The damp smell of stagnant water and decaying leaves washed over Kaelen as he wriggled through the narrow, moss-covered stone breach behind the West Watchtower.
The runoff channel was barely wide enough for his shoulders, slick with subterranean algae and cold enough to make his teeth chatter. But as he pushed past the rusted iron bars that had been severed years ago by rust and tide, the suffocating oppression of Oakhaven’s high walls fell away.
He stepped out onto a muddy embankment on the outer perimeter of the city.
Above him, the colossal white cliffs of the High Precinct towered like silent, moonlit sentinels, their warding runes glowing with a faint blue luster that kept high-grade flying beasts away from the nobility. But out here, beyond the stone perimeter and past the reach of the city guards, the world belonged to the untamed wilderness.
Before him stretched the Whispering Woods.
The forest was a dark, primordial sea of ancient iron-oak trees, their gnarled branches weaving together to block out all but thin slivers of silvery moonlight. A thick, eerie fog clung to the forest floor, swirling around mossy roots and jagged boulders. Distant, haunting calls echoed through the shadows—the clicking of giant arachnid mandibles, the screech of night-hawks, and the low, guttural growls of prowling predators.
Kaelen crouched in the tall, dew-soaked grass at the forest edge, adjusting the strap of his canvas satchel. In his right hand, he held Old Bram’s custom iron hunting knife, its blade dark and oiled to prevent light from catching the metal.
"We're outside, Nox," Kaelen whispered softly.
A tiny shadow detached itself from Kaelen’s tunic collar. Nox slithered down his arm and landed silently on a flat stone. In the gloom, the tiny black creature was nearly invisible; only its liquid golden eyes burned like two embers of trapped sunlight.
Nox let out a silent yawn, stretching its front paws. Then, its long tail flicked, and its tiny ears twitched toward the dark interior of the woods.
Kaelen opened his System interface, reviewing the updated status panel he had unlocked moments before sneaking past the tower:
[NAME: KAELEN ASHFORD] [CLASS: FAILED SUMMONER] [ACTIVE SUMMONS: 1 / 1]
[SUMMON: NOX (VOID-STALKER)] [DISPLAYED CR: 1] [TRUE COMBAT RATING: 62] [UNLOCKED SKILLS: SILENT TREAD, VOID-CLAW, SHADOW SENSE, AGILITY BOOST I] [CURRENT EP: 25]
Kaelen felt a surge of quiet confidence. A Combat Rating of 62 was higher than any standard Iron-grade beast summoned by commoners, and nearly approached the rating of a low-tier Silver beast. More importantly, Nox possessed skills that defied standard System categorizations.
"Let's test Shadow Sense," Kaelen murmured, reaching down to place two fingers lightly against Nox's forehead.
A subtle, cool sensation passed through the soul bond. Instantly, Kaelen’s perception expanded beyond his physical vision.
In his mind's eye, the dark forest was transformed into a grey-scale map woven with glowing threads of ambient mana. Through Nox’s heightened senses, Kaelen could feel every heartbeat within a thirty-meter radius. He felt the cold, slow pulse of a tree-frog buried in damp mud; the flickering, weak mana of a dozen night-beetles crawling beneath decaying bark; and, twenty meters to the north, a warm, pulsing heat signature moving through the underbrush.
Target found, Nox communicated through a pulse of primal instinct.
Kaelen nodded, his gaze hardening. "Show me what you can do."
Moving like a pair of specters, boy and beast slipped into the shadow of the Whispering Woods.
The air grew noticeably colder beneath the canopy. Every rustle of leaves made Kaelen’s adrenaline surge. Out here, there were no arena safety barriers or watching acolytes. A mistake meant death, his body left to rot in the underbrush until nothing remained to be buried.
Nox led the way, its paws making absolutely no sound against the dry twigs and brittle stone thanks to Silent Tread.
Ten meters ahead, near a rotting fallen iron-oak, a creature was rooting through the soil for glowing night-truffles.
It was a Spiked Iron-Boar—a common Iron-grade mana beast roughly the size of a hunting hound. Its back was covered in thick, dark-grey hide reinforced with bone-like armor plates, and two curved, jagged tusks jutted from its lower jaw. Above its head, the System displayed its basic stats:
[WILD BEAST: SPIKED IRON-BOAR] [TIER: IRON-GRADE] [COMBAT RATING: 24] [STATUS: AGGRESSIVE / FEEDING]
A Combat Rating of 24. For a standard unranked novice summoner, an Iron-Boar was a dangerous opponent; its armor plating could deflect iron spears, and its charge was strong enough to shatter human ribs.
"CR twenty-four," Kaelen whispered to himself, his fingers tightening around the wooden handle of Bram’s knife. "Normally, a party of three commoners with Bronze summons would team up to hunt one of these."
Easy prey, Nox’s mental signal hummed with absolute disdain.
"Don't be careless," Kaelen cautioned through the bond. "Its back hide is too thick for my knife. We need to strike the soft joint beneath its neck, or disable its rear leg first."
Nox didn't reply in words. Instead, the tiny black creature lowered its body, its body blending seamlessly into the ink-black shadow cast by a mossy boulder.
Agility Boost I: Activated. Shadow Sense: Locked.
The Spiked Iron-Boar suddenly froze. Its wet snout twitched, sniffing the damp air as if sensing an invisible shift in the atmosphere. It let out a low, suspicious grunt, its red eyes scanning the mist-covered bushes.
It saw nothing.
Then, Nox moved.
The tiny black beast did not run; it teleported through the shadows, turning into a blur of pure darkness. In less than a fraction of a second, Nox leaped from the boulder, sailing through the air directly toward the boar's flank.
Mid-flight, four razor-sharp claws extended from Nox’s front paws. A jet-black, abyssal aura coated the tips of the claws—the manifestation of Void-Claw.
SLASH!
Nox struck the boar’s hind leg with terrifying speed.
To a normal observer, a tiny kitten striking an armored boar would look absurd. But the moment Nox’s claws touched the boar’s iron-hard hide, the heavy bone armor did not deflect the blow.
The abyssal energy coating Nox's claws completely negated the physical defense of the armor plates, cutting through thick hide, muscle, and tendon as effortlessly as a hot blade slicing through lard.
"RROAARRGH!"
The Spiked Iron-Boar let out a deafening squeal of agony as its rear left leg collapsed beneath it. Black blood spurted onto the mossy ground.
Before the beast could spin around to gore its tiny attacker with its tusks, Nox planted its hind paws on the boar's snout, vaulting backward into the air with unnatural grace (Agility Boost I). Nox landed silently five meters away on a low branch, its golden eyes gleaming with predatory efficiency.
The boar thrashed wildly, its red eyes filled with rage and pain as it tried to stand on three legs, violently swinging its tusks at the empty air.
"My turn," Kaelen muttered.
Executing the tactical positioning he had studied in beast manuals for years, Kaelen sprinted from behind the fallen tree. He kept his footsteps light, closing the distance while the boar’s attention was completely fixed on Nox.
The boar caught a glimpse of Kaelen’s shadow and tried to turn, but its severed tendon buckled.
Kaelen stepped into the strike with all the leverage of his body, driving Bram’s heavy iron knife deep into the soft, unarmored crevice beneath the boar’s lower jaw.
THWACK!
The sharp iron blade sank six inches deep, severing the creature’s main artery and piercing its brainstem.
The Spiked Iron-Boar stiffened violently, its crimson eyes widening in shock. Then, with a heavy, wet thud, the creature collapsed onto its side, its legs twitching once before going completely still.
Silence returned to the damp woods.
Kaelen stood over the fallen beast, breathing heavily, his hands slick with sweat and iron-scented blood. His heart pounded against his ribs like a war drum.
He had done it. He had slain his first wild mana beast.
A series of translucent blue System notifications flared before his eyes in quick succession:
[WILD BATTLE CONCLUDED] [TARGET DEFEATED: SPIKED IRON-BOAR (CR 24)] [BATTLE TIME: 4.2 SECONDS] [PERFECT SYNCHRONIZATION BONUS ACHIEVED!]
[EXPERIENCE GAINED FOR SUMMONER & BEAST] [EXTINCTION POINTS ACQUIRED: +30 EP] [CURRENT EP: 55]
[SENSING ANCIENT ERSED GENE FRAGMENT WITHIN TARGET BLOODLINE...] [VOID ABSORPTION AVAILABLE]
Kaelen blinked in surprise. "A gene fragment?"
Before he could process the notification, Nox leaped down from the tree branch and landed on the boar's chest. The tiny creature bowed its head, opening its small mouth.
A pale, misty trail of dark blue mana began to rise from the Spiked Iron-Boar’s cooling carcass, flowing steadily into Nox’s mouth like liquid smoke.
As Nox absorbed the creature’s residual mana and ancient biological trace, the dark fur along Nox's spine glistened with a subtle, midnight-purple sheen.
[VOID ABSORPTION COMPLETE] [GENE FRAGMENT ANALYZED: ANCIENT EARTH-SPIKE PORCUPINE (EXTINCT)] [EP BONUS: +25 EP] [TOTAL CURRENT EP: 80]
[NOX'S ANCESTRAL RESTORATION PROGRESS: 2.1%]
Kaelen gasped gently. "Even common modern beasts carry micro-fragments of extinct bloodlines?"
All living things descend from the erased, a quiet, instinctual echo resonated through the soul bond from Nox. The tiny creature licked its paw, looking thoroughly satisfied, before leaping back onto Kaelen's shoulder and rubbing its cheek affectionately against his neck.
Kaelen smiled, rubbing the tiny creature behind its ears. "Good job, Nox. That was incredible."
He knelt beside the boar carcass and pulled out his small skinning chisel from his satchel. Even if he couldn't register his kill at the Mercenary Guild without a license, the iron tusks of a Spiked Iron-Boar could be sold to Bram for five silver pieces, and the small monster core in its chest could fetch another eight coppers at the black market fence in the lower docks.
For twenty minutes, Kaelen carefully harvested the tusks and extracted the cloudy, dime-sized mana core from the creature's chest cavity, wrapping them in clean oilcloth.
Just as he finished wiping his knife clean on a patch of wet moss, Nox’s ears suddenly snapped back.
The golden eyes of the tiny Void-Stalker narrowed into razor-thin slits.
Kaelen, Nox warned mentally, a low, menacing growl vibrating in its tiny throat.
"What is it?" Kaelen instantly dropped into a low crouch, dousing his lantern glow and melting into the thick shadows beneath the iron-oak canopy.
Through Shadow Sense, the grey-scale mana map in Kaelen's mind suddenly flared with multiple bright crimson red signatures—not twenty meters away, but nearly fifty meters deeper into the forest.
There were five... no, six distinct mana signatures. They were moving at terrifying speed, bounding through the underbrush in a tactical pack formation.
[DETECTED BEAST PACK: SHADOW-CLAW WOLVES] [AVERAGE COMBAT RATING: 45 - 55] [PACK STATUS: HUNTING / FLEEING?]
"Shadow-Claw Wolves?" Kaelen’s blood ran cold. Shadow-Claw Wolves were Silver-grade pack predators known for their ruthless coordination. A single wolf possessed a CR of 50, but a pack of six could easily slaughter an entire team of veteran Silver-rank mercenaries.
"Why are Silver-grade wolves hunting so close to the outer perimeter?" Kaelen whispered, holding his breath as he pulled Nox deeper into the roots of the giant tree.
Then, through Nox’s Shadow Sense, Kaelen felt something even more chilling.
The wolves were not hunting.
They were fleeing.
Behind the six terrified wolves, a seventh mana signature was pursuing them through the pitch-black canopy—a single, massive entity that emitted almost no sound, no thermal heat, and no standard mana aura.
It moved like a phantom through the high branches, picking off the trailing wolves one by one with terrifying, silent precision.
[WARNING: UNREGISTERED MANA SIGNATURE DETECTED] [ANCIENT BESTIARY ANALYSIS IN PROGRESS...] [SPECIES: UNKNOWN / ERSED FROM SYSTEM RECORDS]
Kaelen’s breath hitched in his throat as he pressed his back against the cold bark.
Something ancient was hunting in the Whispering Woods.