Three miles away from the Kampilan gates, tucked deep within the rocky outskirts of the Sidlangan District, the air buzzed with heavy tension.
This was the fringe line of Purok Sariman, anchored right above the pitch-black limestone cave network known across the ledger as Purok Ginto—the exact neighborhood where Ambo had first opened his amnesiac eyes.
Inside a hollowed-out shipping vault, the atmosphere was suffocatingly thick, reeking of ancient rust and old-world decay.
Braxley’s top lieutenant, a scarred human wielding a pair of jagged daggers, spat on the floor.
He looked at the two men standing before him.
One was Seth, looking effortlessly calm in a simple polo shirt and checkered pants.
He bore a striking set of battle scars: a jagged line cutting from the top of his right eye all the way down to his cheek, and another brutal slash running from his left ear, across the bridge of his nose, to his right ear.
Beside him stood Zuma, a massive, silent enforcer for Walibu built like a mountain of a sumo wrestler, whose presence radiated absolute quiet malice.
“Our boss doesn’t risk his neck for street dealers,” Braxley’s lieutenant sneered.
“Why did Walibu only send a couple of lapdogs?
Where’s your leader?” “You don’t need to see him,” Seth replied smoothly, placing a heavy steel briefcase on the table.
He cracked it open, revealing shimmering vials of an unpolished, violet liquid.
“This is an introductory phase.
A prototype shortcut to give ordinary civilians raw Astral power.
They can be compared to a level of Segonda if they were to drink it, forcefully accelerating someone into an ability user until they become a Segonda.
It is untested.” The lieutenant laughed, picking up a vial.
“Untested?
Then let’s see what it does.” He grabbed one of his own scrawny grunt guards by the throat and forced the violet liquid down his throat.
“Drink up, boy.
Let’s see if Walibu’s garbage is real.” For a second, nothing happened.
Then, the grunt shrieked.
A violent, blinding white Astral aura erupted from the grunt’s pores.
His veins turned a luminous purple, his muscles tearing and expanding as he let out a mindless, bloodcurdling roar, smashing a concrete pillar into dust.
He had become a rampaging beast.
Seth didn’t even blink.
He simply glanced at his partner, then looked back at the lieutenant.
“Are you sure you wanted to try it and not show it to your boss?
What a waste.
But still, a deal is a deal.
We just deliver the product, and the rest is yours.
Hand over the cargo ledger and we will be moving.” The lieutenant narrowed his eyes, grinning maliciously as his men stepped forward.
He declined to hand over the labor asset records.
“Kill them,” he ordered his thugs.
Seth remained completely unbothered, his gaze drifting lazily over to Zuma.
“Well, make them cough up our shipment.” The sound of fracturing bone echoed through the shipping vault as Zuma brought his massive, aura-coated palm down onto Braxley’s lieutenant.
The cartel was entirely dismantled in a matter of minutes.
Zuma grunted, reaching into the ruined scrap-metal throne to pull out a heavy iron container—their guaranteed payment, overflowing with a detailed asset ledger and heavy iron labor tokens representing the fresh batch of surface slaves captured by the cartel cells.
With a deafening crash, Drax and a terrified Ambo plummeted through the ceiling, landing hard in a heap of shattered debris right between the warring factions.
“We were supposed to just watch!” Ambo yelled, coughing through the thick cloud of rising dust.
“Plans change, kid!” Drax roared, his claws expanding instantly as he pivoted to face Braxley’s armed thugs.
Before Ambo could even scramble to his feet, the drug-crazed grunt blurred through the dust cloud.
A heavy, aura-coated fist slammed directly into the boy’s jaw, sending him flying violently across the warehouse floor into a stack of rusted iron crates.
The impact rattled his brain.
The world spun in jagged shades of red and black.
But as the immense physical pain flared through his skull, a strange, solitary word fractured the dark void of his amnesia.
It echoed in his mind like a striking bell.
Kiraram.
He blinked away the warm blood dripping down his cheek, completely dazed.
Kiraram…
what is that?
What does that word mean?
He didn’t know if it was a place, a person, or an object, but it was permanently burned into his head.
The warehouse was a complete warzone.
Drax was a blur of reptilian fury, his heavy tail snapping a thug’s ribs while Zuma engaged the rampaging grunt with devastating, silent precision.
Ambo crawled backward into a dark corner, his heart hammering violently against his ribs.
He didn’t know how to punch.
He didn’t have Astral fire, lightning, or light.
But as a stray blade flew toward his face, a strange, instinctual knowledge flooded his consciousness.
He didn’t know what it was, but he knew exactly how it felt.
He thrust his hands forward.
Instead of a brilliant light or flame, a thick, oily Black Goo erupted from his palms.
It didn’t launch an attack; instead, it solidified instantly into a dense, layered shield of pitch-black fluid, catching the rogue blade perfectly.
The goo rippled, absorbing the impact like a sponge.
Ambo peeked out from behind his black shield, his chest heaving as he watched Drax tear through the cartel.
He didn’t know what this black substance was, but it kept him alive.
For now, he would stay in the shadows and wait.
The sound of fracturing bone echoed through the shipping vault as Zuma brought his massive, aura-coated palm down onto Braxley’s lieutenant.
The cartel was entirely dismantled in a matter of minutes.
Zuma grunted, reaching into the ruined scrap-metal throne to pull out a heavy iron container—their guaranteed payment, overflowing with a detailed asset ledger and heavy iron labor tokens representing the fresh batch of surface slaves captured by the cartel cells.
Seth stepped over the unconscious grunts, his eyes scanning the debris.
He wasn’t looking at the cargo.
His gaze drifted toward the dark corner of the room, locking directly onto the trembling, pitch-black fluid shield protecting the rookie Culler.
That isn’t Light.
It isn’t Fire, Seth thought, his sharp eyes narrowing as he analyzed the oily texture of the defensive barrier.
There is no Astral energy radiating from that boy.
It feels…
strangely organic.
For a split second, Seth considered walking over to peel the shield away himself.
But the corrugated roof groaned again, a heavy structural beam snapping in half above them.
Time had run out.
“We’re done here, Zuma,” Seth said, turning his back on the corner.
“We have the labor tokens.
Let the guild lapdogs scurry back to their kennel.
We’ll cross paths with them soon enough.” With a swift, practiced movement, Seth and Zuma vanished into the billowing dust cloud of the back exit, leaving the collapsing vault behind.
“Kid!
Move your tail!” Drax’s heavy hand slammed into Ambo’s shoulder, shattering his concentration.
The moment Ambo’s hands dropped, the pitch-black shield dissolved back into his skin like melting shadow.
Before Ambo could process the sudden exhaustion washing over him, Drax lunged across the central table, his clawed hand snatching a stray violet vial of the Astral booster drug that had rolled into the debris.
“Got the evidence.
Now we run!” Drax barked.
Using his immense hybrid strength, Drax threw his weight against a weakened side wall, shattering the rotting concrete wide open.
He hauled Ambo through the breach just as the warehouse roof completely caved in behind them, burying the remaining cartel thugs under tons of twisted iron.
They sprinted through the skeletal remains of the lower docks, not stopping until they reached the shadowed safety of an abandoned aqueduct.
Both of them were panting, covered in gray ash and drywall dust.
Drax leaned against the brick wall, carefully tucking the shimmering violet vial into his leather tactical pouch.
He looked down at Ambo, his yellow slit-pupils focusing on the boy’s trembling fingers.
Faint traces of an oily, black residue were still evaporating from Ambo’s skin, leaving no smell and no burn marks.
“Hey,” Drax muttered, pointing a claw at Ambo’s hand.
“What kind of Segonda element was that?
I’ve seen obsidian users and dark-smoke materializers, but that junk looked like living mud.” Ambo stared at his palms, rubbing his thumbs together.
The skin was completely normal now, though the heavy weight of the word Kiraram still vibrated in his thoughts.
“I…
I don’t know.
When that grunt hit me, my mind just split open.
I remembered this weird word…
Kiraram.
I don’t know what it means.
And then…
I just knew how to make this black stuff appear.
I don’t know what it is.” Drax shrugged, shaking his head as his long reptilian tail flicked the dirt.
“Whatever.
Ever since the very first Astral users emerged centuries ago, the world’s been full of weird-ass Segonda elements popping up out of nowhere.
No one really knows how or why our bodies trigger these things anyway.
As long as it keeps you from getting your head caved in, I don’t care if you sprout wings.” He slapped Ambo’s back, nearly knocking the wind out of him.
“Come on, Ambo.
We got the drug.
We need to report to Xan right now.” The steel Culler badge clicked loudly against the wooden desk inside the Guild command center, placed right next to the glowing violet vial.
Xan didn’t look annoyed anymore.
She looked deeply, dangerously quiet.
She picked up the vial, swirling the luminescent purple liquid against the torchlight of the room.
Zaiden and Jahek stood by the window, their relaxed expressions hardening as they listened to Drax’s report of the warehouse encounter.
Xan noted the change in operational parameters.
The mission was explicitly drawn as a scouting surveillance task, but given the critical structural threat of the prototype booster drug, she quietly let the physical alteration of the plan go.
Securing this glowing evidence was far too valuable for the guild’s long-term survival.
“So, Braxley didn’t even show his face,” Xan murmured, her thumb tracing the glass of the vial.
“And this unknown group…
they called themselves Walibu?” “Yeah,” Drax nodded, crossing his arms.
“And their enforcers are no joke.
A big guy built like a sumo wrestler and a guy with a scarred face.
They’re distributing this garbage to the street gangs.
One of Braxley’s grunts drank it and nearly leveled a structural pillar with raw, unfiltered energy before the roof came down.” Zaiden stepped away from the window, his heavy gaze fixing on the vial.
“If Walibu is handing out shortcuts to Segonda status, the fragile balance we built over the last decade is dead.
Every small-time thug on the surface is going to try and become a warlord.” “Which means our scouting days are over,” Xan said, her voice dropping into a cold, commanding register as she looked at Ambo and Drax.
“This isn’t a C-Class threat anymore.
If a faction is actively weaponizing civilian populations to blind the Guild, something massive is coming.” She locked the vial inside a reinforced iron drawer beneath her desk.
“Get cleaned up and rest,” Xan ordered, her eyes lingering on Ambo for a fraction of a second.
“The cartel is going to retaliate for losing their shipment, and Walibu isn’t going to let this evidence sit in our hands for long.
Welcome to the Kampilan Guild, Ambo.
Your rookie grace period just ended.”