Ophieus continued forward through the split fog and heard it.
The ground shaking as if something heavy was not only moving but smashing against something.
He didn't rush toward it and simply continued with his normal as if there wasn't any danger ahead. Soon he saw figures coming out through the gray first, and there were four of them. They were all wearing black armor and dark cloaks with their weapons already drawn, and that was the detail that mattered.
He saw how they were backing away with their arms trembling as they gripped their swords. Then he saw it, a silver box appeared above those figures.
[Dark Warden Knights]
[Human]
[Awakening]
Dark Warden Knights? From Ansem, if he remembered correctly.
The 5th Legion again.
Predictable.
They always had a habit of using others when situations exceeded their preferred operational parameters.
It was efficient in theory and irritating in practice.
They liked to call in favors and let other people's soldiers absorb the first casualties. Considering this forest and whatever had turned those people gray, he supposed the decision was warranted this time.
Still.
They had already lost.
They just hadn't accepted it yet.
He kept walking toward the sounds of fighting.
As their formation began breaking.
One dark knight swung his blade and it slashed through the gray fog. But the blade passed through the thing ahead as if he was just striking fog or cutting through water that wouldn't part.
It did nothing at all.
"We need to fall back, hurry up!" Another dark knight shouted through the chaos.
Too late for warnings now.
Their formation broke apart like wet paper.
"We can't run!" The lead knight's voice cut through the fog with desperate authority. "It will just chase us to the others and..."
But the Abomination moved before he could finish. A black limb swept across the space where the two knights stood, impossible to tell if it was arm or leg or something else entirely. But the limb swiftly crashed into them and a terrifying sight unfolded.
The first knight's armor folded inward on itself, his entire right side was bent as the black began cutting through his side. The sounds of metal breaking echoed through the forest before the man screamed and then nothing. The second knight tried to dodge but was only halfway before the limb caught him by his leg.
Instantly a leg flew in the air as the knight crashed down on the ground.
But before the second knight could move, the limb rushed down and pierced through the knight body. Then it dragged him away towards where it was making Ophieus's eyes narrow with interest.
Two knights were gone in seconds.
The remaining two froze in place like they were prey standing before a predator. Their brains trying to process what their eyes had just seen and failing completely.
Ophieus kept walking forward while studying what had just happened. That black limb easily tore through the dark armor and yet it didn't seem to be in a rush to kill them.
Then he saw it clearly.
The Abomination stood towering above the Dark Warden Knights. It had a massive body made out of feathers and bone masks with multiple limbs extending out of it. And on its face was a bone ox mask with two crimson eyes that were glowing.
It didn't roar or make any sound.
It didn't move.
It just looked at them with whatever passed for eyes.
The screen flashed again in his peripheral vision with more information.
[Beast Abomination]
[Abomination]
[Awakening]
He read it once before looking closely at the battle.
The third dark knight rushed forward after somehow regaining his courage. As he closed in, his blade instantly became two times bigger, the straight sword quickly became a greatsword.
'Is that his Crest? Increasing the size of his weapon?' Ophieus noted that it wasn't just the size but magic was infused in the blade.
But it still wasn't enough.
The knight drove his massive great sword forward with everything he had left, every muscle and every ounce of will thrown into one final strike. The blade struck the Beast Abomination's chest and rushed through with some bones and feathers falling down to the ground.
But the Beast Abomination didn't react to the hit. Just simply looked at the knight the same way it had looked at the other two before killing them.
Reality seemed to sink into Dark Warden Knight as his hands started shaking. He'd put everything into that strike, everything he had, his strongest attack and his last hope, and it had done nothing.
The abomination didn't even flinch.
"No… How aren't you affected…" The dark knight whispered in disbelief. "Could it be that you aren't a low tier one..."
The Abomination's hand twitched slightly and the dark knight trembled before he quickly stumbled backwards with a gasp. The other dark quickly grabbed his shoulder before pulling him away while pointing his sword at the abomination.
Neither of them actually ran, instead backing away while still facing it.
Ophieus nodded at this, the moment they tried they turned their back, then they would be torn apart. But it didn't matter much since they would be dead soon if nothing was done.
And so he stepped out of the fog into the open clearing.
The fog shifted, not from movement but from an invisible pressure. The Abomination stopped moving towards the dark knights and shifted its gaze towards Ophieus.
For the first time, it didn't look at prey.
But at something else.
Ophieus noticed how the two knights' faces flickered into confusion and then recognition.
"Wait..." The first knight's voice cracked with surprise. "That's... is that..."
"Ophieus." The second knight breathed the name in shock and disbelief. "But they said he stayed back to fight..."
"…That's impossible." The first knight trembled. "He should be dead if he stayed–"
There was clear recognition on their faces now.
"It doesn't matter, he survived!" The second knight found his voice again despite everything. "Ophieus, we need to..."
But Ophieus just walked past them without stopping, not rudely or dismissively. But like they were scenery, like their recognition and their fear and their need to warn him weren't important enough to be acknowledged.
His eyes stayed locked on the Beast Abomination ahead because that mattered and they didn't.
"...fall back together!" the dark knight finished in a rush of words tumbling out. "We can't fight that thing! We need to inform the others..."
Ophieus didn't look at them and continued forward, making the two Dark Warden Knights fall silent. The knights exchanged a quick glance and whatever they'd been about to say died in their throats because something about the way he moved.
The complete lack of hesitation.
The way he approached the thing that had just torn their companions into pieces like he was taking a casual walk.
It made them move back without another word.
"Is he planning to..." The first knight's voice dropped to barely a whisper.
"I don't know," the second answered quietly.
The Beast Abomination at first looked at Ophieus the way it had looked at the knights before. But then it paused and its demeanor seemed to change as if something in it recognized he was a threat.
Ophieus crossed the open ground with the same unhurried attention he'd used in the fog and then once he was closed.
He rushed towards it.
Four quick steps closed the distance and Dark Animas swept towards the Abomination's side and crashed into it.
For a second nothing happened at all.
Then the impact finally registered and the Beast Abomination's body gave way slightly. Not much and barely visible but it definitely gave, the flesh pressing inward and bone shifting underneath.
Good.
That meant it could break.
The Beast Abomination's response came immediately after, one of its limbs coming around low and fast. Ophieus couldn't even tell if it was an arm or a leg or something that had been both and was now neither.
Too fast to fully dodge.
The Beast Abomination crashed into him after he raised his sword.
But he was still sent flying as air exploded from his lungs. He felt everything stopped working as he tore through the air after being launched off the ground. Only fifteen feet passed before he regain control of his body and twisted his body to land properly.
His boots hit the ground hard and skidded across the dirt before he finally stopped.
A chime rang out.
[Your body has changed.]
[Endurance 12.5% → 13.1%]
[Damage threshold recalibrating...]
Ophieus stood up and his breathing came shallow because he couldn't get full air into his lungs. Something cracked but he can keep fighting. His grip hadn't loosened on the sword even once and that mattered more than the pain.
He hadn't been pushed back like this by anything else he'd fought since arriving.
Until now.
Something in him adjusted.
Not consciously.
Ophieus rolled his shoulder in a small circle to test his range of motion and pain spiked through the movement, but everything still worked. He looked at the Beast Abomination carefully, and saw the damaged flesh was already healing.
"...Not bad," he said quietly while his grip tightened on the sword handle.
'Perfect.'
Not an enemy but a key.
There were two ways to awaken a Crest.
He didn't have an awakening stone. and so, he chose the other. Bring the body to the edge of death. When a person was close enough to dying, their true values surfaced and their Crest responded.
He had planned to find something capable of doing this without actually killing him. Something strong enough to matter but not strong enough to finish it.
This creature was exactly that.
He had not expected to find his tool this quickly. But he was fortunate and looking forward to experiencing the feeling of a Crest.
"Move back." Ophieus said to the knights behind him.
They moved without any argument, whatever had kept them in position before had been completely stripped away.
The Beast Abomination stomped on the ground before rushing forward. The fog tore apart violently on both sides of its body and the trees at the clearing's edge actually leaned away from the pressure.
The two knights behind Ophieus took three more steps backward without even realizing they'd moved. It was pure survival instinct kicking in deeper than conscious thought.
The Beast Abomination moved too fast for its size. Faster than the limb that had already hit him once.
Ophieus didn't step back or move away from it.
His eyes tracked the way its weight was distributed, the angle it was leading with, the exact point where it would arrive.
He had maybe three seconds before impact.
The Black Animas shifted position in his left hand while his right hand gripped the sword made from Beast Festival even tighter.
He smiled at what was coming. "Now you qualify."
The next moment arrived and the trees disappeared in a massive shockwave.