Ji-Hoon's body jolted against the stone as the last echoes of the monstrous roar faded. Below, the battlefield was a graveyard of stirring bodies. Only a few beasts still stood.
Too fast. It ended too fast.
He needed an opening to climb, but no moment was safe. His eyes, gritty with dust, scanned the chaos until a flash of movement snagged his focus.
In the valley's heart, two figures blurred. An elite wolf and fox, moving not with animal fury, but with a terrifying, precise lethality. They vanished and reappeared, strikes landing with muffled thumps that echoed louder than the surrounding snarls.
That speed… it's not right.
A memory sliced through his panic—Layla's voice in the dark: "The Crimson Moon's power… others can use it."
"Who?" he'd asked.
"Beasts."
The realization was a cold trickle down his spine. "Don't tell me… these are the ones you meant?"
"Finally, you see." Layla's voice was a faint sigh in his mind, almost drowned by the battle's din.
A burst of raw anger cut through his fear. "You pick now to talk? Were you just watching me sweat?"
"If I wanted you dead," her voice snapped, sharp and clear, "I would have let you fall last night. Keep your eyes forward, idiot."
Before he could retort, a second roar erupted—this time from the elite fox—a sound of pure, vibrating power that forced the surrounding beasts to cower. The two elites broke apart, their confrontation creating a clearing of tense silence amidst the carnage.
Ji-Hoon saw them clearly now. The fox, a female with frost-white fur, stood laced with bleeding cuts, her pride a tangible force. The wolf was a grotesque evolution of its kind, jaws distended, teeth like shattered stone.
She's losing, was his first, desperate thought.
"No," Layla corrected instantly. "They're holding back."
"Why?" His mental shout was pure frustration. "If they can end it, why don't they?"
"Use your eyes. Unleash that power here, and their own packs break. They fight to dominate, not to slaughter their kin."
As if to prove her point, the fox surged forward in a blur, grabbed the massive wolf by its throat, and with a terrible wrench, hurled it into a cluster of smaller wolves. The impact sent bodies flying.
Ji-Hoon's mind stuttered. This wasn't a fight; it was a demonstration.
"Pay attention!" Layla's command cracked through his awe. "Your path lies in this moment. Understand them."
"How?" he begged, his focus splintering between the spectacle and his precarious hold on the stone. "Just tell me what to do!"
"I cannot tell you anything unless you can hear me," she shot back, her voice fraying at the edges. "I am a Spirit Will. I exist on your soul's strength, your will's flame, the Qi you draw in. Yours is a dying ember. When your fear peaks or your breath catches a wisp of the world's energy, then I can speak. That is why I fade."
The truth landed not as an explanation, but as a physical weight. His soul was weak. His will, a flicker. He had nothing. The grandeur of the battle below suddenly mirrored the vast, indifferent scale of his own helplessness.
A raw, desperate calm seized him. The chaos faded to a distant rumble. His world narrowed to the voice in his head and the stone under his fingers.
"Then teach me," he said, the words a steady vow in the tumult. "Teach me how to become more than an ember. How to become a Ranker."
He began to move, not with a plan, but with a spider's instinct, easing his body from the crack, muscles screaming. The battlefield was a puzzle of death, but his gaze was now inward.
"Idiot. Planning a stroll down there?" Layla's tone was dry, but the mockery was gone.
"Just point me toward a path that doesn't end in a wolf's stomach."
A beat of silence. Then, her voice changed, shedding its last trace of levity, becoming clear and resonant, like a bell tolling in his soul.
"Then listen. This is the first lesson. The only one that matters. This is how you call upon the Moon."
Ji-Hoon stopped breathing. The sounds of battle, the chill of the wind, the ache in his limbs—all dissolved.
There was only her voice, and the beginning of everything.
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