The next day came slower than usual.

The sun broke through the cracks in the wooden shutters, painting long stripes across Arthur’s blanket. The room still smelled like last night’s stew and the faint bite of iron — from the dagger he kept tucked beneath the floorboards, wrapped in cloth, inside a tin box.

He sat up with a grunt, his body still sore from the arena brawls and the street scuffle. But more than pain, there was something else lingering in his bones.

Tension.

Readiness.

He stretched, got dressed, and stepped outside to feel the air — still humid with coal dust, still noisy with early market sounds.

But it felt... different.

He didn’t know if it was him or the world shifting beneath his feet.

When he reached the makeshift stall by the well, Myra had already started. A short line of three tired-looking women waited patiently, asking for small bundles of feverleaf and pain balm. Myra smiled, moved quickly, explained things softly.

Arthur leaned on the nearby wall, arms folded, watching.

“Busy already?” he asked.

Myra didn’t look up. “You’re late.”

He snorted.

She finally turned to him, her smile flickering. “Still thinking about that blade?”

“I wrapped it in a tin box under the floorboards,” he muttered.

“Safe place,” she said, handing a man a rolled bundle of dried roots. “Until it starts whispering to you.”

He looked at her. “You believe it’s cursed?”

“I believe you keep looking at it like it owes you answers.”

He paused, then said quietly, “It’s not fear. It’s... curiosity.”

She tied up the pouch of coin she’d just earned and tossed it at him.

“Curiosity doesn’t pay for flour. Take this and go buy bread. And don’t get stabbed.”

After buying bread (and dodging a pickpocket near East Timber Road), Arthur wandered a little farther from their usual routes.

Not aimlessly — not anymore.

He was tracking whispers. Rumors.

A builder at his old site mentioned something: “Some folks been hearing noises from the quarry ruins again. Real bad ones. Couple workers quit. Said it weren’t natural.”

That same voice added: “If someone handled it, there’s coin in it.”

Arthur didn’t ask for details. He just knew it was time.

He hadn’t drawn the dagger in days. Hadn’t used the Status ability since Emberlight Row. But something in his bones told him he was close — close to whatever next meant.

And if that meant fighting something worse than another desperate man… so be it.

He returned home early that evening. Sat in silence. Ate dinner with Myra, who didn’t ask questions that night. She just watched him, as if she knew something was coming.

And after she slept…

Arthur packed his coat.

Unwrapped the dagger.

Arthur left before the first rooster call, slipping past Myra’s stall parts stacked in the corner and the tin box under the floorboards where the dagger had been resting — waiting.

The edge of the blade shimmered faintly, like moonlight caught in a shallow stream.

“Aeon,” he whispered. “Let’s go hunting.”

“North Quarry Ruins. Follow the eastern slope — there’s a fault crack in the rock wall. That’s your way in.”

He wore a faded cloak over his regular work gear. No armor. No shine. Just a man walking through the city’s edge with a blade no one believed in.

The guards didn’t bother him as he crossed the outer fields. Only fools and desperate men went toward the quarry — especially after what people said had been stirring out there.

Arthur was both.

The North Quarry had been abandoned ten years ago, after a collapse buried half a mining crew. What remained now was cracked stone, broken pulleys, and a deep, wide sinkhole that bled into an underground cavern.

He found the fault wall just as Aeon said — a jagged crack half-covered by roots. With effort, he squeezed through, crawling on his stomach as dust filled his nose.

Then suddenly… space.

He dropped into an open chamber.

It stank.

Old blood. Wet stone. And something sour — like rotting eggs and bile.

A single shaft of morning light leaked through a broken ceiling vent far above, giving him just enough visibility to move.

“You’re not alone,” Aeon said. “Brace.”

He crouched, dagger in hand, and advanced deeper into the ruins.

The first creature emerged from the dark without warning.

Long limbs. Translucent skin. Its spine curved like a whip, and its claws clicked on the stone.

Arthur ducked as it lunged, slid across the floor, and slashed upward — the blade cut clean through its arm.

The creature screamed — a high, wet wail — and Arthur plunged the dagger straight into its chest.

[Kill Confirmed – Total: 1]

It twitched… then went still.

The dagger pulsed warmly in his grip.

Next. 

They came as a group.

Crawlers — malformed humanoids with stretched jaws and bulbous eyes. Quick but uncoordinated. One tackled him from the left while another dropped from the wall.

Arthur took a cut to the shoulder but responded with a quick jab to the throat of one and kicked the second into a pillar.

Slash. Step. Parry. Jab.

Aeon gave him whispered cues.

His footwork flowed.

Blood spattered. He ducked low, stabbed the third in the back, twisted, and threw it off.

[Kills: 2… 3… 4]

He was breathing hard now. But he was smiling.

The next one was different.

It hid. Waited. Then dropped from the ceiling silently, pinning Arthur to the floor.

Its breath reeked of decay, and its limbs were covered in coarse fur.

Arthur struggled, elbowed it in the ribs, rolled sideways, and stabbed upward just as it lunged again — the dagger pierced its eye.

[Kill: 5]

He panted. Blood ran from a gash across his cheek.

“Rest if you must,” Aeon said. “But there are more.”

In a deeper chamber, lit faintly by fungus growths on the wall, Arthur found the last two.

Larger. Smarter.

They moved together — in sync — circling him like wolves.

He baited the first with a forward feint. It lunged. Arthur ducked and slashed upward, cutting through its thigh.

The second tackled him — fangs nearly catching his shoulder. He rolled, drove the dagger into its neck, and used its momentum to shove it into a stone pillar.

Then spun and finished the injured one with a clean slash across the chest.

[Kills: 6… 7]

With each kill, the blade grew warmer, the edge sharper, as if fed by the fight itself.

And when the seventh one fell…

[Dagger Kill Count: 10/10]

Threshold Reached. Evolution Unlocked.

It already had 3 kills.

The dagger flared — a sudden pulse of red light across its edge. Arthur stepped back, holding it at arm’s length as the blade shuddered… and changed.

Hairline runes shimmered across its surface.

The metal, once dull black, now pulsed faintly with crimson threads beneath the surface — veins of light that ebbed with each breath.