The soft amber light floating above the stray cat flared briefly before dissolving into Deicya's dark golden aura.
A sharp, weightless sensation instantly washed through his legs. His center of gravity shifted naturally, as if his feet had intuitively mapped out every micro-vibration of the concrete beneath him.
ZZZT..
[ ABSORPTION SUCCESSFUL ]
Passive Skill Siphoned: Soft Landing (Grade: F)
Trait Integrated into Body: Kinetic Dissipation
+10 Essence Collected [20/200] E - Rank
Effect: Your spatial awareness and impact distribution are enhanced. Falling from heights up to 15 meters incurs zero physical shock, automatically righting your posture during descent.
Deicya took a step back, flexing his knees.
The heavy leather boots he had just bought felt lighter, almost weightless against the pavement.
It worked.
A quiet sense of satisfaction settled deep in his chest.
F-Grade skills assimilated instantly. Because his own baseline body had been remade at E-Rank by Kazura, anything below his current grade was completely defenseless against his aura.
He adjusted his leather jacket, slinging his heavy bag of canned sardines over his shoulder.
He was an E-Rank entity standing in a ruined, unawakened city. To an F-Grade human or a stray animal, his divine absorption was an absolute, irresistible force.
He turned toward the main boulevard of Quezon City, intending to find a quiet spot to map out his next move.
Then, the atmosphere snapped.
VRRRRR—
A low, mechanical vibration hummed through the asphalt, accompanied by the sharp, rhythmic clanking of reinforced steel boots.
The quiet chatter of the market crowd died instantly.
Scavengers, street vendors, and locals hastily dragged their carts back into the alleyways, pressing themselves flat against the rotting concrete walls. Fear—sharp, primal, and suffocating—swept through the street like a cold draft.
Deicya stopped, stepping into the shadow of a rusted utility pole.
Walking down the center of the cracked, abandoned street was a single man.
He didn't look like anyone Deicya had seen in Metro Manila since returning. He was draped in sleek, high-grade tactical exosuited armor forged from dark alloy, laced with glowing blue energy lines. A massive broadsword, locked in a specialized magnetic sheath, was strapped across his back.
Every step the man took cracked the dry pavement beneath his boots. His body radiated a pressure so dense, so heavy, that the surrounding air rippled with visible heat haze.
Deicya's eyes narrowed.
An Awakened… no. A Fighter.
Driven by pure instinct, Deicya focused his vision and let his sight appraisal skill detect the passing warrior.
The moment his perception touched the man's terrifying pressure, his system interface vibrated sharply with a warning prompt and red system screen.
[ TARGET APPRAISED ]
Name: Capt. Mark Vance
Classification: Human / Mercenary Adventurer
Class: Heavy Vanguard / Fighter
Rank: B-Rank (High Essence Density)
[ ABSORPTION STATUS: LOCKED ]
Reason: Target Grade [B-Rank] significantly exceeds User Authority [E-Rank].
Extraction prohibited until User reaches an equivalent or superior Grade.
Deicya's breath caught in his throat.
B-Rank…
The gap was staggering.
Standing in the shadow of the pole, Deicya could feel the sheer physical distance between them. His own E-Rank strength—which had allowed him to casually lift a two-hundred-pound iron beam like firewood—felt like a flickering candle compared to the raging bonfire surging inside this B-Rank Fighter.
If Deicya tried to forcibly siphon a skill from this man right now, his E-Rank core would instantly collapse under the feedback.
As Captain Vance walked, a younger, breathless man wearing a faded city official badge hurried alongside him, clutching a thick leather briefcase.
"Captain Vance, please! Reconsider!" the official pleaded, his voice trembling as he struggled to match the warrior's long strides. "The local government can match your hazard pay! If a B-Rank Fighter like you leaves Metro Manila, who is going to protect the northern perimeter from the rift beasts?!"
Captain Vance didn't even slow down. His face was cold, scarred, and completely devoid of emotion.
"Match my pay?" Vance snorted, a deep, mocking laugh escaping his throat. "With what? Useless paper pesos? Or a handful of dirty, unrefined Dust scraped out of riverbeds?"
He paused mid-step, turning a razor-sharp glare down at the trembling official.
"I signed a five-year mercenary contract with the Eastern Core Coalition," Vance declared, his voice echoing across the silent street. "China pays in refined S-Class Crystal Energy, full medical coverage for my family, and a private sanctuary estate in Shanghai."
The official swallowed hard, his face pale as ash. "But… China is deploying your squad straight to the frontlines of the Guangdong Rift! The reports say the God Core there mutated! The beasts aren't ordinary monsters anymore—they're Mutated Vessels!"
Vance reached down, tapping the glowing blue energy matrix on his chest armor.
"I know what I'm fighting," Vance said coldly. "Mutated Vessels absorb the raw divine fallout of the Core. They snap A-Rank squads like twigs. That's why China is paying millions to recruit foreign B-Rank and A-Rank mercenaries to act as meat shields."
Vance leaned down, his glowing blue aura flaring just enough to knock the official onto his hands and knees.
"I leave for the Beijing Transport Ship in two hours," Vance added, his voice dropping into a harsh growl. "I won't see my home and this country for the next three years. I might die on Chinese soil fighting a divine mutated humans. But my family will live like royalty in a tier-one core city while you fools rot in this forgotten place."
Without another word, Captain Vance turned and continued his heavy stride toward the highway transport zone, leaving the official sobbing quietly in the dust.
Deicya stood frozen in the shadows, his hand gripping the strap of his canvas bag in a tight, rigid hold.
Every word Vance spoke burned into his mind.
The reality of the post-collapse world was far more ruthless than he had imagined.
Because the Philippines held no God Core, it wasn't just poor—it was being systematically bled dry of its strongest humans. High-tier foreign nations were using their wealth to buy off local B-Rank and A-Rank fighters, using them as expendable mercenary meat shields against terrifying Mutated Vessels.
Metro Manila was being left completely defenseless. A forgotten graveyard waiting to decay.
Deicya watched Vance's towering figure vanish down the boulevard.
B-Rank… Deicya thought, looking down at his own thick, calloused hands.
His E-Rank baseline had felt impressive in a market full of starving civilians. But in the grand scheme of the global hierarchy—against B-Ranks, A-Ranks, S-Ranks, and the Global Level God Core Vessels who wielded the 12 Divine Shards—he was still nothing.
A tiny fish in a dying pond.
Deicya looked down to his palm once again, his sharp eyes burning with a dark, quiet intensity.
The Absorption System was locked at E-Rank for now. He couldn't siphon skills from men like Vance yet. But he didn't need foreign money, and he didn't need to sell his life to a foreign nation.
He held Kazura's divine power. He just needed to grow.
He needed to hunt, absorb lower-grade animals or beast, and force his core to rank up until the entire world became his harvest ground.
Deicya turned away from the main road, stepping into the quiet, shadowed alleyway heading straight north.
It's time to find where the monsters are.
The afternoon heat beat down against the cracked pavement as Deicya walked past a row of skeletal storefronts near the outer residential belt of Quezon City.
Ahead of him, the rhythmic clinking of equipment caught his attention.
A group of five individuals was marching down the debris-littered street, moving with a cautious, practiced formation. They wore a patchwork of reinforced leather armor, heavy gambesons, and improvised steel plating. One carried a notched broadsword strapped to his hip, another gripped a short dagger, and a third held a carved wooden staff wrapped in glowing strips of low-grade crystal cloth. Trailing slightly behind the group was a younger woman carrying a canvas medical pack, her eyes darting nervously toward the shadowy alleys.
They looked like a hunting party—scavengers or low-tier adventurers trying to keep the immediate perimeter clear of stray predators.
Deicya stopped beside a rusted lamppost, letting his aura sweep outward to inspect them.
[ TARGET APPRAISED ] Name: Unnamed Hunter (Vanguard) Class: Swordsman / Rank: D-Rank
[ TARGET APPRAISED ] Name: Unnamed Hunter (Scout) Class: Rogue / Rank: E-Rank
[ TARGET APPRAISED ] Name: Unnamed Hunter (Brawler) Class: Warrior / Rank: E-Rank
[ TARGET APPRAISED ] Name: Unnamed Hunter (Support) Class: Healer / Rank: F-Rank
[ TARGET APPRAISED ] Name: Unnamed Hunter (Trailing) Class: Vanguard / Rank: F-Rank
D-Rank, E-Rank, and F-Rank. They were low-ranked hunters, a local patrol scraping by just like everyone else in the unshielded city.
Instead of walking straight up to them, I should just tail them for a bit, Deicya thought, keeping his distance in the shadows of the storefronts. Let them lead me to wherever the monsters are.
As he trailed behind, keeping his footsteps light and silent, the chatter of the group drifted back easily through the quiet street. The scout—a lean, energetic guy bouncing on his heels—was talking far too loudly for a patrol.
"Man, imagine being scaled by the Crystal Essence Meter and actually hitting E-Rank!" the scout laughed, tossing a small stone from hand to hand. "Honestly? Not bad at all. Beats scraping mud for half-gram dust in the market."
"Shut it, Leo," the brawler hissed, glancing nervously down a dark side alley. "Keep your voice down. You want every stray predator within five blocks swarming us?"
"Relax!" Leo grinned, waving a hand dismissively. "It's better if they're loud. Saves us the trouble of hunting. The sooner they come to us, the faster we get our core quotas."
"He's got a point," the rogue muttered, spinning his short dagger casually around his fingers. "Walking around looking for nests takes too long. Let 'em come straight to the dinner table."
The swordsman marching at the front didn't turn around, his jaw clenched as his hand remained firmly near his sword hilt. "Shut up, both of you. A loud patrol is a dead patrol. Keep your eyes on the rubble."
The scout shook his head, tossing the stone away as his cheerful tone flattened into a bitter grumble. "Still, you heard what people were saying back at the market. All the real high-ranking guys—the strong A-Ranks and B-Ranks—they're all getting bought out by foreign nations."
The brawler spat on the cracked asphalt, his face darkening under the grime. "Yeah. Sold off to China, the US, or whatever superpower managed to catch a God Core. They call 'em 'Global Vessel Hunters,' but let's be real. They're just glorified mercenaries."
"Mercenaries?" The rogue let out a harsh, dry laugh that sounded like scraping metal. "Nah, man. They're slaves with fancy armor. Those foreign governments pay our best fighters just enough to keep their families breathing, then throw them straight into the meat grinder on the frontlines of mutated rifts."
"It's humiliating," the healer added from the rear, her knuckles white as she gripped her medical pack. "They look down on us. To them, the Philippines isn't just a country without a core. They think we're a slave nation. A breeding ground for cheap meat."
The swordsman at the front didn't slow his pace, but his eyes flashed back with a sharp, warning glare. "Keep your voices down. Talking about global politics won't put food in your stomach or stop a predator from tearing your throat out. Focus on the patrol."
A few paces behind them, cloaked in the absolute silence of the shadows beneath a crumbling concrete overhang, Deicya listened.
Vessel Hunters.
Deicya's fingers curled tight around the strap of his canvas bag. They call the awakened ones vessels. And the country is so desperate that its strongest fighters are exported like livestock.
A cold, heavy weight settled in his chest, sharpening into a silent, lethal edge. The world outside had carved up the earth using the twelve fallen shards, treating nations without cores as nothing more than resource bins and disposable labor.
They think we're slaves because we don't have a God Core.
Beneath his slate jacket, Deicya's dark golden aura flared—subtle, dense, and absolute.
Let them keep looking down. While they sell themselves off for foreign scraps, I'll take my power straight from the source.
The dry debris beneath Deicya's boots shifted.
SNAP.
A small, brittle tree branch cracked under his heel.
Up ahead, the patrol froze instantly. The D-Rank swordsman's hand shot up, his body snapping around with razor-sharp vigilance. "Hold! Something's behind us!"
Deicya's breathing hitched. His cover was about to be blown.
Before the swordsman could zero in on the shadows, a desperate, frantic scream pierced the quiet air from down the lane.
"Help! Please, someone help us!"
A young mother, clutching a crying child tightly against her chest, sprinted around the corner of a skeletal building, bolting straight toward the hunting party.
The swordsman cursed under his breath, his attention instantly diverted. "Damn it—get behind us!"
From the shadows, Deicya froze, his eyes locking past the frantic mother toward the open sky above the street.
A monstrous shadow blotted out the pale sunlight.
Dropping out of the upper atmosphere with terrifying speed, a massive silhouette slammed onto the asphalt fifty meters away. The shockwave of its landing sent dust and concrete gravel blasting across the street.
Deicya's eyes narrowed as his aura appraised the creature instantly:
[ TARGET APPRAISED ]
Name: Mutated Horned Eagle
Classification: Mutated Beast
Rank: F-Rank
Description: A six-meter-tall avian predator featuring iron-like spiked wings, lateral grappling claws, and a jagged, bone-crushing horn protruding from its skull.
It was a complete nightmare. Standing six meters tall, its blood-red eyes glowed with feral malice. Its matte-black wings were lined with razor-sharp spikes, and vicious secondary claws jutted from its sides.
The mother stumbled and fell just short of the party, her child screaming in pure terror as the colossal eagle shrieked—a sound like tearing metal that vibrated straight through Deicya's chest.
"Brozk! It's an F-Rank Mutated Eagle!" the scout yelled over the deafening noise, his face draining of color.
The D-Rank swordsman, Brozk, didn't hesitate. A fierce, hardened grin cut across his face as he unholstered his broadsword, stepping in front of the cowering mother and child.
"Don't just stand there! Move her back!" Brozk roared, glaring back at the support team. He slammed his foot onto the pavement and shouted toward the rear. "Kyle! Buff me! Give me physical strength and speed, now!"
The staff-bearing hunter planted his wooden staff into the ground, its low-grade crystal strips flaring with blue light. "Casting: [ Minor Velocity ] and [ Enhanced Muscle ]!"
A pale blue aura surged around Brozk, tightening his muscles and blurring his movements.
The healer hung back near the edge of the alley, her hands trembling as she kept her eyes locked on the frontlines, her medical kit clutched tightly against her chest.
The giant eagle shrieked, kicking off the ground with a thunderous crack. It didn't target the swordsman; instead, its massive wings beat the air, launching it straight upward before it tucked its razor-sharp wings and rocketed downward—straight toward the healer in the back.
"Look out!" the brawler shouted.
Brozk moved with explosive speed, intercepting the dive mid-air. He twisted his torso and delivered a devastating, mana-infused heavy punch straight into the side of the eagle's armored beak.
CRASH—!
The impact echoed like a thunderclap. The six-meter beast was knocked off course, skyrocketing backward before slamming violently into a nearby concrete embankment, shattering the stone wall into dust.
"Fall back, you idiots, surround it!" Brozk barked, blood dripping from a shallow gash across his shoulder where an avian spike had grazed him.
The brawler and the rogue charged in from the flanks, weapons flashing. The eagle lashed out with its lateral claws, tearing up the ground, but Brozk pressed the attack, hacking relentlessly at its dense, feathered armor.
From the rear, the healer caught sight of Brozk's bleeding shoulder. She raised a hand, her medical kit glowing with a warm, soothing green light.
"By the grace of the remnant, mend!" the healer chanted clearly.
A stream of light lashed out from the kit, wrapping around Brozk's shoulder. The torn flesh instantly sealed, closing the cut cleanly in a matter of seconds.
Cornered and enraged, the Mutated Eagle let out a deafening, blood-curdling screech that rattled the surrounding glass windows. Annoyed by the piercing noise, Brozk leaped forward with a roar, swinging his broadsword in a brutal, vertical arc.
SHLICK—!
The blade cleaved clean through the monster's thick neck, sending its massive, horned head flying off its shoulders.
The headless body slumped into the dirt. But the momentum didn't stop.
The severed head—crowned with the heavy, jagged bone horn—retained a burst of chaotic muscular reflex. Driven by latent feral energy, the heavy head rocketed through the air like a cannonball, spinning erratically.
And it was hurtling straight toward the healer.
The party froze. The rogue and brawler were too far away. Brozk was mid-recovery from his swing. They could only watch in horror as the deadly projectile aimed directly for the defenseless support member.
He's not going to make it, Deicya processed instantly from the shadows.
High above the street, perched on the thick, overhanging branch of a dead acacia tree behind the party, Deicya's eyes flashed.
Thanks to the Soft Landing trait he had siphoned earlier, his spatial awareness and vertical descent control were absolute.
Without a sound, Deicya dropped from the high branch.
He fell twelve meters downward, his body cutting through the air like a falling shadow. His posture automatically adjusted mid-air, landing silently behind the frozen healer without kicking up a single pebble of dust.
In the same breath, Deicya drew the iron hunting knife he had traded for at the market.
His dark golden aura flared violently around the blade, magnifying his E-Rank strength to its absolute peak.
Clang—!
Deicya swung with brutal, calculated precision, striking the base of the flying horn dead-center. The sheer force redirected the projectile upward.
The heavy, horned head shrieked past the healer's ear, spinning wildly before slamming into the trunk of a massive oak tree ten paces away, burying itself deep into the wood until only the jagged tip remained exposed.
Silence descended upon the bloody street.
The hunting party stood frozen, their weapons half-raised, staring wide-eyed at the tall, dark-jacketed figure standing casually between them and the path of the flying projectile.
Brozk lowered his broadsword slowly, his chest heaving as he stared at Deicya.
Who… who is that?
The silence that followed was heavy, broken only by the crackle of distant cooling embers and the ragged breathing of the party.
Kyle—still trembling on her knees with her eyes tightly shut, hands locked over her head—was bracing for the impact of bone and iron. She had waited for the wet crunch of flesh, for the agonizing pain.
Instead, nothing came.
Slowly, the healer lowered her trembling hands and cracked open her eyes. Just inches away stood a tall, slender figure in a dark jacket. Her gaze traced upward along his lean, imposing frame, following the line of his posture to where a simple iron hunting knife was still held casually in his hand. Then, she turned her head. Ten paces away, the heavy, jagged bone horn of the Mutated Eagle was buried deep into the trunk of an oak tree, humming with residual kinetic force.
Kyle's breath hitched in her throat. He… he saved me.
Around them, the rest of the hunting party snapped out of their paralysis. The shock instantly curdled into pure, razor-sharp hostility.
Leo dropped low into a sprinter's crouch, his daggers flashing in the dim, ash-choked light. Hazi, the brawler, stepped up beside his leader, cracking his thick knuckles with a sound like snapping dry wood. Morg shifted his stance at the rear, keeping his heavy vanguard shield braced to protect the cowering mother and child.
Brozk stood frozen at the epicenter, his mind frantically rewinding the last three seconds. Impossible. The trajectory, the speed—even with my D-Rank perception, I barely tracked that reflex shot. This guy… where did he even come from?
An unnatural, suffocating pressure began to bleed outward from Deicya's frame. It wasn't the raw, feral malice of a beast, but something far sharper—a dense, dark golden aura that twisted the air around him, warping the light like heat haze over asphalt. It carried the chilling, absolute weight of an apex predator looking down at a room full of prey.
Brozk's breath caught. His instincts, honed through countless near-death encounters in the ruins, screamed a singular, deafening warning: Dangerous. Extremely dangerous.
Struggling to mask his internal shock behind a wall of veteran bravado, Brozk raised his heavy broadsword, his muscles tightening as he locked eyes with the stranger.
"Who the hell are you?" Brozk demanded, his voice gravelly and low, cutting through the humming pressure in the air. "You've been tailing us since the checkpoint. And that speed… that wasn't normal."
Brozk's mind raced behind his defensive stance. Is he an assassin? A rogue hunter staking us out? If he wanted Kyle dead, he didn't need to lift a finger. So why step in? What does he want from us?
Leo let out a sharp, cynical bark of laughter, though his eyes remained dead serious. "Big words for a rat hiding in the branches! Make one wrong move and we'll see if your skull is harder than that eagle's!"
Deicya didn't flinch. He didn't drop into a combat stance. He simply stood there, utterly calm, the suffocating aura rolling off him in silent waves that forced the surrounding party members to sweat beneath their armor.
Deicya didn't waver under the collective hostility of the party. He let out a slow, measured breath, the dense aura swirling around him steady and unbothered.
"I'm not a threat," Deicya said, his voice calm, flat, and carrying an unshakable weight that cut through the tension. "You don't know me, and I don't know you. I just need to learn how life is going on here."
Brozk's jaw tightened, his grip on the broadsword whitening at the knuckles. "Like hell I'm buying that. Nobody wanders the ruins blind without a death wish."
Hazi, the brawler, grunted in agreement, shifting his weight forward. "He's hiding something, Brozk. Crack him open and let's see what he's spitting out."
Leo let out a harsh, mocking bark of laughter, his daggers twitching in his palms as he leaned forward. "Where the hell are you from, old man? What rock did you crawl out from? Why do you still need to know what's happening out here—are you a damn caveman?"
Leo snorted hard, a sharp, dismissive sound, while keeping his body coiled tightly in a hostile combat stance. Beneath his bravado, however, his eyes darted nervously over Deicya's frame, his mind rapidly calculating the odds: If we move on him right now… can any of us actually beat this guy?
Deicya ignored the taunts entirely. To the utter shock of the four party members, he completely dropped his guard. With a soft clink, the iron hunting knife slipped from his fingers, clattering uselessly against the ash-covered asphalt.
"I just need to learn how to survive," Deicya continued, his tone remaining deadpan and non-threatening. "And I need information on what's been going on in the past two years."
Before anyone could process the absurdity of a powerful stranger casually disarming himself, Deicya shifted his gaze past them toward the carcass of the beast. "Also… I want to go near the dead eagle, if possible."
Brozk froze, his brain stalling out. A stranger drops into an ambush zone, moves with impossible speed, disarms himself, claims he's clueless about the last two years… and now he wants to casually stroll up to a Mutated Horned Eagle carcass?
Confusion warred with tactical instinct inside the D-Rank swordsman's head. Why on earth would this guy want to go near the eagle? Is he after its mana core? Is he insane?
For a long, agonizing moment, the silence stretched over the ruined street. Brozk stared into Deicya's unreadable eyes, looking for any sign of a trap, a hidden weapon, or malicious intent. Finding nothing—only a hollow, detached curiosity—Brozk slowly lowered the tip of his broadsword.
He let out a sharp sigh of exasperation and held up an armored hand to his crew.
"Stand down," Brozk ordered, his voice brooking no argument as he shot a warning look at Leo and Hazi.
The scout's jaw dropped slightly. "Brozk, are you out of your damn mind? We're just going to let him—"
"I said stand down," Brozk repeated, his eyes fixed squarely on Deicya as he stepped aside to clear the path. If the stranger wanted to walk up to the dead monster, Brozk intended to watch every single second of it.