Chapters 60-61

Chapter 60

They probably sip wine and wager on the second I break. 

Rage licks at my thoughts.

I roll to my feet, vision smeared with red haze. The Ogre stalks forward. I dart left and right, drawing it across the arena. I lash a Fire Slash at an exposed gap behind its knee. The flames boil, but the brute stomps through them. Its mace crashes down. I barely twist aside, yet the shockwave ripples up my legs and steals breath.

I need another angle. The Grimoire shows eight weak points on the monster, but each one hides behind that armor. I must pierce a joint or sever a chain. 

I spring toward the Ogre’s right flank, slide under a sweeping strike, and slash upward at the armpit seam. Sparks and a spray of black ichor burst forth. 

The Ogre bellows. 

The smell of scorched rot hits my nose.

Before I can follow through, the brute spins and slams an elbow into my chest and shatters my Fire Armor on the spot. My breastbone creaks. I fly backward and skid across basalt. My lungs seize. I push up, but my arms tremble. The Ogre advances and lifts both maces overhead. The runes on the heads glow crimson. I sense a mana burst coming.

I summon Shadow Lattice. 

The web of dark threads lashes from my palm, but the Ogre’s raw power shrugs it off. 

The lattice snaps. 

I stagger and reactivate Fire Armor.

The maces crash down. 

I dive sideways. 

One mace shatters the tiles. 

The other grazes my thigh. 

Agony streaks up my leg, and I drop to a knee.

The Ogre hammers me again and only thanks to Echo Pulse I manage to roll away. 

The mace, however, nicks my shoulder. 

Plate cracks. I slam into the ground. Dust billows. Pain blinds me. 

The Ogre plants a foot on my back and grinds me into stone. 

Blood fills my mouth. I gasp for air that will not come. The crystal above zooms in on my ruin. 

I can picture nobles in my head losing themselves in laughter. I hear their voices in my skull, each one a nail: “Miner meets real test. Look how fast he breaks.”

Humiliation blazes hotter than pain. 

I taste ash. 

I remember Felisia’s faith, the miners’ cheers back in Shit’s Creek, and Orvick’s belief that I could mine the world hollow. 

I will not die in front of vultures.

*

“Sir Renquell,” Lord Clearwater speaks respectfully to the Wandering Knight, “do you think Jacob Cloud has a chance?” 

Sir Renquell does not answer at once. He keeps his eyes on the crystal where I stagger under the Ogre’s heel. The knight’s jaw flexes and his gauntleted fingers tighten.

“He can adapt, but he doesn’t have enough time. Look how he’s scrambling. He can’t deliver damage, he can’t trade. He’s not even fast enough.”

Lord Clearwater feels his chest tighten.

“Are you saying the boy…” the head of Clearwater lowers his voice while everyone else cheers. 

Sir Renquell purses his fair, rosy lips.

“For now, yes.” 

“For now?” Lord Clearwater asks. 

“For now, his destiny is to die here. But…” Sir Renquell turns toward Lord Clearwater. “No Knight has ever survived this world and become incredibly powerful without luck, no matter their heritage. I know talents greater than mine who met the wrong monster, the wrong person, at the wrong time. That’s all it takes to die miserably.” 

“So you think luck still might tip the scales,” Lord Clearwater says, his eyes fixed on the scrying crystal.

Sir Renquell nods, never looking away from the fight. 

“The boy searches for an opening. Some people are destined for greater things and destiny, luck, and fate—they all walk alongside them and become legends. We’re about to find out whether Jacob Cloud’s legend is about to start or die in the bud.”

*

I push against the Ogre’s boot, but its weight doesn’t budge. Its heel grinds my ribs, grinding bone against basalt. All I can see is grime and blood—until a sliver of gold glimmers through rubble near the arena wall. 

A shattered chest—no, half a chest—lies wedged between two narrow stone platforms that rise like broken teeth. 

Each platform is only a pace wide and jagged at the edges, stacked in tiers that spiral toward the arena’s top rim. 

The chest fragment balances on the fourth tier, half-buried under splinters of its own lid and the ash of some other battles.

How did it end there? 

And what is it?

The moment the light catches my eye, the Infernal bracelet thrums so hard it bruises skin. Whatever’s inside that relic is calling me. I don’t know what it is—only that it’s my last card.

The Ogre lifts its mace for a finishing blow. I brace my forearms, lash Veins of Fire through every muscle, and shove sideways. The sudden burst of heat loosens the monster’s footing for a breath. I slip free, tumble once, and fling myself behind the nearest platform column. The mace crashes where I lay a heartbeat earlier, carving a crater that vomits sparks.

I can’t out-run the thing on the ground—not with my thigh torn and my bones cracked. That chest is four levels above, out of reach for any normal climb.

So I look up.

I’ve avoided showing this trick in front of nobles, saved it for the Hunt’s final sprint—but right now secrecy is worth less than breath.

Wings explode from my shoulders. 

They hiss as they unfurl, scattering ash like snow. 

The burst of heat lifts dust in a swirling column.

*

Gasps ripple across the cliff at the same instant. Where moments ago Jacob Cloud lay crushed, he now stands haloed in flame, wings outstretched like a fallen star learning to rise.

“Flight—he can fly?” a young countess whispers, knuckles whitening on the balustrade.

Sir Greyson leans forward, speechless.

Sir Renquell’s brows knit. 

“That is no common movement art,” he mutters. “Feel the resonance?”

Lord Clearwater steps closer. 

“Explain.”

Renquell inhales, as if tasting the mana across the mirror. 

“Legacy Skill. The weave is too intricate, the core too deep. Those are forged from memory, not monster crystal. Someone condensed a life’s mastery into one shard and left it for the worthy. Powerful—dangerous.”

“Jacob found that in the Crucible?” Lord Clearwater asks, awe creeping into his tone. “And what legacy is it?” 

Renquell doesn’t answer aloud. 

Infernal, he thinks. 

*

A hooked mace whistles upward. Chain links blur. I try to bank right with a single wing-beat, but the hook catches the trailing edge of a wing and drags me straight out of the air.

The world snaps downward. Basalt rushes up, and I slam spine-first against the arena floor hard enough to crater stone, the air knocked out of my lungs. 

Torches swirl overhead.

I launch back up, wings pumping; pain ripples through my ribs. The Ogre snarls, muscles bunching beneath plate, and hurls the second mace. 

The chain coils me like a steel serpent, clamps my ankle, and slams me down again—this time face-first. 

Tiles shatter, sparks spit across my vision.

My skull rings. The chest gleams temptingly above on those narrow spiral platforms—each a jagged disc of stone protruding from the wall, like the rungs of a broken ladder climbing to heaven.

Four tiers. 

One chance.

The chain clatters back to the monster’s gauntlet. It rears to cast both hooks at once, eager to grind me into paste a third time.

*

High on the viewing cliff, nobles lurch forward.

“Is he trying to run?” a lady scoffs as Jacob launches skyward again. “No one lives through that beast.”

“He can fly,” a young viscount sputters, cheeks pale. “Why didn’t he escape earlier?”

Sir Greyson’s knuckles whiten on the rail. 

“He’s not fleeing. Watch the angle—he’s going for something.”

*

I shoot upward, aiming straight for the second tier, but the Ogre’s twin maces flash like twin meteors. The Grimoire feeds me vectors, error margins, chain tension—all in crimson script that scrolls across my sight.

Three heartbeats. Deactivate wings at the apex. Let free-fall outrun steel.

Activate Flameform Blueprint with Flame Walk to propel yourself faster

I tuck my wings and dive. Ember feathers gutter out—instant night. My stomach lurches as gravity clamps me harder than any chain. Wind screams; the Ogre’s hooks shriek past my ears, swiping nothing but air.

*

Gasps echo from the cliff when the wings vanish.

“He’s plummeting!” someone cries.

“He isn’t falling,” Renquell corrects coldly. “He’s aiming.”

Murmurs swirl. Guild captains, barons, even Veyl’s entourage stare—unable to decide if the miner is mad or magnificent.

*

The Ogre lumbers after me, mace heads sparking along stone, but I leap. Ember wings beat once, twice, and I rocket upward. Wind tears at my cloak, blood roars in my ears, but gravity flinches. I dart to the second tier before the monster’s chain whips past like a comet. A chip of stone grazes my cheek.

Another beat and I glide to the third tier. The chest shard glimmers one tier higher, wedged between two broken paving slabs. I angle a hard bank—pain screams through my ribs—and land on the narrow fourth platform. The stone wobbles under my boots, threatening to shear away, but I crouch and reach.

Splinters bite my fingers. Beneath them waits a jagged fragment, no larger than a dagger’s hilt, dark gold veined with black fire. Cold radiates from the metal; the air itself seems to fold inward. The bracelet tightens like a manacle. I grip the shard.

Power slams through me and from one of my pockets a dark shard levitates in front of me. 

The two shards fuse into molten night. 

A voice sounds in my head before the prompt from the System.

I hope you like the gift, kid. 

Was that King Baalrek’s voice? I think, but then I’m suddenly distracted by the system appears. 

Dark Blade Shard 2/2 recovered. 

Skill Crystal “Dark Blade – Gold” fully restored

Show them what my people’s heritage is capable of. 

Chapter 61

The shard rests in my palm like a lump of midnight that devours every gleam of torch‑light, and the System prompt hangs in the air while the arena quakes from the Ogre Warlord’s advance.

You have obtained [Dark Blade ] (Gold – Offensive Skill).

Would you like to absorb this Skill?

You have absorbed Dark Blade .

“Yes.”

The crystal sinks through my skin, and ice floods every vein. I feel as if a glacier grows inside my arteries, and each jagged spike scrapes muscle from bone. Heat never bothered me, yet this cold gnaws deeper than fire. I claw at the stone floor, gasping, while black veins crawl from my heart to my throat and across my cheeks. They burn charcoal‑black along my arms, and they snake beside the scarlet rivulets of Veins of Fire.

A roar shakes the benches that ring the arena. The Ogre Warlord hauls its bulk up the stairs and drags twin maces that clink against the marble. Spikes crust every link of chain. Dried blood stains the maul heads, and yellowed fangs rim the beast’s iron helm. One crimson eye glares through the visor because the other socket hosts a splintered bone peg. Scar‑tissue webs its gray hide, and fresh gore steams upon its breastplate. Each footfall splits flagstones.

Kid.

King Baalrek’s voice rattles inside my skull like gravel in a forge pan.

Guide the Darkness or it will burst your heart.

“What?” I spit and taste copper. “Where are you?”

I have been waiting in the cave since the bracelet. I nudged your path, and I set that shard where your hand could reach it. Quit whining because the monster is coming.

My jaw clamps when the Ogre’s shadow washes over me. I yank the Grimoire into focus.

[Dark Blade – Gold Rank – Lv. 1]

Mana Cost per Swing — 1350 MP

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 Dark Blade — Gold Rank — Lv. 1

Unbound siphon: Skill drains without route, wastes 83 % of gathered mana, floods false veins, causes necrotic backlash after nine seconds.

Shear pulse: Swing rips circulatory nodes, halves cutting speed, risks tendon failure.

Chaotic brine: Darkness mana spirals through fire veins, scalds tissue, scrambles nerve patterns, and produces paralysis.

Solution

Seal the Spring Veins number three, seven, nine with mirrored fire loops.

Route darkness through the Draining Veins around the heart.

Synchronize pulse on a five‑count, then lock lattice behind sternum.

The floor lurches. I obey because hesitation equals death.

It appears like the Dark Blade, unlike any other Skill I’ve had, it’s ready to kill me before I can even use it. 

Veins of Fire flares, yet I fold its flow inward so molten mana scabs over three key junctions. Darkness slithers into the new conduits, and the frost eases where the flames hug it. 

A dull ache stays, though the tearing stops. 

I count the beat—one, two, three, four, five—and snap a last loop below the collarbone. The void energy still bites, yet it marches in rhythm now.

[Dark Blade – Lv. 1 → Lv. 20]

Mana Cost per Swing —  1350 MP → 780 MP

Contact Damage — 5600 HP

Dark Resonance: Dark Blade influences your other Skills through Darkness. 

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Power convulses through me, and a blade coalesces in my fist. The weapon smokes, and the smoke drinks light. No hilt exists because my hand grips raw shadow that molds to my fingers. Edges flex with a sound like cracking ice.

Hell’s Sword always felt like molten copper that vented from my bones, yet this force feels like a file that scrapes marrow away to forge steel in its place. Every heartbeat rips energy from muscle, and my vision flickers black at the edges. The veins tattoo my arms in onyx, and the crimson rivers of Veins of Fire weave between them.

*

“What’s that?” Lord Clearwater says, stunned. He can feel some of the incredible power that Jacob Cloud has apparently just summoned out of nowhere.

“A new Skill,” Sir Renquell says, squinting. “That’s… Darkness.” 

“Darkness?!” Lord Clearwater’s mouth hangs open. 

Most of the nobles present sport confused faces until someone more knowledgeable among them starts explaining.

“Darkness is an extremely rare Affinity! It’s said to be among the most dangerous to learn and combine with others!”

“It’s not just that, it’s also known to be the Affinity of you-know-whom!”

“Of whom?”

“INFERNALS!” 

“Infernals?!” another noble shouts back. 

They erupt in a cacophony of sounds.

But Lord Clearwater focuses on Sir Renquell, ignoring, for the moment the new Affinity that Jacob Cloud apparently just unlocked. 

“Will he make it? That might be an Infernal Skill or whatnot, Sir Renquell… but, will he make it?” 

Sir Renquell turns to Lord Clearwater with almost a pitying expression. 

“Lord Clearwater,” the Elf says with a sigh. “The fact that you have to ask shows that you lack worldly experience. 

“What?” Lord Clearwater frowns. 

“Have you ever met an Infernal?” Sir Renquell asks.

“No?” 

“The three great races are called that for a reason, milord.” 

*

King Baalrek’s command rings in my head with the same authority that split my soul from fear on the lowest level of the mines. 

He says, Don’t waste the moment. Attack. 

He speaks like the world is made of iron, and his will is the only forge. 

I do not hesitate because hesitation is death, and it feels like I already died once in this pit.

I throw myself at the Ogre Warlord with all the force that Veins of Fire and Dark Blade can muster. 

My wings crackle with streaks of shadow, black as the gap between stars, and the feathers drip with embers. 

Is that the influence of the Dark Blade? I think for a moment. 

My heart pounds in my ears while I launch myself forward, and I see the blackened veins on my arms pulsing with every beat. I focus because the monster’s rage will not give me a second chance.

The Ogre Warlord swings both maces toward my chest. Each chain hisses, and the heads crash against the ground so hard that marble chips spray across the arena. 

The impact leaves a crater big enough to swallow my legs. 

I jump to the side, then fire jets of mana behind my back with Fire Walk, using every ounce of Flameform Blueprint to control the trajectory. I twist around, letting the force spin me, and I cut at the Ogre’s chest with Dark Blade while my body rides the line between gravity and flight.

The blade bites deep. 

The moment the edge finds flesh, I feel something I have never felt with any Skill before. 

It pulls on my stamina like a starving animal. 

It draws on my mana and my life at the same time, and I feel a cold so intense that it freezes my joints from the inside out. 

The monster roars, but I do not flinch. The ice in my veins holds me steady, and the fire keeps my muscles from seizing up. 

The slash leaves a wound that pours black blood down the Ogre’s chest, and the smell hits my nostrils with a mix of iron and rot.

The Ogre Warlord does not falter, though the wound splits its hide open from collarbone to hip. It swings again with both maces, and I have to leap backward. 

I activate Fire Walk again, drawing more on the connection between Veins of Fire and Flameform Blueprint, so the jets from my legs explode against the floor and send me rocketing upward. 

The Ogre’s next attack misses, and its maces collide so hard that sparks fly from the impact.

I angle myself behind the beast’s left shoulder. 

As I drop, I swing upward with Fire Slash, pouring Darkness into the Skill. The blade flickers with streaks of black flame that weave with the red. 

The force of the slash carries me past the Ogre’s head, and I leave another deep wound that burns along the inside. The monster staggers, losing its footing for the first time, and it crashes to one knee while blood soaks its armor.

Kill it now, King Baalrek says. Show them that you can do what nobody else in this place dares. Prove you have the right to wield that power.

I do not hesitate. 

I raise Dark Blade above my head, both hands gripping the hilt of living shadow. 

The blade feels heavier with every second, but I force more mana through my veins and channel the fire and the darkness together. 

My vision narrows until the Ogre’s skull fills it. I scream as I bring the blade down, and the force rips the sound from my throat. 

The air howls as red and black flames twist around the edge, fusing into something no human has ever seen.

The Ogre Warlord raises its mace to block. Its arm shakes, and its single eye burns with hatred. The blade crashes into the weapon, and the impact throws me back a step, but I hold on. 

I push harder, and I feel the darkness tearing at the monster’s soul. The mace begins to smoke, then it splits with a shriek that rattles the stands. Fragments of iron fly through the air.

I bring the blade down again. This time, I cut straight through the gap in the Ogre’s defense. The edge bites into the monster’s neck, and for an instant, time seems to slow. 

The black and red energy devours the flesh, and the bone cracks with a wet pop. 

The Ogre’s head lolls sideways, barely attached by a strip of tendon, and its body collapses forward, smashing into the broken flagstones with the force of a toppled tree.

A tremor shakes the arena, and dust rises around us. 

I stand in the cloud, still holding Dark Blade, which smokes in my grip. 

My arms tremble, but I hold on while my veins burn with fire and ice. 

I breathe in the iron-rich air and know that for the first time since I entered this city, they understand I am no one’s pawn.

*

The stands are silent at first. 

Then voices erupt from the nobles and the commoners alike, and the word “Infernal” spreads from mouth to mouth as they realize what just happened.

Lord Clearwater looks at Sir Renquell, who does not smile, but his eyes glint with a hard pride.