Breakfast at the Lotus Isles of Vermillion Grace was a lavish spread: floating platters, spirit-infused jam, and thunder-brew tea. For Charles, though, this morning was all business, served with a healthy dose of calculated dominance.
He entered the private lounge of their top-floor suite, keeping his expression calm. His steps were measured and deliberate as he took his seat, voice even calmer than his face.
"Four days. Train. Bleed in illusions. Break bones. Break your bottlenecks. I expect results."
He placed the Epoch Sphere: Trialmind Core on the polished obsidian table with deliberate care. The orb, made of crystallized memory and adaptive simulation magic, pulsed faintly like a heart trapped in ice.
"Wendy," he said, eyes flicking, "Congrats on Core Realm Rank 4. Impressive."
Wendy bowed, expression disciplined. "Thank you, my lord. Broke through in drills with Borris last night. Pure technique."
Charles nodded. "Keep drilling him until he's stronger or limping."
Borris didn't respond, but his mustache twitched, and he gave a short grunt. Charles accepted it, unreadable.
"The Trialmind Core will push you further than combat alone," he said. "Use the chamber in my suite or book the larger private arena downstairs. I've already paid for it. Make sure it's worth the mana."
He picked up the sleek Voxen Plate communication crystal from the table, lightly tapping its smooth surface as if confirming it was active.
"Emergencies only. No updates unless someone dies, gets kidnapped, or blows up. I want silence."
Wendy made a fake salute. "No spontaneous combustion. Understood."
Rob stood at the door with his coat buttoned and his posture quite formal. "Lord Charlemagne, the carriage is ready."
The Velmora Adventurer's Guild stood like a fortress amid towers and merchant alleyways. The building gave out a sense of danger, roughness, and generations of glory-seekers who didn't get paid enough.
As Charles entered, his boots echoing off the stone tiles, every hunter, mercenary, and meat-headed cultivator turned toward him like moths to a mystery wrapped in silk.
He wore a charcoal cloak with a silver lining and rune-threaded armor beneath, making it ready for travel. Under the sunstone chandeliers, his silver hair shone softly.
He went right to the main registration desk.
The clerk, a woman with piercing eyes, ink-stained gloves, and a shiny identification quill, hardly blinked when he walked up to her.
"Name?"
"Charles."
"Level of cultivation?"
"Foundation Realm. Level 9."
That made a few people raise their eyebrows. Most of the single hunters at that level didn't go in by themselves. Or at all. Not in Velmora.
"Beast companions?"
"One Azure-class was bonded. Not hostile. Selectively carnivorous."
"Payment?"
Charles reached into his cloak, retrieved a folded pouch, and slid it across the desk. The coins inside made a quiet noise as she opened the pouch and counted the precise amount, then nodded.
"Nice. Hunter Charles, welcome to the Adventurer's Guild. You have been given a Tier D badge. Eligible for Tier C missions with a signed disclaimer."
"Give me everything for the Timbermaw Thickets," he said calmly.
"...All of them?"
"Yes."
She blinked, but handed him seven scrolls, each marked with colored wax seals. The missions ranged from [D+] to [B+].
Behind him, the murmurs started.
"Who the hell takes all seven thicket quests solo?"
"He's Foundation Nine. He won't last an hour."
"Maybe he's suicidal. Or stupid. Or rich."
Then came the idiot.
Ryan was a walking cliché of testosterone and insecurity. A Core Realm Rank 1 berserker with more muscle than mindfulness and a loud habit of asserting dominance on newcomers.
"Hey, silk-shirt. You lost, boy? This ain't the Golden Goose spa."
Without looking back at Ryan, Charles slid the scrolls into his spatial ring with deft movements and stepped forward, heading toward the east wing payment desk.
Ryan stepped in front of him.
He was a wall of muscle, sweat, and misplaced confidence.
"You hard of hearing?" the berserker growled, voice thick with disdain. "I asked you something."
Charles tilted his head, as if listening to a mosquito buzzing just behind his ear.
"I heard you," he replied coldly. "I just didn't care."
The room froze.
Forks halted halfway to mouths. A hunter mid-chug coughed beer out of his nose. Someone in the back muttered, "Dead man talking."
Ryan's smirk turned feral, lips peeling back to reveal yellowed teeth and a thin scar across his chin.
"Oh? Think you're funny?" he said, stepping closer, now chest to chest.
He raised a hand and shoved.
Charles did not move when Ryan shoved him. He stayed rigid, unflinching, absorbing the force of the push as if it meant nothing.
"How about now?" Ryan spat. "You care yet, silk-spun bastard?"
Charles let the silence stretch.
Then, with a voice as cold as a dungeon cell, he said:
"Last warning."
Ryan chuckled and raised his fist, his biceps bursting with spiritual tension. His aura blazed up, wild and crazy.
"Or what, you little Foundation-rank jerk?"
The moment was like thunder.
Charles got up.
Fast.
He stood abruptly. There was no hesitation or dramatic pose. Charles simply pivoted, swung his hand forward in one seamless motion, and the air cracked like a storm wind.
Flesh touched flesh.
CRACK.
The impact echoed like a thunderclap across the stone hall. Ryan's right arm didn't just snap. It bent backward at the elbow like a collapsing chair, bone jutting out from beneath his skin with a sickening pop.
"AAAAAARGHHH! YOU FUCKING—AAAHHHHHHHH!"
Ryan dropped to his knees, cradling his ruined limb, blood spilling between his fingers. His howls reverberated through the stunned silence of the guild hall.
"MY ARM! YOU BROKE MY FUCKING ARM!"
Charles stared down at him, unfazed, eyes like chips of sapphire under ice.
"You'll live," he said calmly, shaking his hand once like brushing off filth. "Unfortunately."
Several hunters scrambled back. A young scout puked behind a weapons rack. One of the older adventurers muttered, "Holy shit…"
The clerk at the registration desk stared wide-eyed, half-rising, pen hovering in mid-air.
"...Do you still want to activate the scrolls, sir?"
"Obviously," Charles said, stepping around the whimpering, bleeding heap that used to be Ryan. "Put him on the cleaning fee if he bleeds on my boots."
Someone snorted. Someone else applauded softly.
"Gods damn…" the front bouncer muttered. "Remind me never to mess with Foundation cultivators dressed like nobles."
"That's no noble," another added under his breath. "That's a bloody storm with a pulse."
Charles picked up the sealed scrolls, secured them in his ring, and walked calmly out of the guild hall, leaving only Ryan's hoarse cursing and scattered silence behind.
"YOU MOTHERLESS... I'LL KILL YOU—AAARGH!"
Charles paused at the door.
Turned his head just enough.
"I recommend you practice with your left arm," he said. "Assuming you can hold a chamber pot with it."
Outside, he summoned his Thunderhoof Stallion. The beast's black and blue hide was streaked with qi-lightning veins. It neighed, flaring its hooves with thunderous sparks.
Charles mounted in one smooth motion and rode toward the fog-shrouded wilds of the Timbermaw Thickets, his cloak billowing behind him like a war banner.
He reviewed the missions in his mind, one by one:
ACTIVE CONTRACTS: TIMBERMAW THICKETS
Timber-Tusk Boar Cull (Foundation Realm Rank 10)
Mossshell Scarab Nest Purge (Foundation Realm Rank 10–Peak)
Thornweb Spider Silk Harvest (Foundation Realm Rank 10–Low Core 1)
Camostride Lizard Elimination (Core Realm Rank 1)
Venomroot Basilisk Hunt (Core Realm Rank 1–Mid Tier)
Bogbone Golem Core Retrieval (Core Realm Rank 2)
Thicketscourge Queen Subjugation (Core Realm Rank 3 – Elite)
"Foundation Nine or not," he murmured, voice sharp as frost, "I'm not here to impress them. I'm here to sharpen my edge."
Cull the Swine, Feed the Empire
The Timbermaw Thickets did not want people to come in.
They weren't in the woods. They were a living thing. It watched, just as everything else that lived did.
Mist moved between the bark-covered trunks like veins beating slowly. Vines hung low with bulbs full of spores that glowed softly, like hearts. When you touched them, ferns hissed softly. Roots moved underfoot like snakes teasing the unwary.
When Charles stepped inside the perimeter, the whole floor of the thicket shook as if it were breathing.
"Well," he said, loosening his neck until it popped, breaking the silence. "Let's see the pigs."
A scroll opened up in front of him with a flick of his wrist and reviewed the mission glyphs:
D+ RANK – MISSION IN PROGRESS]
TIMBER-TUSK BOAR CULL
Goal: Get 2 Timber-Tusk Fangs and 1 Hardened Hide Patch
Status: Active | Repeatable
Reward: 100 gold coins and a Boar-Repellent Herbal Pack
Notes: Bristlebacks live in groups that are their own. Aggression goes up near breeding mounds.
Charles grinned, snapped the scroll shut, and cracked his knuckles.
"Let's overachieve."
With a pulse of qi, his spatial ring responded and unleashed a brief ripple of raw elemental force that warped the air around him.
From the void appeared Raijin's Emberfang, a jagged, obsidian-black sword humming with lightning and wrapped in golden-red fire veins that seemed to lick the edges of reality. This was not just a weapon. It was a sentence.
In his other hand, the Gauntlet of the Elemental Ascendant ignited, covering his left forearm in molten-threaded mythril and obsidian. Primordial runes shimmered across the gauntlet's surface as fire, lightning, earth, and darkness answered the call like old gods waking from their graves.
His fingers curled slowly inside the gauntlet, savoring the weight of annihilation.
"Alright, SIGMA," Charles said, lowering his stance. "Let's boar down."
Pun detected. Severity: Unforgivable. Battle protocols initiated.
Scanning terrain... three bristleback herds converging. 100+ targets detected. You're either bold or deeply disturbed.
"Why not both?" he quipped.
The earth trembled.
And then it began.
BOOM.
A huge Timber-Tusk. The boar crashed through the trees like a nightmare battering ram. Hide that looks like bark and is plated like armor. Tusks that look like two claymores. Eyes glowing red with anger over territory.
Charles didn't move.
He disappeared.
Flashstep.
He was on the ground one moment. Next, he appeared again in the air above the charging beast, Emberfang raised high and qi blazing from his core in a storm of rage.
"Raijin Art - Sky-Sunder Arc!"
The blade fell like a divine judgment, leaving behind a crescent of crackling light.
CRACK.
The skull of the boar broke cleanly in half. The body slid several feet before falling into a steaming silence.
"One."
But the forest did not rest.
The mist parted in waves, revealing dozens, then hundreds more. A wall of muscle, tusks, and death charged toward him, hooves pounding and mouths foaming with rage.
Most men would scream.
Charles smiled.
"Let's see if you can trample lightning."
The Cull Begins
He landed in the center of the herd like a dropped comet.
BOOM!
The ground cratered beneath his feet.
Left gauntlet surged with elemental light, lightning coiling over molten fissures along the runes.
"Titanheart Anvil Fist – Anvil Drop!"
He slammed his fist into a charging boar's skull.
CRUNCH.
The beast launched backwards like a missile, slammed into a tree, and detonated in a mist of bones and fur.
"Two."
Another lunged from his blind side.
Too slow.
Charles moved in a blur, Phantom Veil Steps leaving behind silver wisps and afterimages. He reappeared behind the creature as it lunged.
Emberfang pierced its spine.
CRACKLE. Lightning danced inside its body before it even hit the ground.
"Three."
Then the storm truly began.
A tidal wave of beasts surged toward him. Rage incarnate.
Charles lowered his stance and drew his breath inward, summoning his qi like thunder gathering behind mountains.
"Raijin Dome – Flashguard Pulse!"
A dome of electricity exploded from his core.
KRAKATHOOM!
Six boars combusted mid-charge. The rest stumbled as their hides singed and their eyes rolled from concussive shock.
"Nine."
A tusk sliced toward his ribs. Charles ducked low and surged upward, leading with his gauntlet, and drove a burning uppercut into the beast's jaw.
Titanheart Pulse!
The creature was in the air before it knew it was dead.
"Ten."
Blood soaked the moss under his feet. Lightning cut glowing lines through the herd. With each swing, Emberfang got less clear, turning flesh into smoldering ash. The Gauntlet roared with every punch, breaking bones and confidence with each hit.
Charles didn't only fight.
He did a dance.
Like lightning learning how to kill.
When the last Timber-Tusk squealed, the thicket looked more like a graveyard than a forest. The trees had broken. The ground was blackened. Instead of dew, the moss cried blood.
Charles stood in the middle of the wreckage, breathing heavily. His sword hummed, and his gauntlet glowed with leftover fire.
He turned his neck again. This time, a little more slowly.
He looked around at the destruction and said, "Well. That got worse and worse until it was genocide."
[Confirmed kills: 100 Timber-Tusk Boars.
Mission Requirement: 2. Conclusion: You're not very good at moderation.]
"Correction," Charles said, putting Emberfang back in its sheath with one last hiss of steam. "I'm really good at overkill."
[Mission accomplished: timber-tusk cull
Goal Achieved: Very Satisfactory
Total collected: 200 Timber-Tusk Fangs and 100 Hardened Hide Patches.
Number of kills: 100
Weapon Skill: +6% for Emberfang and +4% for Gauntlet
Technique Advancement: +5% (Phantom Veil Steps), +3% (Titanheart Anvil Fist)
Loot Received:
Reward in Gold: 150,000 Gold Coins
Boar King's Bone-Threaded Cloak unlocked – Gives +15% resistance to piercing damage; can hold 3 emergency healing charges.
More Loot: 3× Elixirs for Boar-Blood Recovery
Beast Core: 1 Elder Timber-Tusk Core (Grade C) – Affinity for Fire and Earth
Title Unlocked: The Timbermaw Butcher
Reputation Gained: +400 with the Velmora Chapter of the Mercenary Guild]