The farther Drax walked into the forest, the quieter the world became. Not peaceful—expectant. As if the trees themselves held their breath.
Roots twisted like skeletal fingers. Mist crawled across the ground in slow, cold sheets. Every few steps, the wind carried distant roars—creatures warning each other that something unnatural had stepped into their domain.
Drax just rolled his shoulders.
His black blade hummed faintly on his back, as if eager.
"Good. Stay hungry," he muttered.
He was now deep in Ebonreach Forest, the ancient territory of Velgrid the Black Dragon. Monsters here didn't lurk. They ruled. Every breath in this forest was a declaration of supremacy.
Yet even they instinctively avoided the path where Drax walked.
His aura rippled behind him like a living eclipse.
He cut down a cluster of dire wolves without breaking stride—heads flying, bodies collapsing, their essence unraveling from their corpses like smoke sucked into a vortex. Drax never reached for it. His body devoured it on its own, feeding the Abyss.
Good… more. Keep struggling. It only makes the taste richer.
He sensed them before he saw them—the five presences deeper in the forest, positioned in a subtle pentagram formation.
Elijah. Sebastian. Raquan. Mike. Dannebrog.
The Rogue Five.
They weren't here to guard anything.
They were here to kill him.
"So," Drax exhaled, "you want my head that badly."
The first to reveal himself was Raquan—a burly inner world user whose domain radiated heat. He stepped out from behind a boulder, fire crackling across his arms.
"No words?" Raquan growled. "I like that. Makes it easier to burn your corpse."
Drax smirked. "If that's what helps you sleep."
Raquan's flames erupted around him in a spiraling inferno.
Then he vanished.
Shadow-step. Fire-burst. Realm-dash.
Impressive… for anyone but Drax.
The world blurred for half a second before Raquan appeared above Drax, fist descending like a flaming meteor—
Drax didn't dodge.
He simply raised his hand.
The flames that should've burned through steel touched his palm—and died.
Snuffed out like a candle.
Raquan froze in terror. "W-what…?"
Drax's expression didn't change.
"You're exhausting."
His hand closed around Raquan's throat.
Instantly, the man's essence spiraled out of his body, sucked into Drax's arm like ink into water.
Raquan shrieked—body shriveling as if age consumed him in seconds—and Drax crushed his neck, dropping the husk.
"One."
Leaves shifted.
Branches bent.
Sebastian lunged next—thin, masked, wielding two crescent blades drenched in poison. His movements were sharp, calculated, fast.
He aimed for tendons, arteries—places meant to immobilize prey.
He was good. Deadly.
For the average hunter.
But Drax didn't even unsheathe his blade.
He ducked a slash, tilted his head past another, then caught Sebastian's wrist mid-strike.
Bones snapped like brittle twigs.
Sebastian gasped, trying to retreat—
Drax drove his foot into Sebastian's chest, sending him flying into a tree so hard the trunk splintered apart.
Before Sebastian hit the ground, Drax was already there. His fingers pierced the man's chest, gripping the pulsing, writhing core of Sebastian's inner world.
Sebastian screamed—high, sharp, pathetic.
Drax whispered, "Two."
He crushed the core.
Sebastian's essence evaporated into the Abyss.
Drax dusted off his hand.
"Next."
A razor-thin whistle cut through the air. Spears—three of them—came flying simultaneously, spinning with impossible speed.
Ah. Elijah. The tactician.
From above, Elijah landed on a branch, cloaked in wind essence, hair floating weightlessly.
"You killed three A-ranks in under twenty seconds…" Elijah muttered, voice trembling. "No wonder the organization wants you gone."
"They want a lot of things," Drax replied. "Doesn't mean they'll get them."
Elijah hurled six more spears, each splitting into hundreds of razor-sharp fragments.
Drax exhaled once.
The shadows beneath him rippled.
The fragments dissolved mid-air, as if swallowed by something unseen.
Elijah's eyes widened. "Impossible—"
Drax crouched.
And vanished.
A heartbeat later, Elijah was slammed through the forest floor, dirt and stone exploding upward from the impact.
The tactician coughed blood, vision blurring.
"You…" he choked. "What… are you…?"
Drax leaned down, gripping Elijah by the hair.
"The one who owns this forest now."
He slammed Elijah's head into the earth.
Essence drained.
The body stilled.
"Three."
The forest fell silent, as if the trees themselves mourned—or feared.
But Drax wasn't done.
He turned his head left—toward a cloaked figure who had been watching from afar, hiding his presence with near-perfect control.
Mike.
Drax's grin sharpened.
"Your turn."
Mike's expression darkened. "You should've died with the others. But fine… I'll face you myself."
He lifted his hand.
And suddenly—
the forest trembled.
Reality distorted.
Mike's inner world exploded outward, a psychic storm ripping through the trees.
"Come, Drax Magna," Mike whispered, voice echoing unnaturally. "Let's see whose mind breaks first."
Drax's eyes gleamed.
"Good. I was hoping for someone interesting."
The world bent.
Shattered.
And the mental realm swallowed them both—