The demon collapsed with a heavy thud.
Its open wounds leaked some mist onto the floor spreading slowly. Its power of manipulating the air(mist) and paralysing its prey was waning motionless second.
Kael didn't budge. His body shook. His arm was covered in blood. But the broken spear he clutched didn't fall. Not yet.
Then it happened.
The pressure in his chest lifted. Control came back to his hand as water finds its own level. The strange strength, the precision—it had vanished from him.
And the voice returned.
"Your body is too weak to hold possession," it said. Cold. Calm. "If I remained any longer, you'd shatter like winter bark."
Kael fell to the ground, gasping for breath. Pain crawled across his chest. His arms and legs felt like wood.
His eyes clenched at the voice inside his head. "That was you, manipulating me?"
"For finishing off," it stated. "But not at present. You're not prepared yet. In order to be able to employ my power and battle again. you'll need to rebuild everything."
The fingers of Kael gripped the sigil glowing gently on his ribs. "Who are you?"
A pause.
Then-
"You don't need to know." he said
He gritted his teeth. The wind gusted more strongly. A raven croaked once in the woods and fled.
Following a moment of silence, Kael spoke, "Then at least tell me what's this marking around my ribs. What is it?"
The voice answered in quiet seriousness.
It's called Abyss Maw. Sigil of the Devourer
It doesn't grant spells. It doesn't grant blessings. It devours. Essence, energy—anything present in this realm. Anything can be stripped of it. Ripped+. Stolen.
Kael's eyes widened. ".Anything?"
"Eventually," the voice said. "But not yet. Your body is new. Your core is hollow. Right now, you can only absorb fragments—small pieces of what others once carried. But in time… you'll hold much more."
Kael stood before the demon's corpse. Smoke continued to leak from wound—slow, twisting, like smoke from fading embers.
"The strength of that beast is fading. The mist, the borrowed strength—it's dying."
"Take it."
Kael weakly nodded and extended a hand.
Just before his hand made contact with it—the sigil flashed. Hard.
The sigil along his ribs glistened dark violet.
Then—something darker started to emerge from it.
A shape. Thin and serrated, a shadow claw. It coiled from his ribcage out around his forearm and glowed in lines of ancient script that beat like living ink.
Kael stood his ground.
Its shadow-hand reached out—
—and touched the dead demon.
The corpse of demon was sucked inward, pulled through the shadow claw, through Kael's arm, and back into the sigil.
There was silence. No light.
Only silence.
Then
His mist began to clear.
The mist wrapped around his legs, curling down. But now, it was not weakning his energy.
It obeyed.
He raised one hand.
A ribbon of mist streamed from his fingertips—thin, silent, chilly.
The forest became quiet.
And Kael smiled.