Chapter 20: I Killed the Epic Myself—and Got an Epic Troop Sigil
"You leveled up in the middle of a fight?"
The Dread Duke pulled the Nightmare to a stop.
It stared at Cassian standing between it and the rift.
The black-flamed lance slowly rose.
"Human."
"Have you no pride as a warr—"
Cassian was already moving.
[Predator Step I]
A sharp crack was all that remained where he had been standing.
The Dread Duke’s sentence died unfinished.
Too fast.
Before, Cassian had barely been able to slip inside the lance’s reach.
Now Level 7 erased that last half-step.
The Dread Duke had only started turning its weapon when Cassian was already beside the Nightmare’s injured right rear leg.
One strike.
No probing this time.
SHNK!
The Refined Blacksteel Sword drove through the wound he had opened earlier.
The Nightmare screamed.
Its rear leg collapsed completely.
The massive black-armored rider and mount both tipped hard to the right.
The Dread Duke reacted instantly.
Its boot had barely left the stirrup before the armored body launched upward.
The black-flamed lance stabbed down at Cassian’s chest from midair.
Cassian shifted half a step left.
The point passed through a curl of ghostly black mist.
Not the Dread Duke’s.
Dark-violet flame had burst from the falling Nightmare.
His vision disappeared for an instant.
The Dread Duke’s second thrust was already there.
CLANG!
Cassian caught it with his sword.
This time, he was not thrown backward.
But both arms still sank under the impact.
Stone cracked beneath his boots.
The Dread Duke landed.
Without the Nightmare, it somehow looked even steadier.
Patterns that had seemed decorative across its black plate armor lit up at once.
[Dread Mantle]
Dense shadow spread over the armor.
The damage from the ballista bolts and Cassian’s earlier cuts began disappearing beneath it.
Veyra glanced over from a distance.
"Want me to tell you?"
Cassian watched the moving shadow.
"No."
"I already saw it."
Every time the Dread Mantle formed completely, the crack over its left shoulder darkened first.
Then the chest.
The head and neck came last.
The order never changed.
The Dread Duke charged.
Cassian did not meet it.
He stepped backward.
One step.
Two.
Three.
The Dread Duke gathered more speed with each stride.
Black flame streamed behind the lance.
"DIE!"
The point drove straight at Cassian’s throat.
Cassian stopped at the last possible moment.
Not to retreat.
To go forward.
[Predator Step I]
The lance passed his ear.
Cassian slipped directly against the Dread Duke’s chest.
His sword cut for the left shoulder.
Shadow sealed it first.
CLANG!
The blade failed to enter.
The Dread Duke almost seemed to laugh.
"You saw it. So what?"
Cassian relaxed his wrist.
He did not force the blade down.
He let the rebound carry his body to the right instead.
The next second, Dread Mantle spread from the left shoulder toward the chest.
Then upward.
Now.
Cassian stepped again.
The distance was so short that he did not even need a full Predator Step.
He only needed to be half a beat faster.
The sword point slipped beneath the lower edge of the helmet before the shadow reached it.
SHNK!
Dark-red fire burst through the helmet gap.
The Dread Duke froze.
Its lance swept sideways.
Cassian had already pulled his sword free and backed away.
Not dead.
But one of the two dark-red flames inside its helmet had gone out.
For the first time, the Dread Duke did not pursue immediately.
It raised a hand to the side of its neck.
Black liquid leaked between its fingers.
Bloodsense sharpened inside Cassian’s mind.
It was not normal blood.
It did not matter.
He could still track it.
A burning-hot trail ran from the neck into the chest cavity.
The real core.
Slightly left.
The Dread Duke seemed to notice where Cassian was looking.
The shadow under its feet contracted.
[Wraith Step]
Its entire body blurred.
Then vanished.
Cassian’s vision went empty.
Veyra’s voice came from the right.
"Behind you."
Cassian did not turn.
Night Sight had already caught the patch of darkness that did not belong.
Bloodsense still held the trail.
[Dread Mantle] could hide the body.
It could not hide what had already leaked out.
Cassian stepped forward.
The lance stabbed through the space behind him.
He twisted.
His sword slid upward along the lance shaft.
The Dread Duke tried to spread the mantle again.
Left shoulder.
Chest.
Head and neck.
Same sequence.
Exactly what Cassian had been waiting for.
[Predator Step I]
One final step.
He crashed into the Dread Duke’s reach.
The Refined Blacksteel Sword drove diagonally down from the wound already opened at the neck.
Not toward the throat.
Toward the point Bloodsense had locked onto.
SHNK!
The blade passed through a gap in the black armor.
It did not stop.
It sank to the hilt.
The Dread Duke’s body jerked.
Its lance fell from its hand.
CLANG.
The last dark-red flame beneath the helmet flickered violently.
"You..."
Cassian gripped the sword with both hands.
Then forced it downward.
CRACK.
Something inside the chest armor broke with a surprisingly small sound.
The dark-red flame went out completely.
[Cassian Vale personally killed Dread Duke.]
[Target: Epic / Level 10]
[Battle Essence +30,000]
[Aether Crystal +20,000]
[Epic Troop Sigil ×1]
[Epic Armor: Wraithplate ×1]
[Aether Crystal: 425,703]
Cassian did not look at the Troop Sigil first.
He did not look at the Wraithplate either.
The familiar black-gold prompt had already pushed everything else aside.
[DEVOUR]
[Target meets Devour conditions: personally killed.]
[Core abilities detected.]
Three options unfolded.
[Dread Mantle]
[Wrap the body in shadow to endure one high-intensity impact for a brief moment. Strength scales with the user.]
[Wraith Step]
[Merge into nearby shadow for one short-range burst of movement.]
[Dark Command]
[Exert stronger pressure and command over Dark units weaker than the user.]
Cassian read all three.
His eyes passed over the second almost immediately.
He already had Predator Step.
He did not need another short-range movement ability doing nearly the same job.
The third held his attention for only a moment longer.
He already had Pack Dominion.
His hand moved to the first option.
"This one."
[Devour successful.]
[Permanent ability acquired: Dread Mantle I]
Black-gray power flashed down his arm.
No heavy armor appeared.
Nothing stayed visible over his body.
It felt more like something had settled just beneath his skin, waiting.
Cassian had barely raised his head when a Hollow Mage in the distance suddenly turned.
Black light gathered at the tip of its bone staff.
It stopped attacking Veyra.
Its final black spear shot straight at Cassian instead.
Veyra saw it.
She did not move.
Neither did Cassian.
[Dread Mantle I]
HUMM.
A thin layer of black-gray shadow flashed over his chest and left shoulder.
The black spear struck.
BANG!
The mantle shattered instantly.
Cassian slid back half a step.
His chest felt heavy from the impact.
Nothing had pierced through.
He looked down at the dissipating shadow.
Enough.
In the distance, Crimson Oath fell.
Veyra cut through the Hollow Mage and its bone staff in the same stroke.
She flicked the black mist from her blade.
"You finally have something that doesn’t rely entirely on getting out of the way."
Cassian nodded.
"Mm."
He did not test it again.
The battle was not over.
The moment the Dread Duke died, the remaining Dark monsters lost cohesion.
The Dark Rangers were the first to turn.
The Grave Wraiths followed.
Several spatial rifts were still open.
The monsters began retreating toward them.
Cassian looked up.
"Don’t let them go back."
All twelve Gloomhoof turned together.
Bowstrings merged into one continuous thunder of release.
The Repeater Ballista Tower fired every two seconds.
At the farthest rift, four Gloomhoof had already sealed the first retreat route.
The Blackfang pushed outward along the inside of the Domain boundary.
They did not chase the strongest targets.
They hunted isolated and wounded ones.
Veyra no longer had any reason to hold back.
She still did not summon Eclipse Spear.
Crimson Oath was enough.
The strength of her Level 3 manifestation poured into the blade.
Her first slash knocked three Hexeyes from the air at once.
The second cut through a Dark Ranger’s longbow and chest armor together.
Cassian watched for two seconds.
Then left it to her.
That part had never been his target.
Less than ten minutes later, the last spatial rift began to contract.
A Six-Eyed Gloomcrow desperately tried to climb above the battlefield.
The Repeater Ballista Tower rotated.
BOOM!
A black shape dropped from the sky.
Silence.
The system settlement finally appeared.
[Dark Monster Tide ended.]
[Dark units destroyed: 333]
[Epic units destroyed: 1]
[Allied deaths: 0]
[Battle duration: 11 minutes 26 seconds]
[Battle Rating: B]
[Total Battle Essence gained during this Dark Monster Tide: 96,400]
Cassian glanced at the numbers.
He had already spent 10,000 of that total leveling to 7 during the fight.
The numbers were clear enough.
He closed the panel.
The Settlers were already dragging recoverable equipment into piles.
Dark longbows.
Bone staves.
Light armor.
Short blades.
A great deal had been ruined by black fire.
What remained intact still filled several rows.
But beside the Dread Duke’s corpse, two items stood out from everything else.
Cassian picked up the Wraithplate first.
The black-gray armor had looked massive on the Dread Duke.
In his hands, it contracted automatically.
[Wraithplate]
[Quality: Epic]
[Requirement: Level 7]
Cassian paused.
Perfect timing.
He equipped it immediately.
The plates closed around him.
It had real weight.
But Predator Step still moved cleanly beneath it.
Veyra walked over and circled him once.
"Better than what you were wearing before."
"I wasn’t wearing armor before."
"Exactly. Better."
Cassian did not argue.
His attention had already shifted to the last item.
A dark-gold sigil about the size of his palm.
There was no writing on its surface.
Only twelve narrow lines shaped like lightning, arranged side by side.
[Epic Troop Sigil]
[Use to open one Epic troop recruitment gate.]
Veyra saw it too.
"Opening that first?"
Cassian had already picked it up.
"Mm."
This time, he did not wait.
The dark-gold sigil shattered in his palm.
A golden gate rose in the center of the Forgotten Shrine.
The first sound from beyond it was not footsteps.
It was thunder.
BOOM.
Cassian looked up.
A tall figure stepped out through the lightning.