Darkness.
Not the kind where you close your eyes and still feel your body. This was something deeper. Something final. He wasn't floating—he wasn't anything. No limbs. No breath. Just... consciousness, suspended in a void that stretched forever in every direction.
And it was quiet. Peacefully, terrifyingly quiet.
Am I dead?
He couldn't tell. Maybe. Probably. Whatever.
He had nothing but his thoughts now, and for once, they weren't screaming.
Started as an orphan, he mused. Born into nothing. No family name. No bloodline. Just dirt, cold sheets, and the smell of piss in shared hallways.
But he clawed up. He'd studied. Worked. Cheated sleep to memorize entire textbooks in nights. That public shithole school eventually couldn't hold him—he got yanked out and thrown into something better. Sharper. Somewhere where they didn't expect you to fail.
Then came college. The prestigious one. Funded by some mysterious "donor" who never showed their face. Ronin never asked questions. He didn't care. It got him through.
Then… Lyra.
She wasn't the first girl who smiled at him, but she was the first who made him feel. The first person who made the world feel less like a warzone and more like a fucking home.
And then came the awakenings.
He got E-rank. Fire affinity. Nothing special. Just sparks and warmth. The tiniest ember on a battlefield of infernos.
Then Lyra awakened.
S-rank.
And the world tore them apart like it was scripted from the start.
After that... he spiraled. No direction. No goal. Just booze, bitterness, and one failure after another until he became what he is.
What I was, he corrected himself.
And now?
What was I even doing before this?
The last memory was blurry. A cave. Pain. Blood. Something about… mana?
Whatever.
This place was peace. Cold, dull, numb peace.
He could stay here. No pain. No expectations. No goddamn awakenings or rankings. Just void.
But…
Something tugged at the edge of his thoughts.
There was something left to do.
Something he still wanted.
He wanted to stand at the top of the world. Wanted to look down at every bastard who'd ever stepped on him. Who laughed when he fell. Who forgot his name.
I wanna beat the shit outta an S-rank, he thought, bitter grin curling in the space that didn't exist.
Then he paused.
Wait… why?
What did S-ranks ever do to him?
Well, okay, Kai did. That smug prick deserved a full set of broken ribs. But the rest? Did they?
...
Fuck it, he thought. Let's beat a couple dozen more just for the hell of it.
The thoughts were childish. Petty. But in the endless dark, there was nothing else to do but fantasize about dumb revenge and hypothetical power trips.
Then something shifted.
He felt it before he saw it—a ripple.
A pulse.
Far off, a light appeared. Small. Barely more than a pinprick.
But it was there.
Oh, great, he thought. The light. Isn't there some saying about not going into it?
He snorted, or thought he did.
That's gotta be the light. Like, capital-L Light. Damn. What poetic bullshit.
The light grew. Slowly at first. Then rapidly, like it wanted to swallow the void whole.
It rushed toward him.
And he laughed.
Figures. I die like an idiot, and now the universe sends me a spotlight to mock me.
The moment it touched him, everything shattered.
Ronin's eyes snapped open.
He gasped—then choked—coughing violently as air flooded back into his lungs. The first sound he heard was his own hacking. The second was the muffled echo of movement around him.
When the world finally focused, two blurred faces hovered above him.
Leroy. Kara.
Both pale. Both wide-eyed.
"You're back," Kara said, voice tight, as if she didn't quite believe it.
Leroy leaned in, forehead creased. "What the hell were you doing to yourself, man?"
Ronin blinked. Looked at both of them.
Then down at his chest.
It was wrapped tightly. Blood-stained bandages. He reached up, weakly, and felt the pressure there—where the crystal had been.
No... where it still was.
He inhaled.
And felt it.
Mana.
Flowing.
Rushing.
Not weak and scattered like before. This was different. Strong. Clean. His.
He closed his eyes and followed it inward. Through his veins. Through his limbs. Back to its source.
A core.
A real, functioning mana core.
He did it.
Somehow—while he was unconscious—his body didn't reject the crystal. It had stabilized. Synced. Now it was pumping pure mana through him like he'd always been born with it.
Ronin smiled.
It wasn't a soft smile. It was the smile of a bastard who just cheated death and came back stronger.
"You look happy," Leroy said, raising a brow. "I guess you're just glad to be alive, huh?"
Ronin snapped out of his trance and realized both Kara and Leroy were staring at him like he'd grown a second head.
"Uh… yeah," he muttered. "Real happy."
"How long was I out?" he asked, stretching his fingers slowly.
Kara answered, still watching him warily. "Couple of hours."
"Long enough to freak us out," Leroy muttered. "But if you've got this much energy, then I say it's time."
"Time for what?" Ronin asked, still half-drunk on the rush of new power.
"To get the hell out of this cave," Leroy said, standing up. "No more running. We either make it out... or we die trying."
He glanced at Kara. She nodded.
Ronin grinned.
He already knew who he wanted to test his new power on.
The goblin was still out there.
And this time, it wasn't just survival.
This time?
It was payback.