Location: Inside the Glitchy Gate (The Primeval Forest)
Date & Time: Unknown
The Wall of Fire was radiating a blistering, hellish heat, but the combined weight and primeval instincts of nearly eighty C-Rank bears proved to be an unstoppable force.
The bears at the rear pushed those at the front with ruthless desperation. Screaming in agony and wreathed in flames, approximately twenty C-Rank beasts crashed through the fiery barricade, landing directly amidst the fifty terrified D-Rank Dungers.
The line was shattered.
Terror gripped the Dungers as they abandoned their positions, fleeing in a frantic, uncoordinated mess. But their speed was a joke compared to the C-Rank predators. One bear reared up, its massive claw poised to shred a D-Ranker who had tripped in the mud.
The Peak C-Rank leader, still in the thick of the fray, saw his squad on the brink of annihilation. The extreme psychological pressure and the raw desperation to save his men reached a critical threshold, triggering a violent, structural eruption within his mana core.
Suddenly, a high-pitched, piercing hiss cut through the forest. The leader's massive frame hovered nearly a foot off the ground. A blinding, crystalline white radiance erupted from his chest, illuminating the darkened primeval jungle as if it were midday. The light was so intense it momentarily blinded Dungers, C-Rankers, and monsters alike.
When the light receded two seconds later, the leader stood firmly on the ground. But he was no longer the same man.
His aura was no longer vibrating; it had become so dense and solidified that the very earth and fallen leaves were pushed away by the sheer pressure of his presence. He had shattered the limits of the ordinary. He was now officially a B-Ranker.
With this new echelon of power, he instantly executed a desperate survival maneuver.
The leader closed his eyes, compressing his newly awakened B-Rank mana within his chest for a micro-second. Then, he thrust his arms wide, releasing a sharp, invisible mana-wave—a frequency—that rippled through a 50-meter radius.
High above in the canopy, Rudra felt the wave hit his sharpened C-Rank senses like a physical blast.
"What was that?" Rudra questioned, his eyes narrowing at the phenomenon below.
"Ascension... and a powerful tactical skill," Ruin Soul's icy voice calculated. "That man is now a B-Ranker. He just activated 'Mana Beacon.' He compressed his mana and released it as a high-frequency spike—a 'dog-whistle' designed specifically to irritate the sensory organs of monsters. Their wild instincts will now force them to destroy the source at any cost."
Ruin Soul's analysis was 100% accurate.
The bears that had been seconds away from disemboweling the D-Rankers suddenly froze. Their crimson eyes snapped away from the weak prey. The heavy energy of the Mana Beacon had effectively masked the mana of every other human in the area. To the monsters, there was now only one target, one absolute threat in the entire forest—the new B-Rank Leader.
"Absolute Aggro... Target Lock," Rudra thought, his emotionless face showing a flicker of surprise behind his mask. "To save these weaklings, he took the target of an entire jungle's death upon himself? What an illogical, suicidal decision."
To a pure survivor like Rudra, the act made no tactical sense. But to the leader, it was his ultimate duty.
Amidst the roaring jungle fires, the remaining 40 to 50 bears shifted their weight. They let out a unified roar and, like a black flood, charged toward the leader. The very ground began to crack under their collective mass.
But the leader stood like an immovable mountain. He gripped his Magitech sword with both hands, the blade now shimmering with a solid, deep layer of B-Rank mana.
As the first bear leaped, the leader became a blur.
B-Rank speed was far beyond the tracking capabilities of a normal C-Ranker's vision. In a micro-second, the leader appeared behind the beast, and the bear's massive head was already spinning through the air, severed cleanly from its shoulders.
What followed was an absolute, one-sided slaughter.
The leader moved forward. He wasn't just killing the bears; he was erasing them. A single horizontal swing split three massive bodies in half. A vertical slash tore a charging beast from skull to pelvis. His movements were faster than the flickers of the fire around him. He plunged into the very heart of the horde.
Every second brought a new fountain of hot blood spraying into the sky. The sharp swoosh of the blade drowned out the roars of the dying. The C-Rank monsters that had been the heralds of death for the Dungers were being harvested like common grass before this B-Ranker. Their claws couldn't even graze his dense mana armor.
In minutes, the forest went silent.
The fires still flickered, but not a single bear remained alive. The carcasses of 70 to 80 massive C-Rank monsters, severed limbs, and heaps of flesh lay scattered across the battlefield. The ground had been transformed into a mire of thick, crimson mud.
In the center of that red sludge stood the leader. His breathing was heavy, and thick blood dripped from his Magitech blade. The other four C-Rankers and the fifty D-Rankers stood frozen, staring at this 'God-like' display of dominance with a mixture of terror and awe. No one spoke a word.
Rudra, hidden in the dark heights of the ancient tree, observed the results coldly. The N.D.A.I. squad was saved, and his 'Feast'—the massive pile of high-density energy—was now laid out perfectly beneath his feet.
Chapter Summary
The Ascension: Under extreme pressure, the squad leader undergoes Ascension, reaching B-Rank.
Mana Beacon: The leader uses the 'Mana Beacon' skill to draw the absolute aggression (Aggro) of all monsters onto himself, saving the D-Rank Dungers.
The Massacre: The B-Rank leader slaughters 70–80 C-Rank bears in minutes, demonstrating the massive power gap between C and B Rank.
Rudra's Perspective: Rudra views the leader's self-sacrifice as illogical but recognizes the opportunity it has created.
Current Status:
Leader: B-Rank (Exhausted but Victorious).
Rudra: C-Rank (17,420 MP).
Loot: 80 C-Rank carcasses (20,000 MP each) ready for harvest.