The transport was a rattling, armored behemoth that smelled of oil, sweat, and ozone. It lurched across the broken landscape towards the Scarred Wastes, each jolt a reminder of the fragile F-Rank body I inhabited. Inside, the atmosphere was thick with unspoken tensions.
Corvus, the B-Rank leader, sat in stoic silence, his eyes closed as if in meditation, but his [Gravity Well] aura was a tightly coiled spring of potential energy. Kael was methodically checking his gear, his knuckles wrapped tight. And Jax… Jax stared at me from across the bay, a predatory grin playing on his lips. His [Brawler's Resilience] felt like a dull, aggressive pressure in the confined space.
DING! [Skill Detected: Terrain Reading (B-Rank)] - Replicating... Complete.]
DING! [Skill Detected: Survival Instinct (C-Rank)] - Replicating... Complete.
Even here, my power grew. I absorbed Corvus's expert ability to read the land and a recruit's sharpened instinct for danger. My [Replicated Skills] list swelled, a silent counterpoint to the visible weakness I projected.
After an hour, the transport ground to a halt. Corvus's eyes snapped open. "We're here. Gear up. Remember the protocol: Grey observes and reports. Kael, point. Jax, rear guard. I lead. Any deviations, and I'll leave you for the Gloom-Bats."
The ramp descended with a hydraulic hiss, revealing the entrance to The Whispering Chasm. It was a jagged tear in the earth, as if the ground had been clawed open by a titanic beast. A faint, cold mist seeped from the opening, carrying with it a soft, sighing sound—the whispers that gave the chasm its name. The air was thick with stagnant mana, feeling heavy and oppressive.
My [Mana Sense (A-Rank)] didn't just sense it; it dissected it. The mana wasn't just dense; it was wrong. Twisted. Unlike the clean, elemental power of the Hunters in the city, this felt corrupted, frayed at the edges, pulsing with a faint, chaotic rhythm.
"Anomalous energy confirmed," I said, my voice barely a whisper. "It's... corrosive. Unstable."
Corvus gave a curt nod. "Noted. That's what we're here for. Move out."
We descended into the gloom. The chasm walls were slick with phosphorescent moss that cast a sickly green light. The whispers grew louder, not in volume, but in clarity. They were just on the edge of understanding, a maddening murmur of lost thoughts and alien intent. My [Analytical Combat Sight] tracked every drip of water, every shift of pebbles, painting a perfect, three-dimensional map of our surroundings.
For the first hour, it was uneventful. We encountered only minor fauna—skittering rock-crabs and a few juvenile Gloom-Bats, which Kael dispatched with efficient, quiet blows. With each enemy, a new chime sounded.
DING! [Skill Detected: Chitinous Carapace (E-Rank)] - Replicating... Complete.]
DING! [Skill Detected: Echolocating Screech (D-Rank)] - Replicating... Complete.]
I was a sponge, passively absorbing the dungeon's ecology. My [Cellular Empathy] even began its slow work on the rock-crab's durability, a minuscule 0.001% integration.
The problem was Jax. He stayed close to me, his presence a constant threat. "Hear anything useful yet, sensor?" he taunted in a low voice when Corvus was a few paces ahead. "Or are you just enjoying the tour?"
I ignored him, focusing on the data. The corrupted mana was getting stronger, its source pulling us deeper. We entered a vast cavern, its ceiling lost in darkness. In the center stood a grotesque, pulsating formation of crystalline growths—the source of the anomaly.
"Target identified," Corvus murmured, raising a hand for us to halt. "Scan it, Grey. Full analysis."
I focused my will, directing my [Eye of the Mimic] and [Mana Sense] towards the crystal cluster.
[Anomaly Analysis Initiated.]
[Structure: Mutated Mana Geode.]
[Status: Unstable. Emitting reality-warping mana waves.]
[Primary Effect: Induces paranoia, auditory hallucinations, and minor spatial distortions.]
[Secondary Effect: Corrupts and mutates local lifeforms.]
[Skill Blueprint Detected: Mental Shroud (A-Rank).]
[Replicating... 0.01%...]
An A-Rank mental skill! But before I could process it, a low growl echoed from the shadows. From behind the crystal cluster, three creatures emerged. They were wolves, or had been once. Now, their fur was patchy, revealing crystalline growths erupting from their flesh. Their eyes glowed with the same sickly green as the moss, and drool, sizzling with acid, dripped from their maws.
[Target: Corrupted Dire Wolf.]
[Threat Level: C-Rank.]
[Skills: Crystalline Bite (C-Rank), Acidic Spit (D-Rank).]
"Contact!" Corvus barked. "Defensive formation! Grey, stay back!"
Kael and Jax moved forward. Kael's fists glowed with rocky light, meeting the charge of the first wolf. Jax roared, his body swelling slightly as he activated his [Brawler's Resilience] and tackled the second.
The third wolf, however, ignored them. Its glowing eyes locked onto me. The weakest prey. It lunged, a blur of fangs and corrosive drool.
Time seemed to slow. My [Analytical Combat Sight] projected its trajectory. I could see the exact path of its leap, the angle of its jaw. I had nowhere to run. My body couldn't outpace it. I couldn't block its bite.
But I had its skill. I had [Crystalline Bite (C-Rank)], replicated and sitting at 12% progression from the brief sight of the other wolves. It was dormant, but the understanding of the skill—the way mana was channeled to harden the teeth and jaws—was there.
I couldn't harden my own flesh. But I could understand the point of greatest structural weakness in its own attack.
As the wolf descended, I didn't flinch. I took a single, precise step to the side and, with all the F-Rank strength I could muster, I drove the hardened heel of my palm not into the wolf, but into the specific, vibrating nexus of mana on the side of its jaw where its own [Crystalline Bite] skill was being focused.
There was a sickening crack. Not of bone, but of crystallized mana shattering. The wolf yelped in shocked pain, its bite dissolving into a harmless spray of spittle as its skill backfired. It tumbled past me, skidding across the cavern floor, disoriented and wounded.
For a moment, there was silence, broken only by the panting of the other wolves and the whispers of the chasm. Jax, who had just finished pummeling his wolf into submission, stared at me, his jaw slack. Kael looked stunned. Corvus's eyes were wide, his analytical gaze missing nothing.
I had done it again. Neutralized a C-Rank threat without a shred of visible mana. I stood there, breathing heavily, my heart trying to beat its way out of my chest.
"How..." Jax began, his voice hushed.
"I... saw a flaw in its aura. A weak point," I stammered, the lie now a well-rehearsed script. "A lucky hit."
Corvus walked over to the whimpering, disarmed wolf and put it out of its misery with a swift, precise strike. He then turned to me, his expression unreadable.
"Luck is a skill on the battlefield, Grey," he said, his voice low. "And you seem to have an abundance of it." He looked from me to the pulsating mana geode. "This mission is over. We have the data. We're pulling out."
As we turned to leave, my eyes met Jax's. The mockery was gone, replaced by a cold, calculating hatred. He hadn't seen a lucky fool. He had seen a rival. A phantom that had, once again, slipped through his fingers and humiliated him.
The crucible had tested me, and I had passed by revealing just enough to deepen the mystery. But I had also made a true enemy. The road out of the chasm felt longer than the road in, the whispers now sounding less like madness and more like a promise of the greater dangers to come.