Chapter 201: New Power
The day stretched long. Snow thickened, wind cutting harder the lower they went, funneling through the canyon like knives. Lucen lost track of hours, only the ache in his legs and the weight in his chest marking the passage of time.
When they finally stopped, the sky above was dim with late light, streaked purple and gray.
They found a ledge overlooking the frozen plains that stretched all the way back toward civilization. Lights twinkled faint in the far distance, so far they looked like stars fallen to earth.
Lucen leaned on the stone rail, exhaling. "Almost looks peaceful from here."
Selindra crossed her arms, eyes fixed on the horizon. "Peace doesn’t last. Not with what you’re carrying."
Lucen shot her a grin, voice light. "You really know how to sweet-talk a guy."
Her expression didn’t change.
Varik stood behind them, scanning the plains below. Silent as ever. Watching. Waiting.
Lucen turned back to the lights in the distance, his grin fading slightly.
’Almost home. Almost. And then what? Pretend this relic isn’t fusing with me every second? Pretend Elira doesn’t already have a knife sharpened with my name on it? Nah. Not that easy.’
The relic pulsed one more time. Stronger than before.
[Relic Integration Progress: 96%.]
Lucen breathed out slowly, steadying himself.
’Four percent left. Whatever happens at the end of this—Varik better be standing next to me when it does.’
—
Snow still whispered down from the bruised sky, veiling the plains in a silver haze. The three hunters moved single-file across the frozen ground: Varik steady at the front, Selindra sharp-eyed just behind him, Lucen trailing a few steps further, his boots crunching into the white.
Each breath left a plume. Each heartbeat thudded heavy in Lucen’s chest, not just from the cold, but from the constant push and pull of the relic under his skin. It had been humming harder all day. Louder.
Now it was a roar.
[Relic Integration Progress: 99%.]
Lucen blinked sweat from his brow, even in the freezing wind. His hand brushed his chest. It wasn’t burning like fire. It was worse—like a heartbeat that didn’t belong to him was hammering through his veins.
"Varik," he muttered, voice raw. "Something’s—"
The relic surged.
[100% Reached.]
The world shattered.
Sound cut out. The wind froze mid-howl. Snowflakes hanging midair glimmered like shards of glass, suspended between blinks. Selindra’s hair, mid-whip in the gust, hung stiff like a statue. Even Varik’s stride, caught with his boot just above the ice, had stopped.
Everything, everywhere, paused.
Except him.
Lucen staggered forward, almost falling. His breath rasped too loud in the stillness. He spun, eyes wide.
"Varik!"
No answer.
Selindra’s gaze was locked on the horizon, unblinking.
The snow crunched under his steps, but the sound was wrong, hollow, echoing like he was walking through an empty cathedral.
"...what the hell..."
The relic pulsed again, harder.
And then the light tore open.
—
It wasn’t like the vault, where abyssal glow spilled across stone. This was inside him, bursting outward, threads of black and gold light unraveling in every direction, as if the air itself was tearing apart.
Lucen staggered back, shielding his eyes. When he lowered his arm, he wasn’t on the frozen plain anymore.
The world had changed.
The ground beneath him was black glass, smooth and cracked like a shattered mirror. A void stretched beyond the horizon, a sky of endless gray shot through with veins of fire.
And in the middle of it stood a figure.
Tall. Cloaked in shifting shadow, face obscured by a hood that never held one shape long enough to define it. Where its eyes should have been, abyssal fire burned, blue-black, searing, alive.
Lucen’s throat went dry. "...Let me guess. You’re the warranty guy for this relic?"
The figure didn’t move. Its voice was a chorus, deep and distant, like echoes in a cavern.
"Bearer."
Lucen’s smirk twitched, thin, not reaching his eyes. "You’ve got the wrong guy. I didn’t bear anything. This thing practically jumped down my throat."
The figure raised its hand. The glass ground cracked outward in spirals, glowing faintly.
"Chosen conduit."
Lucen barked a laugh, but it came out shaky. "Yeah, that’s real flattering. Shame I didn’t sign up for the honor."
The figure tilted its head. The fire in its eyes pulsed.
"Resistance detected. Incomplete alignment. This state cannot persist."
Lucen took a step back, boots scraping glass. "Incomplete? Buddy, I’m at one-hundred percent. I saw the screen. That’s full marks."
The shadows around the figure churned, restless.
"One hundred percent does not mean whole. One hundred percent means you are mine."
The words hit him like a blade. His grin faltered. "Yeah... see, I don’t do ownership. That’s more of an FHA thing."
The figure didn’t laugh. It didn’t move. It just burned.
Lucen swallowed hard, fingers twitching toward his weapon. But even as his instincts screamed fight, he knew, this wasn’t something his [Shockweave Bolt] or [Ignition Burst] would scratch.
This wasn’t a guardian. This was the core.
The relic itself.
The silence stretched, thick. Lucen exhaled slow, steadying himself.
"Alright. Cards on the table. You’re the voice in the relic. You’ve been pushing mana into me, yeah? Leveling me up like I’m some kind of battery pack."
The figure’s fire-eyes flared.
"Correct. You are vessel. You are conduit. Through you, the abyss breathes once more."
Lucen’s lip curled. "Cute. Real poetic. But here’s the thing,you don’t get to breathe through me. I breathe on my own."
He clenched his fist. Mana crackled faintly around his arm, threads of blue lightning spitting from his skin.
[Shockweave Bolt.]
The spell lashed out, raw and jagged, tearing across the glass ground. It struck the figure’s chest, then vanished, sucked into its body like water into dry earth.
The figure didn’t even flinch.
"Resistance futile. Your defiance is irrelevant. Soon, the abyss will guide your every step."
Lucen’s grin came back, sharp this time, reckless. "You really don’t get me, do you? My defiance is the only relevant thing about me."
He spat to the side, boots scraping as he squared his stance. "So go ahead. Keep trying to pull my strings. But if you think I’m your puppet—"
He jabbed a thumb at his chest. "—then you picked the wrong damn body."
The relic pulsed again. Harder. The ground cracked wider, fractures glowing with abyssal fire. The figure spread its arms, shadows expanding outward like wings.
"You cannot deny eternity. You cannot deny abyss. This is your path."
Lucen felt it then, the pull. Not just mana, but identity. A dragging weight on his mind, like threads trying to hook into his thoughts, his memories, to weave them into something else.
He clenched his jaw, muscles taut. ’No. No, that’s not happening. Not me.’
Images flickered at the edges of his vision, blood, cities burning, hunters torn apart. His own face, twisted into something inhuman, fire leaking from his eyes.
The future. Or a threat.
Lucen snarled. "If that’s all you’ve got—scary bedtime stories—you’re weaker than I thought."
The figure’s voice dropped, lower than before.
"Then prove it."
And the void collapsed.
Lucen gasped, suddenly back on the frozen plain. Snow falling. Wind howling. Selindra’s hair still mid-whip. Varik’s boot still mid-step. All of it frozen.
But the relic burned hotter now.
[Relic Integration: Complete.]
[New Title Acquired: Abyssborne Vessel.]
[Passive Ability Unlocked: Time Shear.]
[Effect: User exists outside localized flow for 0.7 seconds.]
Lucen stared at the text, breath ragged. "...you’ve gotta be kidding me."
Time Shear. The pause. The stillness. This wasn’t a one-time fluke. It was his.
He turned, staring at Varik’s frozen form. Then Selindra’s. The world held in place around him.
And for the first time since the vault, Lucen didn’t smirk. Didn’t joke.
Because deep down, he knew.
The relic hadn’t lied.
He was its conduit now.
And the question was no longer if he could resist it.
But for how long.
—
[Relic Integration: COMPLETE.]
[New Core Skills Acquired.]
[Skill: Abyssflare Lance.]
[Skill: Nullbind Grasp.]
[Skill: Riftstep.]
[Passive: Mana Conversion Efficiency +35%.]
[Passive: Abyssal Resonance (unstable).]
Lucen blinked, chest tightening. "Oh, hell no. That’s way too many capital letters."
But the system wasn’t done. Another line shimmered into being, larger, heavier.
[Unique Skill: Cataclysm Vector — Abyssborne Variant.]
[Effect: Condenses abyssal mana into a localized annihilation axis. WARNING: Unstable. High risk of collateral annihilation. User survival not guaranteed.]
Lucen’s throat went dry. He whispered, "...annihilation axis? That’s not even a spell description, that’s a threat."
The frozen flakes around him glimmered, catching the faint hum of abyssal light. He flexed his fingers, half-afraid of what he’d feel. But mana surged there anyway—cleaner, sharper, heavier. It buzzed in his skin like he’d been wired to a stormcloud.
He tested the first name that burned brightest in his vision.
[Abyssflare Lance.]
The world rippled. A spear of black fire burst into existence, long as his arm, flickering at the edges like reality itself was trying to reject it. It hummed, low and hungry, cracks spiderwebbing through the frozen plain under his boots just from the pressure of holding it.
Lucen hissed, tossing it away. It hit the ground silently, eating into the ice without heat, leaving a hole that glowed with abyssal veins.
"Yeah," he muttered. "That’s gonna make friends."
He clenched his fists, forcing his breath slow. Each spell sat there in his mind, waiting, not like his old ones, where he carved the shape himself, but like doors someone else had already unlocked for him. All he had to do was open them.
The problem was, he didn’t know if he’d like what was on the other side.
—
The figure’s voice from the void echoed in his skull.
"You are conduit. Through you, abyss breathes once more."
Lucen spat into the snow. "You can choke on it."
Still, his pulse raced. His body knew what these skills could do. Abyssflare Lance wasn’t just a piercing spell, it carried annihilation on contact. Nullbind Grasp was worse, threads of shadow coiling through the air, able to clamp down on mana itself, silencing enemy spells. Riftstep whispered in his bones, short, brutal teleportation through cracks in reality.
And Cataclysm Vector... He didn’t even want to test it. Not yet.
’Varik sees this, he’ll know. He’ll know the relic’s got its claws deeper than either of us wanted.’
He turned his eyes back toward the frozen figures—Varik mid-stride, Selindra mid-breath. Their stillness was eerie, but grounding too. They were real. Solid. Anchors.
Lucen closed his eyes, forcing the flood of system messages aside.
"Alright," he muttered. "I don’t care if I’m conduit, vessel, chosen idiot. I’m still Lucen. And nobody—nobody—owns me."
The world pulsed. The relic burned in his chest.
And then time lurched.