drawing a hot line of blood.
He scrambled to his feet, his breathing heavy. Brute force and standard swordsmanship were useless here.
He opened his frozen channels and unleashed the Ashen Aura.
A heavy, dense gray mist erupted from his skin, billowing outward to fill the fighting pit. The temperature in the room plummeted to an absolute, unnatural winter. Frost immediately crawled up the stone walls.
As the mist swallowed the Hollowed, the creature's frantic, relentless charge slowed. The dense, freezing Aether smothered the ambient magic in the room, actively suffocating the glowing crimson runes carved into the abomination's flesh. The sickly red light began to dim. The rusted greatsword wavered, suddenly too heavy for the freezing, dead muscles to lift.
Seiyuu tightened his grip on his sword, preparing to move in for the kill.
But a sudden, terrifying emptiness bloomed in his chest.
He checked his internal reserves. The Ashen Aura was devouring his mana at an alarming rate. The heavy mist was incredibly powerful, but it required a staggering amount of mana to sustain. If he kept the aura active for another minute, his channels would run entirely dry, leaving him defenseless against a monster that would immediately thaw and resume its slaughter.
Seiyuu cut the magic. The gray mist instantly dissipated, the unnatural winter lifting from the room.
Freed from the suffocating cold, the crimson runes on the Hollowed flared back to blinding life. The creature roared, a sound of torn vocal cords and rushing air, and lunged forward with terrifying, renewed speed.
It was too fast. Seiyuu raised his blade to parry, but the sheer weight of the rusted greatsword crashed through his guard. The flat of the heavy iron slammed into Seiyuu's ribs.
The crack of bone was loud in the dark room. Seiyuu was thrown through the air, crashing violently against the cold stone wall. He collapsed to the floor, coughing up a mouthful of warm blood. Black spots danced in his vision. Every breath felt like a jagged knife twisting in his chest.
The Hollowed advanced, dragging its blade, preparing to sever his head.
Seiyuu forced himself to his knees. His mana was dangerously low. His ribs were broken. He could not freeze the entire room, and he could not trade blows with a walking corpse. He needed surgical, absolute precision.
He waited. He watched the crimson runes pulsing beneath the creature's sternum, identifying the central core of the corrupted magic driving the beast.
The Hollowed raised the executioner's blade high above its head.
Seiyuu did not dodge away. Using the last reserves of his Agility, he lunged directly inside the creature's guard, stepping into the shadow of the falling blade.
He dropped his sword. He drove his left hand directly against the Hollowed's chest, his palm striking the central, glowing rune.
He did not project the mist outward. He condensed the entirety of his remaining mana into the palm of his hand, forcing the absolute zero directly into the creature's runic core.
The cold was instantaneous and absolute. A blinding flash of white frost exploded from Seiyuu's hand, burrowing straight through the dead flesh. The corrupted crimson magic met the ashen cold and violently shattered. The creature's chest cavity froze solid in a fraction of a second, the hardened muscle turning into brittle, fragile ice.
Seiyuu grabbed his falling shortsword with his right hand and drove the steel directly into the frozen core.
The blade pierced the brittle ice effortlessly, burying itself to the hilt. Seiyuu twisted the steel, snapping the Hollowed's frozen spine.
The crimson runes died. The massive, dead weight of the abomination collapsed, crumbling into a heap of rotting meat, rusted iron, and thick dust.
Seiyuu fell back against the wall, clutching his broken ribs, his chest heaving as he gasped for air. His mana pool was entirely empty, leaving a cold, hollow ache deep in his bones.
The grinding scream of the lock echoed through the dark. The heavy iron door swung open, casting a long, pale shaft of torchlight into the fighting pit.
Magister Lirael stood in the doorway, leaning on her petrified staff. She looked at the scattered, frozen remains of the abomination, and then at the bleeding boy slumped against the wall.
"You burned your entire reserve to freeze a single room," Lirael rasped, her voice devoid of praise. "A foolish, arrogant waste of power. But you adapted before it killed you."
Seiyuu spat a mouthful of blood onto the stone. He looked down at the pile of dust near his boots. Resting in the ashes of the creature's chest was a small, jagged fragment of dark stone, glowing with a faint, dying purple light.
It was a blood-stone. The exact same corrupted magic that had nearly destroyed Silas Blackwood in the undercroft.
"This was not a Spire construct," Seiyuu said, his voice ragged. He reached down and picked up the cracked stone, holding it up in the torchlight.
Lirael's flinty eyes narrowed as she stared at the dark fragment. The ancient Magister's grip tightened on her wooden staff, her knuckles turning stark white.
"No," Lirael whispered, the shadows in the corridor seeming to deepen around her. "It is not. The Ashen Dawn does not just breach our walls, Walderose. They are building an army in our cellars."
[Status: Seiyuu Walderose]
Age: 10 Years, 0 Months
Class: Ashen Mage
[Physical Attributes]
Strength: 15.4
Agility: 16.2
Vitality: 19.0 (Condition: Fractured Ribs)
[Mental Attributes]
Intelligence: 35
Mana: 12/350
[Unallocated Attribute Points: 15]
[Skills]
Swordsmanship Lvl 5: [Passive]
Aetheric Perception Lvl 4: [Active]
Elemental Theory Lvl 3: [Active/Passive]
Ashen Aura Lvl 2: [Active] Projects a dense, suffocating mist of heavy Aether. Damps surrounding magical currents and obscures vision. High mana consumption.