Burning Starlight [Science-Fantasy Cultivation LitRPG] (Book 1 Complete!)

The sound of shattering chitin rang through the corridor. Blake's knife plunged into the thing—a Skitterer, he decided—tearing through its neck. The force of his charge drove both him and the dying creature forward. Black ichor sprayed across the pulsating walls, hissing where it touched the corrupted flesh of the Leviathan.

He barely registered the kill. Just another obstacle. Just another thing to break.

Two more Skitterers scrabbled ahead, their segmented legs clacking against the deck as they charged. Eight glowing red eyes fixed on him, mandibles clicking in rage or hunger. Blake didn't care which.

He yanked at his knife, needing it free. The blade caught on something dense inside the creature's neck—spine or cartilage, it didn't matter. The corpse jerked with each pull, still impaled on his arm like some grotesque puppet.

"Look at you," Rax's voice whispered from somewhere deep in his mind. "Savage. Just like—"

Blake snarled, drowning out the voice with the thunder of his own heartbeat. He was done listening. Done thinking. No time anyway. He had to push forward.

The first Skitterer leapt, front claws extended toward his face. Blake pivoted hard, swinging the corpse on his arm into the path of the attack. The impact jolted through his shoulder, the dead weight absorbing the charge. Claws meant for his throat tore into the carcass instead, tangling the two creatures together.

The second Skitterer darted low, scuttling beneath the tangle of limbs. Its claws raked across Blake's armored leg, leaving deep gouges in his greave. The blow glanced off, barely felt through the armor.

But it was one indignity too many.

"Fucking roach pieces of SHIT!" Blake roared, finally wrenching his knife free with a wet, tearing sound. He drove his boot down on the second Skitterer, feeling its exoskeleton crack beneath his heel. Not enough to kill it, but enough to pin it momentarily.

He stabbed downward, the blade punching through its thorax and into the deck beneath. The creature spasmed, legs thrashing wildly, claws scraping uselessly against his boot.

The first Skitterer, still entangled with the corpse, broke free and lunged again. Blake met it with Verdict, firing point-blank into its central mass. The round tore through chitin and organs, spraying the walls with more black fluid.

Blake stood panting, surrounded by dead creatures. The corridor fell silent except for his breathing and the wet, organic sounds of the corrupted walls.

"Feel better?" Rax asked, his voice clearer now that the fighting had stopped.

"Shut up," Blake muttered, retrieving his knife with a savage jerk.

"It won't work, you know. You can't drown me out. I'm not some external thing you can kill."

Blake moved forward again, stepping over the bodies. His boots left black footprints on the deck. His HUD continued pointing him ahead, guiding him deeper into the ship and towards the next sub-core.

"The Roadwarden, the mercenary, the soldier—they're all just masks for the same thing."

"And what would you have me do?" Blake finally answered, his voice raw. "Let the strong prey on the weak? Stand by while monsters—human or otherwise—do whatever they want?"

"Of course not. We both know that isn't right. I just want you to admit what you are. What we are. To be willing to act without worry of judgment. To feel free to do whatever you decide needs doing. You can keep putting down any monsters you find—hell, you'd be doing it faster."

Blake stopped, his hand pressed against the wall to steady himself. The corridor seemed to contract around him, the pulsing walls closing in. Or maybe that was just the pressure building in his head.

"Easy," he said through gritted teeth. "I'm a killer. I solve problems with violence because I'm good at it. Because sometimes it's the only language people understand."

He pushed off from the wall, continuing forward with deliberate steps.

"I know that and I accept it. I don't know what you or the System want beyond that. I'm not going to start killing arbitrarily—or, shit, I won't go back to killing arbitrarily. I'm doing better. I can choose to protect people who can't protect themselves. That's the difference between us, asshole. You want me to use my strength to dominate. I want to use it to make things better."

"A comforting lie. But at least now you're openly acknowledging your capacity for arbitrary judgment. Progress."

"Fuck off," Blake replied. "If it's a lie, then it's the lie I choose to live by. I don't need you dictating things for me."

Ahead, the corridor widened into a chamber. The rough directions Kitt had given him said he needed to go forward and then down. Blake checked Verdict, wiped his knife clean on his thigh, and stepped through the threshold.

The chamber was a wreck. Jagged shards of metal jutted from the floor, remnants of structural beams twisted like broken bones. Dust hung in the air, catching the sickly red glow of the emergency lights. Blake's boots crunched on scattered debris. [Warden's Insight] remained active, but he knew he wasn't parsing even a fraction of its input in his current state. Still, his gaze swept across the floor, tracking the scuttling forms of at least three Ferroghests.

Blake heard the whisper of wings. A blur dropped from the ceiling as he raised his head. Too late.

It hit him like a sack of bricks. Hard. The impact drove the air from his lungs, slamming his head against something unyielding. His vision swam. A scream tore from his throat. Pure, unadulterated rage turned sonic.

A cold, grating laugh echoed in his skull. "Getting sloppy, Connover. Too distracted trying to moralize."

The creature on his back was heavy. Claws dug into his shoulders, tearing through the combat suit. He felt a hot, wet sensation bloom across his back. He thrashed, trying to dislodge it, but it clung like a limpet. More Ferroghests swarmed him from the floor, their metallic claws clicking, jaws snapping.

Blake didn't think. He didn't plan. He just reacted.

A raw wave of force erupted from him in all directions. A concussive burst slammed into everything in the chamber. The Ferroghests, the debris, the creature on his back—all were ripped from their positions, hurled into the metal walls with sickening thuds.

The creature on his back in particular shrieked as it was torn away. It took some of his flesh with it. Blake heard the crunch of bone, the tearing of flesh. It splattered against the wall, a grotesque smear of black and red. The others were scattered, dazed, twitching on the deck.

He stumbled, regaining his balance. His hand tightened around Verdict. The weapon felt good in his grip. Solid. Familiar. He emptied the magazine into the struggling forms, one shot for each twitch, each desperate gasp. Overkill. A waste of rounds. He didn't care.

Silence fell again. He stood panting in the silent chamber. The nostalgic, if acrid, smell of burnt propellant filled his nostrils. Rax's voice was a whisper now, barely audible over his damningly uncontrolled breathing. "See? When in doubt, more power."

Blake ignored him. His HUD indicated he needed to move down a level, and so he searched for a maintenance shaft or ladder that might serve to move him forward. It didn't take long. Ignoring the continuing whispers of the Rax-shaped devil on his shoulder, he started his descent.

Kitt knew something was wrong the moment she felt her bond with Blake snap into place.

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A foreign pulse beat within their bond, a discordant rhythm pushing against the familiar currents she had woven through their shared essence. The intruder's presence coiled through their inner world, befouling the home she had made for herself.

She'd been deep in the Leviathan's mindscape, carefully sorting through fragments of both the ship's shattered psyche and her own, when Blake's presence flared back to life in her awareness. She barely had time to process the relief of reconnection before she became aware of the issue.

There were two voices in Blake's head.

Kitt pulled her attention from the delicate work of memory reconstruction, letting the Leviathan's fragments settle back into their broken patterns. Blake needed her. Whatever was happening, he needed—

"Ugh, here comes the cavalry," the voice muttered, right at the ragged edge of Kitt's awareness—uninvited, oily, too pleased with itself.

She recognized it instantly. Rax. He always sounded like he was on stage in his own mind, never missing a chance to hear himself yammer. Kitt bristled, a ripple of something sharp and territorial running through her—Blake's mind was her stomping ground, and she had no patience for squatters.

It took only a moment to realize what had happened. The Gravedigger title—or rather, the Gravestone Blake carried from Rax—had manifested. She didn't like that the Demiurge had sprung this on Blake in her absence, but she could appreciate that it had been effective. She could feel Blake nearby, tension straining the bond. He wore his indifference like armor but underneath—melancholy, disgust, a splintered flicker of old fury.

Kitt's consciousness surged through the pilot bond at full speed. The moment she was able to she began to get to work. A core reason for her creation was to act as a modified System interface, and that meant she was the perfect weapon against this type of intrusion. She resumed her normal filtering of non-critical information, paring back everything except what Blake absolutely needed. Everything. There was no reason for him to hear Rax's greasy commentary.

The way she saw it, no matter how complex he appeared, on a technical level this manifestation was just a noisy string of notifications.

She pressed around the not-Rax—isolating it behind thick conceptual walls, slamming blast doors closed in its face. Distressingly, however, the thing didn't fight back. Not even a token struggle.

"See you again soon, buddy!" Rax called cheerfully toward Blake as the walls closed up around him.

The silence afterward was pregnant with questions unasked and unanswered. After a few long moments, Blake finally spoke.

"Thanks for the assist, Kitt."

"I don't like rats in the walls, Blake," she replied, feigning irritation. "I leave you alone for just a little bit and there's already vermin? Honestly."

He didn't answer right away—not out loud. The thread between them tightened; relief mixed with old exhaustion. Kitt watched their shared inner space for any sign that Rax would try something. Nothing moved behind her barrier.

Good enough for now.

She looked over the information from the system, measuring Blake's vitals and mana reserves. The results weren't great, but she'd seen worse—he was actually in better shape than the last time he they had connected, which was good. His body temperature ran a touch high, his heart rate elevated but steady. She winced as she saw his mana was bottomed out. That was never a good feeling.

The real problem was deeper. Through their connection, she felt the raw edges of his thoughts, jagged and sharp where Rax's manifestation had scraped against them. Blake projected calm on the surface, but underneath... Well. She knew better.

"Your body's holding up better than your head right now," she said. "Want to talk about it?"

"Not particularly." Blake leaned against a wall, sliding down until he sat on the deck.

"Fair enough." She kept her tone light, but maintained her grip on the mental barriers containing Rax. "Just remember—he's locked up tight now. And I've got excellent pest control services."

That earned her a small smile, genuine if tired. "Wouldn't want your territory invaded."

"Damn straight." Kitt settled in to watch over him, ready to guard against any further intrusions. Some battles needed fighting. Others just needed time.

"You know," she said, "you could have used the System to shut him up. I did it easily enough."

Blake's bitter laugh bounced off the metal walls. "I tried. Nothing. The Demiurge made the fucker and it wanted me to hear him out." He rubbed his temples.

"I think it's because I'm separate from you," she said after some consideration. "Connected, yes, but still my own entity. The title affects you directly, but I can act independently."

"Makes sense." Blake's shoulders tensed. "Probably why it waited until you were busy with the Leviathan to make its move. Couldn't risk you interfering before it got its hooks in."

Kitt felt his anger spike—not at her, but at himself for being caught off guard. She wrapped her presence around his consciousness like a protective blanket.

"Tell me what got you so riled up, Blake. You weren't this riled up on the day you killed Rax, so its weird that he's gotten to you so badly."

Kitt didn't need words, really, and Blake knew it. He let the dam between them break. Their link swelled with his consent—a raw, exposed openness, different from their usual back-and-forth. She braced for the onslaught and let it in.

The first thing to hit her was the sensations of his body: every battered nerve, every insult stitched into muscle and bone. The memory of cleansing the core flared white-hot through their connection—pain so sharp it blurred everything else, burning along the bridge between consciousness and flesh. She couldn't tell if she was screaming or if that was just his own memory; pain didn't have boundaries here.

Then came the fights.

She watched through his eyes as the Skitterers charged. Blake moved fast. yes, but he possessed none of his usual discipline. Fists and feet wrapped in telekinetic force struck chitinous bodies, splattering acid-black ichor up his arms and across the walls. Fang carved arcs of violet energy through soft underbellies and brittle limbs.

In the memory he felt almost feral. She sensed how badly he needed to vent his frustration, and also his self-loathing for his inability to do so without even more of the violence that was at the heart of his issues in the first place.

Kitt recognized this version of Blake—something from old memories, from nightmares he never let her see on purpose. He waded in with a kind of cold delight: fists breaking chitin plates, boots stomping soft bodies until nothing moved but twitching legs.

And then—the worst part. Rax's constant bullshit monologuing.

She felt Rax's venomous influence running beneath each heartbeat. It never shut up. Even while Blake fought for his life, Rax picked at scabs old and new: mocking his choices, laughing at ideals he'd barely managed to build for himself out of broken glass and old regrets.

Rax knew all his angles: every hypocrisy, every time Blake's code bent under pressure: Columbia, Hong Kong, even some filthy alley in Johannesburg. The bastard remembered things even Blake tried to forget.

Kitt released her hold on the memory stream before she lost herself in its current. Her sense of self reasserted—fur standing up along her mental back, claws bared out of reflex even though she had no physical form.

She forced herself to speak evenly:

"That's not just you," she said quietly into their bond. "I could feel him riding your nerves like a parasite."

"Yeah, sure," Blake replied finally. "He's loud when I'm hurt or angry." He pressed a palm against his leg—it still bled sluggishly from a Skitterer wound that he realistically should have never taken.

"He wanted me to like it," Blake went on quietly. "All of it—the killing, the mess."

"He doesn't get to define you," she said simply.

Blake exhaled hard—maybe a laugh if she squinted sideways at it—and wiped sweat from his brow with a shaky hand.

"I know," he said. "But if I didn't know deep down that he wasn't lying about being part of me…"

"What are you going to do?" Kitt asked.

"I'll keep going," he replied, shifting against the wall and leaning his head back against the metal. "I'll just keep trying to do better."

The simplicity of it made Kitt pause. She could feel the bedrock solid conviction in Blake's words, and something about it nagged at her. If Blake's commitment to improvement was genuine, if his path forward was clear, why couldn't he just reject the Gravestone outright? The Demiurge respected personal truth above all else.

"Why isn't that enough?" she wondered aloud. "To banish him, I mean. You know who you want to be."

Blake was quiet for a long moment. When he spoke, something had shifted in him—the way his shoulders settled, the steadiness in his breathing.

"Because the bastard has too strong of a point." He rubbed his face with both hands. "I can be a better man than I was before I got pulled into this mess. I'm going to be. But I can't do it by just pretending that, suddenly, I am better than I was at my worst."

Kitt felt the truth of it through their bond: an acceptance. It was the hard-earned clarity of confronting what had always been present, a part of him he could not simply shed.

"I have to figure out how to reconcile who I am with who I want to be," Blake continued. "I've been sort of coasting. I need to actually put in the work."

"What will that look like?"

"I'm not sure yet. But it sure as hell won't look anything like Rax."