Born in Another World With Two E Rank Skills!?

The silence that followed the slaughter of the cultists was thick and suffocating. Blood seeped through the floorboards of the ruined church, staining the cracked stone beneath. Kael stood motionless, breath shallow, his gaze locked on the one figure that still remained.

A tall man cloaked in living shadows stepped from the far end of the altar. His face was obscured by a shifting black mask, tendrils of darkness curling from his limbs like smoke. He wasn't like the others. This one radiated menace, control, and overwhelming power.

Kael felt it instantly—the crushing weight of the man's presence.

"You killed my brothers," the figure said, voice cold and echoing as if spoken from the depths of a cavern. "The Lord sends his regards."

Kael's stomach sank. He didn't need to ask who this was. The aura alone was enough to tell him.

A shadow cultist.

Not just a robed lunatic summoning beasts. This was a warrior. A monster.

Kael barely had time to raise his arms before the cultist struck.

A blur of motion.

Kael was thrown backwards, crashing through one of the ruined pews. Pain lanced through his ribs, something cracked. He rolled to the side as a lance of dark energy shattered the stone where he'd landed.

The cultist appeared again, faster than Kael could track. He felt a spike of agony as a blade of condensed shadow tore through his shoulder.

Mira screamed from behind a fallen beam. Erion tried to move to her, but Kael raised a hand, blood dripping from his fingers.

"Stay back!"

He forced himself upright. Every breath hurt. His body screamed in protest.

But he'd endured worse.

He remembered the pain of chemo. The days where he couldn't move. The nights he couldn't breathe. The hollow looks of worry on his parents' faces. His sister's trembling voice as she told him stories to keep the fear at bay.

That pain had taught him something.

How to endure.

Kael grit his teeth, eyes blazing. He opened his Omni-Vision.

Mana, but darkened as if tainted with evil.

He saw it, pulsing through the cultist like a network of dark glowing veins. It surged through his limbs, head, in his abdomen, and fed into his weapon.

Kael focused.

Like the wind mage in Wrenvale.

Mana can be cut off. Maybe shadow magic can too?

He reached out with his will, targeting the flow within the cultist's limbs.

And severed it.

The cultist staggered.

His shadow weapon flickered, then sputtered out.

He tried to summon it again, but the shadow mana wouldn't respond. His eyes widened.

Kael surged forward, using Minor Teleport to hurl debris, jagged stone and sharp shards of Mira's iron slab. They slammed into the cultist's chest and legs.

Weakened, the cultist couldn't dodge in time.

Kael closed the distance, grabbing one of the iron shards and plunging it deep into the man's chest.

The shadow cultist convulsed, then fell.

Kael stood over him, bloodied, panting.

Then his knees buckled, and he collapsed.

The world blurred.

But before darkness took him again, he saw Mira rush to his side, her voice calling his name, Erion kneeling beside her.

They were alive.

He was happy for that.