The forest was silent.But Hope's mind was filled with the roar of a collapsing building.
His boots sank into the soft earth, yet he could still feel the wind Bianca's kick had carved across his face. That moment… that millisecond… he had done nothing.
I couldn't calculate it, Hope thought as he shoved the branches ahead of him aside. I saw the muscle density. I saw the vector angle. But I couldn't react. Why?
He looked down at his hands. At his right hand, the one that summoned the scythe.
In dungeons, in narrow corridors, everything was simple. Walls were fixed. The ground was flat. Enemies came from predictable directions. The arena was the same. It was a stage, and Hope controlled the set.
But this place… was different.
He stumbled over a tree root.
"Damn it," he muttered. "I hate helplessness."
Behind him, Deniz walked without taking his hand off his sword's hilt. "Don't be so hard on yourself, kid. Those two… they weren't normal bandits. That girl's legs… and that fox… they were on a whole different level."
"They're not the problem," Hope said without turning back. "I am. In the arena, I set the rules. I beat everyone. I was the star fighter. But out here… out here, I couldn't do anything. What if that fox had hurt Lypin? What would I have done then?"
"Hope—" Lypin tried to speak, but Hope continued.
"I'm weak," Hope said, clenching his fist. "Math doesn't lie. If that tree hadn't fallen, my brain would be scattered across the dirt right now. Luck… an Architect can't rely on luck, Lypin. Luck is an excuse for bad engineering."
From the very back, Yaat murmured quietly, "Sometimes luck is fate's way of telling you 'not yet.'"
Hope didn't answer.
Because he saw something on the ground ahead.
Blood.
Not an ordinary blood trail. It looked as if someone had poured red paint onto the soil, and the earth had greedily swallowed it.
And drag marks. Hoof prints.
"We're close," Hope said. His voice had changed. The sad boy was gone, replaced by a cold hunter.
They followed the trail. The forest grew denser. The air thickened. The stench of rotting flesh and wet fur burned their throats.
Then they reached a small clearing.
The sight before them made Lypin cover her mouth and Yaat avert his eyes.
The horses were there.
Or what was left of them.
And something was feeding on them.
It had a humanoid shape, but the proportions were wrong. Its arms were longer than its legs, and from its elbows jutted sharp, bone spikes. It had no skin. Muscle fibers and veins were exposed, glistening wetly. It had no face. Only a vertical, tooth-filled slit running down to its chest.
"Bonebreaker," Deniz said quietly. "One of the filthiest creatures of the Wild Dungeons. No intelligence. No fear. Just hunger."
The creature lifted its head and bit down on a horse's thigh bone with a CRACK, like a cracker.
Then it turned toward the group. A guttural rasp escaped from that vertical maw.
Deniz drew his sword and stepped forward. "Stay back. Cutting that thing isn't easy. I'll distract it while—"
"No," Hope said.
He placed a hand on Deniz's shoulder and gently but firmly pulled him back.
"This one's mine."
"Hope, don't be stupid," Deniz said. "This isn't an arena duel. That thing doesn't follow rules. It'll tear you apart."
"I know," Hope said as he summoned his scythe. Green mana trembled in his palm. "That's exactly why. I need to learn."
Deniz saw the look in Hope's eyes. It wasn't a child's stubbornness. It was the obsessive gaze of a master burning to correct his mistake.
Deniz stepped back. "Don't die."
Hope stepped forward.
Bonebreaker snarled, abandoning its meal for fresh prey.
VUUUP!
The creature lunged on all fours like an animal. It wasn't as technical as Bianca, but its raw, feral explosiveness was terrifying.
Hope's mind kicked into automatic analysis.
[Ground analysis… Data unreliable. Roots irregular.][Wall analysis… No walls detected.][Environmental traps… Insufficient.]
"Damn it," Hope hissed. He couldn't lift the ground like in the arena. There wasn't enough time to bring trees crashing down.
His dungeon abilities were going blind in this chaotic forest.
The creature leapt, swinging its bony arm like a hammer.
Hope blocked with the shaft of his scythe.
BOOM!
He was thrown backward, his boots carving lines into the soil. His arms went numb.
"Strong," Hope said, gasping. "And erratic. I can't read its attack angles because it doesn't have any. It just hits."
The creature didn't stop. It attacked again, jaws opening wide to bite Hope's head off.
Hope rolled aside, but his shoulder scraped against the bone spike at its elbow. His shirt tore. His skin burned.
"Hope!" Lypin shouted.
He felt the pain.
And the pain sharpened his focus.
Structural analysis isn't working, he realized. Because this thing has no architecture. It's just… flesh and soul.
"If I can't control the outside," Hope said, closing his eyes and opening them again. Green flames ignited in his pupils. "Then I'll reinforce myself."
The creature attacked again.
This time, Hope didn't dodge.
He took a deep breath and redirected his mana. Not into the ground. Not into walls. But into his own body and his scythe.
[Skill Unlocked: Soul Resonance – Coating]
The scythe's blade was enveloped in dense green energy. It wasn't just light. It vibrated. It buzzed.
As the creature's claw came down, Hope swung.
"Cut."
VIZZZT.
Metal met bone. But this time it didn't bounce off. Hope's mana sharpened the blade on a molecular level.
The creature's bony arm was sliced clean off, spinning through the air like butter.
It screamed in agony. It didn't retreat. It grew even more enraged and attacked with its remaining arm.
Hope spun the scythe.
"I'm still too slow," he muttered. "If Bianca were here, she'd have struck three times before cutting that arm."
He redirected his mana to his legs. This wasn't a speed spell. It was brute-force overloading his muscle fibers with mana, pushing his structural limits.
[Soul Reinforcement: Leg Hydraulics]
When the creature leapt—
Hope vanished.
Only a cloud of dust and a green streak remained.
He reappeared behind the creature.
"Analysis complete," he said coldly. "You have no weak points. Because you're nothing but a pile of meat."
He raised the scythe.
"So I'll dismantle you entirely."
Green energy condensed at the blade's tip, forming a crescent.
"SOUL SEVER!"
The scythe fell.
This wasn't just a physical cut. It was a strike aimed at the creature's savage, hunger-driven soul.
The creature froze.
Its vertical mouth opened wide, but no sound came out.
A thin green line appeared down the center of its body, from head to groin.
Then it silently split in two.
When the halves hit the ground, there was no pool of blood. The wound edges were cauterized by green flames. And from the corpse rose a small green orb of light—its soul—which was absorbed into Hope's scythe.
Hope exhaled deeply. The green flames faded.
He dropped to one knee, leaning on his scythe.
Lypin rushed to his side. "Hope! You're hurt!"
She looked at the cut on his shoulder, placed her hands over it, and began casting healing magic.
"Just a scratch," Hope said, steadying his breath. "Your hands… they're warm again."
Deniz stared at the bisected corpse. Respect shone in his eyes.
"Soul power," he said. "So when your dungeon abilities fail, you switch to that?"
"I had no choice," Hope replied, standing up. "Architect abilities don't work well out here."
Yaat emerged from the bushes, trying not to look at the corpse.
"That thing… that bloodbath I saw. That was it," Yaat said. "But it wasn't alone."
Hope's head snapped up. "What?"
"I couldn't see the future. The fight was too fast," Yaat said, trembling. "But now I can hear it. The forest… the forest is answering."
From somewhere nearby—not far at all, just beyond the hill—came a sound.
A howl.
Not a wolf's howl.
It was the same sound the dead creature had made.
But not one.
Dozens. Maybe hundreds.
And at the center of them all, a deeper, heavier roar shook the ground itself.
Hope tightened his grip on the scythe.
His ego was broken, yes.
But now he had fused those broken pieces together with green fire.
"A pack," Hope said.
Deniz drew his sword. "Are we running?"
Hope looked toward the sound.
"We're too slow to run," he said. "And I'm tired of feeling helpless."
He turned to Lypin.
"Get your healing ready. Yaat, keep your eyes open. This night is going to be long."
Hope took a step into the darkness of the forest.
"Let them come. I'll take every soul they have."