A woman stood in the heart of a ruined city in the central East, her entire body covered in handcrafted armor made from the scales of multiple S-class monsters. The armor gleamed with an ominous, multi-hued sheen, each scale meticulously shaped and layered to provide both flexibility and near-impenetrable defense. She was locked in fierce combat with a colossal SSS-class monster the Lunar Eclipse Butterfly.
The Lunar Eclipse Butterfly was equivalent in power to a level 95 warrior or higher. Its enormous wings spanned dozens of meters, shimmering with ethereal patterns that seemed to bend light itself. Each flap sent out waves of destructive lunar energy, cracking the already broken ground and filling the air with chilling moonlight-like particles that drained the strength of anything they touched. Its body was sleek and armored, with razor-sharp appendages and eyes that glowed with otherworldly intelligence. This was no ordinary beast. It was a calamity given form.
The woman moved with ruthless precision. She dodged a sweeping wing strike that shattered a nearby building into dust, then countered by leaping high into the air. Her scaled gauntlets glowed as she channeled her inner flux, delivering a devastating punch to one of the butterfly's wings. The impact created a visible crack in the membrane, but the monster retaliated instantly. A burst of lunar energy erupted from its body, forcing her to twist mid-air and land hard on a pile of debris.
The fight intensified. The Lunar Eclipse Butterfly released a swarm of smaller phantom butterflies made of pure energy that homed in on her like living missiles. She spun through them, her armor deflecting most while she sliced apart the rest with precise, flux-infused strikes from her gauntlets. The monster then dove, its massive body aiming to crush her. She rolled aside at the last second, the ground exploding where she had stood. Rising quickly, she grabbed onto one of its legs and climbed upward, dodging the frantic thrashing of its wings.
At the top, she drove her fist repeatedly into the base of the butterfly's head, each blow sending shockwaves through its body. The creature screamed a sound like shattering glass multiplied a thousand times and tried to shake her off by spinning violently in the air. She held on with raw determination, her muscles burning, until she found a vulnerable joint. With a powerful surge of inner flux, she tore through the armor plating and delivered a final, crushing strike to its core.
The Lunar Eclipse Butterfly crashed to the ground in a heap of broken wings and fading light. The woman stood victorious atop its corpse.
Yet she showed no mercy. She thrust her hand deep into the monster's body, her armored fingers piercing flesh and chitin until she pulled out the pulsating monster core crystal. Without hesitation, she brought it to her mouth and bit down, absorbing the raw monster flux directly. She refined the energy into her own inner flux in a visible display of power, her body glowing faintly as the new strength integrated.
"Another monster down!" she shouted triumphantly, her voice echoing across the ruins.
The people who had been hiding in corners and behind debris finally stepped out, their faces a mixture of relief and exhaustion after witnessing the corpse of the SSS-class threat.
Then the woman pridefully shouted, "Who is your saviour! Who is your goddess!"
The people began to boo her, refusing to call her their goddess. The woman had been in the central plains for four years now, saving people through her own strength alone in a region where backup from the West could rarely reach. She did not physically harm the people, but her overwhelming pride made her stand above them like a self-appointed ruler. She was a narcissist through and through, a self-declared god in her own eyes the strongest who would fight until her last breath and rule the weak as their unquestioned queen.
The survivors began the grim but necessary work of taking out the meat from the SSS-class Lunar Eclipse Butterfly. Large chunks of nutrient-rich flesh were carved away, providing a rare feast that could sustain the group for days.
In their hideout, one tent stood out among the others larger, better reinforced, and clearly belonging to the woman. Inside, she sat with a look of disgust on her face. She viewed these people as weak and pathetic, bastards who could do nothing on their own and relied completely on her for protection and food, while depending on the system for any semblance of power. Yet she herself did not possess a system, so her level could not be measured directly. She wanted to know her limits now more than ever because she could feel something evolving within her flux something powerful and promising.
---
After eating her fill, she stepped out of her tent. There she saw a group of thugs snatching away portions of food from children and elders. The woman did not intervene. She believed that no matter the situation, the strongest would always rule the weak. That was simply the law of the universe.
"Madam Viola Ren, what are you thinking?" a man asked her cautiously as he approached.
Viola asked him how many people could still be alive in the eastern lands.
The eastern lands were covered in blood. Too many had died, but a significant portion still survived in the middle and central East. As for the easternmost plains, no one could say for certain that was the origin point of the monster invasion, a place of pure nightmare.
Although Viola Ren was incredibly powerful, she was not yet confident enough to venture into the easternmost region. She decided to absorb more flux by hunting S-rank monsters and above, steadily increasing her strength. But she believed there must be a high-level existence waiting in the easternmost part. If she could claim that power, she would surely rule this world and become the most powerful of all.
---
The central plains remained a brutal proving ground. Viola Ren continued her solitary reign, a self-proclaimed goddess walking among the broken and the desperate. Her path was one of dominance and ambition, fueled by the ever-evolving flux within her and the unyielding belief that she alone stood above everyone else. The East still held many secrets, and she intended to claim them all.