The world returned as a muffled drumbeat. Rain pounded against the thick canopy overhead, a relentless, hollow rhythm that seemed to vibrate in the ground beneath Joy's back. A single, cold drop slipped past the barrier of leaves, sliding from one waxy tip to another until it fell, striking Joy's forehead with the shock of an icy fingertip.

Her brow furrowed. A low, ragged groan escaped her lips as her eyelids fluttered open.

She bolted upright with a sharp gasp, her heart immediately hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird. The quiet of the shelter shattered as memory crashed into her, Tyler. The woman in the white coat. The blinding flash of blue light. The shockwave that had felt like a solid wall of air slamming into her chest. Then, nothing.

Her breathing came in short, panicked hitches. Her eyes darted frantically through the gloom. Place... strange.

She blinked, her green eyes wide. The air smelled of wet earth and crushed leaves. She turned her head, searching the shadows. Tyler? He was gone. Her gaze swept the muddy ground and locked onto three glass vials resting in the dirt. They glowed with a faint, sickly green light, cutting through the dimness.

She tilted her head, a flicker of recognition piercing the fog in her mind. She saw the image of Tyler in her memory, handing her a similar glass. *Tyler... give.*

She reached out, her fingers trembling. Immediately, a sharp hiss whistled through her clenched teeth.

Her body rebelled. It wasn't just pain; it was a deep, vibrating ache that seemed to live in her marrow. Her limbs felt heavy, leaden, yet every nerve ending screamed with a stinging, piercing sensation, as if the lightning was still crackling beneath her skin.

Fighting the agony, she forced her shaking hand to close around the cool glass of the first vial. Her grip was weak, her knuckles tight. Drink, her instinct urged. Slowly, she lifted it to her mouth, the glass clinking softly against her teeth, and downed the green liquid in one desperate gulp.

The liquid was thick and cold, sliding down her throat like liquid ice. A sharp, alien taste coated her tongue, slightly bitter, like crushed lemon and copper, a flavor she had no name for.

Almost instantly, a soft, emerald luminescence pulsed beneath the surface of her skin. Joy's eyes widened, watching the faint glow travel up her arms. The deep, marrow-deep ache began to recede, replaced by a cooling sensation, as if water were extinguishing a fire inside her.

Healing, she understood. The concept formed vaguely in her mind.

She picked up the second vial and downed it. Then the third.

The effect was immediate and overwhelming. The last traces of numbness vanished. Strength didn't just return; it flooded her. Her muscles felt tight and coiled, humming with a surplus of energy she hadn't possessed before. The pain was erased so completely it felt as if it had never existed.

She scrambled to her feet, the movement sharp and fluid. She spun in a circle, searching the shadows of the tree.

She stepped out from the dry shelter of the canopy.

The storm reclaimed her instantly. The rain hammered against her vibrant green skin and plastered her silver hair to her neck. She looked left, then right. The plain stretched out in every direction, a vast, endless ocean of wet grass and gray sky. It was too big. It had no edges.

Tyler?

She hugged herself, her fingers digging nervously into her elbow. The sensation of the vast, empty world pressing in on her was terrifying. A cold knot formed in her stomach, tighter than the pain from before. She was alone.

She took a shaky breath, trying to steady the frantic beating of her heart.

Suddenly, the horizon to her left tore open.

A searing blue light bloomed in the distance, small as a star but brilliant enough to pierce the storm. It was miles away, but the color was unmistakable. A second later, a dull, thrumming vibration traveled through the soles of her feet.

Her eyes locked on the fading glow. It was the same light from the sword.

Joy didn't think. She launched herself forward.

Her bare feet tore into the wet earth, kicking up sprays of mud and grass. She didn't run like a human; she moved with the explosive, blurring force of a predator. The wind roared in her ears, whipping her hair into a silver streamer behind her as she sprinted toward the light, her speed increasing with every desperate stride.

Suddenly, Joy caught a glint of something shining again, hovering in the air like a distant promise. It was far off, but its radiance pierced the gloom, a miniature sun, pulsing with a warm, golden beam that seemed to hum with latent power. Her heart pounded wildly in her chest, a frantic drumbeat echoing her rising desperation, and she clenched her teeth against the bitter chill seeping into her bones, pushing her legs to run harder, faster, the wet earth squelching under her feet with each urgent stride.

Meanwhile, Anna hovered weightless in the frigid air, her gaze fixed downward on the Eyes that imprisoned Tyler below. *They told me to come back with his head,* she thought, a flicker of defiance twisting in her gut like a knot of thorns. *But who cares? I'm going to incinerate him.* The resolve burned hot within her, fueling a grim satisfaction. *After this, I'm going after his pet.*

With a deliberate release, Anna let the arrow slip from her fingers. The coiling serpent wrapped around its shaft twisted even tighter, hissing faintly as if alive with malice, propelling the projectile straight toward Tyler. But in that razor-sharp fraction of a second, as the arrow hurtled through the mist-laden air, the entire ice structure before her darkened abruptly to an inky void. Anna's eyes widened, a jolt of shock ripping through her like ice cracking underfoot.

The arrow struck the crystal ice with cataclysmic force, erupting into a blinding cascade of light laced with roaring flames. Explosions rippled outward in searing waves, sending shockwaves that hammered the air like an invisible barrier, even repelling the relentless downpour. The rain faltered, its cold, metallic scent momentarily overwhelmed by the acrid tang of scorched frost and billowing smoke. The ground trembled beneath it all, a deep, rumbling groan vibrating through the earth, while shards of ice scattered like brittle glass, hissing and melting into steaming puddles on the frosted land.

The shockwave washed over Anna, a fleeting rush of heated wind that tugged at her clothes but left her unscathed, her body unmoving as if rooted in place. Yet inside, surprise clawed at her composure, leaving her breathless. *What the-what the hell was that just now? The ice... it turned black for a moment.*

Her perception skill flared to life unbidden, sharpening her senses to an almost painful clarity, the lingering heat in the air, the faint crackle of residual embers. She blinked in astonishment; there wasn't even a crater marring the ground. Instead, amid the swirling dust that choked the air with a gritty haze, a solitary figure stood motionless, its outline resolute against the chaos.

She heard her heart ramming against her ribs, a thunderous pulse that vibrated through her chest like a caged storm, as the realization struck her with a cold, dizzying clarity. It was Tyler standing there, she was utterly sure of it, the certainty twisting in her like a blade of ice.

*But how? How is that possible? He's still alive even now? But that can't be.* The relentless rain hammered down, its sharp, metallic scent mingling with the fading acrid bite of smoke, gradually thinning the swirling mist until it peeled away like fragile veils.

Through the clearing haze, she saw him clearly: Tyler, shirtless and exposed to the chill, his bare skin glistening with raindrops that traced rivulets down his form. He stood motionless, gaze fixed on the ground beneath him, his damp hair falling slightly over his piercing blue eyes, casting faint shadows that deepened the grave intensity etched across his face, a quiet storm of focus that made her breath hitch in uncertainty.

But then something shifted, an unnatural ripple that sent a shiver crawling up her spine. Along the edges of Tyler's body, his skin's taut frame, wisps of black shadow began to rise, coiling upward like tendrils of smoke from an unseen fire, slender strings of darkness unfurling from his very flesh before dissolving into the damp air. It was as if he were burning from within, consumed by an ethereal, shadowy blaze that carried a faint, otherworldly chill, devoid of heat but heavy with an ominous weight.

*What is that? The shadow?* Anna thought, her mind reeling with a mix of awe and unease, the sight stirring a deep, unsettled resonance in her core.

Inside, Tyler was trapped, a prisoner within his own body, a vessel that moved of its own accord, beyond his grasp, like being sealed in an auto-driving vehicle hurtling forward without brakes, his every desperate urge to steer or flee met with unyielding silence.

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Panic clawed at him, a suffocating tightness in his chest, as frustration boiled over in his thoughts: *Dammit, what's with this thing? I seriously can't move my body.* Abruptly, a system panel materialized before him, shimmering in the air with an ethereal glow that pulsed faintly against the rain-slicked backdrop, its surface alive with a soft, humming vibration he could almost feel in his bones.

The words etched upon it read: Mana Absorption.

For a heartbeat, it held steady, then flickered erratically as if glitching, distortions rippling across its form like cracks in fragile glass, before vanishing entirely into nothingness. In that void, Tyler's mana pathways surged open, a rush of energy flooding through him like rivers awakening after a drought, but then something absurd unfolded, a violation that twisted his insides with alarm.

They began sucking in mana voraciously, not in the measured flow he knew, but in tremendous, overwhelming torrents that saturated the air with a subtle, electric tang, buzzing against his skin. Suddenly, Tyler felt his mana reserves swell to fullness in a split second, a euphoric burst that should have been relief, yet dread coiled tighter within him, something was profoundly wrong. This force kept drawing in more, relentlessly, his pathways already inflating under the strain, bulging like overfilled veins in that one second.

*What is it doing? My body, it's going to break if this keeps going.* The desperate plea echoed in Tyler's mind, a frantic whisper laced with the sharp tang of impending doom, his inner voice trembling like a leaf in a gale. Immediately, the system panel flickered back into existence before him, its ethereal surface glitching and distorting with erratic pulses, edges warping as if melting under invisible heat, before stabilizing just enough to display the stark inscription: MP: 840/503.

Tyler's breath hissed inwardly, a mental gasp that carried no sound but flooded his essence with raw, visceral terror, confusion and fear drenching his soul like icy rain seeping into cracked earth, chilling him to his core.

*This thing sucked up so much mana from the air,* he thought, the realization hitting him with a wave of nauseating dread, *it even surpassed my mana capacity. At this moment, I might even explode. It's going to happen, it's going to happen like before. No, stop!* He shouted silently within the confines of his trapped consciousness, the words reverberating with helpless fury, but the force possessing him paid no heed, relentlessly drawing in more mana, the influx swelling with an insatiable hunger that amplified the pressure building inside him, a mounting roar in his veins like a storm gathering force.

Meanwhile, Anna remained suspended in the frigid air, a subtle instinct prickling at the edges of her awareness like the whisper of frost on bare skin, warning her that she shouldn't draw near to Tyler, that close combat would be a fatal misstep, the thought sending a shiver of unease rippling through her muscles.

He didn't merely look different; he *felt* different, an altered presence that hummed with an unfamiliar, unsettling vibration, stirring a deep-seated wariness in her gut. But what startled her most was his aura, a palpable field that felt inexplicably draining, sapping the vitality from the atmosphere with a subtle, greedy pull that left her skin tingling faintly, as if the very essence of the world was being leeched away.

She could sense the mana saturating the air, its electric buzz once vibrant and omnipresent, now waning perceptibly, diminishing like a tide retreating from the shore. It felt as though every thread of it was being inexorably drawn to a singular focal point, to that man standing resolute on the ground below her, his form a vortex amid the chaos.

Reacting swiftly, she propelled herself backward through the air, the chill wind whipping against her face with a biting sting, carrying the faint, ozone-like scent of disrupted energy. *Why is he just standing there? He's not doing anything,* she pondered, a knot of caution tightening in her chest, laced with a flicker of intrigue that quickened her pulse. *I should be cautious. I shouldn't get close.*

With deliberate precision, she drew back the string of her white bow, the smooth material humming faintly under her fingers, taut with latent power. Immediately, a radiant blue light coalesced along its length, shaping itself into the sleek form of an arrow that glowed with an icy luminescence, casting a cool, ethereal sheen on her skin.

Her skill, Piercing Winter, ignited within her, a surge of focused intent that made her veins hum with anticipation as she prepared to strike him once more. *I have to put in as much mana as possible,* she resolved inwardly, the determination burning steadily in her core like a flame defying the cold, pushing her to channel pour more into the impending assault.

The blue arrow blazed brighter, its icy light flaring like a newborn star as Anna released the string. It tore through the rain with a shrill, ripping whine, so fast it left a white vapor trail in its wake, the air itself screaming in protest.

Then Tyler moved.

His head snapped toward her with inhuman precision. His left hand rose, fingers splayed, and the arrow slammed into his palm with a sound like a thunderclap trapped in a coffin. Shadow exploded from his grip, swallowing the arrow whole; the blue glow vanished inside a writhing cocoon of living darkness. Where pale skin had been a heartbeat earlier, there was now only pitch-black void, liquid night clinging to his arm like oil, drinking the light. A concussive blast of displaced air burst outward from the impact, flattening the rain into a perfect circle of mist that hung suspended for a single stunned second.

Anna's breath caught in her throat, sharp and metallic. *He caught it.* The thought struck her harder than any blow, a spike of ice through her ribs. *He actually caught Piercing Winter… and it isn't freezing him.*

Mana bled off him in visible waves, distorting the air like heat haze over a forge, carrying the scent of ozone and scorched frost. His body trembled, not from weakness but from sheer overabundance, every pore leaking raw power that crackled faintly against the storm.

Inside his skull, Tyler felt the dam break.

The thousand-plus points of stolen mana surged, no longer content to swell and strain within him. It rushed toward the arrow still clenched in his blackened fist, funneling into the shadowed shaft as if the weapon itself had become a drain. A low, hungry thrum vibrated through his bones, the sound of a starving thing finally feeding.

Anna didn't wait.

Her bow sang again, three arrows of pure winter light forming at once, each one brighter and colder than the last. She drew harder, the string cutting into her fingers, and loosed. Drew again before the first volley had even crossed half the distance. Fired. Drew. Fired.

A storm of blue comets screamed toward Tyler, trailing crystalline frost that flash-froze the rain into glittering needles mid-flight. The air filled with the high, keening wail of rending cold, a torrent of arrows converging on the lone figure standing motionless beneath the downpour.

Tyler retracted his left hand swiftly into a coiled throwing stance, the captured arrow throbbing in his shadowed grip with an intensifying surge of darker energy a pulsating void that hummed faintly against his palm, sending icy vibrations up his arm like veins of midnight frost. Without a whisper of sound or the barest grunt, he hurled it forward toward the oncoming barrage, the motion fluid and mechanical, driven by whatever force commandeered his form.

The arrow streaked through the air like a splinter of oblivion, a thorn forged from pure darkness, propelling itself with an explosive force that rent the atmosphere silently, leaving behind a slender, ephemeral trail, a thin, fading line saturated with inky blackness that seemed to devour the light around it, carrying a subtle, acrid scent of charred void that lingered in its wake.

It slammed into the leading arrow with unerring precision, detonating on impact into a spherical orb of dark energy, a roiling mass that expanded greedily, its surface writhing like living smoke as it engulfed the torrent whole, muffling their blue glows in an oppressive hush that made the air feel heavier, thicker with unspoken menace.

Anna's breath hitched sharply in her throat, a ragged gasp laced with a spike of raw alarm that twisted her insides like a sudden knot, her heart stuttering in response as she propelled herself backward through the chill air, the wind whipping against her with a biting sting. But from within that devouring orb, the arrow emerged unscathed, piercing through the darkness like a defiant streak. *I thought..... It detonated,* she realized with a jolt of disbelief, the thought flashing hot and urgent in her mind, but there it was, hurtling toward her at an astonishing velocity that blurred its edges into a deadly blur.

She twisted instinctively, her body reacting with honed reflexes born of survival, dodging just in time, the arrow slicing past her head by a scant inch, its edge grazing the side of her cheek with a searing kiss that drew a thin line of warmth, the metallic tang of blood as a sharp sting flared across her skin, the pain blooming like a sudden thorn in her awareness. It vanished upward into the stormy expanse, leaving her face etched with a fleeting wince of discomfort.

But then, in the distant sky where it had disappeared, something even more bizarre unfolded, a colossal explosion erupting amid the clouds, a massive orb of darkness ballooning outward with a deep, resonant boom that vibrated through the air like distant thunder, nearly swallowing the sun and the heavens in its maw.

Its core flickering with erratic bursts of purple light that cast an eerie, violet haze over everything, carrying a faint, ozone-like crackle that prickled the senses. The spherical force expanded violently, shoving the clouds aside in every direction with gusts of wind that howled faintly, heavy with the scent of disrupted storm and shadowed ether.

Then, as abruptly as it had formed, the orb contracted, shrinking inward with a swift, implosive whoosh, vanishing entirely as if it had never scarred the sky, leaving behind a bizarre aftermath where the sun reemerged unhindered, its warm rays piercing through once more, the heavens clearing to a pristine, unmarred blue that felt almost unnaturally serene, the air lighter and crisper in the sudden stillness.

Silence crashed down on the battlefield, sudden and absolute. The driving rain, the howling wind, the biting cold, it all vanished in the blink of an eye. Anna looked up, her breath catching in her throat. The bruised purple clouds that had choked the sky were gone. There was no gray mist, no lingering drizzle. The sky was a void of emptiness, stark and clear.

Anna lowered her gaze to Tyler, and for the first time since the battle began, a tremor started in her hands that she couldn't suppress. The bow in her grip rattled faintly.

*What just happened?*

What had just transpired defied every expectation, a twist that left her mind reeling with disbelief, the person who had seemed so weak mere moments ago had wrought something utterly bizarre, altering the very weather with an effortless command that stirred a mix of awe and terror in her core, making her feel exposed, vulnerable in the face of the unknown.

Tyler stood on the fractured remnants of the frozen ground. His chest was bare, steam rising faintly from his skin, but he wasn't shivering. His face was set in a mask of terrifying seriousness, his blue eyes locking onto hers with a challenge that made her blood run cold.

"That power..." Anna whispered, the words barely audible in the terrifying silence.

Her mind raced, frantically cycling through every class and report she had ever studied.

*This isn't right.* Assassins relied on stealth and poison. Warriors used brute force and aura. Even Mages, masters of the elements, obeyed the laws of mana. *That wasn't an element. That wasn't magic.*

It felt alien. It felt like something that shouldn't exist in this world.

A low hum filled the air, vibrating in the hollow of Anna's chest.

"What are you?"

In Tyler's right hand, the air warped. His sword materialized, the steel gleaming with a brilliant, crackling silver lightning. But before the sparks could even dance, a thick, viscous darkness bled from his palm.

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