Kael peeled his eyes away from the daggers, the ache in his chest dull and familiar. The kind of pain you learn to live with, like a limp you stop noticing after the fifth year of living on the streets. He tried to shake off the ghosts clawing their way up from the pit of memory. His mother had given everything to his father. Every ounce of magic, strength, and dignity she had left, she poured into Kaarnak Bloodfang. And in return?
The bastard gave about as much of a shit as a brick wall, unless the child in question was a perfect Lycan specimen, of course.
His half-siblings were the true heirs. The prized purebloods. The real legacies. Kael's mother had been the third mate—the last in line, more an obligation than a choice. Lycan tradition demanded three mates for a ruler. Sylvia was the political token, the alliance that spoke well in public but meant jack behind closed doors.
His older siblings? Full-blooded Lycans, monsters molded for war. But Kael and his younger brother? Half-bloods. A disgrace by Lycan standards, a glitch by the system's. Still, the universe must've had a real sick sense of humor, because his little brother had actually shifted. Beta-class Lycan. Just enough to be tolerated.
Kael? Kael got kicked to the gutter.
He stared at the ceiling, one arm flopped across his forehead, sinking deeper into his nightly sulking session. Yeah, he knew it was pathetic. But if anyone had earned the right to sulk, it was him. Years of crawling through broken glass and shadow, scars stacked like trophies, and what did he get? Absolutely nothing.
Sometimes, Kael swore the Moonfather had taken one look at him and decided, "Nope. Not my problem."
"Status," Kael muttered.
A golden circular HUD flickered into existence before his eyes. It glowed in the darkness like a cracked crescent moon, an ugly reminder that even his system had a sense of irony.
"ECLIPSE SYSTEM HUD"
📛 Name: Kael Bloodfang [20]
🧬 Species: Hybrid (Human/Lycan)
💢 Class: Scavenger / Novice
📉 Rank: Omega Lycan / Human
📈 Level: 1 (99/100)
🔰 Hunter Tier: E-Rank
📍 Location: Outer Edge—Ashgarde Reach City, Rift Zone 3
---
Attribute | Value | Buffs/Effects
🦾 Strength | 22 [+192/3] | Unknown
🤸 Dexterity | 28 [+121/3] | Unknown
🧠 Intelligence | 25 [+93/3] | Unknown
🧘 Spirit | 25 [+103/3] | Unknown
💠 Mana | 30 [+131/3] | Unknown
❤️ Vitality | 34 [+182/3] | Unknown
🧗 Cultivation | 45 [+255/3] | Unknown
---
Kael rubbed his eyes, which felt like they'd been dusted with sandpaper. He grumbled under his breath, more out of habit than anything else.
Still Level 1... Even after all these years.
Ever since his thirteenth birthday, the system had been sitting pretty at 99/100 XP like it was trolling him. Every creature he scavenged, every monster he downed, every chunk of metal he ripped from rift beasts, it never pushed him over that line. One single point from a level-up, and it just... stalled.
Stuck. Like everything else in his miserable excuse for a life.
Humiliation didn't even begin to cover it. Most Hunters could hit Level 2 just by skinning a rabid Vexmouse. Kael had gutted things that could eat Vexmice by the dozen, and still—still—nothing.
The only saving grace was the weird anomaly in his attributes. The numbers in brackets kept growing over the years. At first, he thought it was a bug, but after seven years? Now he just rolled with it. Apparently, if he ever did break the curse and hit Level 2, his stats would jump high enough to make a few people cry blood.
Big if, though.
"Exit," he muttered, voice thick with fatigue.
The golden HUD flickered out, leaving the room in darkness again. Kael rolled onto his side and tugged the thin blanket over his shoulder. He didn't expect to sleep—he just hoped to pass out fast enough that his mind wouldn't drag him through the usual emotional torture before sunrise.
🐺⚙️"༒ The Howl of the Forsaken ༒"⚙️🐺
Kael sat hunched on his beat-up couch, choking halfway through his breakfast—which, in this case, was a lukewarm tube of nutrient paste that tasted like bitter cardboard. He coughed, thumped his chest, and cursed under his breath as the morning news droned on in the background.
Surprise, surprise—nothing had changed.
The usual suspects were at it again. A bloody shootout between the Bleak Choir and the Gravemind Network. Same turf war, different bodies. Vampires and human fanatics didn't exactly throw dinner parties together. The Bleak Choir, psychotic zealots waving the flag of their so-called holy cause, were led by the charming psychopath known as Mother Nocturne. Meanwhile, Count Severan Drae and his bloodsucking aristocrats weren't exactly known for their diplomacy.
So, naturally, explosions followed. Lots of them.
Kael swallowed the last glob of gray paste with a grimace and tossed the empty tube onto the cluttered kitchen table. He glanced at it and muttered, "I'll clean that later," knowing damn well he wouldn't.
He dragged himself into his room, boots scuffing the cracked floor tiles, and started packing his gear and supplies into the interdimensional storage. Weapons checked and sheathed. His mother's daggers, still pristine despite the years, slid into their sheathes behind his back, hidden under his jacket. He wasn't about to flash them out in the open. Not in this city. Not unless he was itching to get stabbed by some lowlife trying to pawn them for synth-drugs.
The apartment door hissed open as he stepped into the cold bite of morning air. A low fog clung to the streets, curling around the gutter fires and rusted-out transport husks like something alive. Kael zipped up his weather-beaten leather jacket and pulled the hood over his head. The chill didn't bother him much. What did was knowing today would suck. Just like yesterday. Just like every other godsdamned day in Ashgarde Reach.
He made his way toward the eastern gate. It was going to be a long trek—and an even longer wait.
An hour later, Kael stood in line with the rest of the morning crowd, most of them Hunters or desperate scavs, all herded like cattle in front of the gargantuan gate that separated Ashgarde from the outer world. The gate loomed over them, a steel colossus etched in shifting runes that pulsed faintly under the glare of the morning sun.
Kael shifted his weight and adjusted the filter mask over his nose and mouth. His HUD flickered to life, golden text bleeding into his vision like a migraine.
ALERT!
[❗ Lung Contamination Risk: Ashlung Exposure—5%]
[⚠️ Trait Conflict Detected: Human Arcane Channeling vs. Lycan Instinct Protocols.] [96% Resolved]
"Still not at 100%," Kael muttered, rolling his eyes as the interface blinked out. Not that he knew what would happen if it reached 100%.
He scanned the outpost perimeter. ARC Division soldiers prowled the area in heavy exosuits, the kind that could tear a man in half with a shrug. Their visors glowed faint blue as they scanned the crowd. Just behind them, lumbering sentry mechs stomped across the concrete with enough force to rattle Kael's bones. Each one was armed to the teeth—shoulder-mounted plasma cannons, reinforced hulls, and enough firepower to level a tenement block.
Hover drones buzzed overhead like metallic wasps, their scanners sweeping across the line. Kael didn't flinch. You only twitched if you had something to hide. And even then, you still got fried half the time.
He sighed and muttered, "Another glorious day in paradise."
As the line thinned out, Kael finally stepped forward toward the gate, well, the smaller one built into the colossal main structure. No one opened the big gate unless you were hauling cargo, bleeding out, or riding a tank. Which he wasn't. Yet.
He didn't bother greeting the presiding officer stationed beside the entry point. Just raised his comm-watch to the scanner. A beep. A blink. Green light. That was it.
The officer didn't even glance at him. Scavs like Kael weren't worth the effort unless they came back rich, or didn't come back at all. The only reason they logged your ID was to identify your corpse. If it ever turned up.
Past the threshold, the city fell away behind him like a dying sigh, replaced by a ghost of the world that used to be.
Ruins stretched before him—once a bustling part of the old metropolis, now just crumbled towers wrapped in moss and decay. Nature had taken over, sure, but this wasn't the tranquil, healing kind of nature. This was evolution in overdrive. Vines the size of sewer pipes strangled shattered buildings. Mutated trees sprouted glass-like leaves and hissed when brushed. Spore-blooms pulsed with sickly light, waiting for something—someone—to get too close.
An alert flickered in the corner of Kael's HUD.
[AIR QUALITY: Hazardous (45%)]
[ Lung Contamination Risk: Ashlung Exposure probability—55%]
[RIFT SIGNATURES: 14 Detected (↑ 7)]
Fourteen? That was double the usual. Normally, the radius held seven active rifts on a bad day.
Kael's brow furrowed. "Well... shit."
He broke into a run, darting over cracked pavement and weaving between mutated flora, careful to give the larger spore pods a wide berth. The last thing he wanted was to get melted from the inside out by sulphuric gas and then dragged into a plant's digestive sack like a snack-sized meat offering. Those things didn't even wait for you to stop twitching.
He slowed to a crouch as he reached an abandoned road, its surface broken and littered with rusted-out vehicles from a century ago. Something ahead moved—fast. Kael hit the dirt behind the skeletal husk of a van just in time to witness a chaotic skirmish.
A pack of infernal imps, small, twitchy, and always screeching, was swarming a berserker bear. The poor beast swung with fury, but twelve of those flame-tailed little bastards were too much. Even for something twice Kael's size and ten times angrier.
He grimaced. "Gonna be a hell of a morning."
Sliding his withered rail gun from its holster, Kael checked the cartridge. Still had a few rounds. Six shots per clip, if he was lucky. The coil had already been replaced seven times, and the trigger stuck if you breathed on it wrong. It overheated if you fired more than once in five seconds, but it was his. He'd scavenged it off a soldier's corpse buried beneath a collapsed overpass. The gun was old, over a hundred years. Unstable. Ugly.
But it still growled when it fired, and sometimes... that was enough.
Kael waited until the chaos died down and the snarls turned to the wet, satisfying sound of flesh being torn apart. He peeked out from behind the rusted van, keeping low and quiet like the universe might finally show him mercy if he didn't breathe too loud.
The mutated bear, now soaked in blood, bits of imp dangling from its jaws like grotesque streamers, was busy gnawing on its victory. The little bastards had clearly underestimated their dinner. Too bad Kael hadn't brought popcorn.
He squinted at the thing. Something was... off. The bear's shading didn't sit right. Shadows pooled in weird places. The fur shimmered wrong, almost like it was glitching against reality. Then he saw them, small, jagged horn-like protrusions sprouting from its shoulders and spine like nature had rage-quit halfway through the design.
"Scan," Kael muttered, not expecting good news.
[Identified: Mutated Berserker Bear. Level 10.]
Kael sighed. "Great. Just great."
He'd been hoping it was a low-level anomaly—maybe a sick raccoon with mange and a bad attitude. But no, he had to get a Level Ten rage-beast hopped up on corruption and steroid magic. He couldn't risk pissing it off... more than it already was. One wrong move and he'd be scattered across the tarmac.
And that's when the universe, in its infinite sense of humor, dropped the back panel of the rusted van. It hit the ground with a deafening clang, like a gunshot in a church.
The bear's head snapped toward him. It roared, a thunderous, primal sound that vibrated through Kael's bones and straight into his bladder, and then charged.
"Oh, for fuck's sake."
It barreled forward, smashing through rusted-out cars and shattered rubble like a furry wrecking ball with personal issues. Kael raised his gun and fired. A crackling blue bolt shot forward, and barely grazed its shoulder. Fantastic.
The beast roared louder, now properly pissed.
"FUCK!" Kael yelped, sprinting for the nearest car. He vaulted up just as the bear reached him, its massive paws crashing down a heartbeat too late.
The vehicle screeched and slid backwards under the force, forcing Kael to leap off before it turned into a makeshift coffin. He landed hard on the cracked tarmac, rolled, and twisted around to fire point-blank.
The bolt struck true. The bear's left eye exploded in a geyser of black ichor.
It roared, fury bleeding from every pore, and slammed its head into Kael like a battering ram. He flew through the air, limbs flailing, before smashing into the crumbling side of a building.
Everything hurt. A lot.
Dust and rubble rained down on him. Something in his ribs groaned, like it had just signed its resignation letter. He barely had time to groan before he was pinned. Barbed vines, black and glistening with malicious hunger, shot from the cracks in the wall and coiled around his torso.
His eyes widened. "Blood-stalkers. Oh, perfect."
These lovely nightmares stayed hidden during the day, lurking in the shade, sniffing out anything that bled. Once they got a taste, they drained you dry like a thirsty ex.
Kael yanked out his mother's dagger and slashed at the vines. The blade hissed as it cut through them, each wriggling length flailing as it hit the ground. He freed himself just in time to hurl himself aside as the bear tried to body-slam him into paste.
The beast crashed into the wall.
Bad move.
Hundreds of vines exploded from the shadows like eager lovers with boundary issues. They wrapped around the bear, barbs digging in. The bear thrashed, roared, tore through them—but more kept coming.
Kael scuttled back.
The bear, refusing to go quietly, lunged, its jaw snapping down on Kael's leg and yanking him with it into the building's shadowy interior. Pain lanced through him as sharp teeth crushed muscle and bone.
He screamed. Inside, it got worse.
The blood-stalker vines coiled, clearing a path for the centerpiece—a massive Venus flytrap-like maw with jagged teeth the size of Kael's torso. It yawned wide, anticipating dessert.
"Nope! No! Not like this!"
Kael drove the dagger into the bear's skull with every ounce of desperation he had left.
The bear's grip loosened as it convulsed. Kael wrenched his shredded leg free and scrambled backward, blood trailing behind him. The vines twitched, sensing it, reaching—until he rolled into the sunlight.
The second the sun's glare hit him, the vines froze. Then retreated.
Kael collapsed onto the pavement, chest heaving, blood dripping from his ruined leg, and stared up at the hazy sky. His heartbeat thudded in his ears. Kael's entire body screamed at him. His brain wanted to follow suit.
"That... sucked," he gasped, staring blankly as the bear's carcass disappeared into the grinding jaws of the plant-monstrosity. Crunching bones, splattering blood, and wet chewing filled the air. He fought the urge to vomit.
[Congratulations! You've received 3200 XP!]
A pop-up blinked into view across his HUD.
Kael blinked back, groaning. "Oh goody. Murder really does pay."
[Trait Conflict Detected: Human Arcane Channeling vs. Lycan Instinct Protocols. Conflict Resolved—100% Sync Achieved]
[Commencing Fusion...]
"Oh hell no," Kael muttered. "What the fuck is fusing now?"
Because when your DNA was already a walking lawsuit between magic and lycanthropy, fusion was never a good thing.
*** End Of Chapter 3 ***