Kai leaned heavily on his blade, his breath coming in ragged, wet gasps. Dammit... it hurts. It hurts so much.

  He could feel his power starting to flicker. His muscles were screaming, and he could literally feel the broken edges of his bones grinding against each other. Maintaining a constant 5% output while moving with shattered ribs was draining him faster than he had anticipated. This was the true nature of the test: it wasn't just about strength, but the endurance to stay at peak performance while the body begged for death.

  Kai forced himself upright, using his sword as a crutch. He pointed the tip of the weapon into the suffocating blackness of the pit.

  "If you want a fight, come and get it!" he roared, his voice echoing through the hollow silence. "I'm not afraid of you!"

  As if answering his challenge, three more creatures lunged from the shadows. But Kai was ready. Now that he knew their weakness, he didn't waste a single movement. With three precise, fluid strikes, he took their heads. They dissolved into smoke before they could even land a blow.

  For a second, a surge of confidence rushed through him. He felt himself getting stronger, more attuned to the rhythm of the Void. That familiar, cocky grin began to return to his face.

  But then, the atmosphere changed. The air grew cold—colder than the Void itself.

  From the deepest part of the pit, a figure emerged. It looked like the others, but its movements were deliberate, calculated. And then, it spoke. The voice was a dry, haunting rasp that seemed to vibrate inside Kai’s skull.

  "Kai Hiruna... you are already dead."

  The shock lasted only a fraction of a second before Kai’s instincts took over. He moved with a burst of speed, aiming for the creature's throat. He was so fast he should have been invisible, but the monster didn't need to see him. Through pure, cold intellect, it tilted its head just enough. Kai’s blade only managed a shallow graze across its neck.

  Before Kai could reset, the creature struck. It aimed directly for his shattered ribs.

  Kai managed to harden his skin with Jonk just in time, but the force was enough to grind the broken bone fragments together. He let out a choked scream. The monster wasn't trying to create a new wound; it was systematically destroying what was already broken.

  Kai swung again, a desperate horizontal slash, but the creature dodged effortlessly. It reached out, its clawed hand pressing against Kai’s side. For a moment, Kai felt a sickening tug—the monster was trying to absorb his Jonk.

  But the second its skin touched Kai’s Jonk, the monster recoiled. It jerked its hand back as if it had been burned by fire. For the first time, the creature looked... terrified.

  Kai didn't hesitate. He lunged forward, but the monster, driven by a sudden, frantic fear, countered with a desperate blow. It hammered a fist into Kai’s head with such monstrous force that the world turned into a blur of grey and black.

  Kai was sent hurtling dozens of meters back, disappearing into the lightless abyss. His vision swam, his eyelids feeling like lead.

  "Two minutes left..." Kaelen’s voice drifted through the dark, sounding miles away.

  Kai lay broken in the dirt, his consciousness slipping like sand through his fingers. He felt a cold, slimy grip on his ankle. The intelligent monster was dragging him deeper into the dark, muttering in that horrific, raspy voice.

  "Too much..." the creature hissed, its eyes darting in greed and fear. "So much Jonk... if I had tasted it all, I would have burst. An explosion of essence..."

  Suddenly, the monster shrieked and let go. Its hand was smoking, charred as if it had touched a sun.

  Slowly, terrifyingly, Kai began to rise. His head was bowed, his hair casting a deep shadow over his face. He looked like a puppet being pulled up by invisible strings. For a few fractions of a second, the monster saw Kai’s eyes turning as yellow as its own.

  The monster, driven by instinct, lunged with a shadowy fist. But something impossible happened. Kai’s hand shot up and caught the blow. These creatures were semi-liquid, abstract—they couldn't be "held" by human hands. Yet Kai’s grip was like a vice of cold iron.

  The monster began to tremble. Kai slowly tilted his head back.

  His eyes were no longer human. They were glowing, predatory slits of burning yellow.

  A thick, oily black mist began to swirl around his right arm, seeping into the metal of his sword. It was the exact same essence as the monsters, but darker, heavier. Kai gripped his hilt and swung. The monster barely flickered away, but the force of the strike didn't just hit the air—it seemed to tear the very fabric of the abyss in two.

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  Panicked, the intelligent creature let out a high-pitched whistle. Two more monsters emerged from the dark.

  Kai spoke. His voice was no longer that of a thirteen-year-old boy. It was deep, authoritative, and bone-chilling.

  "Bring a thousand of these useless parasites," Kai growled, his gaze locking onto the smart one. "I will slaughter every last one of you."

  The two lesser monsters charged, but they were dead before they could even process movement. Kai was a blur of black smoke and steel. The monster tried to counter, but Kai slipped through its guard like a ghost. With a jagged arc of his blade, he severed the creature's arm. The monster waited for the limb to knit back together—but nothing happened. The wound remained open, cauterized by Kai's black Jonk.

  "What... are you?" the monster stammered.

  Kai didn't answer. He took a wide stance, his hand gripping the sword so hard the steel began to groan. The entire pit started to vibrate, the shadows bowing away from the sheer pressure.

  The monster, realizing there was no escape, gathered every ounce of its essence into one final strike. They launched at each other—two streaks of darkness colliding in the heart of the Pit.

  Outside the pit, Kaelen stood looking down at his student, the smirk slowly fading from his face. "It seems he has arrived..."

  He turned, and seconds later, Leader Elian appeared with his sword drawn.

  "Kaelen," Elian said. "Grandmaster Vaelin sent me to investigate. Your student is emanating a strange Jonk... get out of my way and let me pass."

  Elian started to move toward the edge, but before he could jump, a blade was at his throat. Elian froze, his own sword slipping from his hand instinctively.

  "My student is down there giving everything he has," Kaelen said, his voice cold. "If I let you interrupt him, everything he’s done would be in vain. If you want to inspect anything, you pass through me first. I don't care who sent you. Let's not get our hands dirty."

  Elian leaned down, slowly retrieved his sword, and sheathed it. He turned to leave, but stopped for one last word.

  "You’ve made a poor choice, Kaelen. All this for that brat? I won't be the one to judge what you've done today. But someone will."

  The air in the abyss screamed. Two massive surges of dark energy were centimeters away from colliding—a blast that would have likely leveled everything in the vicinity. Dozens of glowing yellow eyes peered from the distant shadows, drawn to the sheer pressure of the clash like moths to a flame.

  Then, the world stopped.

  In the blink of an eye, Kaelen appeared between them. With terrifying nonchalance, he raised a single finger for each attack. The impact that should have been cataclysmic was snuffed out like a candle in a storm. The intelligent monster froze, its primal instincts screaming "Predator!" at the sight of Kaelen. Without a second thought, it turned and vanished into the dark, fleeing in a mix of terror and twisted gratitude for its life.

  Kai, his mind consumed by the black haze of his new power, lunged at Kaelen. He was fast, but Kaelen moved like a ghost, dodging the strike with a bored expression. The mere pressure of Kaelen’s presence was enough to overwhelm Kai’s flickering consciousness. The boy's eyes faded from yellow back to blue, and he collapsed.

  Kaelen caught him before he hit the dirt. "Rest now, my little apprentice," he whispered, before vanishing in a blur of motion.

  When Kai opened his eyes, he was back on the surface. The oppressive weight of the Pit was gone.

  "Well done, Kai. You did it," Kaelen’s voice drifted over him. "You passed the test."

  Kai groaned, clutching his head. "I passed? I... I don't remember much..." He looked down at his tattered clothes and his blood-stained skin, a look of deep worry crossing his face.

  Kaelen stepped closer, a reassuring smile on his face. "Kai, I am your mentor. From this moment on, as long as you are my student, tell me if something happens. In this society, I am the only one you can truly rely on—and I on you. So, tell me... what happened down there?"

  Kai hesitated, then gestured to his torso. "My ribs... the wounds. How am I supposed to explain this to my family? I can't exactly tell them I was fighting monsters for a secret organization in another dimension."

  Kaelen placed a hand on Kai’s chest. A surge of warmth flooded the boy's body, and in a second, the pain vanished. The bones knit back together, the shattered fragments fusing as if they had never broken. The skin cleared, leaving only scars.

  "Do not fear injury," Kaelen said. "Besides my combat strength, I am one of the few who can mend others. Now that you are healed and officially a Void Watcher, your rank has been set. Currently, you are Rank 15,000."

  "Rank 15,000..." Kai repeated, tasting the number. It felt heavy, a long way from the top.

  "The more missions you complete and the stronger you grow, the higher you will climb. But it isn't a competition, Kai. The rank simply helps us assign missions at your level. Now, go home. From tomorrow, you will juggle the life of a Watcher and that of an ordinary human."

  With a flick of Kaelen’s wrist, Kai was gone, teleported back to the safety of his room. Left alone, Kaelen’s reassuring smile twisted into a jagged, psychopathic grin. He turned and made his way to the Void Center, where the leaders were waiting.

  The leaders stood on their perches, surrounding the throne of Supreme Leader Vaelin. Only Elian was missing.

  "Kaelen! Your student is a problem!" Silas roared, his voice shaking the stone walls.

  "We all felt that pressure," Mara added, her eyes narrowing. "It wasn't normal. Why did your student emanate the Jonk of a monster?"

  Kaelen remained silent, his expression one of eerie calm. Thorne chimed in, his voice heavy with concern; he didn't want the boy dead yet, but he knew a threat when he felt one. Finally, Grand Master Vaelin stood up. The room went silent.

  "It is truly unique," Vaelin spoke, his eyes boring into Kaelen. "That boy has the essence of a monster deep within him. And I suspect it isn't temporary. You knew from the start, didn't you, Kaelen? In the hundreds of years you've lived, you never took a student. Until now."

  Kaelen let out a soft, dark chuckle. "Me? How could I have known?" He grinned, his eyes flashing with a hidden fire. "It was a bet. I wasn't certain, I just took a leap of faith and I happened to be right. However, I agree we will not kill him just because he is... partially something else. But understand this: if any of you try to move against him, you’ll have to go through me first."

  Kaelen turned his back on the most powerful beings in the Void and walked away.