Here's your polished English translation, formatted as a compelling fantasy novel excerpt with corrected inconsistencies and enhanced flow:
---
**Chapter X: The Last Stand of Gareth Frostmane**
*Huff... huff... "Damn it!"*
Gareth dragged his half-frozen, bleeding leg through the snow, his breath ragged. An old man following fading tracks—his combat skills laughable even at their best. Yet he'd volunteered for this suicide mission. All for those damned *Contribution Points* that might help his son forge a **World Core Vessel**.
Talent? He was second-rate at best. Pride? None to speak of. Just a father desperate to spare his boy the Academy's cruelty—the endless volunteer shifts mending wounded warriors, all to earn **Core Shards**. Those glittering fragments that attuned one to the World's Essence, guiding its flow to the navel to crack open a Vessel.
*Where is that cursed beast?*
Gareth leaned heavily on his right leg, his left a ruined mess. The thing that had mauled him was a nightmare given form—a half-human specter with a stag's skull for a head and cloven goat legs. Now vanished into the blizzard.
*Maybe it's gone.*
The thought had barely formed when the sound hit him—a wet, guttural *heaving*.
**"Wha—"**
Before him, rising like a mountain of shadow, stood a seven-meter goat-beast. The same phantom... but *solid*. Its obsidian fur glistened with hoarfrost as Gareth's body locked in primal terror.
*A Tier-III Beast.*
**"No... no... I can't—"**
His knees struck the snow. **"Please! I have a son! A-a boy...!"**
The beast *hissed* in the tongue of men, its voice like shattering steel. Gareth's spine turned to ice—*intelligent* Tier-III beasts were myths.
*Thud. Thud.*
He clutched at his chest, at the locket holding his child's portrait, as the monster took one earth-shaking step forward. Its arm rose, and Gareth saw his own blood frozen along its claws.
**"You bastard!"** Gareth spat, surging upright. **"I may be human, but I haven't forgotten my duty to purge your kind!"**
A blade of glacial ice crystallized in his grip. He lunged, plunging it deep into the beast's core—directly through his own **World Core Shard** embedded in the hilt.
Frost spiderwebbed up the monster's legs. For one heartbeat, it hesitated—then *shook* its arm like a dog shedding water, scattering ice.
Gareth's pupils contracted. *Crack!* His sword splintered against the beast's chest, leaving only a hairline wound.
Then came the whistle of wind.
He looked up—
—just as the creature's fist *obliterated* his skull.
*For you... my little Naim...*
Darkness.
---