Chapter 98 - 97: One Path Ends, Another Begins

Chapter 98: Chapter 97: One Path Ends, Another Begins Meanwhile in Ferndell Ridge, South Courtyard. The last cries of resistance faded beneath the sound of steel on flesh. All across the ruined town, the Duskspire Legion swept through the remnants of the Sengolio force like a black tide. Smoke choked the air, mixing with blood and ash. Bodies littered the streets, some burned, some broken, some wide-eyed with terror frozen in their final moments. Aren’s boots stepped through the wreckage in silence. Behind him, Gorrak drove his hammer down one final time, flattening a wounded soldier who’d tried to crawl away. Rogar skewered two more retreating men with a single thrust, and Trask wiped blood from his twin blades as he passed by. "That’s the last of them," Gorrak grunted. "No survivors. Not this time." "Good," Rogar spat. "They earned it." But Aren didn’t answer. He stood alone at the edge of the square, staring down at the bodies nearest to him, the ones killed by him. Or at least, that should have been his responsibility. The ones Nie Fenghun slaughtered before his eyes. A hobgoblin soldier, spine twisted sideways. Another with half his chest caved in. A third who had tried to protect the others... reduced to red mist from that awful, invisible blast. He remembered the way their bodies flew. The sound of bones shattering. The look in their eyes as they died... and the way he had done nothing. "Too slow." "Too weak." "You couldn’t even scratch him." His breath came harder, not from exhaustion... but from rage. Gorrak walked up beside him. "It wasn’t your fault," the hobgoblin said, tone low. "That freak moved like a storm. No one saw it coming." Aren didn’t look at him. "I should have," he muttered. Trask approached, wiping his hands with a cloth. "You survived, Aren. That counts for something." "No," Aren said, fists clenched. "Not when others didn’t." He stepped forward, kneeling beside one of the bodies, Dravok, one of the hobgoblins. Aren stared at it, his jaw locked tight. "I promised I’d bring them all home," he whispered. "I said we’d be fine." Silence answered. Until a pulse stirred in his chest. He staggered back. His body began to burn. Not fire, but pressure. Not pain, but transformation. Rogar turned sharply. "Aren?" Gorrak stepped closer, alarm in his eyes. "What’s happening to you?" Aren gritted his teeth, trembling. "I... I don’t know...!" His back arched. His arms stretched. Bone cracked. Skin flexed and reshaped. His frame expanded, thickening with muscle and raw energy. His breath came in ragged gasps as his limbs grew heavier, but stronger. His skin darkened slightly, taking on a sheen like polished steel. His eyes flashed red beneath his brow. Then, the surge stopped. He dropped to one knee, panting, the smoke around him swirling like a storm tamed. "...Aren?" Trask asked carefully. Aren rose, slowly. Taller. Broader. His armor strained slightly against his new frame. His aura pulsed, no longer erratic, but steady. Centered. Lumberling would have felt it immediately: the signature of a Knight Apprentice, but laced with something else. Older. Wilder. "Hobgoblin Warlord," Aren whispered. Gorrak’s jaw tightened, then broke into a grin. "You evolved." "Damn right he did," Rogar muttered, nodding with respect. Aren looked down at his hands, stronger hands now, and curled them into fists. "I couldn’t protect them. But I’ll never be that helpless again." Trask stepped forward, slapping him lightly on the back. "You’re not. Not anymore." Aren stared at the dead hobgoblin. "I’ll carry you forward," he thought. "All of you." Then he turned back to the others, new strength radiating off his frame. "Let’s finish sweeping the town," he said, voice deeper now. Firmer. Rogar nodded. "Yes, Captain." Aren blinked. Then he smiled, just barely. ..... Ferndell Ridge – Just Past Midnight The battle was over. The smoke still lingered, but the screams had faded into a strange quiet. Lumberling stood over the broken corpse of Nie Fenghun, his spear now sheathed, though the weight of it still clung to his grip. Skitz approached from behind, boots crunching over shattered tiles. He stopped just short of speaking, watching his Lord in silence. There was something... off. The usual cold focus was still there. But now, something else churned around Lumberling. A thread of pressure Skitz didn’t recognize. Not Knightly aura. Not the devouring edge of essence. Something older. Alien. Skitz narrowed his eyes. "My Lord... what happened?" Lumberling didn’t look at him at first. His gaze remained on Nie Fenghun’s corpse, still partially twisted, blood pooling around the body like ink from a shattered pen. He exhaled slowly. "That man... he’s different," Lumberling finally said, his voice low. Measured. "Not a mage. Not a Knight." Skitz tilted his head, brow furrowing. "Then what was he?" "A Cultivator." "Cultivator?" Skitz echoed, like the phrase itself was foreign on his tongue. Lumberling finally turned to face him. "A different power system. One not born from mana, essence, or Knight training. He fought with something else. Something I absorbed, at least in part." Skitz’s eyes sharpened. "So the Sengolio Empire has more allies than we thought?" Lumberling shook his head. "No. He wasn’t one of theirs. Not truly." He stepped back from the corpse and knelt beside it. His fingers moved swiftly, practiced, searching pouches, folds of torn cloth, hidden seams. "From his memories, his presence there was... tolerated, not embraced. He was arrogant. Uncontrolled. A man who wanted to rise on his own terms." He held up a small leather pouch. Inside: a bundle of crumpled parchment and a modest satchel of gold coins, just 200. "That’s all?" Skitz muttered. "After all that trouble." He grumbled. "He wasn’t in it for gold," Lumberling replied. "He was in it for greatness." Skitz folded his arms. "A lot of dead men were." A quiet moment passed between them. The wind stirred smoke around their legs. "So..." Skitz said slowly. "Another power system. You think we’ll see more of them?" "We’ll see," he simply said. Lumberling looked off into the distance, toward the faint glow of their campfires. His thoughts flickered not to Nie’s corpse, but to the foreign memories now embedded in his mind, the snow-capped palace, the voice whispering adapt, survive. Then, with a faint, tired smile, Lumberling spoke: "Let’s return." Skitz nodded, though his mind was clearly still spinning. And with that, they vanished into the smoke, leaving the red-robed corpse behind, alone beneath the moonlight. ..... The night air was cold against his face. The trail back to base wound through shadowed woods, the leaves whispering with each step. Around him, the forest stretched quiet and dark, disturbed only by the soft footfalls of returning Duskspire soldiers and the rustle of armor. But Lumberling wasn’t listening. His mind wasn’t on the path. It wasn’t even on the recent battle. It was still on Nie Fenghun, on what he’d seen, absorbed, and remembered. Nie Fenghun hadn’t just appeared in this world like he had. He had been reborn. A soul granted a second life. Memories intact. Confidence, ego, power, all forged from a place far removed from this world’s rules. Lumberling, on the other hand... had awakened on a different body. Not summoned. Not chosen. Not even reborn. Just... inserted into a body, with no voice from beyond, no divine decree. He remembered it clearly: the vast emptiness. The silence. A drifting through an unfeeling void. Then... breath. Dirt. Pain. His hands were already calloused, his body already scarred. No prophecy. No entity whispering "rise again." Just survival. And now, here he was, hunting monsters, absorbing power from corpses, and walking beside men who would die for him. He shook his head, brushing the thoughts aside. ’No point in chasing questions I can’t answer.’ There were too many paths he couldn’t see clearly. So he focused on what he could. With a thought, his status window opened. A faint shimmer crossed his vision, familiar now. Name: Lumberling Race: Human Age: 23 Level: 8 Essence Point: (16,829 / 17,800) Power: 3,331 (Skills: 2,250 | Level: 1,081) Knight Stage: Knight Apprentice Cultivation Realm: Unranked Fragment of Divine Blessing: Qi Adaptation (A trait bestowed upon beings from the Martial Realms, allowing them to thrive in foreign energy systems.) Active Skills Beginner Sprint Lv1 (496/1000) Beginner Hammer Shock Lv0 (811/1000) Beginner Essence Weave Lv0 (343/1000) (Derived from Essence Devour. Allows the user to bind the essence of a fallen enemy and channel it into another chosen vessel.) Passive Skills Essence Devour Beginner Spearheart Doctrine Lv7 (546/1000) Beginner Concealment Lv4 (792/1000) Beginner Swordsmanship Lv2 (991/1000) Beginner Bowmanship Lv1 (542/1000) Beginner Shieldmanship Lv0 (897/1000) Beginner Cudgel Fighting Lv0 (831/1000) Beginner Dual Wielding Axe Lv0 (371/1000) Resistances Beginner Poison Resistance Lv0 (183/1000) Lumberling’s eyes lingered on the two newest entries. "Cultivation Realm: Unranked." "Fragment of Divine Blessing: Qi Adaptation." They glowed faintly, distinct from the rest, as if not native to the system he’d grown used to. ’So this is it,’ he thought. ’A new path. A separate road of power entirely... and the blessing is the key to walking it here.’ His fingers flexed unconsciously, feeling the faint hum beneath his skin. Not mana. Not essence. Something more compact. Condensed. Flowing like a second bloodstream. He hadn’t accessed it yet, not fully. But it was there now, lurking beneath the surface. Like a second heartbeat. Another system... another world’s power now inside me. And perhaps, not the last. He closed the window. The forest quieted around them again. Skitz trudged a few paces ahead, muttering about Nie’s meager gold pouch and his obnoxious death speech. The others marched in loose formation, unaware of the new power simmering in their leader’s bones. Lumberling glanced up at the night sky, the stars barely visible through the canopy. ’I don’t know who else walks this world like I do,’ he though ’But if powers like this exist...’ ’Then I’ll master them. All of them.’ ’I’ll carve my own path.’