The clearing was a ruin of black smoke and dissolving Ogre corpses, the air thick with the coppery tang of blood and the sharp, lingering scent of ozone from my Judgment Chain.

The adrenaline of the three-minute slaughter was still thrumming in my veins, a high-pitched vibration against my nerves.

The rogue twins, Riker and Kael, were breathing heavily, their faces pale but their eyes blazing with the fierce, wild light of survivors.

Sila, our archer, was already calmly retrieving her arrows from the fallen, her movements economical, professional.

And Marcus... my brother stood apart, wiping his simple longsword clean on a patch of untainted grass.

He looked as if he'd just finished a light warm-up, his breathing perfectly even, his cultivator's poise an unsettling mask of calm in the midst of the carnage.

His gaze met mine, sharp and analytical. He had seen my Lightning Art, a high-tier C-Rank spell that no E+ Magic Swordsman should possess. I had seen his swordsmanship, a lethal, efficient art that was far beyond the scope of a simple C+ Hunter.

An unspoken acknowledgment passed between us: We are both lying.

Before that silent, heavy understanding could settle, the canyon pass echoed with a new sound, one that shattered the brief moment of victory.

BOOOM!

A shockwave of pulverized stone and concussive force tore through the clearing, originating from deeper within the pass. It was followed a split second later by a desperate, pain-filled shout.

"He's cornered!" Sila yelled, instantly nocking a new arrow and spinning toward the sound.

"Garth!" Kael cried out, his adrenaline-fueled bravado vanishing, replaced by panic for his guildmate.

"Move! Now!" I roared, my voice cutting through their hesitation.

There was no time to celebrate Phase One. Phase Two had just begun, and it had begun with a failure.

I sprinted down the narrow, winding pass, my team thundering at my heels. My mind was already racing, processing the new, failed variable.

'Garth was supposed to kite, not get trapped. The Chieftain is blinded, but a blinded, cornered C-Rank beast is a bomb of pure rage. This is bad.'

The sounds of destruction grew louder with every step—a rhythmic, deafening CRASH... THUD... BOOM!—as if a giant was attempting to bring the mountain down upon itself.

We rounded the final bend, and the narrow pass opened into a small, box-like clearing.

The scene was one of utter devastation. The canyon walls were scarred with massive, fresh impact craters, some several feet deep.

Shattered boulders, remnants of the wall itself, littered the ground.

And in the center of this maelstrom of destruction was the Ogre Chieftain.

It was a four-meter-tall mountain of quivering muscle and raw, unadulterated fury. Sila's arrow was still lodged deep in its ruined eye socket, a gruesome, black-fletched trophy.

Blood and ichor streamed down its face, matting its filthy fur. It was completely blind, its remaining eye rolling uselessly.

And it was berserk.

It roared, a sound of pure, agonizing rage, and swung its massive tree-trunk club in a wild, horizontal arc.

THOOOM!

The club, wreathed in a crude C-Rank mana, connected with the canyon wall, pulverizing a ton of stone into gravel.

The Ogre didn't care. It stomped its massive foot, CRASH, pulverizing another boulder, sniffing the air, its entire body trembling with the need to kill something. It was an engine of indiscriminate destruction, attacking every sound, every scent, every phantom movement.

"Gods above..." Riker breathed, skidding to a halt at the clearing's entrance.

"Where's Garth?!" Kael yelled, his eyes darting frantically.

"There!" Sila pointed.

My eyes followed her finger. Pinned in a small alcove, half-buried under a pile of rubble from the creature's rampage, was Garth.

He was alive, barely. His brand-new steel shield was a mangled wreck, cracked and bent almost in half, its defensive runes shattered. He was clutching his left arm, which hung at an unnatural angle—clearly broken.

He was pale, his face slick with sweat and terror, but he was silent, knowing that a single groan would bring the berserker down on him

.

My team froze, their adrenaline turning to ice. The sheer, uncontrolled rage of the blinded Chieftain was a force of nature. Their plan had relied on control, on predictability. This was chaos.

'Okay. New variables,' my mind snapped into high-gear, the cold logic of the gamer taking over.

'Target: Ogre Chieftain (C-Rank, Berserk).

Status: Blinded, Enraged, High Pain Threshold, Wounded (Legs - Unknown).

Current Action: Uncontrolled Area Denial. Our Asset: Garth is alive but pinned. Team is hidden.

Weakness: Still blind. Still relies on sound and smell.'

I had seen this pattern in the game. When a "Blind" debuff was applied, the AI's aggression stat maxed out, but its accuracy plummeted. It would attack the nearest source of sound. If there was no sound, it would begin a "Search" pattern, smashing its surroundings randomly until it found a new target.

This was what it was doing now. We were at the entrance, upwind. It couldn't smell us yet. Garth was holding his breath, playing dead. The Ogre was just... raging.

This was our chance. Not to attack, but to exploit.

"Nobody moves," I hissed, my voice a low, sharp command that cut through their rising panic. "Hold your breath. Do not make a sound."

The team obeyed, pressing themselves against the canyon wall, their eyes wide.

The Chieftain roared again, frustrated, sniffing the air. It took a step, its massive foot crushing the spot where Riker had almost stepped. Then, it turned its ruined head slowly, its single, useless eye sweeping the clearing.

'It's searching,' I thought, my heart hammering. 'It's listening.'

"Sila," I whispered, barely moving my lips.

She looked at me, her eyes questioning.

I pointed not at the Ogre, but at the canyon wall far to the creature's left, a solid 40 meters away from Garth's position.

"Make a sound," I mouthed.

She understood instantly. The sheer brilliance of the tactic dawned on her. She drew her bow, but didn't nock an arrow. Instead, she picked up a small, loose pebble from the ground. With a practiced flick, she tossed it high and hard.

Clink... skitter...

The pebble bounced off the far wall, a tiny, insignificant sound.

The Ogre exploded.

"GRRRAAAAR!"

With a roar that shook my teeth, the Chieftain charged at the sound, its full C-Rank momentum carrying it away from Garth. It smashed its club into the empty rock wall, BOOOM, sending another shower of debris falling.

"Garth!" I roared. "GET OUT! CRAWL! NOW!"

My voice, the loudest sound in the pass, instantly overrode the Ogre's focus. It bellowed, realizing it had been tricked, and started to turn back toward my shout.

But Garth was already moving. Gritting his teeth against the pain, he used his good arm to shove the rubble aside and drag himself out of the alcove, scrambling desperately away from the Chieftain's immediate vicinity.

The Ogre, confused by my shout from one direction and Garth's scraping from another, bellowed and smashed its club on the ground between us, a purely frustrated, random attack.

It was blind, confused, and furious.

Its berserker state was making it attack erratically, its programming caught between multiple sound cues.

"This is it!" I yelled. "This is Phase Two! Sila, you're the metronome! Keep it distracted! Fire arrows at the walls, far from the team. Make it run in circles!"

TWANG!

Sila, a sharp grin on her face, loosed an arrow.

It CLANGED off the wall high to the Ogre's right. The beast roared and charged the new sound.

"Marcus! Riker! Kael! You're with me! We are blades. It's blind, it's raging, and Sila is its puppet master.

We are not engaging it head-on. We bleed it. We wait for Sila's distraction, we dart in, we strike its legs, and we get out before it can counter-swing. Do not get greedy!"

"What about Garth?" Kael yelled, dragging the massive shield-bearer to safety at the clearing's entrance.

"He's done. He did his job," I said, my gaze locked on the Ogre, which had just smashed its head against the wall Sila had targeted.

"He's our audience now."

I raised Draken, the dark blade humming, and for the first time, I activated my new, Gold-Ranked skill.

"Aura Dominion!"

A silver-blue field, invisible to the others but palpable to me, snapped into existence in a 5-meter radius around my body. My muscles felt lighter, my senses sharper, my speed enhanced by 15%. I felt faster.

"Let's dance, big guy," I muttered.

TWANG! Sila fired another arrow, this time at the far end of the clearing.

The Ogre roared, its one good ear twitching, and it began to lumber towards the new sound. Its back was completely exposed to us.

"Now!" I commanded. "Twins, go for the right leg! Marcus, left! Hit the tendons! Go!"

Riker and Kael, their earlier fear replaced by a hunter's cold adrenaline, surged forward. They moved low and fast, daggers glinting, and slashed at the Ogre's right ankle and calf. SHLICK! SHLICK! Their blades bit deep, drawing dark blood.

The Ogre howled in pain, stopping its charge, and swung its massive club wildly behind it, trying to smash the pests it couldn't see.

But my team was already gone, having darted back to safety.

As the Ogre was distracted by the pain in its right leg, its left leg—its bracing leg—was wide open.

Marcus moved.

He didn't charge in a blur like the twins. He glided. His C+ aura, the cultivator's Qi, compressed, not into a flashy glow, but into the edge of his blade, making the simple guild-issue sword shimmer with an almost invisible, terrifying sharpness.

He moved parallel to the Ogre, and as the beast tried to turn, its weight shifting, Marcus blinked.

It was a martial artist's burst-step, an explosive movement that covered the last five meters instantaneously.

He appeared at the Ogre's exposed left ankle.

His blade didn't just slash. It severed.

SHIIIIING.

The sound was quiet, clean, almost lost in the Ogre's bellows. The massive Achilles tendon, as thick as a man's arm, parted cleanly.

"GRRRAAAAAA-?!!"

The Chieftain's roar of rage cut off into a sound of pure confusion. It tried to put weight on its left leg to turn, but there was nothing there to support it. Its entire four-meter-tall, multi-ton frame listed, then collapsed, crashing to the stone floor with a THUD that shook the entire canyon.

It was down. Immobilized. Helpless.

It roared, smashing its club against the ground, trying to drag itself forward with its powerful arms, but its legs were now useless appendages.

The team regrouped, panting, staring at the fallen titan. Sila, Riker, Kael, and Garth (from the entrance) were all looking at Marcus with open, undisguised awe.

That... that wasn't a C+ Rank move. That was the attack of an executioner.

Marcus merely flicked the blood from his blade, his face calm, though his eyes, when they met mine, held a sharp, knowing glint. You saw. I know you saw.

I gave him a sharp nod. Later.

I walked forward, past my brother, toward the downed, roaring Ogre. Its single, ruined eye rolled madly, its tusked jaw snapping at the air, trying to find the source of its pain.

"It's over," I said, my voice cold, the silver-blue glow of my Aura Dominion still shimmering around me.

The Ogre swung its arm wildly at the sound of my voice. I sidestepped the clumsy swipe with ease. It was just a dying beast now.

I raised Draken, my one good arm channeling my remaining mana. I didn't need a fancy skill. I just needed to end it.

I poured my Ice, Lightning, and the subtle, severing power of Space into the blade, the fusion creating a dark, humming edge.

I stepped onto the creature's broad, heaving back, walked up to the base of its skull, and plunged the blade deep into its spine, severing the brain stem.

THUNK.

The roars stopped. The massive body spasmed once, then went still. A heavy, final silence fell on Grizzly Pass.

[C-Rank Ogre Chieftain Defeated.]

[D-Rank Dungeon: Grizzly Pass – Cleared.]

[Team Kill Confirmed. Loot Rights Secured.]

Garth, clutching his shattered arm, limped over to me, his face pale but his eyes shining with a respect that bordered on reverence. He looked at the dead Chieftain, at the slaughtered pack, at the impossibly calm Marcus, and then at me.

"Gods above, kid," he breathed, his skepticism completely gone.

(To be continued)

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