The last four mercenaries didn't wait for introductions.
They came in fast — tighter formation, heavier gear. Aarav felt them before he saw them — their footfalls rippled through the stone, their weapon signatures humming like angry wasps in his skull.
"Bigger boys this time," Xena muttered, wiping blood off her chin. "You good?"
Aarav flexed his fingers. The fire hadn't gone out — it had sunk in, wrapped around his bones like a second skin. Too good.
"Let's test the upgrade," he whispered.
The Fight Continues
The mercs charged. One had a twin-headed plasma spear; another carried a hydraulic shield that thrummed with deflective force. The other two fired arc-bolts from shoulder-mounted cannons.
Aarav didn't dodge.
He moved through.
Infernal Pulse surged down his legs, launching him forward with a spiraling burst of speed. The ground cracked beneath the recoil. He appeared beside the spear-wielder mid-lunge and ducked under the blade, palm slamming into the man's chest.
Boom.The merc's armor combusted inward, imploding around his ribs. Ash and bone fragments scattered.
The others hesitated. He felt it — their momentary fear. And something deeper: their structure, their thoughts, their training — leaking into his awareness like vapor from a cracked seal.
I'm absorbing them…Not just strength. Knowledge.
Aarav's body screamed with heat, but it wasn't pain — it was growth. Cells folding, muscles breaking and reforming in milliseconds. Every kill rewrote him. Every clash carved instinct into his spine.
He wasn't just fighting. He was evolving.
"Left!" Xena called out.
Aarav dropped just as a bolt screamed past his ear. He twisted, flinging a searing arc of flame like a whip — it lashed across the arc-cannon merc's face, fusing his helmet to his skull.
Another down.
Only two left.
Xena intercepted the shielded merc, her cleaver bouncing off the kinetic barrier again and again. Aarav looped behind the last one, absorbing a wild swing to his shoulder — the blade cut deep, but Vael'Zorath's flame closed it just as fast.
His hands moved on their own.
Infernal Pulse.Reverse grip.Twist the wrist.
The merc dropped. The last one barely had time to look back before Aarav and Xena struck together — cleaver and flame — one from each side.
Silence followed.
Smoke rose in lazy spirals from charred corpses. The walls were scorched black. Rune fragments flickered across the gravel, reacting to lingering heat.
Aarav stood still, chest rising and falling in steady rhythm.
"Are you okay?" Xena asked, finally.
Aarav didn't answer immediately.
Because in that moment, he could still feel them.
The mercenaries. Their dying thoughts. Echoes of fear and rage. Tactics. Techniques. Weight distribution patterns. How they breathed in combat. How they panicked.
It wasn't just power.
It was consumption.
And the voice — that twisted Invader Will — had gone quiet… but not gone.
He clenched his fists.
"Let's move," he said at last.
The Escape
They fled fast, weaving through broken tunnels and rune-scattered caves. Xena limped slightly, but her movements were still fluid. The merc detection network pulsed behind them like a fading heartbeat. After thirty minutes of travel and climbing through a collapsed shaft, they emerged into a moss-covered clearing with a fractured pillar in the center — long outside the mercs' grid.
Xena collapsed onto a slab of stone. "Alright, we're clear. I think. Unless they have flyers, drones, trackers, void-sniffers—"
"Don't give the universe ideas," Aarav muttered, slumping beside her.
A cool wind passed over them. Distant birds chirped — or something like birds.
For a long while, neither of them spoke.
Then Xena broke the silence. "So. You've got some explaining to do, Flame Boy. What was that back there?"
Aarav flexed his hand again — fire crackled and faded.
"I leveled up."
She rolled her eyes. "No kidding. But that power... You absorbed them. That's not normal. Not even for Tier Ones. What's your plan now? Go on a rampage and eat the realm?"
Aarav looked at the sky.
"No. I need to learn. Runes. Bloodlines. What this place is… what I am."
'I need to upgrade my second bloodline. Fast. Before this one eats me from the inside.'
"Figures. I meet one Tier Zero brat, and he turns out to be a walking paradox with a lava core."
The Next Destination
She stood and cracked her neck. "Then we're heading to Karthaven."
"Karthaven?" Aarav asked.
"City a few days east of here. Rune archive, open combat pits, and a tower library maintained by sentient scrolls. If you want knowledge and controlled violence, that's the place."
"That sounds… weirdly perfect."
She grinned. "It also has food. Which you still don't seem to need, by the way. Freak."
"Thanks."
Xena offered her hand.
Aarav took it.
And together, they began their journey toward Karthaven, unaware of the eyes already watching their path — and the deeper powers stirring in both their veins.