Chapter 86: Shadow Orb

Chapter 86: Chapter 86: Shadow Orb

"It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop." — Confucius

By the time evening settled over the capital district, Riven had managed to claw his way back to parity.

Three days away from the academy had left him with a mountain of work.

He had spent most of his free time speed reading historical texts in his private study, dissecting elven administrative records, and reconstructing the material he had missed.

Lady Aerwynn’s latest tutoring had gone smoothly enough.

Deep beneath the royal residential wing, hidden inside a decommissioned drainage alcove, Riven stood alone.

The chamber had been reinforced with heavy anti magic wards. Thick stone walls surrounded him on every side, and the only sound was the faint hum of the protective enchantments.

The air smelled of damp earth and stale mineral dust.

Nyx sat on a narrow ledge above him, her dark wings wrapped tightly around her body. Her violet eyes remained fixed on Riven.

She had been watching him for nearly an hour.

Riven removed his high collared coat and let it fall to the stone floor.

Cold air brushed against his skin.

His face remained calm, but beads of sweat had already formed along his forehead.

He closed his eyes.

His awareness sank inward.

Past his heartbeat.

Past his muscles.

Past the sensation of his own breathing.

Until he reached the dense mass of darkness beneath his ribs.

His Core.

Tier Five.

The core was noticeably different from before.

Larger.

Denser.

Heavier.

It felt almost bottomless compared to his previous Tier Four core.

But greater power came with a greater burden.

Riven slowly raised his right hand.

The spell tome from the Silver Claw rested nearby.

The tribal elders had given him an ancient combat spell.

Shadow Orb.

The principle behind the spell was simple.

Compress Shadow mana into an extremely dense sphere.

Then maintain that density without allowing the spell to collapse.

The result was a localized gravitational sink capable of tearing apart matter, consuming incoming magic, and eventually releasing the stored energy in a devastating shockwave.

Simple-ish in theory.

Not so simple in practice.

Riven drew mana from his core.

The air around his hand changed.

Light began to distort.

The shadows along the walls stretched toward his palm.

Then a tiny point of absolute darkness appeared above his hand.

Riven’s eyes opened.

He fed it more mana.

The point expanded.

Slowly.

Carefully.

The darkness compressed inward as it grew, becoming denser rather than larger.

Within seconds, the tiny point had become a sphere roughly the size of a baseball.

It hovered an inch above his palm.

There was no glow.

No reflection.

The sphere simply swallowed the light around it.

Even the stone beneath Riven’s feet seemed to vibrate.

His eyes narrowed.

He carefully adjusted the flow of mana.

Keep the compression stable.

The spell responded immediately.

The sphere became even denser.

A faint pressure spread through the chamber.

Riven felt it pushing against his hand.

Then his skull began to throb.

A sharp pain formed behind his eyes.

His breathing grew heavier.

He held the spell.

One second.

Two.

Three.

For those three seconds, the Shadow Orb remained perfectly stable.

Then the strain became too much.

A sharp crackle erupted across his palm.

Pain shot through his hand and up his forearm.

Riven’s expression tightened.

The spell trembled.

The perfectly compressed sphere suddenly distorted.

The containment collapsed.

POP!

The Shadow Orb imploded.

A violent burst of displaced air struck Riven in the chest.

He staggered backward, his boots scraping against the stone floor.

He caught himself before falling.

His breathing was ragged.

Smoke curled faintly from his palm.

The skin was red and irritated, and the muscles in his forearm twitched uncontrollably.

Riven stared at his hand.

He flexed his fingers.

Pain shot through his palm again.

He frowned slightly.

Three seconds.

That was his current limit.

And even those three seconds had nearly injured him.

He had managed to create the spell.

He had managed to stabilize it.

But he could not maintain it long enough to use it in combat.

The mana dissipation was too high.

His channels were still adapting to the enormous amount of power required to sustain the compression.

The problem was not his core.

It was his body.

A soft trill came from above.

Riven looked up.

Nyx had raised her head, her violet eyes fixed on his injured hand.

"Don’t worry."

His voice was quiet.

"I’m fine."

Nyx chirped again.

Riven glanced back at his palm.

A faint smile appeared at the corner of his mouth.

"Mostly."

Nyx lowered her head but continued watching him.

Riven turned back toward the spell tome.

He walked over to his coat and pulled the heavy book from inside.

The leather cover was covered in old scratches, and the pages smelled faintly of dust and aged parchment.

He opened it to the foundational section.

The diagrams were dense.

Mana pathways.

Compression ratios.

Containment structures.

Energy displacement calculations.

Riven studied them carefully.

The spell wasn’t impossible.

He simply hadn’t figured out the correct method yet.

His eyes moved across the page.

If I reduce the initial compression, I can stabilize the outer layer.

He turned the page.

Then increase the density gradually instead of forcing the entire structure at once.

His gaze sharpened.

That might work.

It would make the spell slower to form, but combat did not always require instant activation.

He could compensate with positioning.

Shadow Leap.

Phantom Step.

Disturb Magic.

His existing techniques could create the opening.

Then he could deploy the Singularity Shadow Orb.

Riven closed the tome.

His palm still hurt.

His head was still throbbing.

But his expression had changed.

The frustration was gone.

Now there was only determination.

He had a new weapon.

A dangerous one.

And he intended to master it.

Riven picked up his coat.

His next tutorials with Aerwynn and Illyrian were approaching.

He had limited time.

That was fine.

He had overcome worse obstacles before.

Riven glanced at Nyx.

"One more attempt."

Nyx immediately chirped in protest.

Riven laughed quietly.

"Fine. Five minutes first."

He sat down against the stone wall and began studying the spell again.

The weight of the void was immense.

But Riven had never been afraid of heavy things.

He simply needed to become strong enough to carry them.