The night was a living thing.
It breathed.
It whispered.
It watched.
And tonight, it bled.
Asura stood in the center of a crumbling district —
abandoned skyscrapers looming around him like skeletal gods.
The System had warned him hours ago:
[Threat Approaching.]
[Classification: Abyss Hunter - Tier A.]
He welcomed it.
The first sign was a ripple in the shadows.
Then came the smell —
like burning metal and rotting magic.
And then he stepped forward.
Vorren.
A Guild Assassin hand-picked by the Prime Guild Master himself.
Once human.
Now something far worse.
His body was wrapped in cursed Sigil armor —
black steel veins crisscrossing his flesh.
His right arm had fused into a jagged blade pulsing with abyssal runes.
His eyes — hollow and dead — locked onto Asura like a predator spotting prey.
"You," Vorren said, his voice a broken echo.
"The Rogue. The Mistake. The Scourge."
He raised his weapon-arm.
"By order of the Abyss Guilds… your existence ends tonight."
Asura smiled coldly.
"Try."
The world shattered.
Vorren moved first —
a blur of pure destruction.
The ground cracked under each step,
air pressure collapsing in violent bursts.
He swung his blade-arm —
a wave of corrupted Sigil energy tearing through buildings, shattering concrete.
Asura dodged narrowly, the Blood Tide flaring from his back like living wings.
They collided midair.
Flesh against steel.
Blood against void.
The impact sent shockwaves ripping through the dead cityscape.
Asura retaliated —
lashing out with Bloodline tendrils sharpened into spears —
but Vorren twisted impossibly, deflecting the strikes with unnatural flexibility.
Their fight was a storm.
Lightning-fast.
Merciless.
For the first time in a long time…
Asura felt pain.
Vorren's abyssal blade sliced across his ribs —
black ichor spraying into the air.
The System screamed:
[Warning: Structural Damage 17%.]
[Emergency Mutation Sequence Ready.]
Perfect.
Asura grinned through the blood dripping from his chin.
He welcomed the pain.
It meant he could stop holding back.
He roared —
a sound that cracked the air itself —
and the Bloodline inside him surged.
Veins blackened.
Eyes burned crimson.
The markings along his spine ignited into searing Abyssal runes.
[Bloodline Phase 2 Unlocked: Sovereign Mutation - Partial.]
[Abilities Amplified x3.]
[New Trait: Predator's Wrath Activated.]
Asura moved faster than sound.
In a blink, he was behind Vorren —
his fist crashing into the assassin's reinforced spine,
sending him skidding through five city blocks.
The System chimed:
[Critical Hit Landed: Structural Instability Detected in Target.]
Vorren coughed black blood,
staggering to his feet.
His dead eyes blinked for the first time.
Surprise.
Fear.
Good.
Asura advanced.
No mercy.
No hesitation.
The Blood Tide snapped outward —
grabbing Vorren's blade-arm, ripping it free in an eruption of corrupted sparks.
Vorren howled, trying to form a counterattack —
but Asura was already there,
plunging his corrupted hand into Vorren's exposed core.
For a moment, the world held its breath.
And then…
Blackness exploded outward.
A tidal wave of shattered Sigil energy and broken memories.
Vorren's body collapsed,
disintegrating into ash.
And Asura stood alone in the ruins,
steam rising from his torn jacket,
blood dripping from his clenched fists.
The System flickered —
then stabilized:
[Target Eliminated: Abyss Hunter - Tier A.]
[Ability Core Absorbed: Adaptive Combat System.]
[Bloodline Phase 2: Stable.]
Asura inhaled slowly.
The night tasted different now.
Sweeter.
Hungrier.
He wasn't the prey.
He wasn't the mistake.
He was the nightmare they couldn't kill.
The nightmare that hunted back.
He raised his gaze toward the distant city skyline.
The Guilds thought this was war.
They hadn't even seen hell yet.
Asura smiled.
And stepped forward into the darkness.