Cardo took a hesitant half-step backward, the primal urge to flee burning white-hot in his veins.
But then the girl looked up. Her wide, tear-filled eyes met his through the oppressive darkness. She wasn't screaming anymore; she was sobbing quietly, a look of soul-crushing despair painted across her dirt-streaked face. She had stopped fighting. She knew, deep down, that no one was coming to save a nobody like her.
Cardo froze. If he ran to find an association enforcer now, she would be gone by the time he returned—dragged down into the pitch-black labyrinth of the sewers and reduced to another tragic, quickly forgotten missing person poster plastered on the market walls by morning.
He gritted his teeth, jaw locking with fierce, stubborn determination. He had spent the last week grinding through martial forms, choking down disgusting nutrient sludge, and breaking his body to its limits precisely to stop feeling helpless. He had sworn to protect his family and his home—but what good was that newfound strength if he let the monsters win right in front of his eyes? What was the point of his training foundation if he couldn't even hold his ground?
He refused to be a bystander.
"Hey! Ugly!" Cardo roared, his voice cracking off the brick walls of the narrow alley.
The dire rat stopped dead. Its glowing red eyes snapped toward the alley entrance, locking onto Cardo. It slowly released the girl's backpack from its jaws and turned its massive, hunched body to face this new, louder, and apparently more intriguing prey.
"Run!" Cardo yelled, jabbing his hand toward the main street. "Get out of here—now!"
The teenager didn't need to be told twice. Driven by pure survival instinct, she scrambled to her feet, abandoned her yellow backpack, and bolted toward the far end of the alley. She slipped past the beast and vanished into the neon-lit night.
Now it was just Cardo and the monster.
"Manifest," he whispered, reaching into the depths of his Aether pool.
His energy surged. The dark mark on his wrist bled outward, peeling upward into the three-dimensional space beside him. Clone One materialized—its pitch-black, featureless body standing tall and silent in the gloom.
The Dire-Rat let out a deafening screech, a sound like grinding rusted metal, and launched itself forward. It closed the distance with terrifying, explosive speed, its filthy claws tearing white gouges into the asphalt as it charged.
Block it! Cardo commanded mentally, throwing his right arm out and dropping into a solid defensive stance.
With its signature half-second delay, the shadow clone stepped forward to intercept. But the beast was very quick. Before the clone could properly brace and lower its center of gravity, the massive rat slammed into it like a runaway hover truck.
The monster's claws swept through the air in a devastating arc—ripping not through flesh and blood but through the solidified void energy of the clone's dark torso.
Cardo gasped as the mental tether connecting him to the shadow shuddered violently. Through the feedback connection, he felt the phantom sensation of the blow instantly—a crushing, suffocating pressure across his own chest, as though he'd been struck in the ribs with a sledgehammer.
But the clone had done its job. It had absorbed the initial charge and stalled the monster's momentum for one crucial microsecond. The beast was thrown off-balance, its heavy front paws hitting the ground awkwardly after following through on the swipe.
Cardo didn't hesitate. He stepped out from behind the fading shadow, eyes locked on the beast's exposed, heaving ribs. He dropped his weight smoothly, pivoting his hips exactly as Uncle Jun had drilled into him a thousand times through the sensory feedback loop. He synced his breathing—and felt the concentrated drop of Aether in his core surge upward, flowing through his shoulder, down his arm, and pooling explosively into his knuckles.
Body Tempering Aether Fist.
He threw a devastating right hook. His fist connected cleanly with the monster's exposed ribcage.
CRACK.
The impact generated a visible shockwave of kinetic force that rippled outward through the humid alley air. The form was flawless—a masterpiece of brutal, effective martial technique built entirely on a grueling training foundation.
The rat shrieked in genuine pain, its heavy body lifting clean off the ground as the force of the blow threw it sideways. It crashed into a towering stack of wooden shipping pallets, splintering them into broken kindling.
Cardo stood frozen, breathing hard, fist still extended in the follow-through. He stared at his bruised knuckles in a mixture of awe and disbelief. He had actually hurt an E-rank void beast with his bare hands.
His triumph lasted exactly one second.
The rat shook off the debris, its crimson eyes flaring with murderous fury. Cardo's form had been perfect—but his Aether pool and muscle density were still those of an undersized sixteen-year-old. He hadn't broken the beast's ribs; he had only bruised them. He hadn't landed a fight-ending blow. He had simply made an apex predator very, very angry.
Before he could reset his stance or summon his second clone, the rat whipped its thick, hairless tail.
Cardo barely registered the blur of motion. The tail—solid as a tree branch and covered in rough, abrasive scales—slammed into his waist like a swung baseball bat.
"Gah!" His feet left the ground. He flew backward through the air and hit the brick wall hard, sliding down the rough masonry to the gravel below. Pain exploded across his ribs. His vision swam with dark spots, his ears ringing from the impact.
The beast didn't pause. It lunged instantly for the kill, its drooling jaws opening impossibly wide, aimed straight for Cardo's exposed throat.
He weakly raised his trembling arms, bracing for an impact he knew he couldn't survive. His Aether reserves were drained from the clone and the fist technique. His muscles were locked in pain.
Then a blinding flash of neon-blue light flooded the alley.
A tall figure dropped from the rusted iron fire escape above, landing with a resonant metallic thud directly between Cardo and the lunging monster. He was broad-shouldered, clad in the heavy, blocky armor of an Association Enforcer. In his gauntleted hands, he held a standard-issue riot baton—its tip ignited with a crackling blade of superheated blue aether.
With a single, effortless sweep of his arm, the Enforcer severed the Dire-Rat's head cleanly from its shoulders.
The decapitated body hit the ground with a wet, sickening slap, twitching briefly before dissolving into a pile of foul-smelling black ash. It left behind one small, dull, marble-sized aether core resting in the dirt.
Cardo sat slumped against the brick wall, coughing through the dust, clutching his bruised ribs as he looked up at his armored savior.
The Enforcer deactivated his Aether blade with a sharp hiss and turned slowly, his face hidden behind a dark, tinted visor. He leveled a gauntleted finger at Cardo's heaving chest.
"You have a death wish, kid?" he barked, his voice distorted and amplified by his helmet's external speaker. "You're an unarmored civilian with an Aether signature so weak my scanner almost missed it entirely. What the hell were you thinking, taking on an E-Rank scrapper alone?"
"It... it had a girl," Cardo wheezed, pressing a shaking hand against the wall and forcing himself to his feet. Every breath felt like inhaling broken glass.
The Enforcer paused. He glanced at the torn yellow backpack near the open manhole, then looked back at Cardo. The combat-ready tension in his posture softened a fraction. He reached down, scooped up the grey Aether-core from the ashes, and tossed it over.
Cardo caught it clumsily against his chest, wincing.
"You bought her just enough time for me to connect with the Aether disturbance and get here," the Enforcer said, his tone still gruff but now carrying a note of genuine respect. "Real guts, kid. I'll give you that. But guts don't stop razor claws. Get home and lock your doors. The western sewers are compromised—sector-wide lockdown in three minutes."
Cardo didn't need to be told twice. He pocketed the core—valuable monster loot that would fetch a decent price at the market—and limped out of the alley. His heart was still hammering against his bruised ribs. He had survived his first real monster encounter. But the reality check burned far worse than his injuries. He had thrown a picture-perfect Body Tempering Aether Fist and hit his mark dead-on, and it simply hadn't been enough to stop a standard E-Rank. He was still too weak to call himself a real fighter. His foundation was solid—but the house wasn't built yet.
---
He made it back to his quiet suburban street just as the sky turned pitch black.
Cardo slipped through the front door, wincing with every step. Uncle Jun was immediately up from his chair, sharp veteran eyes sweeping over Cardo's battered state—the alley dirt, the torn jacket, the careful way he was favoring his left side.
"What the hell happened?" Jun demanded, voice thick with alarm. He crossed the room quickly, his heavy metal leg clanking against the wooden floorboards. "Those market thugs again?"
"Sewer rat," Cardo grunted, sinking into the worn living room couch. He peeled off his jacket, revealing an ugly purple bruise already spreading across his ribs. "E-Rank monster. It was dragging a girl near the market. I stalled it long enough for an Enforcer to finish it off."
Uncle Jun looked horrified—like a man staring down the worst scolding of his lifetime, his weathered face draining pale at the thought of his sixteen-year-old nephew going hand-to-hand with a lethal void beast. He opened his mouth—
WEE-OOO-WEE-OOO-WEE-OOO.