Something Dark
Moments after the key sank into his chest,
Denwen's breath hitched as he took his meditative pose. A sharp pull, like a tide yanking him under, dragged his consciousness inward.
He opened his eyes.
A heavy, suffocating silence pressed down on him.
The world around him was dark and muddy, the air thick with an eerie stillness. Shadows stretched long and unnatural, flickering along the uneven terrain. The ground beneath his feet was damp and heavy, the texture resembling soaked, decayed soil—soft, but unsettlingly unstable.
Drip.
A slow, steady drop of liquid echoed in the distance.
Drip. Drip.
Denwen inhaled deeply, his breath misting in the air. There was an unnatural chill here, one that seeped beneath his skin.
He tilted his head upward, expecting to see the vast, open sky of the soul passage. Instead—thick, roiling clouds choked the heavens, swirling in endless waves of murky gray and black.
Even the faintest slivers of light struggled to pierce through.
"This is strange," Denwen muttered, his voice barely above a whisper, yet somehow amplified in the vast emptiness.
He took a step forward, the muffled squelch beneath his boots sending ripples across the shallow puddles of essence scattered throughout the landscape.
Denwen frowned, his golden eyes narrowing.
There was too much essence here.
According to the Basics of Essence and Mana Theory, an unawakened individual's soul passage would usually contain small, scattered pools of residual energy—murky, stagnant, and eerie, remnants of absorbed essence that had yet to be refined. These puddles existed due to the body's natural limitation—an inability to properly absorb essence before awakening.
Yet here, in Denwen's passage, it was different.
The pools weren't small.
They were everywhere.
Some stretched wide enough to resemble miniature lakes, others reached his knees, their surfaces unnervingly still, yet not entirely stagnant.
A faint glow pulsed within the waters—not the usual sickly, unmoving sludge of an unawakened body but something alive, shifting, whispering.
Denwen crouched by one of the larger pools, dipping his fingers into the liquid essence.
The moment his skin touched the surface—a soft hum vibrated through his bones.
It was active.
Still absorbing.
Still pulling in essence from the world beyond.
His heart pounded.
"This is absurd," he whispered, the weight of the realization settling into his chest.
His body wasn't acting like someone who had hit their limit. It wasn't like a normal sixteen-year-old whose absorption process had already stopped.
It was still working. Still refining. Still hungry.
Could this be the reason behind his superior physique? The reason his body felt sharper, stronger, faster than his peers? Was his body naturally feeding on external essence, reinforcing itself beyond normal limits?
He slowly stood, gaze flickering toward the distant horizon.
The Wall.
The boundary between his inner self and the vast ocean of essence beyond—the final barrier that one must break through to awaken.
It loomed ahead, a towering mountain that had withstood the waves of time for eons, stretching endlessly in all directions. Normally, the wall appeared strong, steady and unmoveable, with it jagged edges that resonates with the soul of the unawakened
But here?
Denwen felt his throat tighten.
The wall was cracked.
Hairline fractures webbed across its surface, barely noticeable but unmistakably there. Essence leaked from the cracks in slow, almost sorrowful streams, dripping into the pools around him like a wound that had never fully healed.
And at its base—where he should have seen only dry ground—a lake of essence churned.
Denwen exhaled, his breath shaking slightly.
This… this wasn't normal.
Something was wrong, extremely wrong with him.
—
"Hopefully, this anomaly works out well for me."
Denwen exhaled sharply, pressing his palm against the towering wall. The moment his skin touched its cool, cracked surface, the Soul Key's mana surged through his veins, a wildfire rushing from his core to his fingertips.
Crack.
The fractures along the wall shuddered, expanding violently as if something ancient had been waiting to be unleashed.
CRACK. CRACK. BOOOOOM!
A deafening explosion rang out as the wall collapsed, the sheer force of it sending shockwaves through the soul passage. And then—
The flood came.
Tides of pure, unrestrained essence erupted like a tsunami, slamming into him with the force of a mountain collapsing. The moment it hit—Denwen was ripped off his feet.
WHOOSH!
The current ragdolled him mercilessly, his body twisting and tumbling through the violent surges. His world spun uncontrollably.
But his instincts roared to life.
"Stay focused, Denwen! Stay focused and follow the tides!"
Through the chaos, he forced his body to align with the flow, kicking off the currents with outrageous speed. His movements were precise, effortless, natural— far surpassing even the speed of the strongest awakened A-Grade he had read about.
The pressure of the sea no longer held him down.
He tore through the water like a living spear, cutting through resistance as he surged toward the surface. He could feel it—his success, his breakthrough, his strength.
He could taste the new world awaiting him.
And then—
SPLASH!
The waters gave way, parting around him like a being had just transcended. He stood upon the surface, his chest heaving, his heart thundering with exhilaration.
He had done it.
The Soul Key still burned within him, more than 95 percent of its energy untouched, searing his very soul with its power. His golden eyes gleamed with uncontainable excitement.
"A-Grade... for sure."
Maybe even more. Maybe he could awaken an innate talent like Roy.
Denwen grinned, elation bursting in his chest. He was on the precipice of something beyond his imagination.
But then—
Nothing happened.
His grin wavered.
The silence stretched.
No new challenge appeared. No mystical force signaled the completion of his awakening. No sensation of transcendence filled his being.
His heart began to pound—not from excitement, but from a growing sense of unease.
"Wait... that should be it." His voice sounded small against the endless sea. "Either a new challenge should appear... or I should be out of here already."
A creeping chill ran down his spine.
Then—
BOOM.
The sea beneath him shuddered violently, a deep, primordial tremor that rattled his very bones.
An aura unlike anything he had ever felt descended.
Denwen froze, his breath hitching as the weight of it crashed down on him.
It wasn't just power.
It was an existence beyond reason.
An entity so vast, so immeasurable, so devastatingly deep, that even standing in its presence felt like a defilement of nature.
Crack.
The sky above fractured.
The horizon distorted.
Denwen's legs trembled. His very essence screamed in protest.
"What… the… fuck… is happening?"
His lungs strained, each breath becoming shallower, weaker, harder to take in. It was as if the air itself refused to exist under the crushing force of the entity below.
His mind raced, flipping through every text, every scrap of knowledge he had ever read about oddities in awakenings.
Nothing.
Nothing matched this.
The pressure intensified.
It felt like something was looking at him.
Something beyond comprehension.
"I have to get out of here."
Denwen made his decision in an instant.
He knew the risks. He knew the consequences. But if he stayed here, he wouldn't just fail—he would cease to exist.
He sucked in a sharp breath, his lips parting to chant the Awakening Breaking Spell—the final desperate escape. A fatal gamble. If he was lucky, he would keep his life. If not—
WHOOSH!
Before he could utter the first syllable—
The sea roared.
A whirlpool formed beneath him, spiraling into an abyss so deep it swallowed the very light from above. The ocean's surface, once calm, turned into a monster—
A tsunami over a kilometer high rose before him, blotting out the sky, stealing the last of his hope.
CRAAAASSHHH!
The wave came down.
Denwen was crushed.
Dragged. Pulled. Devoured.
The whirlpool sucked him in, the currents attacking from every direction at once. He tried to swim—he couldn't. He tried to follow the flow—there was no flow to follow.
He tried to rise—but only sank faster.
The Soul Key's protective energy burned faster and faster, a wildfire that had suddenly found itself without enough fuel to last.
He was running out of time.
Denwen fought. He struggled with everything he had. His arms grew heavier, his body sluggish. His mind screamed at him—
Move. Move. MOVE!
But he couldn't.
The pressure wrapped around him like chains, dragging him deeper into the unknown.
His breath caught—his chest burned.
And then—
He lost sight.
The crushing darkness took his vision first.
Then—his hearing faded, swallowed by the endless roar of water and something more—a deep, guttural hum that didn't belong to this world.
His arms, his legs—he could no longer feel them.
His mind—numb.
Panic became despair.
And despair became silence.
The last embers of the Soul Key fizzled out.
A single tear slipped from his eye, disappearing into the void.
In that moment, as his body was swallowed whole, a single thought passed through his fading consciousness—
"Is this how much I amount to?"