Chapter 73: The Price of Power

The Astral Plane was an unfathomable realm of existence, home to terrifying creatures long before rifts began tearing open reality and spilling those horrors into the human world.

To survive the invasion, humanity needed power—and the System granted it. Through the contract system, humans could link their souls to an entity inhabiting the Astral Plane.

The System called these entities Astral Beings. But gaining power from an otherworldly creature never came free. In exchange for strength, every contractor took on a price, a permanent flaw written into the contract itself: an Astral Burden.

Sen was starting to see these burdens in a disturbing new light. And really, who could blame him?

An Astral Burden could warp a person’s entire personality and behavior. Contractors from Rank 1 through Rank 3 usually treated their burdens as nothing more than a minor annoyance—a small price tag for extraordinary power.

But now, Sen was beginning to grasp the horrifying truth: the higher you climbed in rank, the heavier the burden weighed on your soul.

He was only at Rank 3, an Eclipser, and the toll was already becoming crushing.

Talk about a cost, he thought bitterly. These burdens might wipe out humanity before the monsters even get the chance to eat us.

Sen stared at the floating hilt, trying to force a decision.

As an Eclipser, Sen held absolute authority over space. Altering coordinates or swapping directions in mid-air should have been child’s play.

BOOM!

Another massive shockwave slammed into the exterior of the cube, spider-web cracks spreading rapidly across its surface. The sudden impact threw Sen off balance, knocking him hard against the rear spatial wall. He landed heavily on his right hand.

Well, thank God it wasn’t the burned one, he thought dryly, pushing himself back up with a grimace.

According to the System, an Eclipser possessed near-total mastery over spatial physics. Sen knew deep down that he had massive reserves of untapped power resting within him, but he needed a vessel capable of handling it.

A standard Rank 3 blade would instantly shatter under the pressure. Perhaps a higher-tier weapon within that rank could manage, but only Saint-tier armaments—like the Saintess Tier 3 blade floating before him—could truly hold an Eclipser’s full output.

Saints were the absolute powerhouses of the world. It was said that a weapon forged at the Saintess tier possessed enough destructive force to erase an entire Eternal Breach realm, depending on its class.

Reaching the rank of a Saint was part of the deal he had made with his mother. But to even qualify for the trials, he had to fulfill the core requirements first—and if he relied on this cursed blade to survive, the cost would be his own identity. Every time he drew upon its power, piece by piece, he would forget everything.

Sen looked at the floating hilt of the Starless Edge and let out one more weary, resigned breath.

Outside, another deafening blast shook the pocket. The cracked cube was plummeting rapidly toward the massive dome on the ocean floor, swarmed by hundreds of winged, glowing creatures raining endless light-fire beams onto its fragile shell.

This fight would go a lot faster if I had a working vape, Sen mused, a faint, dry smirk touching his lips. But I guess we don’t always get what we want.

He reached forward and closed his fingers tightly around the hilt.

Two distinct shards of fractured space hovered at the tip of the blade. Sen flooded his raw Astral energy directly into the weapon’s core.

In an instant, a warm memory that had just flickered through his mind—his sister’s face smiling up at him—dissolved into complete, empty nothingness.

Sen locked his mind onto the hilt, channeling his Astral energy directly into the core. A jagged, floating shard of fractured space detached itself from the tip, drifting forward into the center of the translucent cube before expanding violently outward into an unstable spatial rift.

Sen stared into the dark portal, extending his arm into the tear. When he pulled his hand back, it was dripping with frigid abyssal water.

He let out a long, quiet sigh, staring down at the Starless Edge. He knew the toll required to step through. Clenching his teeth, Sen lunged forward into the spatial tear—and as he crossed the threshold, another tender memory shattered inside his mind, evaporating into complete, silent nothingness.

"Doctor, we’re losing him!" a nurse shouted over the shrill, frantic blare of heart rate monitors. "He’s lost way too much blood!"

"Then get to the blood bank, now!" the lead surgeon barked, frantically working to clamp a severed artery.

"We’re completely out of his type!" another nurse called out, her voice trembling. "Do you have any idea how many casualties were brought in from District 12? The reserves are empty!"

"So what are we supposed to do?! Sit back and watch him die on the table?!"

"Doctor, please—"

"If we don’t have blood, track down a contractor with a healing gift! That shouldn’t be impossible!"

"They’re all spread thin across the entire emergency ward, doc! None of them are available!"

"So we’re going to lose him..."

"No," the lead surgeon snapped, looking up at his two surgical assistants. "Keep clearing the necrotic tissue and scorched skin from his chest. Just keep him stable—I’ll find blood."

The surgeon tore off his sterile gloves and rushed out into the corridor, hitting his comms button with a bloody palm. The line connected immediately, a cute, young girl’s voice coming through the speaker.

"How is Sen?" she asked, her tone light yet laced with underlying tension.

The surgeon bowed his head slightly, an instinctive reaction despite the call being audio-only. It felt surreal for a senior surgeon to feel this much dread speaking to a young girl, but her calm, unfazed demeanor sent chills down his spine.

"I’m sorry, ma’am... he’s in critical condition. We need high-grade supply lines immediately."

"We will be there soon," she replied simply, and the call disconnected with a sharp beep.

The doctor let out a shaky sigh, rubbing his face before running off down the hall to track down a transport unit.

Outside the ruined perimeter of District 12, the desolate aftermath of the battle was horrifying. The clash between an Indigo Calamity and hundreds of contractors had left the land scorched, cratered, and barely recognizable.

Suddenly, reality groaned.

A massive wound—wider than the entire Eternal Breach itself—tore open in the sky above the perimeter. A colossal warship slid through the spatial tear as if coming out of a hyper-jump, its hull looming over the scarred landscape like a floating fortress.

Emblazoned across the side of the massive leviathan vessel was a crest recognizable across all sectors: the official emblem of the Graves family.