Chapter 2: Starfall Dew

Nathan broke out in a full-body cold sweat. A blast of chill shot from his tailbone all the way up to his skull, and every hair on his body stood on end.

"Is this some freaky astronomical phenomenon, or did I just have a sudden genetic mutation that supercharged my eyesight? Normally, if the sky's clear, I can pick out seven or eight stars. How am I suddenly seeing this many?"

Nathan glanced this way and that—nope, no improvement in his eyesight. He still couldn't make out the billboard way off in the distance, so genetic mutation got ruled out first. As for what astronomical phenomenon could give a heavily polluted city night sky a starfield this crisp and this crowded—Nathan hadn't the faintest idea. He was no astronomy buff to begin with, and besides, some gut feeling told him this wasn't any astronomical phenomenon.

Nathan's heart gave a shudder, and a bad premonition hit him hard. It got confirmed almost immediately: all across the rooftops of the nearby residential complexes, blobs of light were appearing one after another. Inside each blob was a hazy silhouette—some human, some beasts, some birds, and some that were trees or even objects.

Nathan sucked in a deep breath and fought down the urge to scream bloody murder and bolt for his life. Cold sweat had already soaked through his shirt down his back, and his legs had gone so weak there was no moving them anyway.

"It's gotta be a trick of the eyes. Just stay calm a sec... stay calm a little longer..."

While Nathan was muttering away to calm himself down, something up in the sky seemed to flare bright—and then countless "meteors" came raining down.

These meteors didn't streak by and vanish. They turned into milky-white strands of light that hung down from the night sky.

The beings inside the rooftop lights all sprang into action, their glows flaring, even firing off blobs of strange radiance to intercept those milky-white strands the meteors had become.

One of the biggest "meteors" sliced across the night sky, just about to touch down on the ground—when it suddenly banked and came flying straight at Nathan.

Nathan threw up his hands on reflex to shield his face, which of course did absolutely nothing. A wave of cold washed over his whole body, and a chilly, eerie something melted straight into him.

And that wasn't the end of it...

That icy essence from the meteor seemed to carry some mysterious power—some mysterious organ deep inside Nathan's body activated in a heartbeat and generated a monstrous, heaven-and-earth-devouring pull. Any "meteor" passing overhead got snagged by that mysterious force, bent mid-air, and came dive-bombing straight for him.

In just ten-odd minutes, Nathan got slammed by at least a dozen of these "meteors."

With every extra meteor that merged into his body, the devouring force inside him grew another notch, until it finally formed a mass of black light that seemed able to swallow even light itself, wrapping his whole figure inside it. The bone-deep chill grew stronger and stronger, and that something inside Nathan got more and more restless, until finally it burst out of him as eight streams of black aether, writhing and twisting like eight monstrous pythons.

The instant those eight streams of black aether broke out of his body, Nathan felt indescribably, totally amazing—a rush he couldn't put into words—and he threw back his head and let out a roar he never knew he had in him, deep and rumbling, like some ancient primordial beast abruptly resurrected and walking the earth again.

Right as Nathan was letting it all out, a voice snapped sharply in his ear, bristling with anger: "Shut it! You trying to wake up every human in the whole city?"

In a single heartbeat, Nathan felt at least thirty or forty hostile killing intents lock onto him.

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Nathan's heart went cold. He hastily swallowed the second half of that roar and pulled the eight streams of black aether back in too, letting them glide slowly along the outer layer of the black light shrouding his whole body. But then all those killing intents withdrew, none of them sparing him another glance, and Nathan let out a breath of relief. The voice just now had sounded like a girl's. Nathan's eyes swept all around, but he couldn't figure out which direction it had come from.

Up on the rooftops of the nearby complexes, those beings were each working their own methods to intercept the "meteors" falling from the sky.

Some released strange radiance that swept back and forth across the sky; some piloted things that looked like relics, flying everywhere to net and block; some cast mysterious arts that projected giant phantom beasts craning skyward to gulp the light down; others let loose countless arcane runes that locked into warding arrays—and the "meteors" came diving in of their own accord... Everyone's methods were different, and every one of them was pouring all their energy into the job.

Obviously this was urgent business. Now that Nathan had shut up, nobody could be bothered with him.

"These guys aren't human, are they? What do they even want with all these meteors?"

The black light around Nathan's body just kept devouring "meteors" in an endless stream, totally beyond his control. And its devouring power was seriously strong—even among the beings on the nearby rooftops, hardly any could match it. At most two or three were in his league.

It wasn't until the sky started to lighten that the "meteors" up above gradually thinned out. Nathan had lost track of how much time had passed or how many "meteors" he'd swallowed. When the last "meteor" got taken by someone, the figures on the nearby rooftops winked out one after another.

The cold essence inside Nathan's body had pooled into one flowing current that roamed back and forth, and he could even steer it a little—just think about where he wanted it to gather, and the icy current would move there like it was part of his own arm, coiling and swirling wherever he pointed it. The stuff was seriously weird, and it came with a bonus pick-me-up effect: even after a whole sleepless night, he felt unbelievably clear-headed and fresh. The bone-deep weariness from the walk back from the convention had vanished completely, energy flooding every inch of him, practically bursting to get out.

"They actually all just left? I was hoping to grab one of them and ask what the heck is going on!" Nathan grumbled to himself and headed for home. Tonight had been way too weird—he was still kind of in a daze.

Barely had Nathan vanished around the street corner when a puff of mist materialized out of thin air right where he'd been standing, spreading slowly open, and a girl in pale-silver gauze stepped out of it, brow furrowed.

She watched Nathan's retreating figure, murmuring to herself: "How come I've never seen this guy anywhere in this city? His ability to absorb the Starfall Dew is pretty dang strong—the amount I intercepted wasn't even a tenth of his take."

A voice that was aged but gentle spoke up: "He wasn't a bloodborn of this city to begin with."

A very weathered, homely-looking old granny stepped out of a mass of black aether—kind eyes on a creased face. She leaned on a cane, back hunched, but full of pep, radiating an air of tough-as-nails grit.

The girl in pale-silver gauze bowed in a light, respectful curtsy and said softly, "Granny Rowan! You've never seen him either? Could he be an outsider? Outsiders poaching Starfall Dew from us Greyhaven bloodborn—that's a violation of the Concord's rules."

Granny Rowan smiled till her eyes crinkled. "He's no outsider!"