The remaining three Goblins scrambled backward over the blood-spattered gravel of the pass, their predatory focus completely broken by the sudden, mechanical efficiency of our counter-strike. The Level 6 skirmisher let out a piercing, high-pitched screech from the rear of their line, its long, pointed ears flattening against its skull as it frantically waved its rusted shortsword to command its final two hunters to cover its retreat. It was attempting to sacrifice its remaining frontline units to buy itself a fraction of a second to escape into the thick grey mist of the lower treeline.
I didn't let it clear the gap.
Moving with optimal movement efficiency, I stepped past Lysander's braced shoulder at the exact moment his heavy iron-rimmed shield finished its forward kinetic strike. The hunter he had slammed against the crags was still struggling to re-align its centre of gravity, its green chest muscles contracting violently as it gasps for breath behind its cracked leather armour. Before its claws could even lift its fallen weapon, the tip of my iron blade came down in a single, crisp vertical thrust. The steel pierced the thin cartilage beneath its chin, severing the upper spinal column instantly to drop its health pool to zero.
Because Lysander had completely locked the monster's frame against the basalt wall and absorbed its defensive leverage, the interface split the essence cleanly according to our relative physical trauma.
[+60 XP]
The personal notification rolled behind my eyelids as I wrenched the metal free.
The last remaining hunter let out a terrified, guttural snarl, its primitive mind entirely shattered as it threw its weight forward in a desperate, low-angle lunge aimed straight at my leading ankle. It was a sloppy, frantic movement born of raw survival panic, leaving its entire upper torso completely exposed. I didn't step back to defend. Shifting my weight smoothly onto my rear heel, I executed a swift lateral slip of my torso, letting the rusted iron point brush past my cloak before driving my left boot directly into the side of the creature's neck.
The heavy, bone-crushing impact snapped the cervical vertebrae with a sharp crack, throwing its dead weight flat against the frozen stone.
[+150 XP]
Because I had executed the strike entirely independent of Lysander's shield base, the global system awarded the full baseline essence of the hunt straight to my core space. Deep within my chest, the cold furnace of the five-day forge tightened with an absolute, heavy density, the ambient temperature inside the narrow chokepoint dropping by another noticeable margin as thin webbings of white frost crawled out from my boots.
The Level 6 skirmisher was already thirty meters down the descending mountain path, its low-slung frame sprinting toward the deep shadows of the dead pine border. It was moving fast, utilizing its superior agility to cut zigzag paths through the basalt gravel to throw off any potential throwing trajectory.
I relaxed my right arm, letting the tip of my iron shortsword point toward the dark earth as my perfect combat memory instantly calculated its velocity, stride length, and atmospheric drag.
I didn't launch the weapon. Moving with fluid, weightless velocity, I stepped forward onto the icy ledge, my flat twenty-five attributes locking my body into a state of absolute kinetic alignment. I closed the distance across the crags in a matter of seconds, my boots cutting clean, silent shapes through the grey frost as I systematically sheared away the creature's head start without wasting a single drop of sweat.
The skirmisher sensed the sudden atmospheric pressure shift behind its flank. It twisted its head around with a high-pitched screech, its yellow eyes wide with raw survival terror as it swung its rusted shortsword in a desperate, horizontal defensive arc.
The blade trajectory was predictable, completely full of holes.
I didn't break my stride. Dropping my centre of gravity beneath the line of the incoming steel, I stepped straight inside the monster's blind spot. My light shortsword cleared the line in a single, upward diagonal slash. The iron point didn't hack blindly at its tough skull; it slid with surgical orthopaedic precision right through the soft throat tissue, severing the lingual artery and splitting the windpipe in a single crisp movement.
The creature's screech died instantly, replaced by a wet, muffled gasp as its body tumbled face-first into the frosted briars, its shortsword clattering uselessly against the stones.
Because Lysander had remained at the high pass to guard our rear flank against any trailing targets, the system calculated the final execution as a solo engagement.
[+250 XP]
I stood over the fallen skirmisher, my hand completely steady as I executed a single lateral flick of my wrist to clear the thick black blood from the iron edge. Behind me, the five provincial candidates who had fled the ravine were standing at the edge of the chokepoint, their wide, petrified eyes darting between the six slaughtered Goblins and my pristine white hair. They clutched their unpolished weapons with trembling fingers, completely broken by the silent authority of someone who had just dismantled an elite pack without a single scratch on his woollen cloak.
The silence that followed was absolute, broken only by the whistling gale forcing its way through the narrow mountain throat. Lysander lowered his heavy iron-rimmed shield slightly, his breath pluming in deep, rhythmic clouds as his gaze ran across the dark gravel. His fourth echelon physical durability talent was still actively humming beneath his canvas tunic, his muscles expanding and contracting smoothly as his body adjusted to the residual kinetic friction of the block. He didn't look at the dead humanoids with disgust or fear; he looked at them with the cold, measured calculation of a partner who had just verified his positioning.
"They're completely cleared," Lysander muttered, stepping forward until his heavy leather boots stopped right beside the first fallen hunter. He reached down, his raw knuckles tightening around the wooden shaft of the creature's spear, testing the weight before pulling it free from the frozen gravel. "The rest of the pack won't attempt to reclaim this pass until the frost thickens. We have at least two hours before the lower tree line begins to saturate again."
Across the narrow ridge, the five candidates remained entirely frozen in place, their knuckles white as they gripped their basic iron daggers and unpolished shortswords. The candidate in the front, a tall youth with a ragged brown cloak and a deep gash along his left forearm, slowly let out his breath, his eyes fixed on the silver-tinged locks of my white hair catching the pale light of the mountain crest.
"You... you killed them all," the youth stammered, his teeth visibly chattering from a mixture of sub-zero exposure and psychological shock. He took a half-step back, his leather boots slipping slightly against the slick rim-frost before he anchored his posture against a basalt boulder. "The scouts at the staging area said the western crags were only populated by D-Rank scouts. That was a coordinated hunter line. If you hadn't descended from the high pass, our cores would have faced total destruction before we ever found a secure cave."
"The scouts at the staging area are paid to feed you livestock to the lower grunt lines," I replied smoothly, my voice flat, keeping my expression entirely locked behind an unreadable military wall. "They manipulate the maps to keep the commoner brackets disorganized. If you stand around screaming in the middle of a valley bottleneck, you are doing their recruitment logistics for them. Move your feet."
The provincial candidates didn't dare offer a single word of debate. They exchanged wide, anxious glances, their aristocratic confidence completely dead as they scrambled to pull their posture back into formation. Moving with frantic haste, they dragged their torn cloaks through the grey mist, fleeing further up the western path toward the sealed perimeter gates, desperate to find an isolated crevice to hide their frames before the first nightfall commenced.
I watched their silhouettes dissolve into the fog, my internal furnace maintaining its heavy, crushing torque behind my sternum.
"Where do we anchor the line next, Astraeus?" Lysander asked, his voice dropping into a low register as he hoisted his vanguard shield back into a stable carrying position. He turned his gaze toward the dark, jagged crags rising further to the northwest, his young expression hardened by the immediate reality of the slaughter. "The briefing scroll said the first day's observation tracking terminates when the midnight horn sounds. The noble heirs will be sweeping the lower marshes. If we stay on the open ridges, the scouts will lose our visual metrics."
"The noble heirs are staying in the marshes because they are following a script written for them by their household instructors," I muttered quietly, my swirling violet irises fixed on the frozen trenches cutting through the high valley. I didn't turn back to look at him, my posture already aligned with the steep, narrow vertical paths leading into the upper peaks. "This is where our paths split, Lysander. I am not here to manage your positioning or protect your flanks. If you want a seat inside the elite academies, use your shield, hold the high pass solo, and force them to watch your durability metrics. I am going after the elite cohorts alone."
Lysander didn't offer a single word of protest or begging. He knew my nature, and he knew that a true vanguard had to prove his baseline resilience under the crushing weight of real attrition. He simply nodded once, his grip tightening around the rim of his iron shield as he turned back to anchor his own base across the narrow chokepoint.
I didn't waste another second. Moving with fluid, weightless velocity, I stepped onto the icy ledge, my flat twenty-five attributes locking my body into a state of absolute kinetic alignment. I left the bottleneck behind, my boots cutting clean, silent shapes through the grey frost as I climbed directly into the dark chimneys of the northwestern perimeter. The first hunting grounds had been cleared without a single drop of sweat, and my private hunt to force the Starlight Apex recruiters to notice me was officially underway.