“Rrraaah!”
The black hatchling came awake like a sprung trap and hurled herself at Ethan.
Blood still slicked her scales. She beat her torn wings anyway, whipping the cave air into a knife-edged gust that reeked of iron.
Ethan didn’t flinch.
An Everbound servant couldn’t harm her master. The contract didn’t negotiate. It enforced.
Sure enough, she slammed into an invisible barrier a dozen paces out, claws scrabbling against nothing. Fear and rage twisted together in her throat as she threw herself at the boundary again and again.
Ethan watched with the calm of someone examining a tool.
“So that’s the offensive output of a Tier 1, Rank 1 Weaver,” he murmured. “Not bad.”
With a thought, he invoked the rules baked into the spellwork and forced her body to obey.
The hatchling’s eyes went wide. She fought it, furious, terrified, refusing – but the leash was hooked into her soul. Resistance was just noise.
He marched her through the air toward a boulder and pushed another command into the contract: cast.
Flame blasted from her jaws anyway.
[SKILL]
Prying Eye – Analysis: Dragonflame
– Dragons are born Awakened. Their fire carries supernatural properties by nature.
– Not even the Weaver Mother can strip that essence away.
– Legends claim dragonfire once boiled the Endless Sea itself dry.
…
Heat flooded the cavern. The light was bright enough to hurt.
Now Ethan understood the difference. A human Weaver could shape ordinary fire. A dragon Weaver shaped fire that was already a weapon.
The boulder under the stream of flame groaned. Then it cracked – and collapsed into the pool in a rain of stone.
Ethan let the hatchling stop. He ignored her hate and left her stewing off to the side.
He’d learned what he needed.
He was still only Pre-Awakened. Levels and grind had toughened him, sure, but he had no real offensive supernatural ability of his own.
But by pure accident, he’d acquired something better: a dragon servant he could control without fail. Not a puppet – she had a mind, and the mind wanted him dead – but control was control.
The constant malice was a problem, though. Living with a knife pressed to your back was a hobby for people who wanted to die early.
Ethan glanced at the cave pool and made a decision.
The hatchling hit the water headfirst.
He held her there.
She thrashed. Bubbles tore free. Wings beat uselessly. For the first time, her terror spiked so hard it bled through the contract bond.
Ethan watched the seconds pile up. One minute. Two. Three. Four.
On the fifth, he released the pressure and allowed her to scramble onto shore.
She collapsed, heaving, water streaming off black scales. Her golden eyes locked onto Ethan, cycling through fear, hatred, humiliation – and then, abruptly, something like wounded grievance.
The raw killing intent dulled. She’d broken, for now.
Ethan didn’t gloat. He walked back to the hunter’s corpse.
This was the real gamble.
He’d killed the hunter for two reasons. First: the man was an Abyss Thrall. Leaving him alive was volunteering for a slow death.
Second: the hunter had been Tier 1, Rank 9. If anyone on this rock had a Relic, it would be him.
Ethan crouched and searched.
A pouch of gold coins. Two vials. Two small bundles of herbs. And a black revolver.
The moment his fingers touched the gun, a chill slid up his spine – unfamiliar, unmistakable.
His brow cooled as the skill activated.
[ITEM]
Unclaimed Level 2 Relic: Flint (Revolver)
Material: fine steel + flint infused with supernatural residue
Transcendent Aspect: Hunter
Relic Effects:
– Fires demon-slaying mithril rounds
– Punches through targets
– Ignites what it hits
It is only a pistol, polished to a midnight shine… yet each mirrored surface catches pinpricks of light –
Starlight, or the glare of a spreading fire.
Spin the cylinder. Light the demons in your way.
Remember: without mithril rounds, Flint is never complete.
…
Ethan’s pulse jumped. A Level 2 Relic – with piercing and ignition built in.
And yet his Task Two didn’t budge.
He turned the revolver in his hand, and the answer clicked into place: a gun without ammunition was a promise, not a weapon.
Without mithril rounds, Flint was incomplete. Half a Relic at best.
The disappointment lasted a breath. Then he snapped the cylinder out with a practiced flick and let it spin back into place.
Half a Level 2 Relic was still better than most players would see in a lifetime.
He just needed the missing piece.
A big island, then.
He’d seen people mention an underground Relic exchange on the main island – a place where you could buy what the surface pretended didn’t exist.
Ethan weighed the gold pouch in his palm. Funding wasn’t the issue.
Only one question remained:
How did you reach a main island when you were stranded on a scrap of rock in the Endless Sea?