The moonlight over the Patrian border was not silver; it was choked by the charcoal haze of the Forest of Abyss.
Arthur stood in the center of a macabre circle, the air whistling through the ribs of the undead. Ten skeletons remained—the elite vanguard of a Yatan ritual site—their rusted blades shivering with necrotic energy.
Arthur's muscles screamed. He had been fighting for three hours, his stamina bar flickering in the dangerous red zone.
Every time he tried to channel his mana into a killing blow, a notification blocked his vision like a persistent ghost.
[You have been offered the hidden class: Aura Master. Do you accept?]
"No...!" Arthur roared, the word tearing from his throat as he parried a spear that would have pierced his lung.
He didn't want the Master class—not yet. To accept it now would lock his growth at his current potential. He wanted the path of the warrior, the path that required blood and grit before refinement.
The system finally relented, the interface flickering from gold to a deep, burning crimson.
[You have denied becoming the Aura Master.]
[The system has granted you the title: 'Aura Warrior']
[Aura Warrior]
* The special resource 'Aura' has been unlocked.
* Restriction: it allows for 'Physical Fortification'.
A surge of heat, unlike the cool flow of mana, ignited in Arthur's solar plexus. It felt like liquid lead pouring into his veins.
His sword, a standard steel blade notched from a hundred collisions, began to hum with a faint, translucent white glow.
The "Continuous Stab" skill, which previously felt like a series of disjointed lunges, suddenly became a blur of rhythmic destruction.
Thwip-thwip-thwip-thwip-thwip!
Five skeletons didn't just fall; they disintegrated. The aura coating his blade bypassed the brittle resistance of their enchanted bones, shattering their core stones in a mere two seconds.
[Critical Hit!]
[Due to the level gap being over 10, damage dealt is decreased by 45%]
[You have defeated a Skeleton Warrior (x5).]
[10,000 experience acquired. You have leveled up!]
Arthur didn't stop to breathe. The five skeletal archers in the rear were already notching arrows dipped in Yatan poison.
He lunged, his boots cracking the dry earth. He didn't use a graceful maneuver; he used "Heavy Strike," reinforced by his new Aura.
The impact was less like a sword hit and more like a falling meteor. The archers were pulverized into white dust before they could release a single string.
"Sigh... finally," Arthur muttered, leaning on his sword as the last of the dust settled. He wiped sweat and bone fragments from his forehead.
"The Yatan Church... they're far too active this close to Patrian. If they're brewing a plague here, the entire southern duchy is at risk."
He looked toward the heart of the woods. The trees here were different—twisted, weeping a black sap that smelled of rot. He wasn't here for the foot soldiers. He was here for the source.
Thirty minutes deeper into the gloom, the environment shifted. The music of the world—the insects, the wind—simply stopped.
[You have entered the 'Forest of Abyss']
Arthur's HUD pinged a warning. The average mob level here jumped to 125+. At his current level, a single misstep meant instant death.
He pressed his back against the bark of a gargantuan, dead oak as a patrol of Dark Knights clanked past. Their armor was the color of dried blood, etched with runes that seemed to swallow the light.
He held his breath, overhearing their hollow, metallic voices.
"Is it true?" one knight asked, his voice a raspy echo. "The Knight of the Lake... the Great Lancelot? They've actually turned him?"
"He was easy prey," the second knight chuckled, a sound like grinding stones. "His heart was already dead. When he failed to protect Guinevere, he did half the work for us. He slaughtered a whole village in his grief. The 7th Servant just gave his body the immortality his sins demanded."
Arthur's heart hammered against his ribs. Lancelot. In the lore of this world, Lancelot wasn't just a knight, he is a great Knight, a man whose martial prowess was said to rival the sword saint itself.
To face him as an Undead Knight was a nightmare scenario for any player.
"Oi!" A sharp, commanding bark cut through the gossip. "The 7th Servant, Dark Bus, ordered us to maintain the perimeter, not wag your tongues like noblewomen! You eight, split to the outer sectors. Now!"
The patrol dispersed, leaving only two knights guarding the path forward. Arthur knew he couldn't take a group of eight, but two? Two was an opportunity.
He reached into his inventory and pulled out his prize: the Prodigy Spear. The weapon was a masterpiece of craftsmanship, the tip forged from wind-tempered steel that shimmered with an inner light.
[Prodigy Spear]
Rating: Unique
Attack Power: 670
Wind Damage: +10%
Attack Speed: +10%
Penetration: +4
* Gale Spear: Increases movement speed by 15% when charging.
Arthur activated "Extreme Thrust."
He didn't run; he became a projectile. The Gale Spear passive kicked in, wrapping his body in a localized vortex. He covered twenty meters in a heartbeat.
The spearhead whistled, piercing through the first Dark Knight's breastplate and continuing through the back of the second.
[Critical Hit!]
[Due to the level gap being over 60, damage dealt is decreased by 31%]
[You have defeated a Dark Knight.]
[52,000 experience acquired.]
The second knight, skewered but technically "alive," tried to swing a heavy mace. But Arthur was a whirlwind of efficiency.
He twisted the spear, activating "Spear Charge" at point-blank range. The force of the spiraling wind tore the knight's helm off, along with the head inside it.
[You have leveled up!]
[Beginner Spear Mastery has upgraded to Intermediate Spear Mastery.]
"No time to celebrate," Arthur whispered. He could hear the heavy footsteps of the returning patrol. He vanished into the shadows, a ghost of a adventurer, moving toward the epicenter of the dark mana.
To the south of Arthur's position, the forest was screaming. But this wasn't the scream of victims—it was the roar of holy fire.
"For the Goddess! Let the light purge the filth!" Isabel, the favored daughter of the Rebecca Church, was a vision of terrifying beauty.
Her white hair whipped around her face like a halo of silk, and her golden eyes burned with a zealotry that bordered on madness.
She swung the Divine Spear of Raphael, with a grace that made the act of killing look like a liturgical dance.
A Yatan priest attempted to cast "Divine Punishment," a dark hex intended to rot the flesh of the living. Isabel didn't dodge. She lunged, the tip of the spear shattering the spell mid-air as if it were glass.
"Priests, fortify the rear!" she commanded, her voice ringing with the authority of a general. "Paladins, form the crescent! I will break their center. None shall leave this forest breathing."
She was a juggernaut of light, but behind her eyes lay the shadow of the Church's brainwashing. To her, the world was binary: the Light, and the corpses of those who didn't follow it.
Arthur reached the clearing. In the center stood a ritual circle of pulsating violet light. Within it stood a hulking figure in shattered silver armor—Lancelot, the Death Knight.
His head was bowed, his legendary sword thrust into the dirt. Standing over him was a man in tattered black robes: the 7th Servant, Dark Bus.
"Rise, Knight of the Lake," Dark Bus hissed, his hands glowing with the sickly green of soul-binding magic. "Forget the woman. Forget the king. You belong to the Great God Yatan now."
Arthur knew he couldn't win a direct confrontation. He was under-leveled, outgunned, and outmatched. But he had the Prodigy Set. He quickly donned the armor, the gauntlets, and the greaves.
[Set Bonus Activated: All Stats +75, +100% Critical Damage.]
He swapped his spear for a longbow. He didn't fire immediately. He used a hidden mechanic: Focus Overdraw. For every second he held the string beyond the limit, the damage multiplied, at the cost of his own HP.
One second... three seconds... his fingers began to bleed... eight seconds... ten.
"Gale Arrow!"
The projectile left the bow with a sonic boom. Dark Bus, sensing the sudden spike in mana, reacted with the instinct of a high-level boss. He used "Blink," reappearing twenty yards away.
"Foolish brat! You missed!"
"I wasn't aiming at you," Arthur grunted, collapsing to one knee.
The arrow struck the stationary, unresisting Lancelot squarely in the visor. Because Lancelot was in the middle of a soul-transfer, his defensive stats were temporarily set to zero.
[Due to the level gap being over 202, damage decreased by 80%]
[Direct Hit on Soul Core! Critical Damage applied!]
[Death Knight Lancelot has been destroyed.]
[4,832,010 experience acquired.]
[You have got a drop item Emperor's Sword.]
The world seemed to explode. A pillar of white light—Lancelot's purified soul—shot into the sky. The feedback from the broken ritual hit Dark Bus like a physical hammer, throwing the sorcerer against a tree.
[You have leveled up 47 times!]
[Congratulations! You have reached Level 100!]
[First Stats Awakening Achieved!]
Arthur felt his body being rewritten. The limitations of his "mortal" frame were being discarded.
* Stamina: 1 point now grants 15 HP and 0.2 Defense.
* Strength: 1 point now grants 5 HP and 0.2 Attack.
* Intelligence: 1 point now grants 5 MP and 0.2 Magic Attack.
He was no longer a mere player; he was a powerhouse in the making.
"You... you wretched worm!" Dark Bus screamed, his hood falling back to reveal a face distorted by rage. He raised a hand, a massive fireball forming. "I will burn your soul for eternity!"
Arthur prepared to dive, but the fireball never launched. Dark Bus suddenly froze. He looked toward the treeline, his eyes widening in genuine terror. A massive, suffocating pressure—the weight of a thousand suns—was descending upon the clearing.
"The Daughters of Rebecca..." Dark Bus spat, his mana reserves too low from the failed ritual to fight a Saintess. "This isn't over."
With a desperate chant of "Teleport," the servant vanished into a cloud of black smoke just as a spear of pure light impaled the spot where he had stood.
Arthur slumped against a rock, the sheer exhaustion of the level-climb hitting him. The sound of heavy, rhythmic boots approached.
When he looked up to see Isabel. She looked like a goddess of war, her white armor pristine despite the carnage, her golden eyes scanning him with the coldness of an executioner.
"Who might you be, stranger?" she asked, the tip of Raphael's Spear buzzing with holy energy just inches away from his throat. "Are you a servant of the Yatan Church, or a scavenger picking at the bones of the fallen?"
Arthur looked at her—really looked at her. He knew her future. He knew the tragedy that awaited her and the redemption she didn't yet know she needed.
"Isabel?" he said softly, The spear tip wavered for a fraction of a second.
"How do you know my name, traveler?" Isabel asked.
Arthur wiped the blood from his lip and smiled, a weary, knowing thing. "I know many things about the girls who loves the light but lives in the dark."