Alaric knew what this battle meant to him. It was going to be an important step for him, perhaps the most important of his life.
He had battled spirits for a long time, and he knew how powerful they were. But the strongest spirit he had killed or subdued was an A-Rank spirit.
This one... was an S-Rank.
Yet despite that, Alaric held no fear in his heart. S-Ranks weren't the apex of this world.
Supreme-rank creatures existed above them, and Moon had already slain one, had walked a path Alaric himself had not yet matched. That knowledge had burned in him for some time, driving his relentless training, feeding a hunger he'd never felt before having that conversation with Moon.
His will to progress, his determination to climb, had reached its absolute apex.
And this S-Rank pavilion spirit, was the wall he had to break through to prove he belonged among the truly strong.
