The Darkness System: Rise of the Broken Sovereign

Finesh walked away from the group, his movements casual, unhurried. To his teammates, he appeared to be simply finding a private spot to relieve himself.

Kael followed at a distance, his shadow manipulation concealing his presence, his footsteps silent on the moss-covered ground.

Finesh kept walking. Then walking became wandering. Then wandering became circling — a slow, deliberate spiral that was clearly designed to flush out whatever was following him.

After several minutes, Finesh stopped in a small clearing lit by bioluminescent moss. He stood still, his back to Kael, his head slightly tilted.

”You can come out now.”

Kael didn’t move.

”Come on,” Finesh said, his sibilant accent carrying a note of amusement. ”I can sense you even in that dark shroud of yours.”

Kael’s smirk widened. He dropped the shadow concealment and stepped out from behind a massive root, his hands clasped behind his back.

Finesh turned to face him. His yellow-green eyes scanned Kael from head to toe, and Kael saw the exact moment the hunter assessed his apparent cultivation level. The faint relaxation in Finesh’s posture. The dismissive curl of his lip.

”Another one of you outsiders.” Finesh’s voice was flat. ”I would have let you live, but you came at the wrong time.”

He moved.

One moment he was standing still, the next he was directly in front of Kael, his fist driving toward Kael’s face with lethal intent.

Kael raised his arm and blocked.

THUD.

The impact sent a jolt up Kael’s arm, but he didn’t move. His feet stayed planted. His expression didn’t change.

Finesh’s eyes widened.

I’m a Rank 5 Mana Heart cultivator, he thought, shock rippling through him. And he blocked my full-strength strike without budging?

Kael frowned inwardly. They’re stronger than human cultivators at the same realm. Is it all of them, or is he just an anomaly?

He didn’t have time to ponder. Finesh was already attacking again — a rapid combination of punches and kicks that flowed like water, each strike transitioning smoothly into the next.

Kael kicked out, catching Finesh in the ribs. The hunter grunted and twisted away, his hands forming a strange seal.

”Vael-Khazul Art: Shadow Serpent Strike.”

Darkness coalesced in front of Finesh, shaping itself into a serpent three meters long. Its eyes glowed with malevolent green light as it lunged toward Kael, fangs bared.

Kael smirked. ”Darkness ability. Just perfect.”

His fingers flicked outward.

Lightning Fang. Lightning Fang. Lightning Fang. Lightning Fang.

Four bolts of crackling electricity tore through the shadow serpent, shredding it into dissipating darkness before it could reach him.

Finesh’s eyes narrowed. Then something shifted in his back.

CRACK. CRACK.

Wings burst from his shoulder blades — leathery, bat-like, spanning nearly four meters, covered in the same pale green scales as his skin. They beat once, twice, and Finesh launched himself forward with speed that blurred his form.

The punch connected with Kael’s chest.

BOOM.

Kael was sent flying backward, crashing through two smaller trees before his back slammed into a massive trunk. The impact cracked the bark and drove the air from his lungs.

He caught himself before he could fall, his fingers digging into the wood. Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth.

He’s fast.

Kael wiped the blood away and activated Lightning Body. White lightning crackled across his skin as he pushed off the tree and rocketed forward.

Finesh met him halfway.

Their fists collided.

BOOM.

The shockwave blew outward in a sphere of force, flattening the moss, uprooting small plants, and sending branches raining down from above. Both fighters were pushed back — Finesh skidding across the clearing, Kael sliding backward but keeping his footing.

They launched at each other again.

CLANG. CLANG. CLANG. BOOM.

Blinding speed. Fists and feet became streaks of motion, too fast for the eye to track. Each collision produced a shockwave that cracked the ground beneath them. Trees groaned and tilted as the repeated impacts shook their roots.

Finesh was good. His serpent-like fighting style was unpredictable, his wings giving him aerial mobility that Kael couldn’t match. But Kael’s Void Body Refinement meant every hit Finesh landed did less damage than it should, while Kael’s returned strikes were heavier, harder, more devastating.

Still, the fight was creating too much disturbance.

I can’t have the others coming here because of the noise, Kael thought.

He formed a hand sign — index and middle fingers crossed at the wrists.

”Realm of Darkness: Darker Than Black.”

A sphere of absolute darkness expanded outward, swallowing everything within a fifty-meter radius. Light ceased to exist. Sound vanished. The clearing became a void cut off from the rest of the world.

Finesh looked around, his reptilian eyes narrowing. He couldn’t see anything.

Then a kick came from the darkness.

His hand snapped up and caught Kael’s leg. He shoved hard, sending Kael tumbling backward, and immediately rushed toward the direction of the push.

Kael thought, landing lightly on his feet. Sensory ability. He doesn’t need eyes to find me.

Realm of Darkness’s invisibility is useless against this guy. But that wasn’t the point.

The darkness muffled the sounds of their battle. The fight was now contained.

Finesh found him and attacked — a sweeping kick followed by a rapid combination. Kael blocked the kick with his forearm and caught the following punches, redirecting them away from his body.

PAM. PAM. PAM.

They clashed in the darkness, trading blows at close range. But this time, Kael wasn’t holding back.

His Void physique absorbed damage that would have broken a normal Rank 5 cultivator. His fists hit harder. His movements were more precise. Finesh’s strikes left bruises that faded in seconds; Kael’s strikes left Finesh bleeding and stumbling.

Kael reinforced his fists with gravity — each punch now carried the weight of a small boulder compressed into a single point. Simultaneously, he used gravity manipulation to reduce his own weight, making his movements even faster, more elusive.

Finesh threw a desperate punch.

Kael slipped inside his guard and drove his gravity-reinforced fist into Finesh’s face.

CRACK.

The impact sent Finesh flying backward through the darkness. Before he could recover, Kael used Gravity Pull — dragging the hunter back toward him like a fish on a line.

Finesh’s eyes widened as he rocketed toward Kael’s waiting fist.

BOOM.

Another hit to the face. Blood and teeth sprayed from Finesh’s mouth.

Kael raised his palm. A spiraling black-purple orb formed — Pulsar.

”Enjoy.”

He released it point-blank.

BOOM.

The gravitational explosion caught Finesh full-on, crushing his defenses and launching him through the boundary of the Realm of Darkness. He crashed to the ground outside the sphere, his body broken and bleeding, unconscious before he hit the moss.

Kael released the technique. The darkness faded, returning the clearing to its normal twilight gloom.

He walked over to Finesh’s crumpled form and grabbed him by the ankle. Then he dragged the hunter toward a nearby cave he’d spotted earlier — a natural formation in the roots of an enormous tree.

Five minutes. That was all the fight had taken.

A few moments later.

Finesh groaned as cold water splashed across his face. He jerked awake, his yellow-green eyes snapping open, and immediately tried to move.

He couldn’t. His arms and legs were bound tightly with rope, secured to stakes driven into the cave floor. His wounds had been roughly bandaged — enough to keep him from dying, not enough to be comfortable.

”What the heck?” Finesh hissed, struggling against his bonds.

Kael sat on a rock a few feet away, his silver-gray eyes watching Finesh with mild amusement. The Shadow Slayer blades rested at his hips, their dark metal catching the faint blue-green light from the moss outside.

”Hey, Finesh.” Kael tilted his head. ”That’s your name, right?”

He stood and walked over, crouching down to tap Finesh’s cheek lightly with one finger.

”Now we’re going to have a long, nice chat.”