"This isn’t a game," Finn thought. "That thing is actually going to kill me."

He scrambled backward, tightening his grip on the kitchen knife until his knuckles ached. His foot snagged on a bin bag, and he crashed to the floor.

"W-wait! Time out!"

The Hollow Knight advanced anyway, raising its blades.

[Would you like to select your class now?]

The notification flashed into existence in front of him.

There were six options he recognized all too well, and none of them would make a difference. Sure, one of them might have given him a fighting chance against starter mobs, but against this?

Not even close.

The Hollow Knight’s blades came down.

Finn threw himself to the side, barely escaping the strike. He felt the edge pass close enough to shave the hairs from his forearm. Felt the floor split apart where his chest had been. Felt the shockwave slam through him hard enough to rattle his bones.

[-5%]

[HP: 19%]

’I took damage from the shockwave?!’

His breath hitched. He was going to die.

No matter how frantically he forced himself to think, no escape came to him. No plan. No miracle. Nothing.

"...Something," he gasped. "There’s got to be something..."

The class list still hovered in his vision, bouncing wildly with every desperate movement. And at the very bottom—right at the bottom—something flickered in and out like a dying signal.

A seventh option.

[??? — Class data restricted.]

[WARNING: This class has been flagged as anomalous. Selecting it will forfeit your starter allocation. Proceed?]

Finn stared at the warning. He had no idea what anomalous meant, and he’d never once heard of anything like this on the forums.

But he selected it anyway.

It was a long shot.

It was also his only shot.

’If I’m going to die anyway...’

[Class Selected: Covenant Bearer]

[Class Description: You do not fight alone. A Covenant Bearer forges a bond with a summoned entity, sharing power, experience, and fate. Your strength is her strength. Her growth is your growth. Invest wisely—the bond, once formed, cannot be broken.]

[WARNING: Starter allocation forfeited.]

[WARNING: Covenant Bearer begins with no combat skills. All combat potential is derived from the bonded entity.]

[WARNING: If the bonded entity dies, the Covenant Bearer dies.]

[Covenant Ritual initiating...]

[Stand still. Do not resist.]

The Hollow Knight’s second blade descended.

This time, there was no dodging it.

Finn was flat on his back, pinned against the counter, his body screaming with pain and his HP bar reduced to a fading sliver of green—

Then darkness erupted beneath him.

Not the golden radiance of the integration.

This was something else. Something absolute.

A darkness so pure it seemed to devour every scrap of light in the room.

It burst outward from the floor in a wave of sheer terror, and when it struck the Hollow Knight, the creature staggered. Its blade stopped six inches from Finn’s throat, frozen inside a shell of writhing black.

For one suspended second, the world stopped.

[Searching for compatible entity...]

[Bond resonance detected.]

[Summoning...]

The darkness between Finn and the Knight began to gather, condensing into shape.

At first, it was only an outline. Small. Slender. Humanoid.

Then detail bled into it like watercolor soaking through paper.

Bare feet touched broken glass without drawing blood. A dress the color of ash hung from a figure somehow both slim and softly curved. Her hands were delicate enough to seem fragile, though something about them promised otherwise.

Her hair was the color of spilled ink, long enough to brush her lower back, framing a face a face beautiful enough to make him forget, for a heartbeat, that he was about to die

Then she opened her eyes.

Crimson.

Deep, slit-pupilled, and fixed on the Hollow Knight with an expression that was not anger.

Not fear.

Not anything Finn had been prepared to see.

It was offense.

She looked the Hollow Knight up and down with cool, open disdain, and when she spoke, her voice rang through the room.

"You raised a blade to my Bearer before we had even exchanged names."

Her head tilted, revealing faint fangs and an utterly unimpressed expression.

"How impudent."

[Bonded Entity Summoned]

[Name: Nyx Sanguina] (Sealed)

[Level: 1]

[Race: [Pureblood Vampire (SSS) – lvl 1]

[Class: Shade]

[Profession: Unassigned.]

[HP: 100% | MP: 100%]

[Stats]

Strength: 3

Agility: 6

Endurance: 4

Perception: 7

Intelligence: 14

Willpower: 14

Free points: 0

Titles

[ Hidden ]

Skills

Shadow Step Lv. 1 (Active) — Allows the caster to travel within a set range through shadows. Cost: 10 MP

Whisper Lv. 1 (Passive) — Bonded partner can hear Nyx’s thoughts within 1km.

[NOTE: All experience gained by Nyx is shared with the Covenant Bearer at a 1:1 ratio. All attribute investments in Nyx grant the Covenant Bearer 50% of the invested value. The bond is permanent and absolute.]

Finn’s eyes flew over her stats, and the brief surge of hope in his chest collapsed almost instantly.

Level one.

Strength three.

Her other stats were impressive, but not enough. Not nearly enough to take on a mini boss.

It was just her standing between him and a miniboss. A Hollow Knight.

’There’s no hope. For one stupid second, I thought I was saved. Turns out we’re both about to die.’

’Oh, Bearer.’

Her voice slid into his mind like silk over a blade, amused and faintly mocking, as if she had simply been waiting for her turn in the conversation.

’Please try not to think so loudly during your own rescue. It’s distracting.’

Finn went rigid.

’You can hear—’

’Every word,’ she purred. ’How intimate this is for our first meeting.’

Nyx moved.

She didn’t attack head-on. She was either too smart for that—or too linked to him to waste herself on something suicidal.

Instead, she stepped sideways into the shadow cast by the till counter and vanished.

A heartbeat later, she reappeared behind the Knight, emerging from the shadow of a coat rack with a shard of broken window glass in her hand.

[Shadow Step activated.]

The Knight’s head snapped toward her. Its blade tore free of the darkness and carved through the air in a killing arc aimed at where she had been.

But she was already gone.

[Shadow Step activated.]

She appeared at its left flank, drove the shard across the back of its knee joint—the single gap in its chitin, the one place its armor didn’t overlap—and vanished again before it could turn. 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝒆𝒘𝙚𝓫𝙣𝙤𝒗𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

[-1% HP]

1 Percent Damage.

Against a creature with hundreds of health points, it was less than a mosquito bite.

But the Hollow Knight stumbled.

Just for a second.

And that second was enough.