Rain poured down in heavy sheets, turning the crystal ground slick and red.
Jin stood on the left, flames licking along both blades, steam rising where rain met heat. Hanz stood on the right, fists clenched, wind mana swirling violently around his arms like invisible blades. The monster waited several meters away, its lean, muscular body glistening under the downpour, that stretched grin still carved across its face. The single purple eye glowed with cold amusement.
Lightning flashed across the red sky.
CRACK—BOOM!
The three figures snapped forward at the same instant.
Hanz exploded ahead first, wind howling around his fists. He threw a crushing right hook — Gale Breaker — that slammed into the monster's ribs with a wet crunch. The impact sent the creature skidding sideways through the rain.
Jin followed instantly, blades trailing fire, carving a burning gash across the monster's thigh, then spun upward with a flaming whirlwind, forcing the creature to leap back.
The monster countered with blinding speed, claws whistling through the rain. Hanz ducked under the first swipe and drove an uppercut — Tempest Rise — straight into its jaw. The force lifted the monster off the ground for a split second.
Jin didn't let the opening slip. He dashed in low and unleashed Inferno Cross, two crossing flame slashes that bit deep into the creature's chest, black blood spraying into the rain.
For the first time, the monster staggered.
It's not adapting fast enough this time, Jin thought, breath steady despite the burning in his lungs.
Hanz pressed the advantage, fists blurring. He chained Gale Breaker into Storm Hammer, each punch landing heavier than the last, cracking armored plates and driving the monster backward step by step.
Jin circled right and released Flame Serpent, a coiling dragon of fire that wrapped around the monster's arm and burned straight through to the bone.
The creature roared — a distorted, wet sound — and retaliated with a savage claw sweep. Hanz twisted aside, but the edge still grazed his shoulder, drawing fresh blood. Jin barely evaded the follow-up kick, the wind pressure alone shoving him back several meters.
They were matching its speed now. The monster was being pushed back.
Lightning struck again — CRACK—BOOM! — illuminating the crater in blinding white.
Hanz grinned through the rain and blood. "Keep it coming!"
Jin's eyes narrowed. The flames on his blades burned hotter.
The monster's grin widened even further.
CRACK—BOOM!
Lightning split the sky as Jin and Hanz stepped into the next gear at the same instant.
Hanz launched first, wind exploding beneath his feet. He blurred across the crater and slammed a fist into the monster's chest — Hurricane Fury — the impact launching both of them out of the sunken ground and into the open wasteland.
Jin followed in a streak of fire, blades trailing crimson light.
They tore across the battlefield at blinding speed, trading blows mid-air, crashing through crystal pillars and rocky ridges. The fight no longer had a center — it was everywhere.
Hanz roared and spun, his strike slamming into the monster and sending it tearing through towering crystal spires. Shards exploded outward like glass rain.
The creature twisted mid-flight and retaliated with a claw swipe that released a screaming wall of wind pressure. Hanz took it head-on, pain flaring through his cracked ribs, but he powered forward anyway and drove Tempest Barrage — three rapid wind-enhanced punches — into the monster's face, each hit landing heavier than the last.
Jin cut in from the side like a flaming comet. Flames spiraled as his blades drilled into the monster's shoulder, black blood hissing as it burned. He immediately followed with a downward slash that split the ground beneath them in a burning trench.
The monster faltered. Just for a moment—but it was there.
Its flesh tried to knit back together, the movement slower now, the regeneration lagging behind the damage.
It's slowing, Jin realized, eyes sharp. Regeneration can't keep up anymore.
The creature snarled and unleashed another wild wind burst, trying to blow them back. The pressure slammed into Hanz like a boulder, aggravating his wounds, but he grit his teeth and charged straight through it.
Hanz leaped high and brought both fists down, hammering the monster into the earth hard enough to crater the stone.
Jin didn't waste the opening. He crossed his blades and unleashed a blazing X-shaped wave that swallowed the monster whole. Flames roared outward, turning rain to steam in a wide radius.
The monster roared in frustration, lashing out wildly. Its claws clipped Hanz across the back, opening a deep gash, but he only laughed through the pain and answered with another crushing strike to its jaw.
The battlefield erupted.
Every clash sent bursts of wind and fire exploding outward. The wasteland itself became their arena — ridges shattered, crystal forests turned to dust, lightning flashing overhead like a war drum.
The monster's single purple eye narrowed. For the first time, something like irritation flickered across its face.
It was reacting too late.
Rain hammered down harder.
Jin and Hanz stood side by side in the shattered wasteland, chests heaving, mana flickering like dying embers. Every breath burned. Hanz's left leg trembled, the earlier wind pressure still crawling through his ribs like broken glass. He swayed once, then caught himself.
Jin's voice came low and steady. "It's breaking. And it's using wind bursts to keep us at range now."
Hanz coughed blood and grinned weakly. "So the bastard's scared. About damn time."
The monster no longer smiled. Its single purple eye narrowed, body tense, claws twitching. No more mocking chuckle. Just cold, frustrated silence.
Jin's eyes sharpened. "One opening. Even a half-second. We end it together, or we drop."
Hanz cracked his knuckles, voice rough. "I'll bait the rage. You hit the second, and it overextends. Ready?"
Jin gave the smallest nod.
They snapped forward again — faster this time, movements clean, desperate, perfectly in sync.
The monster lunged with a howling wind slash. Jin slipped under it like smoke. Hanz weaved right, taking a grazing hit that tore his shoulder open but kept moving. They danced around every attack, forcing the creature to pivot, overcommit, grow sloppier.
Hanz laughed through the pain, voice loud and mocking. "That all you got?! Come on, you overgrown mutt — show me something!"
The monster's eye flashed with pure fury.
It roared and exploded forward, abandoning all defense, claws aimed straight for Hanz's throat.
Right where Jin wanted it.
"Now!"
Hanz roared and slammed both fists together above his head —Wind Tempest — A screaming tornado of razor-sharp wind erupted upward, locking the monster in place for one heartbeat.
Jin blurred in from the side, blades crossed, flames roaring white-hot —Crimson Inferno — The twin blades unleashed a devastating X-shaped inferno that tore straight through the wind vortex and into the monster's chest.
The two techniques collided at the center of the creature's torso.
BOOOM—
An explosion of wind and flame erupted outward. Shockwaves rippled across the wasteland, shattering crystal pillars for hundreds of meters and sending dust and red rain flying in every direction. The ground itself cracked in a wide, burning crater.
The monster's final scream warped and vanished inside the blast.
Silence fell.
Jin landed hard on one knee twenty meters away, blades planted in the ground to keep himself upright. His shoulders trembled, mana completely spent, body bent forward in exhaustion but still standing.
Hanz dropped a few steps further, crouching on one knee, blood dripping from his mouth and multiple gashes. He tried to stand, failed, and just laughed weakly instead.
The rain continued falling, softer now.
Hanz wiped his face with a bloody hand and looked over at Jin, voice hoarse but full of exhausted satisfaction.
"…We really looked cool just now, didn't we?"
Jin didn't answer right away. He slowly straightened, breathing ragged, then let out a short, tired chuckle.
"Shut" -huff- "Shut up."
The two hunters stayed there under the rain, broken, bleeding, but alive.
The monster was gone.
The rain had eased into a thin drizzle.
Jin sat on a broken slab of crystal, elbows on his knees, blades resting across his lap. His breathing was slow and heavy. Every inhale still tasted of smoke and blood.
Hanz lay flat on his back a few feet away, staring up at the red sky. A wet cough rattled out of him, followed by a low, exhausted laugh.
"Damn… I enjoyed that fight and hated it at the same time," he rasped, wiping blood from the corner of his mouth. "Never met a monster that adapted to my moves like that. Felt like it was learning me while I was punching it."
Jin let out a quiet sigh.
Too intelligent, he thought. It adapted too well… yet it still had limits. Like it could have kept going if it could.
He glanced sideways at Hanz. The man was strange. He had followed him all the way out here, kept up when most hunters would have died, and still laughed through broken ribs.
What was his name again?
Hanz pushed himself up on one elbow, wincing. "Hey… you knew a beast like that was hiding here?"
Jin didn't answer. He stood, turned, and began walking away.
Hanz groaned, forcing himself to his feet with a string of pained curses. "Wait—hold on!" Each step made him hiss, but he caught up anyway. "No one just strolls through the Eternal Scar unless they've got a death wish. Hunters avoid this path for a reason. Abnormal shit lives here."
Jin kept walking. The wasteland stretched out around them — endless canyons, jagged silhouettes of dark crystal, no buildings, no people, only silence and stone. Something about the quiet felt wrong.
He paused and looked back toward the distant crater where the gate rested, closed and still.
A faint unease settled in his chest.
Something isn't right.
Hanz finally reached him, breathing hard. "Thanks for waiting, man."
Jin didn't reply. He felt it again — that nagging sense he was missing something. A coincidence? Or…
The drizzle stopped completely.
The air grew thick. Heavy. The Eternal Scar fell into a deadly, unnatural silence.
Jin's grip tightened around his blades as his chest constricted. His instincts flared all at once, screaming a warning he hadn't felt in years.
No.
Behind them, in the crater, the closed gate shimmered. A thin thread of dark aura leaked through the frame like black smoke.
Then a voice spread across the land.
"…you… survived…?"
It wasn't loud. It didn't echo. It simply existed, pressing into their minds as much as their ears.
The pressure followed instantly.
Hanz collapsed without resistance, his body slamming into the ground as a broken gasp tore from his throat. His limbs refused to respond, pinned down by a weight he couldn't fight.
Jin dropped to one knee, both swords driving into the crystal beneath him just to hold himself upright. His arms trembled violently as the force pressed down on him, crushing, suffocating, absolute.
This can't be happening… It can't be...
Breathing became difficult.
Thinking became worse.
The presence was cold. Ancient. Wrong.
"…you… you're… strange…!"
The voice pressed harder with each word, as if testing them.
Hanz tried to lift his head, his voice shaking. "W-what… is this…?"
Jin didn't answer.
His eyes were fixed on the gate, wide in a way they hadn't been in years.
That presence—
His grip tightened as something buried deep in his memory stirred. A feeling he hadn't experienced in a long time clawed its way back to the surface... from ten years ago, pressure like this.
Fear — real, primal fear — flooded his core for the first time in years. His mind screamed at him to run, not fight. Not this.
This presence… how could I forget it… it was just like then… shit…
The dark aura thickened, spilling further from the gate, spreading slowly across the crater like something waking up.
The rain had stopped.
But the storm had only just begun.
Far from the Eternal Scar, night had settled over Crimson Reach like a heavy cloak.
Lanterns swayed gently along the guild's upper corridors, casting long amber shadows across polished oak walls. The lower floors still hummed with the usual clamor of returning hunters, but up here on the third level, behind the thick double doors of the Guild Master's office, the world felt quieter. More deliberate.
Veyron Kaelthar sat behind his wide desk, fingers steepled, the faint glow of a mana crystal illuminating the deep lines on his face. Across from him lounged a silver-haired Slayer named Elara Voss — one of the few veterans trusted with sensitive reports. Her crimson cloak was draped over the back of the chair, a half-empty glass of dark wine resting in her hand.
"So the southern temple remains sealed," Veyron said, voice low. "Three weeks now. No team has even made it past the outer wards."
Elara swirled the wine once before taking a slow sip. "It's not just sealed. It's… wrong. The scouts who got close enough said the stone itself was breathing. Runes shifting when no one was looking. And every time someone tries to force entry, the air turns thick enough to choke on. Like the temple itself is deciding who's worthy."
Veyron's eyes narrowed. "And it sits right on the border of the Bloodveil Dominion."
"Exactly." Elara set the glass down. "The vampires haven't stirred. Not yet. You know how they are — elegant, ancient, and utterly detached. They treat the rest of us like mayflies. They don't meddle in hunter affairs… unless something threatens their eternal little paradise. If that temple wakes up and starts leaking whatever's inside it, the Bloodveil Court might decide the entire south is no longer their problem."
A heavy silence filled the room.
Veyron leaned back, staring at the map pinned to the wall. The southern temple was marked in blood-red ink — an ancient structure half-buried in black stone, older than any recorded history in Chaos. Not a dungeon. Not in any way that mattered. No predictable structure. No reward waiting at the end. Just something buried, sealed, and recently… stirring.
"Lady Phoenix herself took notice," Elara continued, quieter now. "She called it 'an anomaly that refuses to stay forgotten.' High-ranking Knights have been whispering about it for days. Whatever is sleeping in there… it's not meant for ordinary Slayers."
Veyron exhaled slowly, rubbing his temple. His mind drifted — not to the Destroyers, not even to Lady Phoenix.
It drifted to a single name.
Indura
The new hunter. Crimson hair, golden eyes, calm demeanor that somehow made the entire guild hall feel smaller when he walked through it. The man who had casually cleared five high-grade dungeons in one night alongside the Midnight Slayer and returned with enough materials to make veteran appraisers speechless.
Veyron's lips curved into a faint, thoughtful smile.
"Perhaps it's time we stopped sending teams that are merely strong," he murmured. "And start sending people who are… different."
Elara raised an eyebrow. "You're thinking of the new blood and the Reaper?"
"Indura and the Midnight Slayer," Veyron confirmed, tapping a finger on the desk. "One is an unknown variable with ridiculous results. The other is already a legend who works alone. Together? They might be the only ones who won't die trying to see what's inside that temple."
Elara let out a low chuckle, though her eyes remained serious. "You really think they'd agree? That Slayer barely talks to anyone. And that Indura… he doesn't strike me as the type who follows guild orders."
Veyron's smile didn't waver.
"That's exactly why they might be perfect."
Outside the window, the night lanterns of Crimson Reach flickered in the breeze.
Far to the south, something ancient stirred behind sealed stone — and for the first time in centuries, it was waiting.