"Only two left."
The remaining beasts howled in fury and charged.
One came straight at me.
The other tried to circle behind.
"Not happening."
I kicked the severed head of the fallen wolf toward the second one, disrupting its movement for just a moment.
Then I stepped forward and slashed.
The blade carved across the first beast's throat.
Dark blood poured down its chest as it collapsed, choking.
The third beast hesitated.
Just for a tiny moment.
That moment was enough.
I lunged forward and drove the rusty sword into its ribs.
The creature shrieked and tried to claw at me, but I shoved my weight forward, forcing the blade deeper.
"...Stay down."
The beast twitched.
Then went still.
Silence returned to the mountainside.
I stood there for several seconds, breathing heavily.
"Okay."
I looked around.
Three bodies.
"That was way too close."
"I really got lucky with that critical strike."
I turned my head. Three corpses.
My hand slowly lifted.
Purple flames flickered across my palm.
"...Well."
I walked toward the first body.
"Might aswell make the most of this."
I knelt down and placed my hand on the dead beast.
"Devour."
Purple flames burst from my palm the moment the word left my mouth.
They spread across the corpse like liquid fire, crawling over the beast's grey skin and sinking into its flesh. The body shriveled quickly, collapsing inward as crimson particles lifted into the air and streamed toward my hand.
A notification appeared.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Attribute gained: Vitality +1
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
"Nice."
I flexed my fingers experimentally.
My breathing had already begun to steady. The exhaustion from the fight faded slightly, replaced by that strange warmth spreading through my body.
"Alright, round two."
I stepped toward the next corpse.
The scavenger still lay where it had collapsed, its throat torn open from my earlier strike. Dark blood had pooled beneath it, soaking into the dry earth.
"Devour."
Purple flames erupted again.
This time the process felt even faster, like the skill had found its rhythm.
The corpse collapsed into ash-like fragments as crimson motes rushed into my palm.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Attribute gained: Endurance +1
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
"Endurance, huh?"
I rolled my shoulders.
My muscles felt tighter. Less shaky than they had a moment ago.
"Not bad. But I haven't gained any intelligence even once."
"...These things don't seem particularly intelligent anyway."
'Two bodies gone.'
'One left.'
I walked over to the last beast slowly.
This one had taken the critical strike.
The rusty blade had punched clean through its neck, separating its head with more ease than I'd ever imagine possible.
"That one definitely carried the fight." I muttered.
For a second I just stared at it.
Then the hunger stirred again.
Stronger than before.
Three corpses in quick succession had clearly awakened something inside the skill.
Or maybe inside me. Hard to tell.
I crouched down.
Purple flames danced across my fingertips.
"Devour."
The corpse dissolved faster than the others.
Crimson particles surged into my palm in a sudden rush.
For a moment the warmth flooding my body was almost overwhelming.
A notification appeared.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Attribute gained: Strength +2
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
My eyes widened.
"...Two?"
I immediately opened my status.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Attributes
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Strength: 14
Agility: 12
Endurance: 12
Vitality: 12
Intelligence: 10
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
"It didn't seem any stronger than the others though."
I stood up slowly, staring at the numbers.
"Is the amount of attributes I gain based on luck?"
I swung the sword lightly through the air.
The blade cut forward faster than before.
My arms felt stronger.
My body lighter.
"Whatever. I can fogure that out later."
I glanced around the rocky terrain again.
The howling from earlier had stopped.
But that didn't mean the area was empty.
If anything, the Abyss probably had a lot more where those came from.
I lifted the sword and rested it on my shoulder.
"Eclipse Mountain." I murmured, looking up toward the looming peaks ahead.
The jagged slopes stretched higher now, their dark stone cutting into the crimson eclipse hanging in the sky.
Somewhere up there were the Three Treasures of the Lost King.
I started walking again.
"This place definitely isn't going to be easy."
Wind rushed down the mountain again, colder than before.
And as I stepped deeper into the rocky terrain—
A faint sound echoed from somewhere higher on the slope.
Not a howl. Not a growl.
Something else. A sound akin to metal scraping against stone.
I stopped walking.
For a moment I listened carefully.
The sound came again, closer this time.
And then, a voice called out
"HEY! WATCH OUT!"
My head snapped toward the sound just as something massive came crashing down the slope above me.
Stone shattered. Dust exploded into the air.
And a creature the size of a small horse burst through the rocks, sliding down the incline straight toward me.
"Oh come on."
The beast slammed into the ground barely ten meters away.
It looked like a wolf at first glance.
But only if someone had taken a wolf, stretched its limbs too long, and armored its back with jagged black bone plates. Its claws gouged deep lines into the rock as it struggled to regain its footing.
A system prompt flickered beside it.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Abyss Beast
[Lvl. 5]
[F-Rank]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Before I could even process the situation, two figures appeared at the top of the slope.
One of them shouted again.
"Move!"
I didn't argue.
The beast lunged the moment it stabilized.
I jumped sideways as its claws tore into the ground where I had been standing.
I scrambled back to my feet. "Just when things were getting manageable."
A flash of white dropped from the slope.
One of the two newcomers landed between me and the creature with surprising grace. Boots hit the stone with barely a sound.
She was tall. Lean.
Blonde hair fell down her back in long strands that moved slightly in the wind. Her eyes, a bright gold, were already locked onto the monster.
Calm.
Surprisingly calm.
She held a thin blade in one hand.
The wolf snarled and charged.
Her sword flashed.
The movement was so quick I barely followed it.
Steel met flesh.
The beast recoiled instantly as a long cut opened across its shoulder.
"She's good." I murmured under my breath.
Another voice shouted from the slope.
"Lyrielle, left!"
A second girl slid down the rocks behind her.
Brown hair tied loosely behind her head, eyes wide with focus as she skidded to a stop beside me.
"Oh thank god," she said, breathing hard. "You're okay."
"...I think?"
She looked me up and down quickly.
Rusty sword.
Blood stains.
Messy black hair and eyebags that put overworked office staff to shame.
"...Okay, at least you don't seem to be fatally injured."
'Rude.'
The Abyss Beast roared again.
Lyrielle stepped back lightly, keeping her blade between herself and the monster.
Her golden eyes flicked toward me and the brown-haired girl.
"Emily."
"I see it!"
Emily lifted her hand.
A faint circle of green light formed around her fingers.
"Try not to die!"
The wolf lunged again.
Lyrielle moved first.
She stepped forward instead of retreating, her sword cutting upward in a clean arc that forced the beast to twist away mid-attack.
The moment it turned—
Emily snapped her fingers.
"Now!"
A bolt of green energy shot from her palm and slammed into the Ravager's side.
The creature shrieked as the impact knocked it slightly off balance.
Lyrielle didn't hesitate.
She dashed forward.
Her blade drove straight toward the creature's throat—
The Ravager twisted violently.
The sword pierced its shoulder instead.
"Damn," Emily muttered.
The beast lashed out.
Its claws slammed into Lyrielle's guard, forcing her back several steps.
For the first time her expression tightened slightly.
Then those golden eyes flicked toward me.
"...You."
I blinked.
"Me?"
"Don't just stand there."
Her gaze moved briefly to the blood on my clothes.
Then to my bloodied blade.
"I trust you can handle yourself in a fight. Help us"
"...I mean—"
The Abyss Beast roared again and charged.
Lyrielle raised her sword.
"Please."
No panic or explanation.
Just a calm request.
I sighed and lifted my rusty blade.
"Fine," I muttered.
"Don't have much of a choice I guess."
The Wolf lunged once again...
And I got into Stance aswell this time.