Night Watch

Night Watch is Violent Kaltein’s dark-blue cloak, an elder-dragon relic that accepts In-gong and adapts itself to his close-combat style.

History

Kaltein’s altar

In-gong finds Night Watch on an altar in Violent Kaltein’s submerged lair at Sun Lake. The altar’s invisible barrier rejects Silvan and Felicia, but yields when In-gong applies the power of Conquest. The cloak then moves onto his shoulders of its own accord and identifies its enhancements and built-in skills to him. Because a conventional cloak would obstruct his hand-to-hand fighting, Night Watch liquefies and reforms around his neck and shoulders like a rear-facing muffler. (Chapter 98)

Adaptation and improvement

Night Watch immediately becomes part of In-gong’s regular equipment. He uses its Blink to evade attacks and create short openings, and its limited flight to cross gaps, gain height, and position himself for descending strikes. (Chapters 111, 115, 120)

Amita first postpones examining the cloak because In-gong is about to depart. Later, In-gong voluntarily hands Night Watch over for workshop custody. Amita returns an improved version whose flight and defensive performance are stronger and whose daily Blink allowance has risen from three uses to five. (Chapters 108, 145, 151)

Final campaigns

The improved cloak helps In-gong stabilize himself after a high-impact punch, supports rapid movement through battlefield fire, and lowers his exhausted body safely after the destruction of the demonic god. (Chapters 154, 160, 191) It also reappears around In-gong during his gandharva restoration ceremony and settles around his neck when he awakens. (Chapters 223–224)

During the battle with the red dragon, In-gong invokes Black Specter and becomes blue smoke accompanied by the sound of hundreds of wings, using the transformation to rush through hostile space. Night Watch remains with him at the latest point where it is shown. (Chapter 226)

Abilities and properties

• Wearer enhancement: On first acquisition, Night Watch grants increases of 10 to mental power, magic power, and agility, plus one resistance level to every attribute. (Chapter 98)
• Adaptive form: The cloak can move and reshape itself. For In-gong, it becomes a compact muffler-like strip around the neck and shoulders so that it does not impede punches or kicks. (Chapter 98)
• Blink: Its level-three built-in Blink is a short-range space jump. It requires an unobstructed route and is demonstrated over roughly ten metres. The original cloak permits three uses per day; Amita’s improvement raises that limit to five. (Chapters 111, 115, 151)
• Flight and momentum control: Its initial level-one flight does not permit completely free movement, but allows In-gong to move with some freedom in the air. After Amita’s work, its flight is stronger; it can also add or control momentum well enough to keep him from being thrown backward by his own heavy strike. (Chapters 98, 151, 154)
• Defense: Amita explicitly strengthens the cloak’s defensive capability, and Night Watch later wraps In-gong while helping him descend after he has exhausted himself. The corpus does not give a numerical defensive rating. (Chapters 151, 191)
• Awakening: The initial status display names an awakening called Black Ghost. Later narration calls Night Watch’s super special move Black Specter, which turns In-gong into fast-moving blue smoke with the sound of many wings. The text does not explicitly explain whether the differing names are a translation variation or separate stages of the same ability. (Chapters 98, 178, 226)
• Limits: Blink can be prevented when an enemy’s magic power restrains the surrounding space, and Black Specter can be pushed back by sufficiently strong magic power. Its most powerful functions also operate alongside In-gong’s own aura and magic rather than replacing them. (Chapters 178, 190, 227)

Ownership and custody