Evolution in Isolation 2

"Sparingly my ass," Jayden muttered, phasing his hand through a rock just because he could. "I'm literally untouchable!"

****

Thunder Sanctum

**Knight's Gallery**

The Thunder Knight's greatsword descended with the weight of divine judgment. Seven feet of enchanted steel wrapped in lightning, wielded by Level 18 animated armor that had never known defeat.

[Thunder Knight - Level 18]

Jayden sidestepped at normal human speed—no wasted energy, no showing off. The blade cratered the sanctum floor where he'd been standing. Before the Knight could recover, Jayden's Tempest Blade found the gap between helmet and breastplate.

Lightning flowed from his blade into the hollow armor, seeking every joint, every connection. The Knight spasmed once, then collapsed into empty metal pieces.

"One down," Jayden said conversationally. "Who's next?"

Eleven more Knights emerged from alcoves, forming a semicircle of crackling death. They moved in perfect coordination, lightning jumping between their weapons to create a net of electrical destruction.

Two weeks ago, Jayden would have tried to overpower them with raw force. Would have blown up half the room proving he was stronger.

Now? He smiled and raised one hand almost casually.

"Let me show you what control looks like."

He created a Lightning Bomb—compressed electricity humming with barely contained power. But instead of throwing it directly, he flicked it straight up. The Knights tracked it, confused as it hung at the apex of its arc.

Then it split.

One became two with a crack of thunder. Two became four. Four became eight. Eight became sixteen.

"Make it rain," Jayden said.

The bombs fell like divine judgment, but these weren't random explosions. Each sphere curved through the air with purpose, seeking specific targets. Knights raised shields forged by master smiths, tried to ground themselves against sanctum pillars, attempted to create defensive lightning barriers.

Didn't matter.

The bombs curved around shields like they had GPS. They found every gap in armor, every joint, every weakness Jayden's enhanced perception had catalogued in seconds.

The first bomb hit a Knight's knee joint. The explosion didn't just damage—it chain-reacted, jumping to the Knight beside it, then the next. Lightning arced between suits of armor like deadly dominoes.

Three Knights tried to rush him through the electrical storm. Jayden met them with his blade, moving with an economy of motion that would have made master swordsmen weep.

Phase through a spear thrust—the weapon passing harmlessly through his dispersed form.

Solidify mid-spin for a riposte that separated a Knight's sword arm at the elbow. Duck under a hammer swing—let it pass inches over his head while his counterstrike found the attacker's knee. Channel lightning through a parried sword strike, overloading the Knight's entire magical matrix.

In thirty seconds, twelve Level 18 Knights became twelve piles of empty armor scattered across sanctum stones.

[Thunder Knight Squadron Defeated]

[+667 XP]

[Skill Improved: Lightning Bomb → Chain Lightning Bomb]

Jayden surveyed his work, not even breathing hard. No wild explosions. No collateral damage. Every strike purposeful, every movement calculated.

His spatial ring was getting heavy with loot. Knight cores, enchanted armor pieces, weapons that crackled with residual lightning. Probably fifty million in materials from this dungeon alone.

"Mozart's gonna shit himself," Jayden grinned, already moving toward the boss room.

*

**Day 15 - Stormforge Citadel**

**Guardian's Throne**

[STORMFORGE GUARDIAN - LEVEL 25]

[RECOMMENDED PARTY SIZE: 8-10]

[WARNING: ATTEMPTING SOLO WILL RESULT IN DEATH]

The System really needed to update its warnings.

The Guardian stood twenty-five feet tall, a titan forged from storm-struck adamantine and Genesis crystals. Four arms, because apparently two weren't enough for a proper boss fight.

Each arm held a different weapon—a hammer that could flatten buildings, a spear that pierced dimensions, a sword that cut probability itself, and a shield that had turned aside legendary attacks. Its eyes weren't eyes but portals to the elemental plane of lightning, coronas of raw power that hurt to perceive directly.

**"YOU DARE ALONE?"** Its voice shook reality.

"Hah, so you're like that talking bastard who nearly killed me?"

"Yeah, I dare," Jayden replied, electricity building around him until the air itself began to break down. "Been soloing shit all two weeks. You're just bigger the bigger of the bosses I faced so far."

The Guardian moved. Twenty-five feet of metal and crystal crossed fifty feet in an eyeblink. Its hammer, large enough to use a car as a golf ball, swept through a horizontal arc that turned air into plasma.

Jayden went vertical, rocketing up on a pillar of lightning. The hammer passed beneath him, but the shockwave hit like a giant's slap, sending him tumbling through the air. He recovered just in time to see the dimensional spear piercing space where he was about to be.

Phase.

The spear passed through his dispersed form, but something was wrong. Pain bloomed across his consciousness—the weapon didn't just strike physical matter, it wounded the concept of existence itself.

Even phased, it hurt.

He solidified bleeding, a red line across his ribs where the spear had touched his essence.

"Okay, that's new and bullshit."

The Guardian pressed its advantage. Four weapons moving in perfect coordination, each strike flowing seamlessly into the next. The hammer forced him left—into the sword's path. Phase through the sword—into the spear's thrust. Dodge the spear—the shield bash caught him center mass.

Jayden flew backward, crashing through a pillar that exploded into rubble. He rolled to his feet spitting blood, ribs creaking protest.

The Guardian's lightning wasn't wild energy—it was shaped, intelligent, malicious. Bolts curved around his dodges, predicted his phases, struck where he would be rather than where he was. One caught him mid-phase, disrupting his energy form and forcing painful re-solidification.

"Alright," he growled, blood running from a dozen wounds. "No more playing nice."

He created a dozen Lightning Bombs, launching them in a complex pattern. The Guardian's shield intercepted four. Its sword cut three from the air. The spear pierced two more. But three got through, detonating against knee joints with focused fury.

The explosions barely scratched the storm-forged metal.

**"INSUFFICIENT,"** the Guardian stated, then retaliated.

Lightning rained from above—not bolts but sheets, waterfalls of electrical death.

Jayden flew between them, each near-miss singing his remaining clothes. The Guardian's hammer caught him mid-flight, just a glancing blow, but it was like being hit by a freight train made of thunder.

He cratered into the far wall, definitely felt ribs crack that time. Blood ran down his face, tasting of copper and ozone.

Twenty minutes in, Jayden was losing badly. His regeneration struggled against accumulated damage. Every technique had been countered, every strategy adapted to. The Guardian wasn't just strong—it was experienced, built to kill things exactly like him.

"Fuck it," Jayden spat blood that sparked on stone. "Time for something stupid."

Lightning was more than electricity. At sufficient intensity, it created magnetic fields. And magnetic fields, when properly aligned, could accelerate conductive material to incredible speeds.

Like a railgun.

But what if the projectile was himself?

"This is going to hurt as fuck," Jayden muttered, then began to charge.

Not his normal charging. He created two points of massive electrical potential super fast than the guardian could track—one behind him, one directly through the Guardian's center mass. Then he began aligning his body's magnetic field, turning every cell into part of a living acceleration system.

The Guardian sensed danger. All four weapons raised defensively.

**"FUTILE ATTEMPT—"**

Jayden became a human railgun projectile.

The acceleration was instant—zero to Mach 4 between heartbeats. He didn't fly toward the Guardian; he existed at it, reality blurring to accommodate impossible speed. His body, wrapped in a shell of compressed lightning, became a kinetic kill vehicle.

The shield shattered like glass.

The Guardian's chest, forged from metal that had weathered legendary weapons, parted like tissue paper. Jayden punched through its torso, emerging from its back in an explosion of molten metal and Genesis crystal fragments. In his hands, he clutched the Guardian's core—a basketball-sized crystal that pulsed with the heartbeat of storms.

The Guardian turned, somehow still functional despite the Jayden-sized hole in its chest. **"IMPOSSIBLE. CALCULATIONS DO NOT—"**

"Yeah, well," Jayden crushed the core, its energy flooding into him like mainlining pure lightning.

"I'm kind of bad at math."

The Guardian took one step forward, then collapsed. Tons of storm-forged metal hit stone with a sound like divine judgment. Lightning played over its form as systems failed, weapons clattering from nerveless fingers.

[STORMFORGE GUARDIAN SLAIN - SOLO]

[+2500 XP]

[LEVEL UP! x2]

[Current Level: 18]

[Achievement: "David vs Goliath II" - Defeated enemy 7+ levels higher solo]

[Achievement: "Storm Lord" - Completed Level 20+ dungeon solo]

[Acquired: Stormforge Core]

Jayden stood in the aftermath, body already healing from the railgun stunt. Every part of him hurt, but it was the good hurt—the hurt of growth, of pushing boundaries.

*

**Angeles Forest**

Jayden emerged from his third dungeon as the sun set, looking nothing like the boy who'd entered two weeks ago.

Level 18. Every movement precise, controlled. No wasted energy, no wild surges. His eyes held lightning, but more than that—they held the confidence of someone who'd figured out exactly what he was capable of.

His spatial ring was stuffed beyond capacity. Numerous dungeons worth of corpses, cores, rare materials. Conservative estimate? Two hundred million in street value. Maybe more.

Mozart was going to lose his mind.

But first, Jayden had to figure out what waited for him in the real world. Two weeks was a long time to be gone. His family would be looking. The government. The media.

Everyone hunting for a scared, out-of-control teenager.

"Surprise, motherfuckers," Jayden grinned, electricity dancing between his teeth. "I got my shit together."

Time to see what the world had been up to while he was busy becoming a god.