Chapter 91: Malicious Spirit

Eden breathed deeply.

Then looked toward Obsidian.

The black knight had already dropped down onto one knee.

His head was bowed.

Even without words, Eden understood.

Guilt.

Shame.

Failure.

Eden sighed.

"You two..."

Sylvia’s shoulders trembled.

"I should have protected you..."

"You couldn’t."

"But—"

"I sent you away."

Sylvia looked up.

Eden rubbed his chest.

"If I had kept you and Obsidian beside me, you’d have been caught in the same attack."

His expression became serious.

"You couldn’t have done anything."

Sylvia’s eyes widened slightly.

"The creature was stronger than anything I’d encountered before. Even if you were there, you would’ve been killed."

Obsidian’s head lowered further.

Eden sighed.

"Stop looking like I just executed your entire family."

Sylvia sniffled.

"But Master..."

"I’m alive."

That stopped her.

Eden smiled faintly.

"And you two are alive."

He looked between them.

"That’s all that matters."

It took several more minutes before Sylvia finally calmed down.

Eden had to reassure her several times before she stopped crying entirely.

Obsidian remained kneeling until Eden specifically told him to stand.

Eventually, Eden glanced toward the hospital door.

"Alright. Both of you need to go."

Sylvia blinked.

"Already?"

"We’re in a public hospital."

He lowered his voice.

"If someone walks in and sees a giant black knight and a horned woman appearing out of thin air beside my bed, I’m going to have a lot of questions to answer."

Sylvia reluctantly nodded.

Obsidian gave a small bow.

Both dissolved into Dark Matter.

The room became quiet again.

Eden exhaled.

’Finally.’

He had barely relaxed when a familiar mechanical tone sounded inside his head.

[System Notification.]

Eden’s eyes widened.

Another window appeared.

[Devour has sacrificed the following skills.]

[Paralysis [B]]

[Death Knights Spirit [A]]

[Both skills have been consumed.]

Eden’s eyebrows rose.

[New Skill Creation successful.]

[Malicious Spirit [S] has been created.]

Eden stared.

"...Seriously?"

His heartbeat accelerated.

This was almost exactly what had happened with Corrupted Surge.

Devour had consumed several compatible skills and forcibly created something new.

Eden’s grin slowly widened.

"So that’s what I got from that Death Knight."

He leaned back.

The name itself was ominous.

Malicious Spirit.

He opened the skill description.

[Malicious Spirit [S]]

Overwhelm the target with the user’s spirit, imposing crushing pressure upon their body, mind, and soul. The effect scales with the user’s Essence, but is primarily influenced by Will and killing intent.

Eden’s eyes narrowed.

He remembered the boss.

The invisible pressure that had crushed him into the floor.

The entire dungeon shaking beneath the force.

’So this was a similar ability.’

But his version had been created from the Death Knight’s Spirit and his own Devour.

Eden’s smile became sharper.

"That’s nasty."

He could already imagine what it would do.

Against weaker opponents, he wouldn’t even need to touch them.

He could simply release his killing intent.

Pressure their spirit.

Crush their ability to fight.

If he wanted to...

Eden’s eyes gleamed.

Anything below B-Rank might not even survive a second.

That was only a theory, of course.

He had no intention of testing it on some random Awakened in a hospital.

But against an S-Rank?

He wasn’t sure.

The skill wouldn’t overpower a genuine S-Rank outright.

However...

"It might actually hurt them."

That thought alone was enough to excite him.

Eden quickly opened his main Status Window.

His excitement died for a moment.

Then returned ten times stronger.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[STATUS]

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Name: Eden

Level: 204 [A-Rank]

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Attributes

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Strength: 637

Agility: 601

Vitality: 418

Essence: 520

Perception: 210

Dark Matter: 410

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Skills & Authorities

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Devour [S]

Dark Matter Manipulation [S]

Corrupted Surge [S]

Malicious Spirit [S]

Burst Step [B]

Warrior’s Spirit [B]

Stealth [C]

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Eden stared.

Then blinked.

Then stared again.

"Level..."

His voice was barely above a whisper.

"Two hundred and four."

He had done it.

A-Rank.

He had finally crossed the threshold.

The same threshold that, in his previous life, had felt impossibly distant.

Back then, Level 100 had been an unreachable dream.

Now?

He had blown past it.

And he knew exactly why.

Dozens of A-Rank Death Knights, along with their S-Rank boss.

His attributes had skyrocketed.

His Essence had reached 520.

His Dark Matter had climbed all the way to 410.

Eden clenched his fist.

He could feel the difference.

Even sitting still, his body felt heavier.

Denser.

More complete.

"An A-Rank..."

He smiled.

Then his eyes landed on one particular number.

Dark Matter: 410

"That’s definitely from the boss."

The S-Rank Death Knight had been saturated with Dark Matter.

Apparently, Devour had consumed enough of it to give Eden a considerable boost.

But then another thought occurred to him.

If my Dark Matter increased...

Eden immediately opened another window.

[Retainer Status: Obsidian]

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[STATUS]

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Name: Obsidian

Dark Matter: 11% [A+ Rank]

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Attributes

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Strength: 800

Agility: 700

Vitality: 600

Dark Matter: 400

Perception: 300

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Skills & Authorities

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Dark Matter Manipulation [S]

Impeccable Spirit [SS]

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Eden’s mouth slowly opened.

"...Huh?"

He read it again.

Then again.

A+ Rank.

Obsidian was recognized by the System as an existence on the verge of an S-Rank.

At only eleven percent Dark Matter restoration.

And those attributes—

"Eight hundred Strength?"

Eden stared.

"Seven hundred Agility?"

He rubbed his eyes.

"Six hundred Vitality?"

His gaze slowly shifted toward his own status.

Then back to Obsidian’s.

He suddenly felt somewhat inadequate.

"...What the hell are my Retainers?"

A laugh escaped him.

Not because it was funny.

Because the alternative was being completely overwhelmed by the implications.

Obsidian was already absurd.

And Sylvia hadn’t even been fully restored either.

If this was what eleven percent looked like...

Eden couldn’t even imagine what Obsidian would become at twenty percent.

Thirty.

Fifty.

One hundred.

And if Corrupted Surge could be shared with him...

Corrupted Surge.

Dark Matter.

Obsidian’s absurd attributes.

He started calculating.

’If Obsidian’s Dark Matter continued increasing, his base strength would rise alongside it.’

’Then Eden could enhance him with Corrupted Surge.’

’And if Eden’s own Dark Matter continued developing...’

He looked at his own status again.

Level 204.

A-Rank.

For the first time, Eden felt as though he was genuinely approaching the territory of the monsters he had spent so long chasing.

’I’m not there yet.’

’Not even close.’

’But im finally approaching that threshold.’

His eyes narrowed.

"If Obsidian and I fought together..."

He imagined it.

Two beings attacking from completely different angles.

One overwhelming the body.

The other overwhelming the spirit.

Eden slowly smiled.

"Low S-Ranks..."

He leaned back against the hospital bed.

"...might actually be possible."

The thought sent a chill through him.

For the first time since his regression, the ceiling above him didn’t feel quite as high.

There was still an enormous distance to cross.

S-Rank.

SS-Rank.

SSS-Rank.

And whatever waited beyond them.

But Eden had finally reached A-Rank.

And he had only just begun.