Then, with a whip-crack motion, the quills detonated outward in a vicious storm, each one slicing through the air with the speed and force of a crossbow bolt. The sound they made was sharp and unnervingly clean, like blades being drawn all at once.
Once again, all glory be to [Danger Sense].
The warning flared in my head a split second before the quills even left the creature’s body, and I moved without thinking, triggering [Warp] in the narrow gap between instinct and impact.
The world blinked, and I reappeared high above the battlefield, the cold night air rushing past me. The vulture twisted below, searching for me in frantic, jerking motions, its wings beating hard enough to scatter the smoking leaves around it.
I leveled my hand toward it, fingers spread, my stance midair, almost like I was about to unleash a kamehamaha.
Mana surged into my palm, and an orb of fire began to take shape—small at first, flickering like a candle flame, but growing steadily as I poured more energy into it.
"More..." I muttered under my breath, feeling the weight of my reserves draining as the sphere condensed. The air around it shimmered with heat distortion, and the fire no longer danced loosely—it folded in on itself, dense and molten, a miniature sun straining to be unleashed.
The strain built in my arm, my muscles trembling from holding it steady, until the heat felt like it was searing straight through my skin.
Then, with a roar that tore from my chest, I released everything.
The condensed flame ripped free from my palm, exploding outward in a concentrated burst of heat and light that flared so brightly it painted the treetops in shades of gold and orange. It screamed downward like a falling star, trailing a haze of molten sparks in its wake.
The Nightmaw Vulture barely had time to shift its wings before the orb slammed into its chest.
The impact detonated in a blast of fire and pressure, the force rippling through the air like the aftershock of a collapsing wall. The explosion swallowed the vulture’s shriek, drowning it beneath the roar of searing heat. Black feathers vaporized where the flames touched, and the creature’s silhouette writhed inside the inferno before collapsing into it entirely.
I hit the ground in a crouch, the jolt rattling up my legs, my breath heavier than I liked to admit. A dull ache throbbed in my arm—the price of pouring too much mana into a single strike—and a thin sheen of sweat clung to my brow.
When the smoke finally began to thin, the forest was eerily quiet.
The Nightmaw lay in the dirt, its wings splayed wide, its body blackened beyond recognition. Feathers had been replaced by cracked charcoal, and faint curls of smoke still rose from its corpse. The faint, predatory presence it had radiated moments ago was gone—snuffed out completely.
The Nightmaw Vulture’s head—the very point where the blast had struck—was simply gone. Not mangled. Not buried under ash. Gone. Whatever had been there was now scattered in a fine mist of soot and charred fragments, most likely blasted to smithereens by the force of the impact.
[You have killed Nightmare Vulture]
[You have levelled up]
"What the hell..." I muttered under my breath, my voice low and almost drowned by the faint crackle of smoldering feathers.
I looked down at my hands, noticing the faint tremor in my fingers. It wasn’t fear—it was the aftershock of the power I had just unleashed. The skin of my palm still tingled from the heat, the ghost of the flame lingering as if unwilling to let go.
That explosion... it hadn’t just been strong—it had been devastating, far beyond what I’d ever seen anyone do with [Flame Orb]. Even the Goblin Shaman I’d fought before, with all his posturing and magic, had never made it look anything . And Narg, for all his skill, had never pushed the spell to this kind of destructive force either.
This hadn’t been a simple [Flame Orb] amplified—it had felt like something else entirely, like I’d stepped past the spell’s normal limits into new territory.
I pulled up my status window with a flick of thought, the familiar translucent display materializing before me.
Title: Drugar’s Chosen
My gaze lingered on the mana bar, the missing chunk glaring back at me.
That one shot had drained almost a third of my reserves. Normally, [Flame Orb] costs about twenty MP—a modest trade for a decent punch. But this... this monster of a fireball had guzzled one hundred MP in a single cast.
Understandable, though. For that kind of damage? Worth every point.
[You have activated new skill: Inferno Lance]
Description: A devastating advancement of [Flame Orb], this technique compresses vast amounts of mana into a superheated core before unleashing it in a concentrated burst. The resulting projectile strikes with overwhelming force, detonating on impact in an eruption of fire capable of melting steel and incinerating even the most resilient foes. Prolonged charging increases damage exponentially, but also drains mana at an accelerated rate.
All I’d done was push a little experiment—a reckless one, sure—and it had triggered an entirely new skill.
The realization made me pause, my thoughts already racing ahead.
If that was all it took... then maybe I’d been going about skill acquisition the wrong way.
I didn’t have to hunt down elite bosses just to expand my arsenal. That route was effective, but also stupidly dangerous and wildly unpredictable. You never knew what skill you’d get, and there was no guarantee it would fit the way I fought.
But this? This was different. This was controlled. If I could manipulate how I used my existing abilities—push them into new territory—I could essentially choose what to develop. I could be selective.
My mind was already turning over possibilities. What if I reshaped [Flame Orb] into a thin, piercing beam instead of a sphere? Or split it into several smaller projectiles that curved mid-flight? Maybe even create a version that tracked its target like a heat-seeking missile.
The options were endless—if I was willing to burn the mana to test them.
I glanced at my mana pool again.
There was still enough to play with.