Osric

  He moved first because he always did—the difference was this time, Alex was faster. The ruin split open, vomiting something half-formed and ancient, and before it could drag itself free, Alex tore its head from its body like he was snapping a twig. Liora was already moving, blades flashing, dismantling what remained with the kind of efficiency that made it look like she was having fun. Osric, sword in hand, cut through the things that tried to crawl out after it, because there was always more, always something else waiting to spill into the world. The fight was over in less than a minute, but the marsh never let anything die easy. The ground churned, pulling the corpses down, drinking them, like it had never happened at all. Osric exhaled, wiped blood from his blade, and kept walking.

  Osric’s grip tightened on his conjured sword. He had fought things before. Killed things that were stronger than him. But this was a campaign.

  And nothing here ever really stayed dead.

  ***

  Alex

  The ground birthed things that should not have existed. Not one or two creatures—hundreds.

  The creatures came in waves, surging from the blood-tainted marsh, from beneath the rotting remains of things that had never stopped moving, from above where twisted, winged things circled. The Marshes surged with an ecosystem shaped by dead god’s remains, and every piece of it was hostile.

  Alex stepped forward, and Qi surged through his body.

  It was his, but it wasn’t natural. It never had been.

  His stolen techniques filled in the gaps, made up for what his cultivation level lacked, and forced reality to accept that he was something that should exist at a higher level. But Qi had a price. Everything he did beyond his natural limit tore through his meridians, burned through his pathways, and pushed his body past what it should have been able to withstand.

  For a brief moment, when he had access to Qi, he was stronger than he should have been. Not through stats, but through sheer versatility—being able to do things he could never do without it.

  But his body and pathway would always pay the price.

  Alex felt his veins burn and moved anyway, trusting his new class to pick up the pieces.

  Nine Shadows Phantom Step.

  His form fractured, split into nine indistinguishable copies moving as one but occupying different spaces. This was more than a simple illusion—each version of him was real until the moment he struck and chose otherwise. A technique used by the Void Eclipse Order, a sect that had once dominated entire planetary wars by confusing enemy perception. They had been too good at it, too organised, and far too dangerous, so The Martial Empire had burned their worlds to nothing.

  His Qi burned harder than expected, the technique not meant for him. He didn’t stop.

  Crimson Star Rend.

  The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  He shifted, sword flashing once, and a thin line of Qi-condensed heat stretched across the marsh. A stolen technique from the Blazing Heaven Sect, a group that had worshipped Phoenix fire as an absolute force of destruction. They had crafted this technique to pierce city walls, to render defensive formations useless, and to burn through anything too slow to move. Entire legions had collapsed before it.

  He only needed to use it once. The creatures caught in its path didn’t burn—they evaporated.

  His Qi pathways screamed. This was never meant to be done so quickly. He moved anyway.

  Void Chain Edict.

  The creatures froze in place—not physically, not by force, but because the concept of movement had been stripped from them. A technique taken from the Sect's Imperial Enforcers, who had once used it to hold cultivators in place while they were executed.

  They did not resist. They could not.

  His blade passed through them.

  His Qi was low. The strain was worse now. A few more seconds of this, and his body would start breaking down faster than he could repair it with his Azure Restoration Method, also stolen from the sect's healing elder's very hands.

  Creatively acquired, Alex mentally corrected himself, turning to the next wave of creatures.

  Sword Qi.

  The theory behind Basic Sword Qi was simple enough: the swordsman would channel their Qi into the sword, allowing it to resonate with the weapon. Basic Sword Qi was first developed by early swordmasters as a means to channel their internal Qi into their blades, allowing them to cut through not just physical obstacles but also spiritual barriers. Over centuries, the technique spread across the martial world, becoming the foundation for every swordsman who sought to make their sword more than metal. It was the first step and one of many.

  Alex’s blade hummed, a faint vibration travelling up his arm. The Qi flowed into the sword, sharpening its edge, making it more than metal, igniting with the Qi within its core.

  This wasn’t mastery of the technique, not yet. But it was the beginning. The foundation. The first stage of Sword Qi was subtle and precise. Not brute force, not raw power- not yet. His Qi, when forced through the blade, didn’t make the sword stronger, but it made it cut deeper, cutting through obstacles that would normally stop a normal weapon cold. The weapon only needed to connect.

  The blade in his hand became the only thing that mattered. The creatures that had survived everything else disappeared with a single stroke.

  The marsh was still. For now.

  Alex exhaled. His Qi was all but gone. He was always stronger when he had it. But it never lasted.

  He needed more.

  ***

  Alex finally stepped on a ground that wasn't red and trying to kill him. It was a refreshing feeling, like stepping home after being out in the cold.

  The marsh had spent the last hour trying to kill them in increasingly creative ways—twisting roots that struck like whips, things beneath the water that waited for a misstep, eyeless creatures lunging from the mist with too many limbs and too much hunger—but none of it mattered now because the ground had finally stopped swallowing their boots, and the air no longer stank of things long dead and dying. Alex adjusted his grip on his sword, letting the last drops of something’s blood slide off the blade, and kept walking.

  The land ahead stretched far, an expanse of dry, uneven rock sloping toward something massive in the distance—a structure half-drowned in time, its front crumbling in slow collapse, but beyond the ruin, past the shattered archways and the twisted vines, something remained untouched, halls standing vast and whole as if the years had tried and failed to claim them.

  [You have defeated...]

  [You have defeated...]

  [You have defeated...]

  [You have defeated...]

  Beneath Alex's helmet, a smile blossomed as before he could inspect his gains, a larger, more dominant panel appeared before all three.

  Dynamic Quest Updated!]

  [New Active Quest Available!]

  [Active Quests: Grand Steps: Reach level 1000. Reward: Advance your main class]

  [Dynamic Quest - ‘The God of Creation’s Legacy”: Deity-Class being… ]

  Osric exhaled, flicking something unpleasant off his sleeve, though his voice sounded less sombre. “That’s never a good sign.” Liora, still too energetic for someone who had nearly been eaten, grinned. “Depends. If we go inside and it kills us instantly, at least it’ll be efficient.”

  The is up and running. So if you like, you can read ahead there!