The forest shuddered.
Not from the wind, not from wolves, but from something deeper. Roots groaned as if the very earth recoiled. Lio clung to Jade's sleeve, trembling, eyes wide as the darkness in the treeline thickened.
Then it stepped into view.
A beast unlike the wolves, towering thrice their size. Its body seemed half-rotted, half-armored, as though flesh and stone had fused together in a grotesque imitation of life. Fangs too long for its jaw jutted sideways, drool sizzling where it struck the frost. Its eyes — dozens of them — glowed like embers across its head and torso, each blinking independently, each staring at prey from a different angle.
Lio's breath caught. "…That's not… natural."
Jade's hand dropped to the boy's shoulder, steadying him. His dual irises gleamed brighter than before, silver and violet fire overlapping in the dark.
"No," he murmured. "That's a Rift-born."
The abomination opened its maw and roared. Trees bent under the vibration. Dead wolves — Alpha included — cracked into splinters under the force of it. The stench of rot rolled out in waves.
Lio gagged, covering his mouth.
Suddenly,
The creature lunged.
It moved faster than its bulk promised, crashing forward with claws like scythes. Jade shoved Lio backward into the safety of the rocks and teleported, vanishing just as the beast's claws raked the ground. Soil, stone, and frozen wolf remains exploded in a spray.
He reappeared above its back, frost already forming along his palm. "Pierce."
A spear of condensed ice slammed into the creature's shoulder. It sank deep, blood hissing as it hit the cold — but the beast only roared louder, twisting with impossible strength. Its bulk flung Jade mid-air.
He teleported again, reappearing before the rocks where Lio crouched. His body slid to a stop, ice aura blazing like a second atmosphere.
"Stay down," he ordered.
Lio nodded, pale but obedient.
The Rift-born turned, huffing steam through its jagged teeth. Frost still clung to its wounds, but it kept moving as though pain meant nothing. Its many eyes all fixed on Jade.
The boy raised his hand, twin pupils blazing.
He slammed his palms together.'Frozen Domain'.
The air collapsed into silence. Frost spread like wildfire, coating trees, earth, rocks — even the Rift-born's steps slowed, its joints cracking under sudden ice. The very air seemed to freeze solid, biting so cold Lio's breath frosted instantly.
The creature roared, thrashing against invisible chains, its bulk straining to move. Jade strode forward through the frozen haze, every step ringing like crystal shattering.
"On your knees."
The beast crashed downward, one leg buckling under the expanding ice. It shrieked, voice scraping like tearing metal, but its rage only grew.
Its chest split. Literally. Flesh peeled open like a rotten fruit, revealing another jaw inside, lined with rows of jagged fangs. A claw erupted from the cavity, striking outward.
Jade teleported again, reappearing just beyond the reach of that unnatural strike. The ice shattered behind him, the claw rending a crater into the ground.
"…Interesting." His voice was calm, but his irises pulsed dangerously. "So that's what you are."
The Rift-born surged again, dragging itself through the ice, snapping trees as it came. Jade drew both hands upward, summoning jagged spires of frost around it — but the creature's inner maw spat a torrent of steaming black bile, melting everything it touched.
Lio cried out. The stench burned his lungs, even from behind the rocks.
Jade's expression hardened. He raised a hand, cold flaring brighter. The bile struck a barrier of solid ice midair, freezing into a grotesque sculpture that dropped harmlessly to the ground.
But the monster did not relent. It charged, swinging its claws like falling towers.
Jade met it head-on.
Ice lanced upward, intercepting claws, breaking under sheer force — yet each fragment became another blade, stabbing deep into corrupted flesh. The Rift-born howled, spraying blood and bile, but still it came.
The clash was relentless, man and monster locked in a rhythm of frost and ruin.
...
Through it all, Lio watched.
He watched Jade teleport like lightning, carving ice through the beast's joints. He watched him shield entire swaths of forest from bile with a flick of his hand. He watched his friend — his little brother — fight like the world itself bent to his will.
Lio's fists clenched. He was older. He was supposed to protect Jade. Yet here he was, useless, hiding, while Jade stood unflinching before death itself.
Tears stung his eyes, but not from fear — from shame, and pride, and a desperate vow. I'll get stronger. I won't always be the one you have to protect.
But for now, all he could do was watch.
--------------------------------------------------------
The Rift-born reared back, bellowing, its many eyes blazing red now. The ground beneath it cracked as if rejecting its weight. The second maw on its chest opened wide, wider than before, glowing with a sickly green light.
Jade's eyes narrowed. That… is an attack that will swallow the forest whole.
He planted his foot into the frost. His aura surged. Ice flared so bright the night seemed swallowed by white.
"Fine. You want my full power?" His dual pupils burned like stars, the gold and silver overlapping until they spun. "Then witness it."
He stretched both arms outward. The forest screamed as mana condensed, pulling heat and life from every corner. Trees split under frost, the ground cracking like glass.
Above, a colossal spear of ice formed, wider than any tree, long enough to blot the moon.
Lio gasped, awe stealing his breath. "Jade…"
The Rift-born roared, firing its green beam — a torrent of corrupted energy, splitting the earth in its path.
Jade's voice cut through the destruction like thunder.
"GLACIAL FALL!"
The spear plummeted.
It collided with the beam, crushing it, shattering it, tearing straight through into the beast's chest.
The Rift-born screamed. Its many eyes burst one by one, spraying ichor that froze midair. The colossal spear drove it into the earth, impaling it, locking it in a tomb of eternal ice.
The ground shook. The forest fell silent.
Then — stillness.
The Rift-born lay motionless, frozen into a grotesque statue.
[EXP +2000]
Jade staggered, breath misting in the air. His aura dimmed, the ice storm easing into silence.
Lio ran to him, throwing his arms around him with reckless force. "You did it! You really did it!"
Jade's hand rose to steady the boy, though his gaze remained fixed on the frozen corpse. His irises dimmed, but a thread of tension lingered in his shoulders.
"Don't celebrate yet."
Lio blinked, confused. "Why not? It's dead."
Jade shook his head. "I heard no Rift-born hunts alone."
And as if the world heard him, the forest answered.
From beyond the trees, deep in the mountains, a horned howl split the night — ancient, commanding, impossibly vast.
The ground trembled.
The ice around the Rift-born cracked.
Lio's grip on Jade tightened. "Jade… there's more?"
The boy's dual irises pulsed faintly, his breath steady even as his body tensed for another war.
"…This was only the scout."
The frost beneath their feet splintered. From the distance, a colossal silhouette rose — wings unfurling, blotting out the stars.
The silhouette loomed against the heavens, a darkness that seemed to bleed into the very night. Wings unfurled, each membrane etched with glowing fissures of red, as though magma itself pulsed through its veins. Its head bore twin horns, curving like obsidian scythes, and its maw leaked trails of black fire. The weight of its presence alone pressed on the forest, bowing the trees and silencing every creature that dared draw breath.
Lio's knees buckled. "That's… a dragon."
Jade's dual irises spun, overlapping silver and violet flaring so bright they looked carved into the dark. "No. Worse."
It was not a dragon — it was a Rift-born mockery of one. Its wings were too skeletal, its scales fused with stone and chitin, and its eyes… its eyes numbered hundreds, crawling across its wings and chest, each blinking in uncanny rhythm. It was not alive as much as it was an amalgam of hunger given shape.
The forest shook again as the beast landed.
[WARNING: B-Rank Rift Entity Detected]
The system's voice thrummed in Jade's skull. His lips tightened. A B-rank… here, in the outskirts of Nexus? If it wandered into the city—
Lio stumbled back, clutching Jade's sleeve, eyes wide with despair. "We… we can't fight that, Jade. We have to run."
But there was nowhere to run. The Rift-born's wings spanned the sky itself, blotting out the stars. Its horned head turned toward them, and the forest burned as its breath leaked from its maw.
Jade inhaled slowly, steadying his pulse. "Lio. Listen to me."
The boy shook violently. "Wh-what—"
"You're going to survive this." Jade's eyes glowed brighter, his frost aura already weaving into the air. "I promise you. But you need to stay down. Don't move until I say so."
Lio's lips trembled. He wanted to argue, wanted to scream, but he saw Jade's eyes — calm, unwavering, stars spinning in a child's face. And so he nodded, crouching low.
The Rift-dragon roared.
The world shattered.
Its wings beat once, and the frost Jade had spread cracked, shattering into powder. Entire swathes of the forest bent flat, trees uprooted and hurled like spears. The roar itself was a force, splitting stone, crushing roots, shaking the mountain's bones.
Jade's aura flared — ice forming a dome around Lio in the heartbeat before the blast. The shockwave hammered against it, cracking the shield but not breaking it. Frost laced the air like shattered glass.
When the air cleared, Jade stood alone before the Rift-dragon.
"...You'll be my trial then."
His hand rose. Not just frost now. Shadows stirred from his palm, a darkness thicker than night, spilling tendrils across the frozen ground. The seed within him pulsed — the Seed of Darkness, the tether to an abyss no mortal dared name.
The Rift-dragon's body lit in Jade's vision — not as flesh and bone, but as a lattice of pulsing corruption. Veins of Rift-energy writhed through its frame like molten rivers, its core a seething furnace in its chest, tethered to the gaping maw that leaked black fire. Every one of its hundreds of eyes shimmered with false life, but none anchored to its true core.
Jade's lips pressed thin.
The dragon moved.
It didn't lunge — it erased distance. One heartbeat it towered above the trees, the next its maw was before him, black fire cascading like a river meant to scour the world. The earth screamed as stone liquefied under the torrent.
Jade vanished.
[Teleportation]
He reappeared on its shoulder, palm already seething with frost. His hand slammed down.
"Frozen Lance!"
A spike of absolute cold shot downward, piercing scales and stone, sinking deep. The Rift-dragon's roar shook the mountains, its wings flailing like titanic blades. Jade was hurled skyward, spinning through broken air.
But he did not fall.
Darkness coiled around his limbs, gripping the void itself, halting him midair. He raised both hands, shadows twining with frost, and hurled a sphere of crushing cold down.
It struck the dragon's wing.
Ice erupted outward, spreading over chitin and stone, locking hundreds of writhing eyes in crystal prisons. The dragon bellowed, twisting violently — the frozen wing snapped, shards tumbling like meteors into the forest below.
Lio screamed as it crashed into the ground not twenty strides from him, exploding soil and snow in every direction. He huddled beneath Jade's protective dome, heart pounding. His brother was a silhouette against the dragon's fury, tiny against its vastness — yet unyielding.
The Rift-dragon's chest glowed again.
Jade's irises spun, overlapping until they blurred, silver and violet fusing into a starburst of light.
The Seed pulsed in his chest. Darkness surged outward, weaving with frost, creating something new — a binding cold so absolute it devoured light.
The Rift-dragon unleashed its breath, a beam of black fire and corruption that shredded the air itself.
Jade answered with both hands thrust forward.
"Eternal Abyss!"
A torrent of freezing void thundered out, swallowing heat, swallowing sound. The two forces collided midair. Black flame screamed against devouring frost, a maelstrom of destruction ripping sky and ground apart. Trees disintegrated, stone melted, frost shattered — and still the clash raged.
Jade's arms shook, veins glowing faintly violet. His body was too small, too young, for such weight of power, but he did not falter. Step by step he forced his aura forward, pressing the abyss against the Rift-fire.
The dragon screeched, staggering back. Its breath faltered. The abyss broke through, flooding into its chest. Frost bloomed from the inside, cracking scales, bursting veins. Dozens of its eyes exploded outward in sprays of frozen ichor.
It reeled, crashing into the mountain, sending avalanches roaring down.
Jade dropped to one knee, panting, blood trickling from his nose. The backlash of void and ice gnawed at his frame. But his gaze never left the beast as it staggered.
The Rift-dragon was not yet dead.
It clawed upward, half its torso frozen solid, the other half burning with black fire. Its hundreds of eyes blazed crimson. It roared again, defiant, and the world seemed to tilt beneath the sound.
Lio wept openly now, fists clenched against the dome. "Jade, stop! You'll die—!"
Jade rose. His dual irises gleamed brighter than stars, calm and unbroken.
"If I fall," he whispered, voice steady despite the blood at his lips, "this thing reaches Nexus."
He raised his hand once more. Frost spiraled. Shadows bled.
One last strike.
The Seed within him pulsed — darker, deeper, promising ruin and eternity. Frost sang in harmony. Together, they answered his will.
A blade formed in his grasp. Not ice alone, not shadow alone, but a weapon born of both: translucent, yet devouring light; thin, yet sharp.
The Rift-dragon charged, maw open, flame boiling at its throat.
Jade stepped forward into the storm.
And swung.