The journey back to the Blackwood Facility was a blur of concrete and humiliation.
Mr.
Graves didn’t just drag Kael; he threw him into the narrow, rain-slicked alleyway behind the orphanage’s kitchens, out of sight of the streetlamps.
Kael hit the wet cobblestones hard, scraping his jaw.
Before he could push himself up, Graves’s boot slammed into his ribs.
The crack echoed loudly in the damp air.
“F-rank,” Graves spat, raw, unhinged malice replacing the grease in his voice.
“Ten years of feeding you, clothing you, keeping the peacekeepers from throwing you in the river—and you give me an F-rank!”
Kael gasped, clutching his side.
“I’ll work—” he choked out, tasting copper.
“The mines…
I’ll pay it back.”
“The mines?” Graves laughed, a harsh, grating sound.
He kicked Kael again, this time in the stomach.
All the air violently evacuated Kael’s lungs.
“An F-rank with a trash ability wouldn’t survive a week in the mines.
You’re not an investment anymore, Morgan.
You’re a liability.
You embarrassed me in front of the Academy.”
The yelling stopped, but the impacts didn’t.
Each blow landed with a dull, efficient thud—shoulder, spine, the side of his knee.
Kael curled into a ball, but there was nowhere to hide.
His malnourished body absorbed each strike until the sharp edges of pain blurred into a single, blinding sheet, then faded to a terrifying numbness.
Through a slit of a swollen eye, Kael saw Graves step back, breathing hard.
The debt-master pulled a handkerchief from his pocket, checked it for blood, found none, and folded it back along its original creases before tucking it away, then looked down at the broken shape on the cobblestones with the detached air of someone who had just finished a chore.
“I’ll tell the registry you ran off,” Graves muttered to himself, turning away.
“Loose ends.”
The heavy iron door of the orphanage slammed shut, locking from the inside.
Kael lay alone in the dark.
The cold rain began to fall, mixing with the blood pooling beneath him.
He tried to move his fingers, but nothing happened.
He couldn’t feel his legs.
His breathing was a wet, shallow rattle.
I’m dying, he realized.
The thought wasn’t accompanied by panic, just a hollow, crushing sorrow.
Noah was gone.
His mother was still lost.
He had never even stood a chance.
The last thing he saw was the sky above him, indifferent and wide, and then even that was gone.
Then, the darkness shattered.
The translucent blue screen from the plaza violently ripped itself back into his field of view, now pulsing with a frantic, strobing red warning.
[Warning: Host vitals critical.
Mortality imminent: < 60 seconds.]
The dry, sarcastic voice from before returned, but this time it was razor-sharp, echoing directly into Kael’s fading mind.
[Extreme physical trauma detected.
Analyzing…] [Conclusion: Host environment is fatally hostile.
Immediate adaptation required to prevent termination.]
Kael’s heart gave a weak, stuttering thud.
Deep within his chest, something uncoiled.
It wasn’t mana—not the refined currents he had felt humming in the plaza.
This was older than that.
It didn’t flow; it detonated, ripping outward from somewhere behind his sternum, indifferent to whether he was ready for it.
[F-Rank ‘Adaptation’ engaged.] [Condition met: Near-Death Experience.] [Path: Physical Evolution unlocked.]
The red screens multiplied, surrounding him in the dark alley.
[Generating survival parameters…] [Evolution Option Available: Pain Resistance.
Effect: Ignore pain.
Stop bleeding.
Survive.] [Do you accept?]
Kael couldn’t speak.
Blood filled his throat.
But with the very last spark of his fading will, he screamed the word in his mind.
Yes.
[Evolution accepted.
Commencing bodily rewrite.]
The numbness vanished, replaced by an agony so absolute it arched his broken back off the cobblestones.
His very cells felt like they were boiling.
He could hear the wet, sickening crunch of his shattered ribs forcibly grinding back into place.
Torn muscles knitted together in seconds, weaving themselves tighter and denser than before.
It was terrifying.
It was unnatural.
And it was intoxicating.
The pain wasn’t just an attack anymore; it was fuel.
He could feel it being consumed, repurposed.
It felt as if every point of impact from Graves’s boots was being mapped, measured, and reinforced from within, his own body learning the lesson of the beating in bone and muscle.
When the white-hot fire finally receded, Kael collapsed onto his stomach, gasping for huge, greedy lungfuls of air.
The rain was still falling, but each drop on his skin felt sharp and distinct, no longer lost in the fog of pain.
He pushed himself onto his hands and knees; the wet cobblestones felt solid beneath his palms in a way they hadn’t a minute ago.
He looked down at his hands.
The deep cuts on his knuckles were gone, replaced by faint, silvery scars.
His ribs ached, but his body had repaired the structural damage.
A final notification chimed softly in the dark.
[Adaptation complete.
Status updated.] [Notice: The Infinite Evolution System grows through adversity.
Seek stronger hostility to unlock further evolution branches.]
Kael slowly stood up.
His uniform was soaked in his own blood, and he had nothing to his name.
To the registry, to Graves, and to Noah, Kael Morgan was a dead boy.
A loose end resolved.
He pressed two fingers to his split lip and looked at the blood.
Then he looked back at the text.