HOOOOOOONNGGGGGGG!

The magic circle kept spiralling outward, its glyphs stretching past the hundred-meter mark, and with it came an ear-bursting siren—no, a roar, the kind only a giant beast could produce. The air trembled and the ground quivered beneath Leo's boots.

Before he could even think of running, the space below him warped and expanded violently. A sudden force slammed into him from beneath, flinging his body backwards as if shot out of a cannon. He felt his stomach drop—he must have been thrown at least fifty kilometres per hour toward the outer edge of the circle. But he didn't receive damage since, somehow the the armour he wore activated, absorbing the force.

"S-shit!"

He crossed his arms, bracing for the inevitable collision with the forest's thick trees… yet the impact never came. Instead, the trees were ripped from the ground alongside him—some snapped like brittle twigs, others uprooted with roots dangling—hurtling outward as if a massive repulsive force was expelling everything from the centre.

Not far from him, the dead female alpha's body tumbled through the air. But there was something else—Cradled protectively between her front paws, tucked under her massive head, was a smaller wolf. Unconscious… but breathing.

Leo's eyes widened. He recognised it instantly—the same mid-1-star female wolf he'd searched for earlier alongside the now-dead male beta.

Eclipsed Sun Direwolf (Mid 1-star) – Noble Bloodline

"Eclipsed…?" he muttered, but the thought vanished as wind roared past him. Mid-flight, he summoned Shyra with urgency, commanding her to retrieve the pup before it smashed into something—along with the alpha's corpse if possible.

Shyra burst out of his spiritual space in a flash of black lightning. She followed the violent momentum that had thrown Leo, her claws digging into the air as she accelerated. For a heartbeat, she hesitated, instinct screaming to shield her master—but his command held weight. She veered sharply toward the tumbling bodies.

In one swift swipe, she knocked aside the alpha's stiffened paws and caught the pup by the back of its neck. But the split-second maneuver pushed her directly into the path of a lone tree that had somehow resisted being hurled away.

She twisted mid-air, curling around the smaller wolf, shielding it exactly as the alpha had moments before. Her spine arched, presenting her back to the oncoming trunk.

Thud!

The impact reverberated through her body. Shyra winced, teeth clenching around the pup, but her obsidian-like fur darkened and hardened instinctively—her passive trait activating on reflex.

Obsidian Hide: Natural resistance to physical blows and enhanced durability. Its body is tougher than other beasts of the same star rank. At higher evolutions, its hide can deflect blades, resist elemental damage, and endure direct strikes from stronger beasts.

Leo wasn't as lucky. A sharp boulder, which protruded from the ground directly in his path. He barely had time to twist his body, presenting his back, when, once again a faint bluish projection flickered to life around his upper torso—like a translucent second skin.

Boom!

He crashed into the boulder. It exploded into spiderweb cracks, fragments crumbling away under the impact.

The barrier held, but the shock rattled his bones and stole his breath, leaving him momentarily disoriented. Shyra landed beside him a second later, still gripping the unconscious pup carefully.

Leo exhaled shakily and raised his hand, casting [Nature's Heal] over the three of them, green motes drifting softly in the aftermath of destruction. Only then did he finally gather himself enough to look toward the centre… at whatever had just appeared.

What appeared was nothing he expected—even in his wildest, most delusional dreams.

"A mountain…?" Leo breathed, disbelief scraping across his voice. A mountain couldn't just pop into existence… yet one clearly had. Before he could blink, a system prompt flashed before his eyes.

Cragveil Colossus (Low 3★) [Metal Variant] – Mortal Bloodline

"That colossus?! And it's another fucking variant!"

His stomach twisted. After fighting the shadow wolf, he already knew variant beasts weren't simple after fight the shadow wolf. He tilted his head back—sixty, maybe eighty degrees—just to take in the colossus's full size.

He remembered vividly what Brant had said: the Emperor himself had once fought a 6-star Cragveil Colossus, and even he had needed nearly a month to bring it down. Yet this one, despite being only Low 3-star, carried the word variant. That alone made Leo's skin crawl.

The beast stretched over two hundred meters wide and rose somewhere between forty to seventy meters high, its body layered in jagged stone-like plates and jutting spikes. Sparse patches of greenery clung to its massive form like a parody of life.

A walking fortress.

"A fortress…" Leo whispered. Memories of Brant's ramblings surfaced—the dream he saw of riding atop a colossal beast, wandering the world and taking in all the views he could never see in his previous life.

"Isn't this a chance?" he muttered.

He wasn't imagining it: this was a young colossus. Younger meant easier to tame. And it was a metal variant on top of that.

"So does it produce metals along with earth and fire…?" He frowned. Or maybe it didn't have earth affinity at all—maybe it had replaced it entirely with metal. He couldn't guess without observing more.

As for its low-ranked bloodline, Leo didn't even flinch. With his talent, he could raise that with time.

"The only problem… I don't know its current situation." He recalled the drugged looking shadow wolf, its bloodshot eyes wild and untamable. If the colossus was in the same state, its eyes would tell him.

But there was one small problem.

Its head was nowhere to be seen.

"Tsk." He clicked his tongue. He'd have to circle around the beast to find it.

"Shyr—" He turned toward Shyra, intending to mount her and move, but his gaze dropped to the pup she'd gently laid at his feet.

"Hm… the name looks good. Eclipse Sun, huh…" He leaned closer, eyes narrowing. The mark on its forehead wasn't a crescent moon like he'd assumed—it was unmistakably an eclipse. A perfect black disc crowned over a almost blowing ring of white fur.

He ultimately decided to tame her. His hand extended, mana gathering as he prepared to activate the taming skill—

Thump!

His heart stuttered.

A cold ripple ran down his spine as he slowly turned his head.

There it was.

A massive head—bigger than Shyra's entire body—had lowered toward him with a short arc from the round distance, the enormous shape resembling a monstrous blend of turtle and dragon. Its jaw was slab-like stone, its beak ridged, its scales metallic and dark.

One gargantuan eye stared directly at him.

The slit pupil contracted sharply as it locked onto his presence.

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