The chains rattled.
Noel was on his knees, his breath ragged, his vision blurred. The ground beneath him was cracked stone, soaked in black ichor and ash. His body shook violently—not from fear, but from something deeper, darker.
The monster loomed before him.
It was a thing of bone and void, its elongated limbs stretching unnaturally, its empty sockets glowing with a sickly white light. A massive maw split open along its torso, revealing rows of jagged teeth, moving as though they had a mind of their own.
The girl and the boy had abandoned him.
Cowards or just smart people.
They thought he was broken. Weak.
They weren't wrong. But right now, it wasn't about them.
He barely felt the pain in his body as he forced himself to stand. The weight of the two chains still pulled at his arms, too heavy, too unfamiliar. He barely had control over them. But that didn't matter.
The monster lurched forward.
It moved faster than it should, its spindly legs bending at unnatural angles as it rushed toward him. Its gaping maw tore open, letting out a deafening shriek.
He didn't think. He moved.
The moment the creature lunged, his instincts screamed.
Dodge.
His body barely reacted in time. He threw himself to the side, rolling across the broken ground as clawed hands slammed down where he had been. A shockwave of force cracked the stone beneath it, sending shards of rock flying.
He hit the ground hard, his breath knocked from his lungs, a shard of rock impaling his already battered body.
Fast, too fast.
The monster turned toward him again, hungry, eager, and ready to finish it. His heartbeat pounded against his ribs. Something was wrong. The chains pulsed around him, alive, reacting to his thoughts.
The monster lunged a second time. His arms moved on instinct.
The chains snapped forward—wild, erratic, untrained. The first missed completely, slamming into the ground.
The second wrapped around the monster's wrist.
The impact ripped through Noel's arm, nearly pulling him off balance. The monster snarled, twisting against the restraint, and for a second, Noel felt it—the struggle, the pull.
He could feel the weight of the creature through the chain.
His eyes widened.
I can hold it.
The beast roared and yanked back. The force was too much. Noel stumbled forward, his feet skidding against the dirt, the weight nearly dislocating his arm.
No. Hold on.
Teeth flashed. The monster lunged for his throat.
He pulled with everything he had.
The chain tightened. The monster jerked back mid-air, its attack thrown off course. It staggered, momentarily unbalanced. This time, he didn't hesitate.
His second chain lashed out, catching the monsters' opposite leg. It tried to move—but Noel had it bound.
He twisted his arms, and the chains snapped taut. The monster collapsed, slamming into the ground. His body screamed from the strain, his muscles burning from the effort. But he didn't let go. The creature thrashed, shrieking in rage, but the more it struggled, the tighter the chains constricted. A pulse of something dark and raw surged through his veins. His fingers clenched tighter.
The System's voice whispered in his mind.
[Chainmaster Ability Unlocked: Bind.]
His breath hitched.
He understood, now. The chains weren't just weapons. They could be shackles. He could bind his enemies. He could hold them down. And if he could hold them— He could kill them.
The monster let out another ear-piercing shriek, its torso splitting open even wider, revealing a second, smaller mouth, writhing with tendrils of shadow. It was preparing to break free.
His expression darkened.
"Not this time."
His foot planted into the ground, anchoring himself.
He twisted his arms.
The chains surged tighter.
The monster let out a garbled, choked scream as its limbs were ripped inward, its own body being crushed by the sheer force of the bindings. The weight on his arms grew heavier, heavier—
Until something inside the beast snapped. A deafening crack split through the air. The creature convulsed violently—then fell still.
For a moment, the only sound was Noel's own breathing.
Shallow. Uneven.
He stared at the motionless corpse.
Then—
[Kill Confirmed.]
[Lesser Abyss Wraith Defeated.]
[Partial System Integration Achieved.]
[Physical Enhancements Unlocking…]
A wave of energy rolled through Noel's body. Cold. Unfamiliar. Powerful.
The weight in his limbs lessened. His mind cleared. The chains, once heavy and sluggish, felt…lighter. More natural.
He exhaled slowly, his shoulders rising and falling. He looked down at his hands, at the chains coiled around them like living things.
Parts of the monster's body disintegrated into black ash, its death claimed by the Abyss.
Then, slowly—he smiled. For the first time—
He had won.
But the fire in his chest wasn't from victory. It was from something far more dangerous.
Smiling, tears rolling his pale cheeks he laughed not out of joy not out of sadness, he just laughed. The scent of blood, sweat and smoke clinging to his bruised pale skin, the toll on his body far surpassed the threshold his body could take and he collapsed on to the blood of the wraith.
A monster has been born.