Four monsters emerged from the darkness.
Leading them was a bipedal, four-armed mutated beast — a Terminate Boar. Nearly three meters tall, it stared directly at Allen with blood-red eyes. Two massive tusks jutted from its gaping jaws, thick drool dripping onto the forest floor as it snorted and huffed with predatory hunger.
Trailing behind were three dog-like monsters — Assault Dog, resembling Dobermans with rows of jagged white fangs. They scratched at the mud restlessly, clearly itching to tear Allen to pieces.
The campfire's glow had drawn the forest's apex predators.
Suddenly, the Terminate Boarstopped. It stepped forward, shielding the dumber Assault Dogs with its bulk. Narrowing its crimson eyes, it studied Allen like prey.
It had noticed the weapon at his hip — long and sheathed. A threat.
It had seen one like it before.
In a village to the south, a terrifying male human had wielded a similar object — slaying a creature even stronger than itself in the span of a single breath.
This new prey was only as tall as the Assault Dogs on all fours, barely up to the Boar's waist. Yet, the moment Allen raised a brow—
He stepped forward with his right foot, shifted into a low stance, one hand resting lightly on his sword.
His smile was unburdened.
Thrilled, even.
"Looks like I really am close to the village. To run into the story's infamous plot-device pig… Good thing I didn't try to come here on my own back when I was four. If I'd gotten eaten and turned into pork sausage, that would've been a hell of a joke."
But that was then, and this is now. And this time, the one with bad luck—
Shhrrp!
The forest's damp soil squelched beneath the pressure of his toes.
—isn't me.
Explosion of motion.
Allen sprang forward — a blur of motion streaking through the night as he dashed straight at the beasts!
Monsters could be intelligent, but rarely were. The Boar, provoked, let out a furious roar, ramming the Assault Dogs aside in a frenzy of primal rage.
"ROARRR!!"
Like a jet-black freight train barreling forward, it charged at Allen in a dead sprint.
One breath.
That was all the distance left between them.
Then—
"Dodge—now!"
A clear, feminine voice pierced the wind, sharp as a blade.
Something glinted through the shadows behind the monsters—something swift, slicing through air and leaves, surging like a boat cleaving waves.
But before Allen could even react—before he could process the sound—his dark gray pupils constricted into pinpoints. A searing heat surged from his core to his limbs.
Inside him, a walnut-sized [Dragon-Saint Aura Seed] clenched tightly in the grip of consciousness.
It pulsed—like a dam breaking, the aura burst through his meridians like a torrential storm.
Adrenaline spiked. All senses overloaded.
And then—
The world slowed.
The rustling trees fell quiet. Mountain winds slid sluggishly across his skin. A chilling glint rippled along the Boar's tusks. The muggy stench of the monsters mixed with moisture in the air, crawling through his nose.
In this bullet-time stillness, Allen's eyes moved slowly, tracking through the gaps between limbs and bodies—and saw what had erupted from the forest:
—a glistening, crystalline sphere of water.
Thoughts flashed like lightning.
Roughly 150 centimeters in diameter. A mid-tier spell? No—the shape is wrong. It's a basic spell: [Waterball].
Output efficiency's been jacked up close to [Water Cannon] levels. They must've amplified the mana and shortened the chant for faster release.
If the spell hits the monsters, I'll be caught in it too. So that warning just now... it wasn't timed to me attacking. She didn't expect me to rush them. Miscalculated.
Who is it?
The Boar's tusks loomed just fifty centimeters from his eyes. The high-velocity [Waterball] was no more than two meters behind it.
Every cell in Allen's body screamed at him to move.
But under his fingers, the cool steel of the scabbard pulsed softly.
It smothered the alarm in his head.
A slow smile curled at the edge of Allen's lips.
Dodge?
I could. But why bother.
North God Style — Practical Combat School.
Draw-Stance.
[Twenty-Fold Slash.]
Allen's eyes contracted again, his irises nearly vanishing into whites. His entire body coiled tight like a spring, reacting with blinding speed.
He slipped just past the Boar's tusks by a hair's breadth. Ducked beneath a slashing claw. Slid past a Ragehound with a sidestep, exchanging a fleeting glance.
He danced between monsters like a butterfly flitting through flowers.
Trailing behind him—
The campfire's glow shimmered in rhythmic flashes—five rapid bursts—as if reflected from something razor-sharp and moving at incredible speed.
Then darkness.
Allen now stood past the monsters—directly in the [Waterball]'s path.
Still holding his sword in its sheath.
As if he had never drawn it at all.
In that instant—
The [Waterball], glowing orange with reflected firelight, loomed like a moon before him.
It was no more than a palm's width from his face.
Allen didn't even blink.
He watched it closely—and saw a faint white line split the surface vertically. Ripples flared outward like rings in a pond.
The sphere split cleanly in two.
It grazed his hair. Whispered past his cheek.
Allen's gaze flicked to the right half of the spell—the broken hemisphere catching firelight like a stained-glass lamp in motion, shimmering with vivid orange radiance.
Strikingly beautiful.
He blinked.
With that small movement, the [Dragon-Saint Aura] calmed.
And time—
roared back into motion.
The forest erupted. Leaves danced. Wind howled against his clothes. The scabbard in his hand thrummed with warmth. Broken water surged past his ears in a bifurcated current.
BOOM!!
Two massive trees behind him—each as wide as two men embracing—splintered and toppled with a deafening crash!
But the four monsters?
Frozen. Locked in place like broken puppets.
Crunch, rustle—
Someone burst from the forest, footsteps frantic through dead leaves.
Allen looked up at the source of the [Waterball] spell.
At first, surprise flickered across his face—then a dawning realization.
He lowered his hand from his blade.
That motion alone seemed to pull time apart—
With a tearing shhrrip, the Boar's and Assault Dogs' heads slid sideways from their necks.
Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump.
Four thuds, each a severed head hitting the forest floor.
Four cuts.
But hadn't the blade flashed five times?
—The shattered tree trunk behind him, cleaved in two by the [Waterball]'s recoil, offered the answer.
Shh—shh—shh.
Blood geysered from the monsters' clean-cut necks, showering the glade in crimson rain.
And through that blood-rain—
A small figure ran into the firelight. She wore a mage's robe and lugged an oversized trunk behind her. Her hood cast her face in shadow.
But her bangs—bright blue, with a faint green sheen under the firelight—spoke clearly enough.
She sniffled slightly and stared at Allen with wide eyes, blinking in disbelief.
Allen's gaze drifted from her face down to the boots that barely reached her knees. In the firelight, her black stockings cut into the pale skin of her calves, leaving a faint indentation over surprisingly well-toned muscle.
Even the night couldn't hide the admiration in his eyes.
He smiled.
"Dodged it. Thanks for the heads-up."
The girl — with deep-blue braids hanging almost to her knees — caught her breath. She looked at the child standing in the rain of blood, a head taller than herself, his voice still tinged with boyish youth.
Then she looked at the beheaded monsters behind him, at the water spell that had cleaved a tree in half.
She opened her mouth slightly, then glanced at the snapped trunk off to the side.
Her expression was lost.
Dodged it…?
She had no idea how to respond.