Caroline's eyes snapped open.

Pain flared across her ribs, but instinct moved faster. Two of her fox tails shot forward like crimson javelins—shink!—impaling two shadow puppet wolves mid-leap. Their howls cut short, bodies twitching as red Ryun burned through them like acid.

Ninety-seven… her screen tallied. That meant three left.

She rolled to her feet, bloodied but alert, letting her remaining two tails coil defensively behind her. Her boots skidded across stone, carving a slight trench in the cave floor as she readied herself. A wolf rushed her, but Caroline's hands moved with trained grace—one sigil forming in her palm as the other pressed to her chest in a self-healing circle.

"Not today."

She whispered a incantation. The fox sigils spiraled into a wheel behind her back, then snapped forward like coiled springs.

The cave pulsed with light.

The wolf disintegrated before they even realized they'd been caught. The other two tried to leap—tried to run—tried—but it was too late. Caroline reached up, fingers closed around a hovering sigil of flame and crimson geometry, then slammed it into the ground.

"Crimson Binding: Kitsuneburst."

The whole chamber flashed red.

Flames licked up the walls. The air itself shimmered with heat. A scream—not hers—tore through the haze.

Caroline staggered back, breath catching. She winced, feeling her ribs slowly stitching themselves back together, the heat from her own attack simmering on her skin. The ashes of the wolves scattered like dry snow.

"Where the hell is North?!"

Panic bloomed as she scanned the scorched battlefield. Her UI pulsed with damage reports, vision still spotty from the earlier club strike. She stumbled forward, desperate to pick up a trail. The caster had disappeared. The wolves were gone. For a second, she feared the worst—

And then she saw it.

A figure, striding through the smoke. Calm. Casual.

He waved.

"That dumbass grin," she muttered, blinking twice to focus.

It was Jonathan—his frame, his posture—but there was something off. The air around him wavered with heat and pressure. His aura, once erratic and sharp like lightning, now pulsed slow and heavy. Thick. His movements carried weight. Like someone who had just chosen violence and then walked out of it victorious.

She forced herself to breathe.

Then she saw what he was walking away from.

The caster.

—or rather, what remained of him. A charred outline. Cratered stone. Ash where a title once glowed.

The caster had been Level 260. Five above her.

And Jonathan had done that.

He was healing, too—faster than before. Much faster.

She blinked again.

"Alive," she muttered. "That's all that matters. Ask questions later. Focus now. Don't freak out about the godkin thing. Yet."

Jonathan stopped a few feet in front of her, body still radiating faint trails of dark red Ryun, like steam off hot iron.

"Hey… you got any extra clothes in my size?" he said, eyeing the scraps that used to be his pants. "Even that cultist cloak got destroyed. Also—fuck your quest, by the way. What the hell was that?!"

Caroline leaned on her knees, still catching her breath, her fox tails twitching in agitation. "Oh I'm sorry. I didn't realize your fashion sense was so fragile."

He jabbed a finger at her. "You knew this quest was gonna be crazy."

"I did not!"

"You're a veteran Requiem resident!"

"And you're a walking Jafar reboot!"

"That's not the same thing and you know it!"

"For someone who nuked a caster, you whine like someone who got skipped in line at McDonald's."

"For someone with a glowing anime UI, you sure missed the fine print on 'caster may summon hell.'"

They stood toe-to-toe now, glaring through the smoldering air—clothes scorched, hair a mess, and spirits running hot.

"I didn't know it was going to go crazy like that," she said, exasperated, flicking her fingers toward the still-smoking crater. "Most of the wolves were supposed to be mid-tier mobs! Mid-tier 258 the highest! That caster was not supposed to have necromancer buffs and soulbound chants. My system didn't say shit about any of that."

Jonathan scoffed. "Yeah, well, for a 'system user' with all your tracking and inventory and fox-themed laser shows, you seem to lack a bit of foresight, Caroline."

"You should be thanking me for the XP!"

"Thanking you?! I got buried in a dogpile and—wait, I don't even get XP!"

She blinked. "Oh…right…well sucks for you natural types."

"Screw you!"

Neither of them noticed the way the cavern had gone still.

Behind them, the blackened outline of the caster began to shift, twitching like a shadow caught in a broken projector. The ash at its feet outline swirled unnaturally, pulling in faint streams of smoke—not smoke, Caroline might've realized if she'd been looking. Shadow.

The remnants of the dead Umbra Wolves began to slither across the cave floor, their essence devoured by the charred silhouette.

A faint, echoing click of bone… then another.

They didn't notice.

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The shadows moved like a tide—rising from every crevice, crack, and corpse in the cavern. Each dead Umbra-Wolf they had fought—slain across tunnels, altars, ambush sites—now bled ethereal smoke. It was slow at first, almost like breath held too long. But then it surged. Darkness peeled itself from the stone and fed into the twisted remains of the caster's body.

This wasn't resurrection. This was consummation.

Long ago, the Umbra-Wolves had lost their women to the Vari Supreme Family. Since then, the packs swore to raise something that could never be taken. The caster had been their chosen one—their priest, their weapon, their future. Each death was a gift. Each soul a tithe.

And now, that gift was blooming.

The caster's scorched frame ballooned—bones warping, muscle tearing and reforming. Joints snapped into jagged new angles. Clawed hands became obsidian spears. Its mouth split too far, tearing through fur and shadow, revealing a glowing third jaw that unhinged like a furnace.

This was no longer an Umbra-Wolf… or even a caster.

This was Umbra-Behemoth.

Jonathan and Caroline were still bickering, caught in that post-victory tension.

"You're lucky I didn't just walk off," Jonathan muttered. "I died a few times."

"You didn't die, you got roughed up. There's a difference."

"Oh, I'm sorry. Were the ceiling spikes gentle when they impaled my shoulder?!"

"You impaled yourself leaping like a lunatic!"

They both stopped.

Their chests tightened—presence.

Massive. Terrifying.

Jonathan's hair prickled at the base of his neck. He slowly turned.

Caroline turned too—and immediately froze.

The Umbra-Behemoth stood like a god-birthed nightmare. Taller than anything they'd seen before, its body a patchwork of abyssal fur and armor-like hide, glowing runes pulsing like veins beneath the surface. The wolves' spirits flickered inside it—snarling, screeching from beneath the flesh.

"…What?" Jonathan asked softly, pointing.

Caroline blinked, slowly shaking her head. "Not part of the quest. I—I completed it. I got the ashes. The notification. It should be over."

Jonathan sighed, almost disappointed. "Of course. Of course it's not over."

The Umbra-Behemoth's breath hit the cavern like a furnace blast. Its claws shimmered with black flame. Its steps cracked the earth.

"Well." Jonathan cracked his neck, lightning crawling across his skin in thin red arcs. "Guess we're fighting Satan Wolf now."

Caroline exhaled and summoned all four of her fox sigils tails at once. "Yup. Then hopefully we get another bonus… something."

Jonathan roared—his aura flaring red and black, sparking like a broken storm. "LET'S GOOOO!!"

The Umbra-Behemoth bellowed in reply, its roar shaking the entire mountain—and then all three forces charged.

——

Another failed attempt.

Tinsurnae breath was heavy and his face streaked with soot and sweat. His green and purple Rituain cloak, once pristine, was now torn at the sleeves and speckled with burns. The black and silver sigil of his House—sharp, spiked, and predatory like the creature it depicted—gleamed faintly in the rising steam. It flared like a judgmental eye on his back, as if mocking his seventieth attempt at taking down the guardian of the jewel deeper in the cave.

A ranker. Not just any ranker either—a true duelist, a master of Ryun control. Even as a strong legendary cadet, Tinsurnae hadn't stood a chance. Not yet.

Still, he would try.

He inhaled deeply and stretched his arms, summoning Ryun into his bloodstream like golden needles threading through his nerves. The first test: replicate the guardian's footwork. He kicked forward—wrong. The air snapped too early, and his ankle twisted just slightly on impact with the stone.

Again.

He closed his eyes. This time, he aligned the Ryun not with his muscles, but the wind around them. He shifted into the stance again, using the breeze to soften the impact—better.

He focused next on weaving Ryun through the earth. Not on it. With it. His feet sank, not physically but spiritually, into the stone beneath. The vibration echoed back. Feedback. Clarity. The cave responded.

Yes. That's it.

He formed a javelin—not from Ryun alone, but from the mineral-rich sediment in the walls. Wind spiraled around it as a stabilizer. The shaft trembled in his grasp.

He threw it.

Tinsurnae exhaled and examined the smoldering boulder, its surface still hot from the surge of his frustration. Wisps of smoke curled around his shoulders, steam rising from the cracks in the stone where his Ryun had overcharged and fizzled out.

He muttered something under his breath in his native tongue. It wasn't a curse, just the verbal shrug of someone who had tried—and failed—far too many times.

Sixty-seven attempts.

The guardian, a ranker-level swordsman, stood deeper within the mountain's final chamber, protecting the temple-gem like a dragon guarding myth. Tinsurnae had only gotten close twice. And both times, the creatures swarming the deeper tunnels—and even his own summoned beasts—had proven more of a burden than help.

A skeletal vulture-like creature picked at a bone just a few feet away. One of his summons, brought into being with blood and incantation. Beside it, a three-tailed basilisk croaked impatiently, flicking ash off its luminous scales. Another summon—strong, but disobedient.

"The point was to help, not eat the floor," he muttered, eyeing the melted gouge in the stone where the basilisk had misfired.

He stood, cracked his neck, and extended both hands forward.

"Alright. Again."

Ryun gathered at his fingertips—at first in sputtering arcs, then slowly forming a ribbon of glistening turquoise and gold. This time, instead of forcing it into a raw blast, he breathed in and whispered his intent: control.

The ribbon collapsed into a thread. Slender. Elegant. And deadly sharp.

He weaved the thread through the air, letting it snake toward the vulture's outstretched wing. Not to harm it—but to wrap around it, reinforce it, elevate it.

The summon screeched as the Ryun fused into its body. It didn't fall. It flapped once—and the wind cracked like a whip.

"Better," Tinsurnae whispered.

He turned to the basilisk, crouched low near the smoldering boulder. Its scales were dense, layered like volcanic glass. This one he wouldn't reinforce. He'd anchor its weight.

Earth. He pushed his Ryun into the floor, letting it spread beneath the basilisk like a root network. He clenched his fists—and the creature's stance shifted subtly. No more skidding. No more imbalance.

Next, wind. He summoned a miniature vortex and guided it with a flick of his fingers, the Ryun laced between each gust. He then infused it into the basilisk. The basilisk lunged forward—clean and steady, instead of erratic and wild.

Tinsurnae narrowed his eyes.

He wasn't just venting anymore.

Now he was sculpting.

Attempt sixty-eight was already looking promising.

Tinsurnae's eyes flicked upward as a deep tremor pulsed through the cave walls—subtle, but layered with enough raw aura to rattle loose flakes of stone from the jagged ceiling. Dust trickled down around him in slow spirals, catching the light of his Ryun-threaded summons like drifting ash.

A distant boom echoed from further down the mountain's throat.

Then another.

And another.

But this one—this one came with a wave of heat and pressure that wasn't just violent. It was personal. The kind of pressure born not just from power, but from someone fighting like they had something to prove.

Or to lose.

"Someone's having a swell time," he muttered, as he watched a spider-line fracture crawl across the ceiling. "Hopefully they don't take the ceiling down with them."

His basilisk hissed low, its three tails flicking in agitation.

Then—just as quickly as it came—the other presence. The one that had been watching him quietly since he first started training again. It vanished. Not in a slow withdrawal. Tinsurnae raised a brow and rolled his shoulders back.

"Huh," he murmured to himself. "I guess they know who's fighting."

And for the first time in hours, maybe longer, he smirked.

Whoever was down there… they were either a fool.

Or someone worth watching.

——

Jonathan stumbled as his foot caught on a jagged slab of stone, the entire cavern shaking under the wrath of his Ryun-infused outburst. Dust choked the air. Debris fell in spurts. For a brief second, he felt like a god—pulling the ceiling down on the enemy felt right.

Until a boulder, moving at a very not-natural velocity, slammed into his shoulder and spun him sideways into the rubble.

"What the hell, Jonathan?!" Caroline's voice rang out, half-panicked, half-furious as she twisted midair, her foxtails lighting up crimson. Three streams of blazing energy fired from them, arcing like serrated thunderbolts toward the advancing Umbra Behemoth.

Jonathan groaned as he climbed to his feet, rubbing his shoulder. "Okay, that was… drastic," he muttered, more to himself than anyone. His eyes tracked Caroline as she flipped backwards, singed at the edges, but still fighting. One of her tails was missing.

He hadn't even noticed.

Selfish.

He ran a hand through his matted hair, grimacing at how easily the thought came: I could survive a mountain collapsing.

That wasn't brave. That was ego. Arrogance.

And it terrified him how natural that decision felt.

His moment of reflection ended fast—Caroline slammed into his chest, pushing him with all her weight as a beam of dark Ryun seared the space they'd just occupied. The energy passed with a snarling crackle and scorched the wall behind them.

Jonathan landed hard. Everything spun.

"Shit…" he whispered.

His limbs were trembling. His healing wasn't catching up. He'd used too much. Blood, Ryun, resolve—all pushed past their limits.

His vision darkened at the edges as he gasped, trying to center himself.

But one thing was clear.

He couldn't afford to be reckless anymore.

Not when someone was still throwing herself between him and death.

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