The walk to the North Docks was a blur. The sounds of Selorn City—the evening merchants calling their last sales, the clatter of wagon wheels, the distant laughter from taverns—all of it faded into a dull, distant roar, like the sea muffled by a thick wall of glass.

My world had narrowed to a single, cold point of focus: Warehouse 13.

My rage wasn't hot. It wasn't the explosive, reckless fury of Aiden Stromfang.

It was the cold, absolute, calculating rage of my Ice affinity. It was the predatory certainty of Drakerlor, whose ancient, abyssal power was thrumming in my core, an eager whisper that agreed with my intent.

'Yes… tear them down… feast on their fear…'

I kept the divine weapon sheathed, but its aura bled into mine. I didn't bother with stealth. I didn't stick to the shadows.

I walked straight down the center of the cobbled dock-road, my Academy uniform a stark, clean contrast to the grime of the warehouses.

My boots echoed, a steady, rhythmic tap… tap… tap… like a hammer counting down the seconds.

Workers—burly men hauling crates, fishmongers cleaning their stalls—saw me coming.

They saw my face, my eyes, and the dark, focused aura I wasn't bothering to suppress.

They moved. They didn't just step aside; they fled, scattering into alleyways, pulling their carts with them, sensing the approach of a predator.

The North Docks, usually bustling, became a silent, empty corridor leading to my destination.

Warehouse 13.

It was a large, rotting structure at the end of the longest pier, isolated from the others, its paint peeling to reveal salt-bleached wood beneath.

The windows were boarded up. The air around it was thick with the stench of spoiled fish, stagnant water, and something else—the faint, sickeningly sweet, coppery smell of demonic corruption.

[Hidden Quest: The Serpent's Rot - Progress: 15/100]

The quest log pulsed silently in my mind. This was the nest.

Two guards, dressed in the Iron Vipers' black leather armor, stood at the reinforced metal doors. They had been laughing, sharing a flask, but they fell silent as I approached, my steady footsteps the only sound.

"Hey, kid!" one of them called out, his voice a mix of confusion and bravado. He'd clearly been "enhanced." His eyes had a faint, reddish tint, and his aura felt... agitated. "This is private guild property. Get lost, or—"

He never finished the sentence.

I activated [Swift Step].

In one moment, I was ten meters away. In the next, I was on him.

He didn't even have time to register my movement.

My hand, wreathed in the silver-blue glow of [Aura Dominion], clamped over his face, silencing his shout. Draken, still in its sheath, slammed into his solar plexus with the force of a battering ram.

The man's eyes went wide, his breath exploding from his lungs as his ribs cracked.

He collapsed, unconscious before he hit the ground.

The second guard fumbled for his sword, his face a mask of terror. "What the—"

I didn't give him the chance. My foot lashed out, a low kick infused with a shard of Ice affinity. It connected with his knee.

There was a wet, snapping sound. He screamed, his leg buckling, and I finished it with a cold, precise chop to the back of his neck. He went down, limp.

Two D-Rank corrupted fighters. Neutralized in three seconds. No sound, no alarm.

I turned to the heavy metal door. It was barred from the inside.

I could try to find another way, or...

'Drakerlor,' I thought, a cold smile touching my lips. 'Lend me a little.'

I didn't draw the blade. I just placed my palm flat on the metal door and channeled a pulse of Draken's pure, abyssal power.

FWOOM.

It wasn't an explosion. It was a disintegration. The heavy iron bar on the other side didn't break; it turned to black rust and dust. The lock mechanism dissolved. With a sound like a heavy sigh, the door swung open on its own, revealing the darkness within.

I stepped inside.

The warehouse was vast, dark, and reeked of demonic energy.

The only light came from a single, massive ritual circle drawn on the floor in what looked disturbingly like fresh blood.

The crimson runes glowed with a sickly, pulsing light.

In the center of the circle sat Gregor, the Iron Vipers' leader.

His arms and legs, crippled by my earlier attack, were twisted at unnatural angles.

He wasn't on a throne; he was part of one, held upright by thick, pulsating tendrils of black energy that snaked from the ritual circle, boring into his flesh.

The shattered hilt of the cursed dagger was embedded in his chest, a focal point for the dark power.

His eyes were no longer human; they were solid red orbs, burning with madness and agony.

Surrounding him in a protective circle were his last ten elite hunters.

Each one was "Corrupted," their skin pale, their eyes glowing red, their bodies visibly trembling with the unstable demonic power they had ingested.

They were no longer just D+ hunters; they were something… more. Something broken.

"He's here..." Gregor rasped, his head snapping up. His voice was a wet gurgle. "The commoner brat... he came alone! He came to us!"

His followers turned, their movements jerky, unnatural. They drew their weapons, shadow-whips and corrupted blades, and a low, collective growl filled the warehouse.

"He's arrogant!" Gregor shrieked, his voice cracking. "He thinks he's a hero! Kill him! Kill him and bring me his head! Our new Master demands his soul!"

The ten Corrupted Vipers charged, their red eyes blazing, their movements inhumanly fast. They fanned out, surrounding me, their dark-energy weapons leaving trails in the air.

I just stood there, at the entrance of the warehouse, Draken still sheathed.

I took one, slow breath, inhaling the tainted air.

And then, I unleashed my field.

"Aura Dominion."

A 5-meter radius of silver-blue light exploded outwards from my body, a silent, invisible shockwave of pure, condensed will. The [Mindbreaker] title amplified its psychic pressure.

The effect on the Corrupted Vipers was instantaneous and catastrophic.

Their demonic energy was chaotic, fueled by rage and instability. My aura was cold, controlled, and absolute. When my Dominion field washed over them, it was like a tidal wave of ice hitting boiling water.

Their charge faltered. Their unnatural speed dissolved. They stumbled, clutching their heads, their red eyes flickering as my psychic pressure—the cold, hard presence of my soul—slammed into their minds. Their chaotic, borrowed power had no defense against a true, projected will.

"Wh-What is this...?" one of them stammered, dropping to his knees. "My... my head... I can't..."

"Get up, you fools!" Gregor shrieked. "He's just one man!"

"He's right," I said, my voice cutting through the dark, amplified by my aura. "He's just one man."

And I drew Draken.

The dark blade emerged from its sheath with a sound like a tearing void. The abyssal power of Drakerlor, now allied with my rage, surged.

"Judgment Chain," I commanded.

My hand snapped into the seal. I didn't slam it on the ground. I held it aloft. The lightning I summoned wasn't the clean, blue-white of the Academy's training halls. It was black. Black lightning, corrupted and empowered by Draken's aura, arced from my palm.

It struck the nearest Viper. The man didn't just convulse; he detonated. His demonic energy, supercharged by my attack, consumed him from within, turning him to ash.

And then it chained.

The black lightning leaped to the next Viper, and the next, and the next. It didn't just paralyze them; it purged them. Their screams were cut short as the divine-demonic energy from my attack unmade the lesser demonic pacts that held them together.

In less than five seconds, all ten Corrupted Vipers were gone. Nothing left but ten smoking piles of ash and the smell of sulfur and ozone.

The warehouse fell silent.

I stood in the center of my shimmering Aura Dominion, Draken humming in my hand, my eyes fixed on the man in the center of the ritual circle.

Gregor's red eyes were wide, not with rage, but with a new, all-consuming emotion: terror.

He had watched his entire elite guard, his new demonic army, be erased in an instant by a power he couldn't even comprehend.

"W-W-What... what are you?" he stammerd, his voice a pathetic squeak. "You're... you're not a commoner... you're a... a monster!"

"Says the man who sacrificed his own guildmates and made a pact with a demon," I replied, walking slowly towards him, my boots crunching on the ash-covered floor.

"Wait! Please!" Gregor shrieked, his mind snapping. He tried to scramble back, but the dark tendrils from the ritual circle held him fast, pinning him to his makeshift throne.

"The robed man! The one from Arcadia! It was him! He made me do it! He gave me the dagger! Magnus Daven! It was all his plan!"

He was confessing, babbling, offering up his patron, anything to save his own life.

"I know," I said, my voice cold. I stopped just outside the blood-red circle.

"I know about the Belnic family, the instructors, and the caravan ambush. You were a very busy snake."

"I... I can help you!" Gregor pleaded, tears of black ichor streaming from his red eyes. "I can testify against him! I can... I can give you money! I have money, hidden accounts—"

"I have my own money," I said flatly.

"Then... then power! My new Master! He can grant you power! More than you can imagine!" Gregor was fully insane now, his last shreds of sanity gone.

I raised Draken. "I already have all the power I need."

"NO! WAIT! YOU CAN'T—"

In a final, desperate act, Gregor clawed at the dagger hilt in his chest and tore it out, along with a gout of black blood. He plunged the demonic shard deep into the ritual circle's central rune.

"IF I DIE," he howled, "THE MASTER'S AVATAR WILL RISE! HE WILL DEVOUR YOUR SOUL!"

The blood circle exploded in a column of black-red light.

The tendrils holding Gregor dissolved, and his body slumped, dead. But the energy didn't fade. It converged, coalescing into a single, massive, shadowy form.

A C-Rank Lesser Demon, a creature of pure, unbound shadow and rage, formed in the warehouse, its claws as long as my arm, its maw roaring with the force of a furnace. It had been summoned, and it was hungry.

I just stared at it. "You really shouldn't have done that."

The demon lunged.

It was fast. C-Rank speed. It crossed the warehouse in a blur.

I didn't move. I didn't dodge. I just... acted.

My gaze locked onto the creature. My mind, amplified by [Mindbreaker], forged into a single point of absolute command.

"Kneel," I whispered.

My Aura Dominion, fueled by my will and the ambient demonic energy of the room, pulsed once. It wasn't an attack. It was a command.

The C-Rank demon, a being of pure instinct and shadow, froze mid-lunge. Its roaring maw snapped shut.

It wavered in the air... and then, its body trembling violently as its instincts warred with my command, it slowly, agonizingly, knelt before me on the ground, its head bowed.

My [Mindbreaker] title didn't just resist psychic attacks. It gave me dominance over weaker-willed beings. And this summoned demon, with no master and only primal rage, was weaker.

I stood over the kneeling, trembling demon.

"So," I said, my voice dangerously soft. "Your master is gone. And I am here."

I placed the flat of Draken's blade on the creature's bowed head. The sword hummed, drinking in the pure, unshielded demonic energy.

"How about a new contract?"

(To be continued )

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