I Can Copy And Evolve Talents

Chapter 1215: A Vile Disappointment

The Obsidian Crow shrieked—a sound that tore through the air like rending metal—and launched itself forward.

Fifty feet of wingspan. Talons extended, each one designed to pierce and rend. The beak opened wide, revealing a throat that burned with accumulated death energy—centuries of it, probably. Maybe more.

Fast.

Incredibly fast.

The kind of speed that came from a Paragon channeling everything into pure, desperate offense.

Northern didn’t move.

He stood there, shadow blades still in hand, watching the massive predator descend on him like a falling meteor. The wind from those wings alone could probably snap bones. The talons could definitely punch through steel.

’Interesting choice. Abandoning technique for raw power.’

The thought drifted through his mind with clinical detachment.

’Unfortunate choice, more accurately.’

After all, power without precision was just flailing. And flailing never worked against someone who knew what they were doing.

The talons reached him.

[You’re using Wind Embrace]

Northern’s body dissolved into wind.

The Patriarch’s talons closed on nothing—just air and shadows that scattered like startled birds. The momentum carried him forward, massive body crashing into the stone ground with enough force to crack it. Debris exploded outward in a wave that peppered the chamber walls. Dust billowed. The impact echoed.

Northern stopped twenty feet to the left, standing casually on empty air as if it were solid ground.

”Did you abandon swords just to swing claws at me like an animal?”

His voice carried across the darkness, almost conversational. Genuinely curious, even.

”Disappointing.”

The crow’s head snapped toward him. Those burning coal eyes narrowed into slits of concentrated fury.

It spread its wings—both intact despite the earlier punishment—and launched again. But this time it didn’t come straight. It spiraled, using the domain’s darkness to mask its approach, appearing and disappearing between shadows like some kind of predatory ghost.

Northern’s head tilted slightly.

’Oh, strategy now. How refreshing.’

[You’re using Supreme Shadow]

[You’re using Eyes of the Shadow]

Since he couldn’t interact with the properties of the domain itself, he released his own semi-autonomous shadow and caused it to explode outward. The shadow became his eye, spreading like spilled ink across the chamber floor. Its pocket of darkness revealed the crow’s position instantly—a bright beacon against the Patriarch’s own failed concealment.

The Patriarch wasn’t hiding. He was broadcasting his location to someone who could see through darkness better than the Patriarch could create it.

’Three positions. Left flank, right flank, directly above.’

Northern tracked each potential angle with the kind of focus most people reserved for chess problems.

’He’ll strike from—’

The crow materialized above him, diving with both talons extended and wings folded for maximum speed. A killing blow.

’—there.’

Northern raised his right hand. Palm up. Relaxed.

[You’re using Sun’s Legacy - Pyreheart Ascendant]

[Pyreheart Ascendant: Your heart burns with eternal flame. Immune to all heat and fire. Your blood is liquid fire. Your body temperature can melt steel. Radiate heat that turns your surroundings into a furnace.]

Heat exploded from his palm like a miniature sun being born.

The temperature in the chamber spiked instantly—from cold to sweltering in a single heartbeat. The air itself seemed to scream. Stone began to glow at the edges. The darkness retreated from the light like something living.

The Obsidian Crow shrieked.

Not from pain.

From shock.

Its feathers—made of the shadow of death, woven from forty-nine generations of killing intent—began to burn with heat so intense it attacked the very concept of darkness itself. The flames ate at the absence of light, turning that void into ash.

The Patriarch pulled up desperately, wings beating frantically to gain altitude. Smoking feathers drifted down like burning leaves in autumn. They dissolved before hitting the ground.

”You wanted to fly?”

Northern’s voice was cold now. Clinical. The voice of someone conducting an experiment.

”Let me show you what that looks like when someone’s actually good at it.”

[You’re using Whispering Gale - Wind Manipulation]

The air in the chamber moved.

Northern commanded it with absolute authority and zero negotiation, like a king commanding his subjects. The wind obeyed instantly, absolutely, as if it had been waiting for permission to act.

Hurricane-force gusts slammed into the Patriarch from six directions simultaneously. They caught his wings mid-beat, twisted them at angles wings weren’t meant to bend, folded them against his body like closing a book. The massive crow tumbled through the air, completely out of control, spinning like a leaf in a storm.

He crashed into a distant valley in the domain.

Stone shattered and dust filled the air in a choking cloud. The impact left a crater the size of a wagon.

Northern floated there, standing on nothing, completely unbothered by the chaos he’d created. His hair didn’t even move in the wind.

’That had to hurt.’

”Get up.”

He kept his tone conversational.

”You’re a Paragon, aren’t you? Act like one.”

The Patriarch emerged from the rubble slowly. Blood dripped from his beak—actual blood, not shadow or death energy. Several feathers were missing, leaving bare patches on his wings that showed pale skin underneath.

His eyes burned brighter.

Angrier.

The domain responded to his fury like an extension of his body.

Darkness surged from every corner—not just visual darkness, but conceptual darkness. The kind that ate light, ate warmth, ate hope, ate the memory of safety. It wrapped around Northern like chains forged from despair itself, trying to drag him down, smother him, erase him from existence.

Northern sighed.

”Oh. You’re using the domain now.”

He examined the chains with mild interest.

”I was wondering when you’d try that again...”

[You’re using Oblivion’s Mark - Nullify]

[Nullify: Cancel out any ongoing effect, spell, or ability within your vicinity. Acts as a ”delete button” for supernatural phenomena. Passive aura that weakens magic around you.]

His passive aura expanded.

Not aggressively. Not dramatically. Just... existing. Being. The way gravity existed. The way reality existed.

’Let’s see if this works.’

Northern had been wondering if Nullify would function here, since he couldn’t interact with the domain’s properties directly. But Nullify was a talent that specialized in effects, spells, abilities. That inexistence the domain created had to be an effect—conceptual or not. Effects could be negated.

The domain’s darkness touched his aura and stopped.

Like water hitting an invisible wall. Like a sound hitting a vacuum. The conceptual chains dissolved before they could tighten, unraveling into nothing as if they’d never existed at all.

’It worked.’

Interesting.

The Patriarch’s eyes widened in his crow form. Disbelief radiated from every feather, every twitch of his wings.

”How—”

”Your domain is impressive,” Northern said, examining his nails casually. Letting the silence stretch.

”Something that’s been passed down for forty-nine generations, starting from the first Patriarch. Centuries of accumulated experience. Centuries of killing intent.”

He glanced up.

”That’s not nothing.”

He looked up properly now. His blue eyes caught the light strangely—reflecting it in ways that seemed slightly wrong, slightly off.

”But it’s still just a domain. And domains have rules.”

He paused.

”Break the rules, and the domain breaks.”

He smiled.

It wasn’t a pleasant smile. It was the smile of someone who’d already won and was just waiting for the other person to realize it.

”Want to see what happens when someone who shouldn’t exist enters a space designed to define existence?”