The shadow came from nowhere.
Aaron didn't do anything. Didn't raise his hand. Didn't say anything. The mark on his body just burned suddenly from his palm all the way up to his neck and the ground under his feet went dark and he looked down and thought.
CLUNG.
*What.*
Then the Mountain King came up from it.
BOOOOOOM.
The street shook. Buildings cracked on both sides. Car alarms went off somewhere far back. People who had been watching from a distance started running and screaming and Aaron stood next to the Mountain King and felt the heat coming off it and thought *I did that. I actually just did that.*
Zxara looked at the shadow still spreading across the ground.
"What the—" she said quietly. Then louder. "WHAT IS THAT."
The Being looked at the Mountain King.
One full second of nothing.
Then it moved.
CRACK.
VOID STEP straight into the Mountain King and the impact sent a shockwave through the whole street and Aaron stumbled and caught himself on the wall and dust rained down from the buildings above.
The Mountain King didn't go down.
It grabbed the Being with both hands and held and the Being activated VOID STEP again and nothing happened. Couldn't VOID STEP out of something that heavy holding it that hard. It activated PRESSURE FIELD and Aaron felt it hit him from across the street and his knees buckled and the Mountain King stood in it and didn't feel a thing.
*Shadow form*, Aaron thought. *PRESSURE FIELD doesn't touch it.*
Zxara was already moving.
Aaron watched her go and forgot to breathe for a second. Not because of how she looked. Because of how she moved. Something that had no name. She hit the Being from the left while the Mountain King held it and the impact cracked the air and the Being made a sound it hadn't made once since Aaron had seen it.
Pain.
"YES!" Aaron shouted. His ribs screamed about that. He didn't care. "COME ON!"
The Being fought back.
SOUL STRIKE came out fast and hit Zxara and she staggered and Aaron's stomach dropped and she steadied herself and hit it again harder than before and Aaron thought *she just took a SOUL STRIKE and came back harder. S rank. That's what that actually means.*
CRACK. CRACK. CRACK.
Zxara hitting it. Mountain King holding it. The Being getting more desperate with every second. VOID STEP kept failing. PRESSURE FIELD kept collapsing. The dark material on its skin moving faster and faster and then suddenly KABOOM!
Slower.
Then still.
Zxara hit it one last time and everything the Being had just stopped. The Mountain King's grip held and the body dropped and hit the street and the impact cracked the ground and then it was just there.
Still.
Aaron stood against the wall breathing hard.
The street was quiet except for car alarms and someone crying somewhere far back and the sound of Aaron's own breathing.
Then his screen hit him.
[ ENTITY DEFEATED: THE BEING ]
[ New Skill Unlocked:
SHADOW DOMINION ]
[ Upon defeat of any entity its shadow
form becomes bound to you.
Summon at will no time limit.
They grow as you grow. ]
[ MOUNTAIN KING: PERMANENT SHADOW FORM ]
[MOUNTAIN KING: LEVEL UP ]
[ Quest Completed: THE ESCAPED BEING ]
Aaron read SHADOW DOMINION.
*No time limit*, he thought. *They grow as I grow.*
He looked at the Mountain King.
The Mountain King looked back at him.
Then it went back into the shadow. Slow. The darkness pulling it in from the feet up until it was just gone and the street was just a street again and the shadow under Aaron's feet was just a shadow.
Aaron looked at his hand.
The mark ran from his palm up his wrist and disappeared under his sleeve. Dark lines. Geometric. Something that hadn't been there this morning.
*When did—* he thought. *How long has this—*
"Hey."
He looked up.
Zxara was walking toward him.
Aaron's brain did something briefly unhelpful when she got close enough and he told it to stop and it mostly listened.
She reached him and looked at his face. At his ribs. At the general state of him.
"You're quite injured," she said.
"I'm fine."
She looked at him the way people looked at someone saying something obviously untrue.
She held out her hand.
Aaron took it and she pulled him up properly and he did not make a sound about his ribs.
"That shadow," she said. Still looking at him carefully. "That was yours."
"Apparently."
"A beast. In shadow form." She looked at where it had gone. "I've never seen that before."
"Me neither," Aaron said honestly.
She looked at the mark on his hand. Then at his face. Something behind her eyes was thinking very fast and keeping very quiet about it.
"I'm Zxara," she said.
"Aaron."
"Zxara Hashimi." A pause. "You should get those ribs looked at Aaron."
"I'll survive."
She looked at the Being's body on the cracked ground. At the people still watching from a distance. At the buildings with fresh cracks running up their sides.
"The body," Aaron said. "Someone should you know?"
"I'll handle it," she said.
He nodded.
Looked at her once more.
Looked away because looking was becoming a problem again.
"Thanks," he said. "For the assist."
She almost smiled. Almost. "You were holding your own."
He genuinely couldn't tell if she meant that.
"Bye," he said.
He turned and walked.
Behind him he could hear the crowd at the far end of the street starting to talk. Loud. Getting louder. People trying to explain to each other what they'd just watched happen in a narrow street on a normal morning.
A shadow beast rising from the ground.
A null student walking away from it.
Aaron put his hand in his pocket and felt the mark on his palm and thought about SHADOW DOMINION and the Mountain King growing as he grew and what that meant for everything still coming.
*3rd Stage Adapted Player*, he thought. *Dead in a street.*
*The Director fights things that strong every day.*
*How strong is the Director.*
He didn't have an answer.
He kept walking.
Nobody knew his name.
Nobody knew anything.
*Good*, he thought.
*Keep it that way.*
And CLINKED!
The message popped up.
[ THIRD OPENING : DETECTED]
[ STATUS : THE GATES ARE OPENING]