Kaelan sits cross-legged atop the cliff, the wind threading through his black hair as faint embers and shadow wisp around his body.
His mana churns and stabilises, flowing smoother with each refinement as his mastery over the magic powers deepens.
The fire element within him burns hotter, the dark element steadier, each reinforcing the other like twin pulses in one vein.
Yet even as his power climbs, a thought lingers.
"If only there were a place saturated with death energy," he murmurs, eyes half-open, staring at the vast horizon. "An ancient battlefield… one that hasn't vanished with time."
The crows perched nearby tilt their heads.
A few hop closer, watching him curiously.
Then two of them begin cawing, their voices sharp and layered, carrying meaning he understands.
Kaelan's focus shifts toward them, brow arching. "There is?" he asks, suspicion threading his voice.
Their thoughts brush against his mind—fragmented images of a barren wasteland stretch before him: cracked earth, deep scars gouged into the land, white bones of beasts and humans piled high, rusted weapons half-buried in the dust.
The silence in the vision is thick, ancient, and heavy with lingering death.
His eyes narrow, excitement glinting beneath calm. "Where is it?"
The answer comes swiftly, a pull eastward, deeper into the demon world—far from any human settlement.
Kaelan rises, stretching his limbs once before leaping from the cliff's edge.
His body twists mid-air, black feathers bursting from his skin as his form expands into a great crow.
With one powerful flap, he surges upward, slicing through the wind.
Each beat of his wings carries him higher—past the clouds, past the thin mist veiling the dawn.
Then, wings spread wide, he tilts eastward and vanishes into the horizon, flying toward the ancient battlefield buried in death's silence.
He crosses the mountain range where the demon city lies shrouded in black mist, its towering walls glimmering faintly beneath the clouds.
Then come the endless swamps, thick with miasma and the cries of unseen beasts.
As he sweeps above them, he senses the spirits of passing demons brushing against him—probing, curious, testing his aura.
Kaelan does nothing. His wings remain steady, his spirit calm. He simply continues flying. *Next time I visit the demon city,* he thinks, *I'll buy a flying magic power. I need more speed.*
Ahead, the air begins to change.
A faint chill rises, tinged with the scent of dust and bones.
The closer he flies, the denser the death energy becomes, pressing against his feathers like an invisible tide. Instead of discomfort, he feels an odd sense of peace—like returning to a place that resonates with the darkness in his blood.
Minutes later, the green fades from the world.
The grasslands below twist into cracked, dry earth.
The air grows still, heavy with silence.
Scattered bones appear first—animal, human, demon—all bleached white and half-buried in sand. Broken blades and shattered armour glint beneath the dying light.
Kaelan descends slowly. His wings fold inward as black feathers retreat into flesh, and he lands in human form, boots touching the arid ground with a soft thud.
He stands motionless for a moment, the wind sighing through hollow skulls.
Then he tilts his head back, takes a deep breath, and sits cross-legged amid the sea of bones.
Closing his eyes, he draws in the air thick with death energy.
It streams toward him, silent and unseen, merging into his body.
The energy refines through his mana and merges with his cultivation, flowing faster and deeper than before.
His strength surges; each breath pulls more of the battlefield's death essence into him, his cultivation rising twice as fast, twice as fierce, the forgotten dead lending their silence to his power.
Hours pass, and the air grows thin; at last, he forces his spirit to slow, breath calming, when footsteps scrape the cracked earth toward him.
He opens his eyes to a humanoid figure formed of bone—ribs clacking, skull tilted, empty sockets fixed on him—shambling across the plain.
Without rising, Kaelan raises a palm and a fireball blooms in his hand, coalescing into a hot, hungry sphere.
The sphere flies true, strikes the skeleton, and the bones explode outward, shattering into a thousand white fragments that rattle and scatter on the wind.
He does not resume cultivation immediately; instead, he watches the ruin and thinks.
Something about the place breathes life into bone—the sheer density of death energy here animates the remains, giving them motion where none was before.
With the limited information at hand, that is the simplest answer he can find.
A dark, idle thought surfaces—what if he released an undead plague here and let the dead march for sport?—and he feels, for a beat, the cold tug of an instinct that is not entirely his.
He shakes his head, tasting the idea and finding it bitter; the thought would cost thousands of innocent lives, and that price is not his to pay.
"The void monster instinct," he murmurs, naming the shadow that brushes his mind, and forces it away.
Kaelan breathes deep, folding his legs again, returning to the slow, steady rhythm of cultivation. Minutes slide into hours, the sun dips behind the horizon, and the ancient battlefield sinks into twilight.
Then, at the dying edge of light, the stillness breaks.
From the heart of the wasteland, an energy wave erupts—silent yet thunderous—rolling outward like a pulse from a buried giant.
The impact brushes against Kaelan's skin, jolting him from meditation. His eyes open, their glow cutting through the dim air as he turns toward the disturbance.
A faint prickle of danger whispers across his instincts. It warns him to stay put—but curiosity, fierce and cold, outweighs caution.
He rises, scanning the barren field, and watches as a thick, dark fog seeps up from the ground.
It spreads fast, swallowing bones, rusted weapons, and shattered armour, devouring sight itself until the world shrinks to a grey prison.
Kaelan sends his spirit sense outward, only to find it smothered, its reach cut down to mere meters. The fog suppresses everything—vision, sense, flight.
He looks toward the unseen heart of the battlefield and exhales. Flying would be suicide; he could lose direction, drift endlessly in the haze.
Only one option remains.
Step by step, Kaelan walks toward the pulsing power hidden in the fog.
He doesn't go far before bones begin to stir.
Skeletons burst from the ground, crawling from shattered armour and bone mounds, charging at him from every direction.
A single fireball answers.
The blast scatters the first wave into dust and broken ribs, but more keep coming.
Each few steps forward, another pack rises, their hollow sockets burning faintly with the death essence that fills the battlefield.
Kaelan moves through them like a storm.
Fireballs erupt from his hands one after another, each detonation lighting the fog red and gold before fading into ash and silence.
After what feels like an hour of endless fighting, he stops.
Before him looms a mountain of bones—white and ancient, piled higher than the ruins of any temple.
Instead of going around, he starts climbing.
The bones creak and slide beneath his boots, but he ascends quickly, his balance steady, his mana coiled beneath his skin.
At the summit, he pauses. The fog swirls below like a restless sea, hiding the world from view.
Then something glimmers to his right.
Kaelan turns just as a dark energy sphere hurtles toward him.
His palm flares with mana.
With a sharp motion, he swats the orb aside, redirecting it.
The sphere sails off and detonates against a distant bone hill, shattering it in a thunderous explosion.
He doesn't watch the debris fall. His eyes are fixed on the one who launched it.
A humanoid figure stands among the bones—thin, tall, and still. Its outline is human, yet its aura is neither human nor demon.
Kaelan narrows his gaze. "Another race," he murmurs. "I didn't think a fourth existed in this world."
The figure gives no reply. Instead, it lifts its hand, and spheres of dark energy shoot toward him—silent, fast, and cold.
Kaelan reacts instantly, hurling fireballs in return.
The two forces collide midair, bursting in deafening explosions. Fire and shadow clash, their shockwaves shattering bone piles and sending waves of heat and ash through the fog.
The glare blinds Kaelan's vision. He loses sight of the figure amid the chaos.
When the explosions fade, so does the enemy's form.
Kaelan's ears twitch, catching the faint scrape of movement behind him. He raises his arm, mana surging around it just in time to meet a brutal chop. The impact rattles his bones, forcing him a step back.
The figure appears in front of him—its body wreathed in black mist, eyes faintly glowing like dying coals.
Pain shoots up Kaelan's arm from the strike, but he doesn't retreat. Instead, his body hardens as he channels his talent spell.
"Ironstone Body."
His skin turns faintly metallic, his aura thickens. The next blow from the figure lands but fails to move him.
Kaelan steps forward, surprising the opponent, and drives his fist straight into its chest.
The impact booms. The figure stumbles back several steps, its form flickering.
Kaelan exhales slowly. "Interesting," he says. "Let's start the second round."
The figure lets out a low, inhuman growl. Dark energy erupts from its body, doubling its speed and strength in an instant.
Kaelan braces. The attacks come faster now—each strike heavier than before.
He can't match the raw power, but he meets every blow with precision, deflecting, redirecting, countering in rhythm. Sparks of mana and black mist fill the air around them.
As the battle continues, a sharp thought cuts through the noise.
This opponent's power and pressure are perfect.
An excellent place to temper Iron Body magic power.
So he does—defending, enduring, letting each strike hammer his body harder, using pain as the whetstone for his strength.
With each clash, his comprehension of the Iron Body magic deepens. From mere proficiency, it advances toward small mastery.
The metal-like resilience of his body thickens; blows that once bruised now only jar.
Understanding sharpens into instinct. Kaelan refines the Ironstone Body spell on the spot, reinforcing its structure, layering defence upon defence. Even while taking hits, he retaliates—fists glowing with fire, strikes landing heavier, sharper.
The figure halts its assault, taking a wary step back. Its hollow voice reverberates through the fog. "You will pay for this."
Scales ripple across its body, gleaming faintly under the dying light. Its aura bursts outward, shaking the air. The ground quivers beneath the weight of its power.
Then it punches.
Kaelan crosses his arms to block.
The impact lands like a mountain's fall. Pain lances through his bones.
A shockwave erupts, flinging him through the air and into a distant bone hill.
The hill collapses, bones splintering under the force.
The figure raises its palm. A dark energy sphere condenses—dense, silent, and lethal—then hurtles toward the wreckage.
The explosion that follows swallows everything in shadow and dust.
A cry tears through the roar—a piercing shriek that cuts the fog like a blade.
From within the blast, a massive crow bursts out, its claws wreathed in crimson fire.
Kaelan.
He dives from the smoke, slashing down. His flaming claws crash against the figure's arms, sparks and ash scattering as both forces struggle.
The figure roars back, straining upward, pushing against the burning talons.
Kaelan's instincts scream. A chilling sense of danger flares—not from the figure, but from somewhere unseen.
Without hesitation, he beats his wings hard, using the recoil from their struggle to propel himself into the sky.
He climbs higher, cutting through the fog, and turns eastward—his black feathers shimmering faintly in the dim light.
Without looking back, he speeds toward his cliff, his mind already set.
He'll rest in the Demon City, wait for sunrise, and prepare for what lurks in that ancient battlefield's depths.