Time was a luxury Ji-Hoon no longer possessed. Paralysis wasn't a choice; it was the maddening gridlock of a mind presented with nothing but fatal options. This single decision would dictate whether he lived or was torn apart on the stones below.
To become a Ranker, he first had to survive the night. And the valley was devolving into a slaughterhouse. The faint glow that had bathed his rocky shelter was leaching away, replaced by a creeping, consuming darkness. True night would be a death sentence—blind, starved, and helpless.
Perched on the cliff's edge, he squeezed his eyes shut, forcing his racing thoughts to still. He was exposed. One stray strike from the elites battling below would end him.
Yet, he had to gamble. Movement offered a sliver of hope; stillness promised certain doom.
"If you don't quiet your mind and learn the process," Layla's voice cut through his panic, "you will fail. Becoming a Ranker requires understanding, not just desperation."
Ji-Hoon gave a terse nod. "Then talk."
"Listen. I will teach you the foundation—"
A thunderous BOOM erupted from the valley, drowning her words. The very mountain trembled. Dust plumed. Ji-Hoon flinched, his focus shattered.
Below, the battle had escalated into a primal spectacle. The Lightning Mirage Fox was a blur of frost and fury, her movements leaving afterimages of cold light. Deep scars crisscrossed the Elite Asura Wolf's hide, but its wounds were knitting shut with visible, gruesome speed. With a roar, the wolf's muscles bulged, its eyes igniting into crimson coals—a berserk transformation.
The fox shot forward, a living bolt aimed at the wolf's heart.
The wolf charged to meet her,a force of raw rage.
Another cataclysmic collision.
CRACK-BOOM.
A new crater marked the valley floor. Beasts were thrown like scattered stones. When the dust cleared, the two elites stood apart, panting. The wolf's healing flesh steamed; the fox stood with ice crystallizing over deep wounds, one leg bent at a wrong angle.
Ji-Hoon stared, utterly transfixed.
"HEY! IDIOT!" Layla's mental shout was a whip-crack. "Your life is hanging by a thread, and you're watching a fight like it's a game? FOCUS!"
Her tone brooked no argument. "That wolf is an Elite Asura. Its skills are Regeneration and Berserk Fury. The fox is a Lightning Mirage—Ice Attribute attacks, Lightning Movement. If a Ranker claimed its core, it would be a legendary prize."
She paused, letting the danger sink in. "But if you are not under solid shelter before full dark, nothing else will matter. You will die here, forgotten."
A cold dread, sharper than any before, gripped Ji-Hoon's heart. He had run out of time for questions. "Just… continue," he breathed.
"This place is Star Heaven Valley," Layla said, her voice dropping into a grim, instructive rhythm. "A place of limited resources where immortal-level creatures are kept weak, starving… and desperate. The beasts you see are only at Level 2, the Initial Stage. Each level beyond this doubles in danger and requirement."
Star Heaven Valley. The name held a terrible irony. Ji-Hoon's calm facade fissured, revealing the tremor beneath—a mix of sheer terror and burning curiosity.
"We are both trapped here by the same cosmic scam," Layla added, a note of bitter kinship in her thought-voice.
A moment of shared understanding passed in silence.
"So," Ji-Hoon whispered, his gaze hardening as he looked from the mythical beasts below to the treacherous climb above. "They are Level 2… and I am Level Zero. The first step isn't to fight them." He took a sharp, steadying breath, the path becoming clear. "The first step is to cease being human."
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