Stats boost

The man laughed, a low, chilling sound that had no humor in it. "Is this the best Radiant Dawn can offer? Pathetic."

Nyx snarled, a feral sound ripping from her throat. She launched herself at him again, feinting low with one dagger, then slashing high with the other in a silver arc aimed for his unhooded neck.

'Risky,' Sunny thought, his stomach churning. 'Too open.'

The attacker didn't fall for the feint. He sidestepped the low dagger, letting it pass harmlessly. Then, with blinding speed, he brought his sword hilt up in a brutal, short arc. It connected with Nyx's jaw with a sickening, audible crack.

Her head snapped back. Before she could even register the pain, he reversed his grip on his sword and drove the heavy pommel, hard, into her stomach.

she gasped, a strangled, wet sound. She doubled over, air driven from her lungs.

He wasn't finished. He grabbed a handful of her dark hair, yanking her head up with brutal force. His armored knee slammed into her face. Blood exploded from her nose and mouth in a crimson spray. 

She went limp, all fight draining out of her, and collapsed to the ice like a discarded doll, a dark stain blooming beneath her head.

"Nyx!" Lina shrieked, her voice cracking. A volley of razor-sharp ice shards, tinged with blue magical energy, erupted from her staff, racing towards the attacker.

The man merely raised an arm, almost casually. The shards slammed into his dark armor and shattered, doing no visible damage. 

"Predictable," he sneered.

Aria, her face a mask of fury and desperation, pressed her attack. Her rapier became a blur, a flurry of strikes aimed at any perceived weakness. But the man was a wall of dark steel, his defense impenetrable. 

He batted her blade aside with a clang, then delivered a punishing kick to her right thigh.

she cried out, a sharp yelp of pain, stumbling backward as her leg buckled beneath her.

'Fuck, fuck, fuck!' Sunny's mind screamed. Nyx was down, maybe dead or close to it.

Aria was injured. Brynn was still struggling to rise, shaking her head as if to clear it. 

The quest objective flashed in his vision: [ENSURE THE SURVIVAL OF AT LEAST ONE MEMBER OF YOUR CURRENT PARTY]. 

'They're getting picked apart. Annihilated. I have to do something, but what the hell can I do against that?'

The attacker took a deliberate step towards the downed, unmoving Nyx, his sword glinting as he raised it for a final, killing blow.

"One less nuisance."

Sunny sighed, a ragged sound. His legs buckled, just for a second, then he exploded forward. He slid on the slick ice, a desperate, uncontrolled movement, scooping Nyx's limp form out of the path of the descending sword. 

The blade bit into the ice where she had lain moments before.

He skidded to a halt near the base of one of the pillars, Nyx a dead weight in his arms. His heart was pounding like crazy. He gently lowered her to the ground.

'Now what?'

The man in dark armor straightened slowly, his sword still in hand. He turned his hooded head towards Sunny. He tilted it, a gesture of mild curiosity.

"And who might you be?" he asked, his voice calm, almost conversational. "What a strange aura you have. What god is sponsoring you?"

Sunny stared, confused by the question.

'Sponsoring god? What's he talking about?' He decided keeping his mouth shut was the safest option. But it wasn't really an option. The man's attention was now fixed solely on him. He was the new target.

"Hey partner," a familiar, disembodied voice whispered in his mind, the voice of his shadow, his skill. "See that woman over there? Consume her."

'What?' he thought, aghast. 'Are you crazy? You're hungry in a situation like this? And why do you only talk to me when you're hungry?'

"I'm trying to help you, idiot," the voice retorted, surprisingly clear. "That guy over there? He's an elite. Probably high-end A-rank. You need a serious power-up, right now."

Sunny's gaze darted to the chained woman suspended between the pillars, then back to the advancing, armored man.

'Dammit.'

He scrambled to his feet, leaving Nyx. He ran, not away, but straight towards the chained woman. He reached the pillar and looked up at her still form. He reached out, his hand trembling, and pressed his palm against her cold, chain-wrapped leg.

'Focus,' he commanded himself. He focused on his unique skill, on that hungry emptiness within him. 'Feed.'

The effect was instantaneous and overwhelming. He never absorbed so much power before. 

A torrent of blue windows flooded his vision.

[LEVEL UP!] 

[LEVEL UP!] 

[LEVEL UP!] 

The notifications flashed, one after another, almost too fast to register. New skills appeared, a dizzying list scrolling past – [GREATER STRENGTH (TEMPORARY)], [ENHANCED AGILITY (TEMPORARY)], [ICE VEIL (TEMPORARY)], [ESSENCE BURN (TEMPORARY)]. 

Strength surged through him, a raw, untamed power that made his head spin and his muscles thrum. The chained woman beneath his hand seemed to dim visibly, her form flickering like a dying candle as her essence poured into him. 

'What... what is this power?' he thought, feeling his body alight with newfound energy.

The man in dark armor had paused in his advance towards the downed heroes. His hooded head canted, watching Sunny with an expression that, even obscured, radiated bafflement. 

A ripple of surprise, almost disbelief, seemed to pass through his rigid posture. He could clearly feel the sudden, immense spike in energy emanating from the scrawny porter – a chaotic, raw power that had sprung from nowhere. 

'Where did a kid like him come from?' he wondered, his focus shifting entirely to Sunny.

[SYSTEM NOTIFICATION: MASSIVE ESSENCE INFLUX DETECTED] 

[TEMPORARY POWER BOOST ACTIVE] 

[WARNING: NO SUITABLE MANA CORE DETECTED FOR PERMANENT STORAGE OF ABSORBED POWER. ALL STAT AND SKILL GAINS FROM THIS ABSORPTION ARE TEMPORARY] 

[ESTIMATED DURATION: 15 MINUTES]

'Temporary? Doesn't matter,' he thought, his mind strangely calm amidst the internal storm of power. A desperate resolve hardened within him, eclipsing his fear. 

'I just need to save one of them. I have to. Even if I die trying.' He could feel the new power crackling under his skin, eager, volatile, and ready to be unleashed.

He pushed himself away from the pillar.

He turned to face the A-rank attacker. The raw power coursing through him was intoxicating, a wild fire that demanded release. He clenched his fists, the temporary strength making his knuckles crack.

'Essence Burn,' he thought, focusing on the newly acquired skill. 'Let's see what this does.'

He raised his right hand, palm open, towards the armored man. A faint, almost invisible shimmer began to gather around his hand, then intensified, coalescing into a sphere of roiling, unstable energy.

It wasn't fire, not exactly. It was a chaotic, multicolored vortex, crackling with raw power drawn from the very essence he had just consumed. The air around it warped and sizzled.

The armored man, seeing the sudden, dangerous buildup of energy, took a half-step back, his sword coming up in a defensive posture.

"What in the nine hells—" he began.

Sunny didn't let him finish. With a raw shout that was more animalistic than human, he thrust his hand forward.

"Burn!"

The chaotic sphere of energy shot from his palm like a cannonball. It didn't fly straight; it wobbled, pulsed, and screamed through the air, leaving a trail of distorted light in its wake. It moved with terrifying speed.

The attacker tried to deflect it with his sword, a blur of dark steel meeting the incoming attack.

The moment the sphere of Essence Burn touched the blade, it exploded.

Not a conventional explosion of fire and shrapnel, but an implosion of pure, destructive energy. A wave of multicolored light washed over the attacker. His dark armor, which had shrugged off Lina's ice shards, flared with an angry, internal glow along its seams and joints, as if the metal itself was being consumed from within.

The man roared, a sound of genuine pain and surprise, and was thrown backward several feet, his boots skidding on the ice as he fought to stay upright. 

Wisps of multicolored smoke, or perhaps dissipating essence, curled from his armor. He stumbled, his sword arm dropping slightly.

Sunny stared, panting, at the result.

'Holy shit. That actually worked.' He felt a significant portion of his temporary power drain away with that single attack, but the effect was undeniable. 

He hurt him. He actually hurt an A-rank.