Black blood sizzled against the snow, emitting a pungent steam that smelled of sulfur and decayed sea foam. Sunny sat leaning against the monster’s carcass, nursing a dislocated shoulder with gritted teeth.

A soft chime rang inside his consciousness: [You have slain a Fallen Beast: Centipede of the Stygian Depths. Shadow Essence absorbed. Shadow Core: 12/100.]

A warm, electric wave cascaded through his spine, resetting the displaced joint with an audible snap that made him gasp. He looked down at his palms; beneath the skin, faint violet lines mapped his nervous system like glowing circuit boards.

“So this is how Awakening works,” he whispered, his chest heaving. “Kill monsters, consume their shadows, become something worse than them.”

His shadow materialized on the rock beside him, sitting cross-legged and resting its chin in its shadowy palms. It nodded approvingly. Across the frozen pass, the obsidian gates of the First Citadel loomed under the fractured, starless sky, its iron portcullis slowly groaning open as if inviting him in.