The fortress was dying.

Not all at once. Not in some dramatic collapse. It was worse than that—slower, uneven, a series of failures cascading out of control. Walls cracked. Towers leaned. Entire sections of the defensive formation simply ceased to exist as the battlefield shifted further and further in favour of the enemy.

Kain stood near the Northern bastion, boots planted, shoulders tight, his attention split between the chaos outside, the mess inside, and the System panel hovering at the edge of his vision.

But despite the seemingly hopeless situation, he had not given up all hope of turning things around.

What he needed was time.

Chewy hovered near his shoulder, its soft body pulsing faintly as it absorbed stray abyssal energy from the air. The battlefield was saturated with it—leakage from the clashing domains, turned soldiers, and their corrupted contracts.

Raw, violent, and deeply corruptive. Normally, even brushing against that kind of energy would be suicidal, but Chewy, like Aegis, actually could use it for fuel...the only issue was that the source of this corruption originated from a demigod, but Chewy worked slowly, carefully, breaking it down bit by bit. It was converting abyssal energy into something purer before passing it on.

Slowly. Steadily.

A thin stream of refined Source energy trickled through Kain's link with Chewy, but instead of letting it circulate through his body to refill his drained body—or routing it back to Pangea which was practically sucked dry by him before and probably in shambles—Kain shunted it directly into the System.

He chose to convert the energy to Source Points, something he usually only chose to do when he had an excess of Source Energy.

Source Points: 214 → 219

Too slow.

Kain clenched his jaw. At this rate, the fortress would fall long before he reached what he needed.

A scream cut through the air to his left.

Kain turned just in time to see a 5-star tamer collapse as black veins spread rapidly across his neck and face. The man convulsed once, twice, then went still. His body bloated grotesquely as abyssal energy saturated his flesh, distorting muscle and bone until black vapor leaked from his pores in thick, oily strands.

Kain moved.

He grabbed the man by the collar before he could even begin attacking him proactively and dragged him back, away from the others.

"System," Kain said tightly. "Since I'm sure you're hungry too. Time to step up and extract the energy you want directly. Focus on generating Source Points. No feedback to me needed."

There was a pause—longer than he liked.

Then a robotic voice tinged with some excitement that it will get to eat its fill:

[Acknowledged.]

Black threads extended from the man twisting in Kain's grip like a rabid beast and went toward Kain...or more accurately, the System. The corruption resisted immediately, writhing like a living thing, pressing back with the demi-god–tainted force.

Pain lanced through Kain's skull.

He gritted his teeth and held steady, focusing on the absorption. Thankfully, with the System taking the lead, it was easier to strip the raw Source energy out from under it, layer by layer, and discard the rest.

For a moment, the pressure spiked sharply enough that his vision blurred.

A warning flashed.

[Corruption threshold approaching.]

"Not yet," Kain muttered. "Almost there..."

The threads extending from the body finally ended. The corrupted soldier crumpled, now truly lifeless, all its energy now absorbed by Kain.

Kain staggered back a step, breathing hard.

Even with the System's help, he didn't think he'd need to struggle so much to absorb this energy.

Source Points: 219 → 241

It wasn't clean. It wasn't efficient. But it worked.

He didn't do it again immediately.

That was the dangerous part.

He could feel it—the temptation to rush, to grab every fallen body, every corrupted fragment, to squeeze the battlefield dry before it crushed them all. That was how people died. Not from lack of power, but from impatience.

So he waited.

Chewy continued its slow orbit, absorbing what it could. Lightning cracked in the distance as the storm abyssal tore another section of wall apart. Somewhere overhead, the dragon roared, the sound strained and ragged but still defiant.

Kain counted breaths.

When another defender fell nearby—this one already half-transformed—Kain moved again. Same process. Same care. Same sharp, blinding pressure behind his eyes.

Source Points: 241 → 267

Minutes passed.

The fortress lost its eastern gate entirely. The semi-liquid domain surged forward, swallowing barricades and defenders alike. Orders broke down into shouted fragments. Retreats turned into routs.

Kain did not look up.

He watched the numbers.

Source Points: 312

Source Points: 388

His hands trembled faintly now. Not from exhaustion, but from restraint. Every instinct told him to redirect the energy somewhere—into himself, into Pangea, into anything that could push back. But he didn't.

He couldn't.

Pangea was already under strain. He could feel it through their bond—tectonic shifts, atmospheric instability, ecosystems buckling under stress. But even if he poured every scrap of the newly refined energy into it, it wouldn't change what was happening here. Healing the planet wouldn't stop five abyssal demigods from tearing the fortress apart.

And his own body?

Even at full capacity, it wouldn't matter. He was too weak. Refilling himself wouldn't bridge the gap between him and what was happening on this battlefield—it would just make his death slightly more energetic.

So he watched nervously for the one slight hope he could think of to turn things around...his System.

Source Points: 501

A section of the inner wall collapsed with a thunderous crack. Dust and debris filled the air. The earth demigod's constructs surged forward, their misshapen bodies grinding over rubble as if it weren't there.

Kain's pulse hammered.

Source Points: 644

Another extraction. Shorter this time. Sloppier. He pulled back just before the warning threshold hit.

Black, tainted blood trickled from his nose.

He wiped it away without looking.

Source Points: 719

Kain's breath caught when he saw that reaching his goal may not be completely unattainable.

He focused harder, pushing Chewy just a little further, risking a bit more proximity to the corrupted energy, a bit more strain.

Source Points: 843

Kain's focus sharpened— he was so close.

Then, as the counter ticked upward one final time—

Source Points: 900

—The familiar item he had seen and fantasized about obtaining since the System Shop first refreshed a week ago finally came within reach.

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