Scene 1 — TJ vs Boss
Feeling the numbness in my arms from the tiger's claw, I finally got a full look at the beast coming into view. Black fur with gray stripes. One eye missing. One fang broken. It roared at me like the jungle itself was backing it.
Its core gave it away immediately.
Early A-rank.
Recently pushed up from High B, but already stable enough that the pressure rolling off it felt heavier than it should. I released my mid A-rank core in response, the heat in my body surging as it barely forced the beast's aura back.
The tiger moved before I did.
Its right claw scraped through the ground, sending rocks flying with it as it descended on me. I was forced back a step, snapping my spear up to deflect the debris before it could block my sight.
I kept my eyes locked on the tiger.
Its left paw began to glow black with dark astral energy.
I answered in kind.
Flames coated my spear, using light and heat to push against the heavier darkness gathering around its claw.
"Hunt of the Reapers."
I struck out multiple times, my spear flashing forward in a chain of killing blows. The large tiger avoided the clean hits by narrow margins, letting my attacks roll off its astral-coated fur. Before I could press harder, another claw came for my neck.
I had to stop attacking and deflect.
Again.
No wasted motion.
No hesitation.
Every strike it threw was meant to kill.
I enhanced my foot with flame and drove a front kick into its chest to force it back and steal a moment of space.
It answered with an energy attack shaped like its claws.
I reacted on instinct, forcing the surrounding astral energy to combust into a pillar of flame that swallowed the attack whole.
It also cost me.
And worse, the tiger used my own fire pillar against me.
Its body slipped through the blaze and a claw raked across my chest. I barely stepped back enough to turn a killing strike into a graze, but three bloody lines still opened across me.
Ignoring my ruined shirt, I struck back at once.
My spear, still coated in flame, landed perfectly into its side.
The tiger flung its body away, trying to rip the weapon free through brute force. I held on and used my own weight as counterbalance, twisting with it until I tore the spear back out.
Now both of us were bleeding.
The tiger began to circle me while I watched astral energy gather around its wound, slowing the blood loss. It wasn't panicking. It was adjusting.
So I pressed forward.
More spear strikes.
More killing intent.
More attempts to break its rhythm before mine failed first.
But I already knew the truth.
That last flame pillar had cost me another quarter of my astral energy just to attract that kind of reaction from the surrounding atmosphere. I was already floating below half my total capacity.
The tiger, meanwhile, kept moving like it could do this all day.
I forced it to keep stepping back, kept charging so it couldn't fully regain control, and realized Thomas's methods might be the only way to overpower this thing at all.
The fight turned into a slug match.
Killing blows traded back and forth, the tiger's larger body slowly forcing me backward. Its oversized claws kept sending me rolling or barely escaping by inches, and every graze mattered more than the last.
The damage from its claws couldn't be understated.
My body kept getting heavier as the blood loss built up.
"It's outlasting me on vitality."
I gained a little distance and shoved more astral energy into the spear, this time focusing everything on the tip that kept failing to land a killing blow. I removed the outer layer of astral energy around my body entirely.
No defense.
No balance.
Just one shot.
"One shot. Now or never."
I forced flame to harden under my feet and used it to launch myself at the tiger.
That caught it off guard for the first time.
I drove the spear into its side—
Then forced the flames running along the shaft to expand into a larger spear tip inside the beast itself.
Its insides ignited.
Real pain hit it then.
But not before it hit me back.
The tiger sent me flying into a tree, and this time I lost my spear. I dropped hard and had to refocus fast, vision swimming, just in time to see the tiger charging me while flames spewed from its mouth.
I raised my hands—
Then froze.
It stumbled.
Its front legs gave out.
It tripped, slid, and crashed down in front of me as the flames inside it continued ravaging its body.
I stared, breathing hard, trying to catch up to the moment.
The Beast King of the Jungle was dead.
And I was left standing there with one ugly truth settling into place.
"I'm the first one to clear an A-rank boss."
Scene 2
"You owe me lunch, Ms. Tia. Like I said, he'd pull through."
I glanced over at Ten, who was grinning like he'd just won a life-changing fortune.
"Yeah, I'll get you a gift card," I said. "You really thought it was that easy to get a date with me? Try again, young man."
His expression collapsed so fast I almost laughed.
"Come on, Ms. Tia. I won fair and square."
Below us, TJ had already started dissecting the beast for its core and usable materials.
"Yeah, you won," I said. "But the deal was lunch. Not a date. Maybe once you grow a beard, we'll revisit that part."
Ten looked one second away from fake crying.
"Fine," he said. "I'll just go trade TJ for the core. I needed a dark-type core to study anyway."
That made my grin widen.
"The odds of him agreeing are very slim," I said. "He normally gives all his materials to his cousin to study."
Ten looked up in horror like I'd just sentenced him to doing his own dungeon dives for the rest of the semester.
"Alexis is light type, though," he said. "Why would she ever need a dark-type core?"
I laughed.
"Not her, idiot. His older cousin Lily. Fourth year. Though she works with the researchers enough that she might as well be a fifth year."
That got his attention.
"The Society even handed her a title because of her unique nature when it comes to studying Odin and the Explorers' accounts about the Astral Sea," I continued. "And whoever her patron is…"
I let the thought hang for a second, bitterness slipping in before I bothered to hide it.
"They make Thomas look like a normal follower of his god."
Ten went quiet after that.
Hard not to.
This second generation didn't just have talent.
They had the best support possible backing them, while the rest of us had to stumble through a majority of the path on our own.