Jax Cypher and Knox Brickman were having a terrible two weeks. Everything had started great, a big blue box appears in the sky, everybody gets the chance to earn superpowers, laws don’t exist, a criminal’s paradise. At least that’s how Knox felt about everything. He had been a runner in the Twilight Market for, going on, ten years now and the chance for less regulation and more power was like a light at the end of the tunnel. For Jax on the other hand, a recent cashier at the local Kwik Mart, he was just trying to survive and would rather be the one out hunting people rather than be hunted himself.

“I can’t believe that we have to stay out here until we find that family,” Jax said, his nasally voice escaping from around a YumRoach bar. He took a few seconds to chew and swallow the chewy Nutribar, but when he did the man continued to express his obvious frustrations, “Just because the enforcers aren’t actively snatching up the people living on the streets anymore, doesn’t mean I want to be camping out in this creepy fucking forest.”

“Just shut up and do your job, hench,” Knox said without looking over at the borderline insubordinate rookie. His flat blue eyes raked across the city block overgrown with plantlife and he contemplated just how deep they should push into the forest. Jax’s powers had been useful thus far in evading the level twenty-five creatures roaming about but the man was unsure how long a Veiled Outcast class would be able to protect them. He was especially concerned about how well the detection-dampening ability Jax had would work on the monstrously large figure they had made out moving between trees and vine-wrapped buildings.

“I told you not to call me hench!” Jax began to raise his voice and Knox could tell that the younger man was gearing up for another tirade about his disapproval of their current situation.

Finally turning to face the whiny, impolite, and frankly quite annoying younger man, Knox held his arm up and pointed at it with his opposite hand. His arm was color matched to his own flesh, but between the dull gleam to it and the armored paneling layering over knuckles and his exposed forearm, made it entirely clear the limb was not natural.

“You see this?” Knox said, prematurely cutting off the rant building up in Jax. “The scrapper Docs are allowed to amputate limbs if they are replacing them with a cybernetic.” The burly veteran runner hesitated for a moment, his hand of flesh and bone attempting to wring out the cybernetic prosthetic like a wet rag. “It’s entirely legal if they have consent… But the Twilight Market has their own Scrapper Docs, and they either get your consent or you suddenly find yourself with lungs full of concrete at the bottom of the bay. We do what we’re told, I don’t have much left I’m willing to replace.”

Jax’s jaw clicked shut at that and he just nodded shyly and averted his gaze. After several minutes of silence, the man worked up the courage to speak up again, “Does that mean we should head out soon? I know you’ve been worried about how well my abilities will work, but I think it should be fine. My ability should be able to mask our presence almost completely up until a- uhhh…” Jax quirked his mouth, squinted his eyes, and made a give-or-take gesture with his hand, “a level thirty-five-ish adversary or above.”

Knox looked back over at the street from the Kwik Mart they had taken shelter in, a plan crystalizing in his mind and he opened his mouth to speak, “Yeah, we should get go-” but before he could finish his sentence a pillar of flames exploded into the sky, just over a block away from their current location. Knox gaped, open-mouthed, at the plume of crimson fire with a black core reaching toward the sky.

“C-co-combat classer?” Jax stuttered.

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“Maybe,” Knox answered and reached into a bag behind himself without looking. He withdrew a circular, metallic collar, and brought it up for Jax to see, “But that is why we brought these. I’m not sure where the higher-ups got these suppression things from, but I sure am happy that they gave us a few.”

Domison stepped toward the carcass of the Demon Bear with wobbly legs. His mana was running low and he felt like the whole left side of his body was tingling with irritation from the ravaging infernal flames. That did nothing to sour the man’s mood, however, and with a crooked grin, he shoved his mangled left arm forward and willed forth his newly obtained skill.

‘Abyssal Embrace’

The corpse of the Area boss was still fresh, so the air around it was still raging with mana not yet disbursed through the air. This mana flexed as Domison’s skill took hold, and dark energy ran from his body into that of Grimfur. The corpse began to twitch and trembled, then a black copy of the Demon Bear pulled itself away from the body. It strained and roared soundlessly into the heavens, but black tendrils of shadow wrapped around the spiritual projection and began to drag it towards Domison. The semi-transparent, black form of the Demon Bear’s spirit put up a good fight, but the power of his new skill pulled the Spirit within Domison’s inner world in only ten seconds.

A black screen appeared in front of the man’s face, and a prompt began to appear in red font.

*Soul Captured- Demon Bear, Grimfur*

-Soul Level: lvl 65

-Mana Required to gestate spirit into Abyssal Form: 500 mana (Insufficient)

-Due to insufficient mana the inner core will be put into a mana deficit, causing extended gestation of spirit and powers and abilities to be unavailable. This includes companions, who will return to the inner world until the mana deficit has been cleared.

-Time until mana deficit is cleared: 23:59:45

“Oh… That was a mistake…” Domison whispered to himself a moment before the sensation of complete emptiness filled him, luckily he was able to will the corpse of the beast into his inner world prior to bottoming out on mana. Every last drop of mana had left his core and he felt like a dry wind was running through his channels. His limbs all trembled and he was only able to take another two steps before collapsing.

Without the energy surging within his pathways, the man finally came to realize just how tired he was. The expenditure of mana has a very real effect on the stamina of the body, as Domison had come to learn over the past several weeks of training. Yet, this was the only time he was left completely immobile and practically unable to move.

‘I’ll just lie here for a moment. Then I can get back to the compound.’ Domison thought to himself as he lay on his back, staring up at the layered crimson leaves and purple-orange sky. As he relaxed and slowed his breathing, his passive cultivation kicked in slightly and the cloud of mana swirling in the air around where the Demon Bear corpse lay, started to stir. It took ten minutes of cultivating mana for the man to be able to move again, even though his limbs were still quite weak, and he sat up shakily.

“Alright, enough resting.” Domison said, and lightly slapped his cheeks, “Time to get going!” He started to rise to his feet when he felt a cold band of metal snap in place around his neck, and a voice spoke directly behind him.

“You’re right about one thing, buddy. It’s time to go, alright. You seem like quite the special one, I’m sure they can make use of you at the Market.”

Then Domison’s connection to the natural energies of the world was smothered. The severing of a connection so intimate, so abruptly, was a terrible experience. It felt like having one of your senses completely stripped from one second to the next, and between the mana deficit and the strain, Domison sank into the darkness of his dreams. Old nightmares of an auction house, and a stage filled his mind like a fetid pool as his consciousness faded into the void