Chapter 58: All perks

The world distorted into a sharp, blue-tinged streak. Rain vanished from his position six yards away, reappearing instantaneously right at the Regent’s rear flank, his boots striking the wet floor without making a splash.

The creature’s feral heat radiated off its skin like an open furnace, scorching the air in Rain’s lungs. Directly in front of his face was the base of its spine, a jagged, pulsing seam where the pale, original bone plate met the swollen, reddish-black mass of the grafted tissue. The seam was churning, small drops of dark, boiling fluid leaking out where the biological bond was failing under the strain of the feral state.

Rain cocked his right arm back, pulling every thread of his Strength into his shoulder, and drove a bare-knuckle punch straight into the seam.

The impact reverberated up Rain’s arm, sending a dull ache through his knuckles, but the graft barely gave an inch. The black tissue surged, vibrating wildly as it tried to wrap around his hand.

The Regent’s head twisted around on its unnaturally long neck, three of its red eyes spotting Rain behind it. Its tail-like lower appendage whipped backward like a heavy iron cable, aiming straight for Rain’s sternum.

’Flash Step.’

[Flash Step: Zero Drag activated]

[Mana: 8 -> 5]

Rain vanished again, appearing twelve feet to the left. The heavy tail smashed into the concrete where he had been standing half a second before, blowing a two-foot crater into the floor and throwing a shower of stone chips into the air.

Without stopping, Rain pushed off his back foot, using his raw Agility to close the distance before the creature could reset its balance. He lunged back inside its guard, slipping under a backhanded claw sweep that sheared the left sleeve off his hoodie.

He drove his left fist into the exact same spot on the seam, following it instantly with a vicious right hook.

The second strike struck true. A sickening, wet tear echoed through the cavernous chamber.

The reddish-black mass on the creature’s lower back ruptured. The grafted tissue, unable to hold its structural integrity under the double impact, tore completely away from the pale bone of the spine with a sound like wet canvas ripping in half. A fountain of dark, steaming fluid erupted from the torn seam, spraying across the flooded floor.

The Husk Regent let out a high-pitched, gargling shriek. Its nine-foot frame stiffened instantly, the red glow in its eyes flickering violently as its entire nervous system locked up from the feedback. The massive arms dropped limp to its sides, its heavy head sagging forward until its skull almost touched the water.

"Holt! Up!" Rain shouted, stepping directly onto the creature’s bent knee.

Rain didn’t hesitate. He used the creature’s own locked frame as a stepping stool, vaulting up onto its chest. He drove his right hand deep into the exposed, torn socket where the graft had just pulled free, wrapping his fingers around the cold, hard surface of the core pulsing inside its chest cavity.

With a final, desperate twist of his upper body, Rain ripped his arm backward with everything his Strength could give him.

A thick, dark crystal the size of a man’s fist came tearing out of the creature’s chest, trailing long strands of severing black fiber.

The Husk Regent’s dozen eyes turned dull grey instantly. The red flush vanished from its hide, replaced by a dull, chalky white. The massive nine-foot body collapsed forward like a house of cards, hitting the flooded concrete floor with a massive splash that sent waves rolling out to the edges of the room.

Rain landed lightly on his feet beside the fallen beast, holding the heavy, dark core in his right hand. His breath came in ragged, burning gasps, his ribs screaming in pain, his chest heaving as he stood over the motionless mountain of bone and hide.

[Target Eliminated: Husk Regent (C-Rank Boss)]

[Experience Gained: +3,200]

[Experience: 486 -> 3,686]

[Level Up! Level 9 -> Level 10]

[Threshold Cleared: 900. Excess Carried: 2,786]

[Level Up! Level 10 -> Level 11]

[Threshold Cleared: 1,000. Excess Carried: 1,786]

[Level Up! Level 11 -> Level 12]

[Threshold Cleared: 1,200. Excess Carried: 586]

[Attribute Points Awarded: +15]

[Current Status: Level 12 | Experience: 586 / 1,400]

A golden cascade of system notifications flooded his vision, the text glowing bright against the dim dark of the chamber. Before he could even digest the massive jump in levels, another window, larger and bordered in intricate silver light, forced its way to the front of his field of view.

[Hidden Mission Complete: The Last Root]

[Clear all hostile lifeforms within the unstable rift: Complete]

[Reward: +750 Synthesis Credits Applied]

[Current Balance: 772 SC]

[Special Reward Unlocked]

[View Rewards? (Y/N)]

Rain stared at the flashing prompt suspended in the air before him. His heart was hammering against his ribs, his hands trembling slightly from the sheer adrenaline coursing through his veins. The temptation to select yes right now, to see what kind of special reward a C-rank hidden mission yielded, was massive.

He took a slow, deep breath, letting the cold air clear his head, and deliberately looked past the glowing text.

The prompt could wait. The people around him couldn’t.

He slipped the heavy C-rank boss core into his hoodie pocket alongside the three Gravewright cores, the added weight tugging hard at the damp fabric. He turned away from the dead Regent and walked slowly toward the side of the chamber where Peter was trying to help Priya to her feet.

Priya was leaning heavily against a rusted iron pipe, her breath hitching every time she tried to shift her weight onto her left leg. Peter had his shoulder wedged under her arm, his face pale and slick with sweat as he struggled to hold her upright.

Rain stepped in beside them without a word. He placed a gentle, steady hand under Priya’s right elbow, taking her weight off Peter so the weaker boy could catch his breath.

"Easy," Rain said softly, his voice low and calm. "Take it slow. Don’t press on those ribs."

Priya looked up at him, her dark eyes wide, staring at his bruised face, his torn hoodie, and the complete lack of panic in his blue eyes. She tried to say something, her lips parting, but no sound came out. She simply let out a long, shuddering breath and leaned into his support.

"Thanks, Rain," Peter whispered, wiping his nose with his sleeve. "I thought we were dead. When that thing screamed."

"We’re fine," Rain said, giving Peter’s shoulder a brief, firm pat. "It’s over."

Across the flooded floor, Holt was sitting propped up against the base of a pillar, his notched broadsword lying uselessly in the mud beside him. Fen had crawled over and was sitting next to him, clutching his side, both of them staring silently at the massive corpse of the Husk Regent.

Rain helped Priya settle into a standing position supported by the concrete pillar before walking over to the two veteran hunters. He stopped three feet away, looking down at them.

"That was a hell of a block, Holt," Rain said, his voice quiet and completely sincere. "If you hadn’t taken that horizontal strike head-on, it would have pinned me against the back wall before I could hit the graft. And Fen, drawing its sweep on the left gave me the exact angle I needed for the second step. I couldn’t have torn that mass out without both of you holding the line."

Holt looked up, his face lined with deep exhaustion and dried mud. He stared at Rain for a long moment, then let out a low, breathy laugh that ended in a quiet cough. "Don’t give us the credit, kid. You read that thing like an open book. I’ve been raiding for four years, and I didn’t see that seam until you pointed your finger at it."

"Doesn’t matter who saw it," Rain said, offering a hand down to Holt. "We all survived it."

Inside his own head, Rain knew the absolute truth of what had happened. He knew his stats, his system, and his final strikes were what had ultimately ended the encounter. He knew he had landed every decisive blow. But there was no arrogance in his reflection, no hidden contempt for the two men sitting in the mud.

He genuinely believed every word he had just spoken. Without Holt taking that bone-crushing blow on his bent iron steel, without Fen drawing the creature’s sweeping claws away from the rear flank, Rain’s Strength and three Flash Steps wouldn’t have meant a damn thing. They would have been cornered and crushed one by one. It had taken all of them, and he was genuinely thankful they had stayed in the fight when every instinct had told them to run.

"Help me up, then," Holt muttered, grunting as he grabbed Rain’s hand. Rain pulled, his Strength easily lifting the heavy, armor-clad hunter to his feet.

They gathered their meager belongings, Fen retrieving his dropped dagger from the mud, Peter carrying the lightweight carrier bags, and began the long, quiet trek back toward the upper conduit.

As Rain walked at the head of the small group, his boots splashing rhythmically through the shallow water, his mind began to process the broader picture of the night.

The entire reason he and Peter had been assigned to this raid as carriers in the first place had been a setup. Corwin’s crew, operating through Dax, Petrov, and their handler Reeve, had planted them here with a very specific instruction. At a signaled moment during the run, when Holt’s clearing crew was distracted by heavy fighting, Rain and Peter were supposed to swap a marked supply crate filled with legitimate harvested cores for an identical fake one. They were supposed to sneak the real haul out through a secondary drainage exit, handing it over to Reeve’s men so it could be laundered and sold. Every credit from that stolen haul was meant to be knocked off the fabricated fifty-thousand-credit debt Corwin’s crew had invented to keep Rain under their thumb.

Rain let out a faint, silent breath, a cold smile touching his lips in the dark tunnel.

The swap had never happened. The moment they stepped into the lower sublevels, the rift had collapsed, the Rootmaw had ambushed them, and the Husk Regent had dragged the entire party into a desperate fight for survival. There had been no moment of inattention to exploit, no marked crate to swap, and no secondary exit to slip through. The core theft plan had failed completely before it even started. Corwin and Reeve were going to get absolutely nothing from this run. Not a single credit.

Yet, as Rain felt the heavy weight of the four cores in his hoodie pocket, three D-rank High Gravewright cores and one massive C-rank Boss core, he felt no disappointment whatsoever.

The debt scheme was a trap designed to keep him weak, desperate, and running on their terms. Tonight, by failing their little theft, he had gained three full levels, fifteen unassigned attribute points, seven hundred and seventy-two Synthesis Credits, and the raw, practical experience of taking down a C-rank boss with his own hands. He had learned the precise limits of his current stats, mastered the timing of his Flash Step under extreme pressure, and proven to himself that he could adapt to unpredictable combat conditions faster than veteran D-rank hunters.

Corwin’s debt didn’t matter. Reeve’s pressure didn’t matter. All that concerned him was that he was growing faster than any of them could comprehend, and the gap between what they thought he was and what he was actually becoming was widening by the hour.

Farther up the sloping concrete conduit, the stone ceiling let out a long, low, structural groan. Dust and small fragments of dried mortar rained down into the dark water around their boots as the rift’s spatial architecture began to settle and shrink.

Rain tilted his head up slightly, listening to the echoing rumbles. He knew what that sound meant. The anchor boss was dead. Without the Husk Regent sustaining the mana density at the core, the unstable rift was beginning its natural closure process. In a few minutes to a few hours, the ambient energy would dissipate, and the dimensional tear would seal itself shut permanently. It was final, undeniable proof that the boss was truly dead, and that the space was cleared.

Behind him, walking a few paces back to support the limping Fen, Holt spoke in a low, hushed whisper that carried clearly through the damp tunnel.

"Did you see how he moved at the end?" Holt asked, his voice barely above a murmur.

"The dash, right?" Fen replied, wincing as he shifted his weight. "Yeah. I saw it. It looked like a short-range spatial dash."

"It wasn’t a physical burst like yours, Fen," Holt whispered, his tone filled with deep, uneasy confusion. "There was no windup. No acceleration. He was six yards away, and then he was just standing on its back. That’s not a carrier trick. That’s not even a D-rank skill. That looks like something built for a high-tier C-rank assault hunter."

"He’s F-rank, Holt," Fen muttered quietly. "Baseline. Barely above nothing. And he’s got a skill that moves like that?"

Rain kept his eyes fixed on the dim light of the tunnel exit ahead, his face impassive, his posture steady. He didn’t turn around, didn’t offer an explanation, and didn’t acknowledge the hushed conversation echoing behind him.

In his field of vision, hovering quietly against the dark concrete, the silver-bordered notification window was still waiting patiently for his response.

[Special Reward Unlocked]

[View Rewards? (Y/N)]