The hunters were already dying when Aaron arrived.
Three portals torn open across two blocks. Dark red at the edges, wrong in a way that had nothing to do with color. Monsters moving between them in formations that dungeon monsters had no business knowing. Cutting exits. Cornering hunters. Working like something on the other side had briefed them before they came through.
Aaron had never seen that before.
*Someone sent them through with a plan*, he thought. *This wasn't random. This was aimed.*
A hunter dropped twenty meters to his left and didn't move again.
Aaron ran.
---
Marcus was still fighting.
That was the first thing Aaron noticed. Left arm hanging at a wrong angle, blood dried down half his face, right arm swinging on pure stubbornness. Two monsters in front of him and a third closing from behind that he had no idea about.
Aaron put both daggers into the third one before it reached him. Venom hit deep. It dropped without finishing its step.
Marcus spun around swinging and Aaron stepped back from it.
They looked at each other.
"You," Marcus said. Like the word tasted wrong.
"Your left arm," Aaron said. "How long?"
"Twenty minutes." His eyes dropped to the daggers. To the venom still running along the blades. Something moved through his face that he didn't manage to pull back in time. "What the hell are you doing here? System called you null. No rank. No skill. Nothing. One hit out here and you're done. Go back before something out here finishes you."
A monster came from the left.
Aaron moved through it. Two hits. Down. Already turning back.
"Where are the others?"
Marcus stared at the body like it had done something personally offensive.
"How did you i mean how."
"The others, Marcus. Where?"
"Six more. Two blocks out. Three of them are down."
"Show me."
The three hunters on the ground had the look of people who had already made peace with not getting up. Faces pale. Chests barely moving.
Aaron opened inventory. Three vials appeared in his hand and Marcus watched that happen and forgot to keep his expression together.
Aaron pressed them to the hunters' lips. Color came back. They started moving.
Marcus exhaled slow through his nose. "How are you doing that."
"Later."
"That's not later." His good hand went white at the knuckles. "You pull things from nothing. You move faster than anything I've seen at A rank. Two hits and monsters just stop. The system said null. I was standing right there when it said it." His voice dropped. Not angry anymore. Something rawer than angry. "So what the hell are you?"
Aaron looked at him.
"Get everyone out," he said. "Can you do that?"
Marcus held his gaze.
"What are you going to do?" he said.
Aaron looked at the three portals still bleeding across the area.
*I have closed four portals today already*, he thought. *My arm is going to hate me tomorrow. Theren is going to look at me with that face. Rei is going to ask twenty questions I cannot answer.*
"Finish it," he said.
He reached.
The mark burned dark then full black.
Shadows spread outward from his feet and Marcus stepped back without deciding to. The hunters who had just woken up froze.
The Mountain King rose first. Ground cracking under it before it fully formed. Then the Void Serpent, low and fast, acid already running. Then the Stone Titan. Then the dungeon shadows one by one, the mana beast last, rising slow and enormous and waiting.
The whole area went quiet.
Marcus stared.
His mouth opened. Nothing came out.
"Those are monsters," he said finally, each word placed down like he was afraid of what came after them. "Those are the things we came here to fight. They are standing behind you waiting for orders." His eyes moved from the shadow army to Aaron to the mark on his arm and back. "How does a null have an army? How is any of this actually happening right now?"
Aaron looked at the shadow army.
"Clear it," he said.
BOOM.
The Mountain King moved and the ground split where it stepped. Monsters at the nearest portal turned and ran and it didn't matter. The Void Serpent hit the second group low, acid eating through the ground where they stood. The Stone Titan came through what was left.
The mana beast moved through the rest and the rest simply stopped existing.
Then it twisted. Wrong. Half a second. Aaron felt something yank hard behind his ribs. The mark burned hot then went ice cold. He didn't flinch. The shadow flickered darker, like it had tasted something through those portals that had no business being on this side.
CRACK. CRACK. BOOM. CRACK.
Two minutes. Done.
Notifications came in fast.
[ITEM OBTAINED : Mana Core Fragment]
[ITEM OBTAINED : Dark Hide]
[ITEM OBTAINED : Venom Sac]
[ITEM OBTAINED : Shadow Essence x3]
[SKILL POINT OBTAINED]
Aaron dismissed them and walked to the first portal.
He drove his palm into the red edge.
The rift screamed. High and metallic. Crimson bled to white. The portal convulsed and shattered inward, every monster half-emerging dropping at once.
Second portal. Same palm. Same scream. Collapsed.
Third portal fought back, warping and snapping. Aaron's hand never moved. It died with a crack that rolled across the entire north of Lemurian.
Silence.
Aaron looked at the bodies of the monsters scattered across the ground.
He reached again.
The mark flared dark purple.
[Shadow Dominion : POSSIBLE]
[Extract shadow forms?]
Aaron selected yes.
The shadows rose from the bodies one by one. Fast and silent. Each one pulling up from the ground and joining the army already standing there without ceremony without announcement just joining like they had always been part of it.
Aaron looked at the shadow army. All of them. Old and new standing together.
He pointed at the two remaining portals at the edge of the area.
"Stay," he said. "Nothing comes through."
They moved to position without a sound.
He turned around.
Marcus was still there. The other hunters behind him. All of them staring at what had just happened. At the shadows that had been monsters thirty seconds ago now standing guard at the portal edges like loyal soldiers.
One of the hunters behind Marcus made a sound that wasn't quite a word.
Marcus didn't move.
He looked at the shadow army. At the collapsed portals. At Aaron standing in the middle of all of it with a cut on his face and daggers in his hands and a mark on his arm still faintly glowing.
"What are you?" Marcus said. Not a challenge. Not anger. Just the question sitting there with nothing else around it.
Aaron looked at him for a moment.
"Get everyone out," he said. "The shadows will handle the rest."
"Aaron..."
Aaron activated Stealth and walked.
Gone.
Marcus stood in the silence with his broken arm hanging wrong and stared at the empty space where Aaron had been standing.
One of the hunters behind him finally spoke.
"Was that," the hunter started. Stopped. Tried again. "Did he just turn the monsters into his soldiers? The ones we were fighting? He just–– they just––"
"Yes," Marcus said quietly.
"How is that even––"
"I don't know," Marcus said.
He looked at the shadow army standing guard. At two blocks of destruction that his full A rank team had spent three hours failing to stop. At the five minutes it had taken one person to end it completely.
***
One null.
"Not even a Awkaned one." Marcus considered. Not to anyone. Just because some things needed to exist out loud even when no one was listening. "Whatever the system says. Whatever I heard at that ceremony." He shook his head once, slowly. "As far as I can see he is not a null."