Chapter 45: He Who Watches
The hum of the air purifier kicked in.
Faint static from the broken LED clock blinked at 3:42PM.
I dropped my gear piece by piece—chest guard, gauntlets, boots scorched black at the soles—and let my body finally breathe. The strain from Astral Overdrive still clung to my nerves like splinters. My muscles twitched involuntarily. That skill wasn’t meant to be used lightly, and I had pushed it to its edge.
’Three minutes of power. And at least three days of recovery.’
I moved to the kitchen.
The light above flickered once before steadying. I boiled water. The scent of cheap black tea filled the room—a mundane ritual, but right now, it felt like the only thing holding me to this world.
"Shard-Eater Manifest..." I muttered.
I still felt the phantom pressure of its punches. My knuckles ached. My ribs throbbed from where we traded raw hits in that standing brawl. And I knew—it wasn’t just that monster.
It was the mechanism behind it.
"Shard Ascent."
’A Rift Shard forcibly grafted into a floor-bound entity, triggering an emergency evolution. That wasn’t just random. That was the Rift responding to me. Reacting to me..’