ShadowBound: The Need For Power

After repeatedly testing and refining his fire magic, Liam found he could now solidify his flames—not into flawless forms, but enough to shape basic weapons. He crafted crude throwing daggers from fire, hurling them at moving dummies. The moment they embedded into their targets, he detonated them with a mere thought—controlled blasts that tore through magical armor with precision.

Twenty minutes passed, each dummy programmed to move with near-human agility. Liam danced between them, dodging, attacking, unleashing myst like a storm. Gradually, fatigue began to creep in… but only faintly. It struck him as odd. With the sheer volume of myst he was using, he should've been drained.

Then it hit him.

Crimson Breathing.

He had mastered it to the point where it felt instinctive, automatic. It didn't just sustain his endurance anymore—it let him draw myst directly from the surrounding air, replenishing his reserves at a remarkable rate.

The realization lit a fire in him—this was what he'd needed all along. All the techniques he'd once shelved, all the ideas he thought impossible due to his previous limits… were suddenly within reach.

Dismissing the battered dummies with a command through the crystal orb, he let out a steady breath. Then, without a word, he unbuttoned his shirt and slipped it off, folding it neatly—after all, it wasn't even his. He kicked off his boots as well, placing both at the far corner of the hall.

Now dressed only in his pants, sleeveless under-tunic, and socks, he rolled his shoulders. The lightness felt… freeing.

"This is better," he muttered. "Time to try fusion magic again—but this time, for real."

He extended both hands. A red-orange sigil flared to life before his right palm—pure flame. A deep, dark sigil shimmered before his left—shadow.

With calm precision, Liam slowly brought them together. The sigils pulsed violently at first, threatening to reject each other, but he pressed on. As the two merged, they began to stabilize, folding into a single glowing seal.

He clasped his hands tight.

The sigil shrunk—dense, volatile—and when he opened his palms slowly, as if unsheathing a blade, a thick stream of fire laced with shadow began to crackle to life. It extended, lengthening steadily until it formed the size and shape of a full javelin—burning with intense, compressed heat and wreathed in solidified darkness.

Liam grinned.

"Well, would you look at that… I actually did it. Thought I'd mess up—barely read anything about this technique—but here we are."

He studied the weapon with pride.

By combining Flame Compression and Shadow Solidification, he'd forged something new—a javelin of concentrated fire, its heat rivaling his miniature suns, bound together by the structure and control of his shadow magic.

Offense through fire. Control through shadow. A perfect balance.

"Advanced Horror-class demon… Malgath," Liam said calmly.

At his command, the spherical crystal pulsed to life, projecting a holographic image of the demon. The Malgath appeared, towering and grotesque, standing across the room with its warped humanoid frame. Though only a projection, it turned toward Liam, sniffing the air—guided by scent, just as the real thing would be.

"This thing's hide is damn near unbreakable… Perfect test subject," Liam muttered as he spun the flaming, shadow-laced javelin once and shifted into a throwing stance.

In the next instant—snap—he launched the javelin in a blur. The speed was enough to threaten the sound barrier. The Malgath had no time to react before the projectile pierced through the air and met its mark.

A violent explosion followed, kicking up a swirling cloud of dust.

When the haze settled, Liam squinted through it—then smirked.

Exactly what he wanted to see.

The Malgath's entire upper torso had been obliterated. Its lower half stood uselessly, severed and smoking. Further down the hall, Liam's javelin was embedded deep into the far wall, still intact and glowing faintly.

"All that myst wasn't wasted after all," he said with a smirk.

His eyes returned to the javelin. Extending his hand, he whispered a command through the flow of his myst.

The weapon jerked free from the wall with a snap and zipped back into his palm. Liam's eyes widened slightly as it landed perfectly in his grip.

"Well, look at that—it works," he muttered.

This was the true reason he wove shadow into the javelin—to test if it could be recalled after a ranged attack. And it had worked flawlessly. The shadow he infused carried his essence, allowing the weapon to remain bound to his mystic signature. Had he drawn shadow from an external object, the bond wouldn't have held.

Still, a thought tugged at the edge of his mind.

"But what if someone catches it midair in a fight?" he wondered aloud. "That'd be bad. I'd practically be handing them a weapon against myself."

Sharing a weapon with your enemy in battle is just asking to die, he thought grimly. I need to find a way to make it obey only my command.

An idea surfaced.

'What if I use Void Storage?'

It was a promising thought—retrieve the weapon instantly through dimensional storage, avoiding any risk of interception. But then a snag:

'I've only ever used Void Storage on physical objects—my daggers, tools. This javelin isn't exactly tangible… it's a construct of flame and shadow. Can you even store something that technically doesn't "exist" until it's formed?'

The doubt lingered.

"Maybe the smarter move," he muttered, "is to just let it disappear after one use. Recreate it every time. That way, no risks."

But that presented a new problem.

"Shadow Solidification eats up more myst than any of my other techniques. I'd burn through my reserves too fast in a prolonged fight."

He stared at the javelin for a long moment, lost in quiet thought. Eventually, he let out a breath.

'I'll figure it out later. Right now… I want to see her.'

His gaze drifted to the corridor above the hall.

'She's been standing there since I walked in. Even under an invisibility spell as good as Sir Kaine's, I can still feel her presence.'

A faint smile ghosted across his face.

'My awareness… my perception of myst… it's definitely getting sharper.'

***

Just above the training hall was an observation corridor—a narrow walkway overlooking the arena below. It was here that Mabel stood, cloaked in a subtle Invisibility spell, quietly watching Liam as he tested his latest abilities.

Though still irritated by Liam's earlier remark, she couldn't help but be impressed. The scale of destruction he was causing wasn't just flashy—it was the kind of devastation not expected from a High-Tier 5-Star mage. If she were being honest, it looked more like something from a mid-tier 6-Star.

Still, her Mystsense told the truth. She checked and double-checked—Liam's mystic signature confirmed it. He was, indeed, a High-Tier 5-Star.

'Maybe the kid's just absurdly gifted…' she thought. 'To pull off that kind of firepower with a 5-Star core… that's impressive. Guess that explains his earlier attitude, too.'

Her gaze followed Liam as he hurled his crimson-and-shadow javelin at holographic targets again and again, each impact producing controlled explosions of force and myst.

'Actually,' she mused, 'he wasn't exactly rude. More like… cautious. And if it were me in his position, waking up to see an unknown person dressed as I am, I'd have said worse. Hell, I might've tried to kill someone on the spot.'

She recalled the look in Liam's eyes when he first woke up—cold, calculating, and dangerous. He hadn't lowered his guard until she mentioned Her Majesty.

"I wonder what he really is…" she whispered to herself.

As she continued watching, Liam suddenly made all the targets vanish, then stepped alone to the center of the hall. Mabel tilted her head slightly, curious.

He hurled the javelin at the far wall—this time, no explosion. Just a thud. Then in an instant, it came flying back to him. He caught it mid-air with a clean spin and—

'Wait.'

Before she could react, Mabel saw the javelin flash again—this time flying directly at her.

Instinct took over. Her body moved before her mind could catch up. She darted to the side just as the javelin struck the wall where she'd been a moment earlier. The impact was explosive, sending a wave of dust and debris through the corridor.

Now down in the training hall, Mabel landed in a crouch at the far corner. Rising to her feet with practiced grace, her brown eyes narrowed, glowing faintly with anger. She locked eyes on Liam.

He stood exactly where he had been—centered and calm. Unshaken by the attack or by her glare.

"Guess Her Majesty trusted you for a reason," he said evenly, extending a hand toward where the javelin had landed. With a mere thought, the weapon flew straight back to him.