Chapter 213: His Name Was Silver
The command left my lips like a final verdict.
“Come.”
For a heartbeat, the forest stood still.
No wind. No sound.
Even the trees, twisted and gnarled, seemed to recoil, bowing in a silence that felt… reverent.
Then it began.
From the center of my chest, where the null core spun in solemn rhythm, a crimson pulse flared. It was not light. Not flame. It was heavier than either. A dense, living crimson mist began to billow outward from my body, rolling over the earth like smoke dragged through blood.
The mist thickened and pulsed, forming a great sphere of swirling red around me.
Inside it, something moved, a silhouette, shifting and contorting within the veil. A shriek echoed, distant but rising, like the call of a storm-born god.
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A beat passed.
Then—
FWOOOM.
Wings burst outward from the mist, unfurling with a sound like thunder cracking through steel. Each feather was a blade of night, rippling with dark reds and inky blacks. The wings stretched wide—massive, elegant, predatory. The red mist clung to them, like a dying fire being whipped by wind.
And then the beast landed.
CRACK.
Talons hit the earth like falling hammers, gouging into rock and soil alike. Twelve feet tall at the shoulder, and even larger when upright, the Silversteel Hawk now stood before me, reborn.
But this… wasn’t the creature I’d fought.
This was its soul, shaped and bound, its body a warped phantom of memory and vengeance, cloaked in a mantle of red essence.
Its feathers were darker now, almost black, with streaks of crimson weaving through them like veins of fire. Smoke-like mist rolled constantly from its form, curling into the air, vanishing before it touched the ground.
Its eyes opened.
Burning red orbs, deep and knowing, stared down at me with quiet fury, yet they did not attack.
We held each other’s gaze.
And in that silence, something passed between us. Understanding. Memory. Pain.
It remembered.
Then—
A faint clinking.
Only I could hear it. Only I could see it.
A single ethereal blue chain extended from my chest, stretching through the air in a soft arc and linking to the base of the hawk’s sternum. It shimmered faintly.
And the moment it appeared, I could feel what the beast was feeling.
Anger. Pain. A deep, ancient fury woven into every beat of its wings and breath of its soul.
Through the chain linking us, I understood instinctively: I could speak to it—not with words, but with intent. The bond was personal. Intimate. A thread between two broken beings pulled together by shared rage.
My eyes roamed over the creature.
It was enormous—almost twice my height—and draped in waves of crimson mist that rolled off its body like smoke from a dying star. Just looking at it, anyone would know: this wasn’t a summoned beast. It was wrath incarnate.
A faint glow hovered above its head, visible only to me.
[Silversteel Hawk – Level 130]
I frowned. It had dropped in level. That meant the soul transfer and corruption had taken something from it—strength, identity, maybe even time.
I stepped forward without hesitation, locking eyes with the beast. My hand rose and pressed gently against its side.
It wasn’t flesh. Not entirely. The sensation was strange—like touching a ghost made real. Ethereal. Alive. Cold, yet burning from within.
It stared at me.
I didn’t flinch.
“I don’t know if you can understand me,” I said softly, “but I plan to destroy the ones who did this to you. And I wouldn’t mind having you with me when it happens.”
For a few seconds, there was only silence. Then the hawk raised its head and let out a screech that split the forest. The sound was raw—full of rage and something deeper. Something like agreement.
I grinned.
Without a word, I jumped onto its back. The mist shifted around me but didn’t resist. I settled in, finding balance as the wind curled through my hair. My eyes narrowed, scanning the forest ahead.
I placed my hands inside my pockets and whispered.
“I’ll call you Silver… till the day you fly beside me. Let’s go, Silver. I’m angry. Let’s find some Holts to smash.”
The hawk’s body rumbled in response.
Its wings stretched wide.
Boom.
The ground cracked beneath us as it launched into the sky, slicing through the air like a crimson blade—mist trailing behind us like a war banner.
The hunt had begun.
My perception stretched outward, sweeping a wide radius around Silver as we soared toward the distant mountain range.
The wind screamed past me.
Silver tore through the sky like a crimson spear, wings slicing the clouds, each beat shaking the air with explosive force.
The forest blurred beneath us, treetops bending from the pressure left in our wake. I stood tall on Silver’s back, unfazed by the speed, my shirt flapping violently behind me, hair whipping in the wind.
My hands stayed buried in my pockets. Balanced. Unshaken.
Crimson mist coiled around us as we cut through the sky, trailing like a warning behind a god descending to punish.
The crimson mist that bled from his body didn’t fade in the wind. It clung to him like a stormcloud—billowing, roiling, trailing in a tail of smoke that spiraled behind us.
My hair whipped wildly in the wind, lashes fluttering as I kept my eyes locked ahead. Every sense sharpened. My Psynapse hummed like a wire drawn tight, feeding me fragments—movement, heat, pressure shifts.
Dozens of signatures flickered below like sparks. Small Abominations. Big Abominations. Group of Abominations.
Until—there.
A figure burst from the treeline miles ahead. Fast. Clad in the black-gray clothes of the Holts, darting through the forest with Essence-enhanced strides. He moved like a trained elite, zigzagging between trees, leaping over boulders, clearly rushing toward the base at the edge of the range.
I narrowed my eyes and locked onto his signal.
‘Got you.’
Without a word, I sent the location of the man to Silver.
Silver didn’t hesitate.
His wings shifted, body tilting, and in the next instant we dropped like a blade. The roar of the wind became a howl. Trees shot past like streaks of green and brown. My heart hammered with the plunge, but I didn’t flinch. I leaned into it, eyes locked on the target below.
The crimson mist spiraled tighter around us as we descended. It snaked ahead of Silver, stretching like ghostly fingers reaching for prey.
And far below, the Holt turned his head and looked up.
I felt the shift in Silver’s body—a pulse of tension, like a drawn bow. His beak opened wide with a metallic rasp, and a deafening screech ripped through the sky.
A beam of crimson energy burst from his mouth, cutting through the air like a blade of judgment.
The beam hit before the man could fully react. His hands rose, energy flaring in panic—but it wasn’t enough.
The impact slammed into him like a meteor. His barrier cracked, then shattered. His body flew backward, crashing through the treetops like a ragdoll, branches snapping in violent succession before he vanished into the canopy below.