"…You gonna come out, or do I have to drag you out?" she said calmly, glancing over her shoulder.
For a moment, there was only silence. Then—
Fwoosh. A figure darted forward, cloaked in tattered black, wielding a curved blade dripping with a viscous purple fluid. Lumia tilted her head slightly, stepping aside just enough for the blade to miss her by a hair's breadth. Her hand flicked upward.
Slash! A burst of mist erupted, slamming the attacker into a wall.
From the shadows, more figures emerged—six of them. All cloaked, all masked, and all clearly hostile.
"So it's one of those worlds…" Lumia said with a sigh, summoning her blade again. "Fine."
She disappeared in a swirl of mist—reappearing behind the closest figure.
One.
She twisted, redirecting a thrown spear with a graceful parry, then countered.
Two.
A flash of movement behind her—she ducked, rolled, and sent a mist blast behind her that knocked another off balance.
Three.
By the time the last two tried to regroup, Lumia was already in the air above them, her blade glowing faintly.
"Sleep," she whispered.
The mist dropped like a fog bomb—silent, deadly. And when it cleared, only Lumia stood there, brushing dust from her shoulder.
High above, on a cliff overlooking the ruins, one of the cloaked observers lowered a long, ancient-looking spyglass.
"Target is heading toward the Heart," the figure said through a communicator embedded in his collar.
A garbled voice responded:
"Do not engage again. If she reaches the Heart… let it decide her fate."
The figure nodded and turned away—just as a low thrum echoed from deep underground, like something vast was stirring beneath the soil.
Lumia paused mid-step, glancing down at the cracked earth.
"What the hell are you hiding under there…" she murmured.
Lumia sheathed her blade, glancing once at the fallen figures before continuing toward the tower. The city around her seemed almost alive now—walls creaking, streets groaning, whispers growing louder.
The Heart... she thought, remembering what Max had said. If I reach it, maybe I'll find something worth bringing back.
As she moved closer to the tower, the world seemed to blur. Buildings bent at odd angles. The sky shifted colors—red, purple, deep green—like a canvas melting into itself. The closer she got, the more the environment tried to push her away: sudden gusts of wind, the ground cracking under her feet, illusions flashing in her peripheral vision.
She pushed through all of it, stubbornly focused.
When she finally stood at the tower's base, she saw it—the Heart.
It wasn't an object like she expected. It was a massive, swirling core of energy, suspended above a shattered altar. Runes flickered all around it, and strange tendrils of light reached out, touching the ground like roots searching for life.
Lumia approached carefully, feeling the overwhelming pressure in the air. Every instinct screamed at her to turn back. Instead, she raised her hand—and the Heart reacted.
A tendril of pure energy whipped toward her chest, piercing her directly through her core.
She gasped, frozen, as images flooded her mind—worlds collapsing, endless battles, countless lives screaming into nothingness.
But instead of fear, Lumia smiled.
So this is the Heart's test...
Mist exploded from her body, forming a cocoon around her. She closed her eyes, letting the chaos try to drown her—and then, with a deep breath, she claimed it.
The mist turned crimson. The Heart pulsed violently once, twice, and then—shattered.
Far away, in the real world, Max jolted up from his bed, blinking.
A surge of power—Lumia's signature—had just spiked wildly.
He smirked.
"...Looks like she found something interesting," he muttered.
And somewhere deep in that broken world, Lumia opened her eyes, a new symbol glowing faintly on the back of her hand.
Her powers had evolved.
And so had she.
The Heart was actually a coagulation of vast amounts of energy. If you couldn overpower it, it would assimilate with you and end up evolving your powers.
Lumia's class was Death Mist Spirit Queen.
It was two evolutions above the Death Disciple class she originally had. She had obtained this after Max gave her a fragment of his own Night Monarch power, evolving her second class from Death Lord into Death Mist Spirit Queen.
And now, once again, it evolved—this time into Death Mist Spirit Empress.
"It's good," she nodded, but then she paused as she sensed someone else approaching.
Turning back, she saw a guy about her age, with two or three others of similar age following him.
"Who are you?" one of the guys asked.
Ray, the leader of the group, whispered under his breath, "It looks like this girl got the Evolution Core."
A buffed-up guy standing beside Ray growled, "You... do you have any idea how much we worked for it, just for you to take it?"
Another guy in the group sneered, backing him up.
Lumia rolled her eyes in pure annoyance.
"You guys are so shameless. Do you think I stole it from you? No, you guys tried ambushing me. So it's you who got lucky seeing me here, rather than me seeking you out," she said coldly as she walked toward them, her presence making their nerves tighten.
"Now, tell me," she said as she stared at them with sharp eyes, "what exactly is this place?"
Ray lowered his head slightly, feeling immense danger from her. He subtly signaled his group to stand down.
"My name is Ray McFed, and we are a scavenger party from Shelter 907," he said carefully.
"Scavenger party? Shelter?" she asked, confused.
Ray and the others looked at each other awkwardly before Ray asked, "Did you just awaken?"
Lumia didn't fully understand what he meant, but she simply nodded.
"Yes," she said.
Ray sighed. "Then let me explain. Around ten years ago, a meteor landed on Earth and released a vast amount of unknown energy. That energy gave people superpowers. But we weren't the only ones who got powers—animals, plants, even pests mutated too, turning into monsters, leading to a war that nearly destroyed everything."
***
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