[New Quest Assigned: Hunt of Terror]
[Classification: Emergency Quest]
[Type: Combat]
[Difficulty: ???]
[Objectives:
– Survive your encounter with the Void-billi (0/1)
– Defeat or repel the Void-billi (0/1)]
[Description: ???]
[Rewards: +500 Stat Points | +10,000 SP | Combat Technique: Adaptive Combat (D-rank)]
[Penalty for Failure:
– Permanent stat reduction (‑50 to all base attributes)
– All skills locked for one month
– Death by Billi's claw.]
[Time Limit: None]
The cascade of cold text hit harder than any shockwave. The question marks on difficulty dug under his skin, but the penalties were what made his breath hitch. Permanent stat loss. Skill lock. Death.
His steps faltered just shy of the manor's ruined courtyard. The notification didn't just warn him; it lit a spark behind his ribs, a raw, stubborn refusal to back away.
His status flickered at the edge of his vision.
[Host Status]
[Name: Kaelen Burn]
[Class: Chrononaut]
[Race: Human]
[Title: Novice Beast Hunter]
[Energy Level: Initiate Basic Control]
[Point Stage: Latent Stage]
[Classification: Unique]
[Ability Grade: S-Grade]
[Base Level: 13] <2470 / 4400 XP>
[System Level: 12] <3260 / 3600 XP>
[HP: 475 / 475]
[A.E: 630 / 630]
[Stat Points: 5]
The manor's courtyard lay ahead, reshaped into something brutal and unfamiliar. Earth rose and dipped in jagged craters. Ornamental stonework from the manor was shattered, half-buried in burnt soil. Trees had been ripped out, snapped into splinters or driven into the ground like stakes. Bodies lay where they had fallen, guards and workers, some missing limbs, some missing more than that. The air smelled of soil, copper, and aether.
The barrier above them bled the evening light through its distorted surface, bending rays into warped lines that crawled over broken walls and ruined statues. The distortion carved a lattice of shimmering patterns across the courtyard, like fractured glass suspended in the sky.
The beast stood at the center of the devastation.
Void-billi.
It faced Mel and Jil, both already in stance. Jil's fists and feet burned with aether, red liquid light lapping off his skin and scattering sparks when he shifted his weight.
Kaelen moved to their side, his gear a silent weight on him. The aether chain hugged his left waist, cool links clinking lightly against his hip. The bloodline cord sat at his neck, the familiar touch of his mother's gear-shaped pendant brushing his collarbone when the wind stirred. The Gravepulse gauntlets encased his hands, the almost dark metal drinking in the pale light, its obsidian cores pulsing in time with his own heartbeat.
[Strength: 77(+7)]
[Stamina: 65(+5)]
[Perception: 35]
[Defense: 64(+5)]
[Agility: 77]
[Vitality: 77(+4)]
[Intelligence: 100]
The stat boosts from the Gravepulse Mandate and Guardian's Band settled into him, turning each breath into something more solid, each heartbeat into a steady drum.
"What's the plan?" Kaelen asked, his voice low, pitched to Mel and Jil.
The Void-billi did not move. Its faceless skull rotated slowly, turning from Mel, past Jil, and finally halting on Kaelen.
When its unseen gaze fell on him, the vertical slit running down its skull unsealed with a fleshy, wet rasp. The interlocking teeth behind it flexed and clicked, a series of damp, racking sounds like bone scraping inside meat. The storm inside its crystal horns swirled harder, dense clouds of violet and black churning and colliding, tiny flashes of lightning spiderwebbing within. The lines etched across its hide brightened, pink and blue racing along its frame in intricate patterns. It looked less like a beast and more like something carved from night and neon, a living sigil.
It wasn't just looking at him.
It was a look of recognizing something.
Jil noticed first. "Why is it acting like that toward you?"
Kaelen could only offer a helpless shrug.
Mel's voice came from the side, calm and flat. "It's also a space manipulator. Like you, Kaelen."
Jil's focus flickered. "Space mages are rare, right?"
"I'm not a space mage," Kaelen said, his eyes never leaving the beast. "I'm a unique user. A Chrononaut."
"What." Jil's head snapped toward him, disbelief twisting his features. When Kaelen had appeared at the dome and taken the mission, Jil had written him off as dead weight, someone in over his head. A unique class, a Chrononaut, shattered that assumption.
"Focus on the beast," Mel cut in. Her expression was as unreadable as ever, her face half-hidden by her blindfold, silver aether coiling around her like a cloak. "I will nullify its abilities. Jil, you protect Kaelen. Kaelen, you focus on hitting it with that lance skill you used before."
"Wouldn't it be better if I focus on striking it?" Jil asked, the red glow licking higher along his forearms.
"No," Mel said, without hesitation. "You're an enhancer. Your hits will just feed it more energy."
Before Jil could argue again, the Void-billi moved.
One moment it was still. The next, it blurred.
The distance between it and Kaelen vanished.
The ground cracked under the impact of its weight, dirt and shattered stone hissed outward. Kaelen's body struggled to react, despite Chrono-Perception giving him a stretched, fragmented view of its movement it still wasn't enough. The beast's limb came down in a savage arc, its claws aimed to cleave him from shoulder to hip.
Jil was already there.
Red aether compressed around his fist with a harsh crack as he stepped between Kaelen and the oncoming limb. His punch met bone.
THWOOM.
A deep, concussive tremor ripped through the courtyard. Air bursting outward as the underlying rumble of aether-infused force colliding. The Void-billi's limb jerked back, its massive body rocked as it staggered a step.
It didn't stop.
Its other limb cut back in a vicious, a horizontal slash aimed toward Jil.
Mel's hand was out, her fingers curled.
The beast jerked backward as if yanked by a giant's invisible hook. Its entire body left the ground, its limbs flailed for purchase as she dragged it and hurled it away.
It hit the ground with a brutal impact, rolling and carving a new trench into the destroyed courtyard before skidding to a halt. Soil, stone, and fragments of broken ornament sprayed upward.
It tried to rise.
Mel was already on it.
Her form blurred forward, silver aether flaring around her leg. Her kick slammed into its side with a cannon-crack.
BOOM
The impact drove the Void-billi into the earth. A crater spiderwebbed around it as its body sank partially into the ground.
She didn't pause.
She came down again, dropping her heel like a falling hammer.
KRAAK.
The impact thundered through the courtyard, a sharp blast of sound layered with the deep groan of earth giving way. This time, though, the beast twisted, forcing its back into the path of the blow. The hit still drove it down, but not as deeply as before. Cracks shot out under each of its fingers, webbing through the soil like broken glass.
It shoved back with sudden force. The counter-push made Mel's stance slip a fraction of an inch, dirt grinding under her boots. The beast whirled, with its limb slicing toward her in a sweeping arc, claws singing through the air with enough force to rip tungsten.
The blow never landed.
KRAAK.
Jil's arrival was a red streak. His fist intercepted the slash, a flare of red aether erupting between claw and knuckles. The collision forced the limb off-course, driving the beast back a half-step.
Space stretched around them like elastic.
The courtyard warped, as the distance between the beast and the two fighters elongated in an instant, buying it room. The air rippled, lines of distortion sliding across the ground.
To Kaelen, their entire exchange had unfolded in breathless rushes, a blur of movement and veiled impacts. Even with Chrono-Perception passively slowing his senses, he could barely follow the rhythm. Strikes came and went like flickers of lightning. Each step, each pivot, each redirected blow carried terrifying speed and efficiency.
He needed more.
He didn't have the luxury of holding back.
He pulled up his system.
[Stat Points: 0]
[A.E: 100→105]
[A.E: 655 / 655]
He dumped his last floating stats into A.E, now he felt that extra fuel humming under his skin.
[Chrono-Step Lv. 1]
[–43 A.E]
[A.E: 612 / 655]
Sound deepened, impacts turned into slow, layered reverberations. Dust hung longer in the air. Flickers of aether light dragged after their sources like smears of color. Chrono-Step accelerated his perception fourfold, and Chrono-Perception stacked over it, stretching each heartbeat into a near-eternity.
He could see them now.
Mel's movements weren't invisible blurs anymore. He watched the micro-adjustments of her feet, the slight shifts of her hips before each strike. Jil's fists left trails of red light, each punch a controlled explosion. The Void-billi's limbs cut through the air with sweeps he could finally trace, lines of motion he could read.
They were still faster than him, faster than his body could completely emulate, but patterns began to form.
Aether flared around his fists, a bright, blue tight aura that crackled faintly. The ground under his feet fractured as he pushed off, a compressed burst of air detonated behind him in a sharp hiss.
VWHOOSH.
He vanished from his previous spot, his body lunging into the slowed world.
Mel had given him a plan: stay protected, set up Spatial Lance, hit the beast.
But he had a better one.
…
Another strike hammered the Void-billi's chest, but it had adapted. Its limbs crossed in front of its torso, catching the blow. Even so, the force drove it back, its feet gouging twin trenches in the earth as it skidded.
Jil surged forward, his fist wreathed in red aether, like molten larva, aiming for the beast's skull.
Space warped.
The gap between them elongated abruptly. Jil's fist cut through empty air, his momentum pulling him forward more than intended. His heel caught on broken ground. He nearly toppled.
The Void-billi seized the opening. Space snapped back to normal, the distance collapsing. Its limb carved upward toward Jil's face in a vicious, ascending arc.
He couldn't dodge in time. His own momentum betrayed him, dragging him into the incoming claw.
A tug ripped at his body.
Jil stumbled backward instead of forward, jerked out of the path of the slash. The beast's claws grazed his cheek instead of splitting his head, a hot line of pain blossoming as blood trickled.
Mel didn't break stride, the moment Jil was clear, she was already inside the beast's guard, driving an upward kick at its skull. The beast leaned back just fast enough to make it graze instead of hit.
Before it could fully straighten, a figure slammed into its flank.
BAM.
Kaelen's fist.
The Gravepulse Mandate's obsidian core pulsed at the moment of contact.
The impact hurled the beast backward, its body scraping through earth, carving a long trench as it went.
[Spatial Warp Lv. 1]
[Cost: –24 A.E]
[A.E: 588 / 655]
Kaelen didn't let it breathe.
Space folded, snapping him across the ruined ground. One heartbeat he was near Mel and Jil, the next he was beside the crater the beast formed. He drove his fist down.
KRAAK.
The Gravepulse gauntlet crashed against the beast's skull, metal grinding against its strange bone. Its head plunged into the ground, the earth compressed, with a crater yawning around it. The Pulse Transfer effect bit deep, sending the force past its chitin and armor into whatever passed for its nerves and aether nodes.
Another strike followed. Another.
Each punch detonated like layered thunder, the shockwaves kicking up dirt and loose stone. The Void-billi's head sank deeper, with the earth deforming around its skull. With every impact, Kaelen felt a faint echo of pain return to his own bones, the Cursed Set reminding him of Shared Trauma, but he shoved the feedback aside.
[–5 H.P]
[HP: 470 / 475]
He could feel the gauntlets doing exactly what they were built for, ignoring outer defenses and driving the hurt inward.
He pulled back for another strike.
The beast moved differently.
The patterned lines along its body surged brighter, neon blues and pinks pulsing like veins. It twisted its head as he drove in, presenting a better angle to absorb and redirect the hit. The blow still landed, but this time it rolled with it, raising its skull just enough to bleed off part of the force.
It shoved upward, pushing itself out of the crater.
Its limb whipped out at Kaelen, the claws flashing toward his torso. The strike carried speed he couldn't match, not with his body, not even with Chrono-Step's stretched perception. The difficulty markers in his quest log weren't there for show. This thing was operating leagues above him.
He had already committed to the punch. There was no time to pull back, no time to dodge.
[Spatial Warp Lv. 1]
[Cost: –24 A.E]
[A.E: 564 / 655]
Space began to distort. The distance between him and the incoming limb started to stretch, but it was still too slow.
He felt fingers hook the back of his hoodie and yank.
Mel.
The world jolted as she dragged him backward, her boots skidded across the ruined earth. The beast's claws closed over empty space, cutting past where he had been an instant prior.
The Void-billi rose fully now, but did not charge. Its skull tilted, with its attention dropping to Kaelen's hands. Not to Kaelen himself, but to the Gravepulse gauntlets dark metal, patterned with shifting etchings that caught the fractured evening light and the reflected glow of Jil's red aether and Mel's silver aura. The obsidian cores on the back of his hands pulsed in slow, steady beats.
It watched his fists like they were more dangerous than the two stronger fighters beside him.
"Why are the two of you doing something entirely different from what I said?" Mel asked, her voice flat, never taking her unseen gaze off the beast.
"I was going to assist you—" Jil started.
"No," Mel cut him off, as calmly as if she were correcting a posture in training. "The plan was: you protect Kaelen; Kaelen hits the beast with his lance skill. With your type of enhancement, your skills only strengthen you or your allies. That same strengthening will feed the beast if you keep hitting it."
"Strengthen… those around you?" Kaelen asked, glancing at Jil.
"You're not off the hook either," Mel added, turning her head just a fraction toward him. Her blindfold shifted slightly as silver aether licked across her shoulders like a cape. "You're ignoring the plan."
"Can we leave the lecture until after we aren't about to be turned into paste?" Jil snapped.
"You will both follow the plan," Mel said, unbothered by his tone.
"No," Kaelen said, his voice steady despite the adrenaline buzzing through him. "I have an idea."
Mel's head tilted a little, her beige hair over her blindfold rippled faintly with the light of her aether. She didn't look away from the Void-billi. The focus she kept on it was absolute. "Go on."
"My gauntlets transfer damage inward and partially ignore armor," Kaelen said quickly. "They hit organs and aether nodes directly. Against this thing, they're the best weapon we have."
"No wonder it's fixated on your fists," Jil muttered, glancing at the gauntlets before dragging his gaze back to the beast.
"Since you said Jil has an area buff for allies," Kaelen continued, "he should cast a buff skill on me. If he enhances me, I can hit it harder than I normally could—"
"Enough to deal more damage than you can on your own," Mel finished for him.
"I'm on it," Jil said. Aether around him surged in response, red light flaring like blood igniting.
"Focus on Kaelen alone," Mel said. "Do not enhance us."
"Ancient power that sleeps in flesh, awaken," Jil began, his voice dropping as he slipped into incantation, each word pulling aether into shape. "Let giants walk within these warrior—"
The beast tilted its skull. The vertical slit parted slightly, its teeth began flexing and clicking. The storm in its horns raged, the lines along its limbs pulsed with brighter blue and pink light.
Ten spheres of crackling purple energy snapped into existence around it, each one boiling with contained force. Its double-jointed upper limbs twitched, veins of light racing along them.
"Muscle, spirit, and will ascend—"
The ten orbs shot forward like hunting projectiles, all of them converging on Jil.
"The plan is the same," Mel said, already moving, her body cutting forward in a silver streak. "Kaelen, hit it with your fists this time."
The first two orbs met her head-on. She didn't dodge; she stepped into them.
THOOM.
THOOM.
The collision birthed twin explosions. The sound slammed into Kaelen's ears—a layered blast, sharp and deep, as if a series of detonations overlapped. Dirt ripped upward, air punched out in a violent shockwave that clawed at their clothes and hair. The ground cracked beneath the force.
Mel emerged from the dust without a scratch, her aether hummed around her skin.
She caught up to three more orbs, her arm pistoning out. Each strike detonated an orb mid-flight, bursts of violet flame and compressed force blooming in the air.
She pushed forward again, targeting the remaining five. As her fist cocked for another blow, the orbs veered. They curved around her, homing back in on Jil.
It wasn't random. The Void-billi was forcing them to track him.
Mel twisted mid-air, planting a foot against the earth, she pushed and spun,. Her heel crashed down on two of the orbs.
BOOM.
BOOM.
The resulting twin detonations tore gouges in the earth, sending a cone of shattered rock and soil outward. The winds from the blast clawed at Kaelen's face, tearing his hood back and whipping his dark hair wildly.
Three orbs still tracked Jil.
Mel hit the ground and launched herself again.
SWOOSH.
Her foot struck the earth with enough force to crater it, a blast of compressed air exploding outward from the impact. She shot forward, catching up to two of the orbs and smashing through them in quick succession.
"Watch out!" Kaelen shouted.
The warning arrived too late.
The Void-billi's clawed limb slammed into Mel's side. Its claws dug only a few centimeters into her skin, but the sheer force behind it lifted her slightly off the ground. She caught its limb with both hands before she could be flung away, her fingers locked around its strange bone.
Using the creature's momentum, she pivoted, twisting, and hauling its limb down while spinning her body. Her heel crashed into the top of its skull.
THWOOM.
CRACK.
The impact was savage. The Void-billi dropped to one knee, the ground beneath cracking in branching fracture lines that radiated from the point of contact. Its knee shuddered.
Mel released it and turned, trying to intercept the last orb, but the delay was enough.
The orb reached Jil.
Kaelen was already moving.
He stepped in front of Jil, his arms already crossing in an X formation before his chest as his hoodie fluttered in the blast's incoming wind. He had seen what those orbs could do. With his current stats, even with his defenses, one clean hit could tear chunks out of his HP bar or outright kill him.
He braced anyway.
"Rise with the strength of titans," Jil's voice cut through the roaring energy, finishing the incantation even as the orb closed. "Hear my will, and surge in my ally. Surge of Titans."
The system chimed in his vision.
[Enhancement Skill Detected]
The orb hit.
BOOM.
The explosion ripped through the courtyard. The shockwave wasn't just loud; it was a punishing force that hit like a wall, dense wind and burning energy tearing at loose stone and broken earth. Dust and fragments exploded outward in a surging wave.
[Buff Applied: Colossus Rising]
[Strength +140]
[Endurance +280]
[Duration: 10:00]
Power flooded into Kaelen like molten metal poured into his veins. His muscles felt heavier and sharper all at once, his bones braced each other, under the sudden surge of weight and tension. His skin tingled.
He checked his HP as the blast washed past them.
[–215 H.P]
[HP: 260 / 475]
Even with the surge in endurance and his existing defenses, one orb had torn almost half his health away. His ribs ached, and his skin stung under the remnants of explosive force.
[Flow Regrowth Lv. 4 – Passive Regeneration]
"Are you okay?" Jil's voice, rough with concern, cut through the fading rumble.
"Yeah," Kaelen said, looking down at his ragged hoodie, now mostly shredded into barely hanging strips. "I'm fine. It worked."
Mel spared him a brief glance,her blindfolded eyes tilting toward him as if searching. "Your aura feels stronger," she said, then looked back at the Void-billi.
The beast pushed itself fully upright. Its teeth clattered together in a frenzied rhythm behind the skull slit, it sounds like wet bone grinding on glass. It threw its head back and released a roar that wasn't just noise, but pressure, vibrating in his bones and rattling the cracked stone around them.
Space in front of it twisted, a single point between the beast and the group distorting, the air around it bending inward like a whirlpool.
Kaelen rolled his shoulders once, feeling the weight of Colossus Rising settle into his body, the Gravepulse gauntlets heavy and eager on his hands.
Aether burned under his skin. He stepped forward.
"You're not the only one with a spatial ability."