I stepped forward before either of them could say anything.
"Might as well," I muttered.
I crouched down beside the massive body. Up close, the creature looked even more monstrous. Its bone plates were cracked from the fight, blood pooling beneath its massive torso.
My hand hovered over it.
Then I said the word.
"Devour."
Purple flames exploded across the beast's body.
They spread much faster than before, devouring the corpse in seconds. Crimson particles surged upward in thick streams, flowing straight into my palm.
The sensation hit harder than any devour before it.
Heat surged through my entire body, like someone had poured liquid fire into my veins.
"...Whoa."
The corpse collapsed inward rapidly, dissolving into ash-like fragments before disappearing completely.
Several notifications appeared at once.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Attribute gained: Strength +3
Attribute gained: Vitality +2
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
"That one was worth it."
I blinked, suddenly remembering I had leveled up twice just a few minutes ago.
"Oh right."
I opened my status again.
Level: 3.
Twenty Attribute points.
I whistled quietly.
"Looking good."
I thought about it for a moment.
Strength had already been useful.
Agility kept me alive.
Vitality and Endurance were both important if I didn't want to die in the next five minutes.
As for Intelligence... It could wait. Probably.
"Alright."
I started assigning points.
Strength +6
Agility +6
Endurance +4
Vitality +4
The numbers shifted instantly.
My body reacted immediately.
My muscles tightened slightly, energy flooding through my limbs as if I'd just rested for hours.
"Okay," I muttered, rolling my shoulders. "Yeah, that feels nice."
Pleased with myself I checked my current Attributes
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[SYSTEM STATUS]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Name: Endo
Level: 3 [F-Rank]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Attributes
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Strength: 23
Agility: 18
Endurance: 16
Vitality: 18
Intelligence: 10
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Skills & Authorities
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Apocalypse [max lvl]
Devour [lvl. 1]
Critical Strike [lvl. 1]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
'Heh. Looks pretty nice.'
Only then did I notice the silence behind me.
I turned around.
Both girls were staring at me.
Emily's mouth was slightly open.
Lyrielle's expression remained calm, but her golden eyes were focused sharply on my hand.
"Uh... What?" I asked.
Emily pointed at the empty space where the Ravager had been.
"You just… burned it."
I blinked.
"Oh."
'Right.'
'That probably looked weird.'
"Technically," I said, scratching the back of my neck, "I didn't really burn it."
Emily stared harder.
"That thing turned into purple fire and its ashes went into your hand."
"...Fair."
Lyrielle spoke this time.
Her voice was calm.
"Your skill?"
I nodded.
"Yeah."
I lifted my hand slightly.
"It's called Devour. It consumes dead entities and converts them into attribute gains."
Emily blinked several times.
"That sounds incredibly broken."
I shrugged.
"I'm not complaining."
Lyrielle studied me quietly for a moment longer.
Then she nodded once.
"Efficient."
That was apparently all the judgment I was getting from her.
Emily, on the other hand, still looked half amazed.
"Okay, wow. That explains why there's blood all over the place without any corpses."
I froze slightly.
"...You noticed that?"
She shrugged.
"I mean, yeah? Would be hard not to."
"...Right."
'Maybe she isn't as stupid as I originally thought.'
Emily suddenly straightened slightly.
"Oh right!"
She pointed at herself.
"I guess introductions are a thing."
She grinned.
"I'm Emily."
Then she gestured to the white-haired girl beside her.
"And that's Lyrielle."
Lyrielle inclined her head slightly.
"Lyrielle."
I nodded.
"Endo."
Emily crossed her arms.
"So, Endo... what level are you?"
"Three."
Her eyebrows shot up immediately.
"So you were level 1 Fighting this thing with us?"
Lyrielle looked mildly surprised as well.
"Hard to believe that you surpassed us with just one kill."
"Blame the big guy," I said, gesturing toward where the Wolf used to be.
Emily sighed dramatically.
"Lyrielle and I are still level two."
"Close enough." I added.
I tilted my head slightly.
"Let me guess."
"You two got the same objective?"
Emily nodded immediately.
"Yep."
She gestured toward the mountain above us.
"Find and destroy the Three Treasures of the Lost King inside Eclipse Mountain."
'...!'
"I also have that as my objective." I said.
Emily blinked.
"Wait, seriously?"
I nodded.
"Exact same wording."
Lyrielle glanced toward the dark slopes above us.
"...Then we are on the same path."
Emily's face lit up instantly.
"Which means—"
She pointed at all three of us.
"Party time."
I forced a awkward smile.
"Something like that."
Lyrielle looked between the two of us.
"We do have better chances as a group though.."
Emily nodded enthusiastically.
"See? Even she agrees."
I looked up toward the jagged mountain looming above us.
The eclipse still hung overhead like a silent watcher.
It didn't take long for us to begin climbing towards the Eclipse Mountains.
The terrain became steeper almost immediately.
The cracked plains behind us slowly gave way to jagged rock and narrow paths that twisted between large stone outcrops. Loose gravel slid under our boots with every step, forcing us to move carefully.
The wind was stronger here. And unfortunately, a lot colder too.
It rushed down the mountainside in sharp bursts, carrying with it the faint metallic scent that seemed to cling to the entire Abyss.
Emily exhaled loudly as she climbed over a broken ridge.
"God," she said between breaths, "I'm freezing. I can't even feel my hands anymore."
I glanced back at her.
"You're the one who said no when we talked about making a campfire to rest and warm up."
"That's because it wasn't cold when we started climbing!" she protested.
Lyrielle walked ahead of both of us, moving steadily up the incline.
Her pace never seemed to change.
Not faster. Not slower. It was weirdly consistent, no matter how uneven the terrain had gotten.
She paused briefly at a narrow bend in the path and looked down toward us.
"Noise attracts attention."
Emily groaned quietly.
"Even the mountain has rules?"
I chuckled.
"Pretty sure that rule exists everywhere."
Emily muttered something under her breath but lowered her voice.
We continued climbing.
The slope gradually narrowed until the rocky path squeezed between two tall stone walls. The passage curved slightly upward, blocking our view of the higher mountain.
Which meant something could easily be waiting around the corner.
I slowed my steps.
"So," I said quietly, "How did you two even find that beast earlier?"
Emily rubbed the back of her neck.
"We ran into it randomly while trying to find a path up."
Lyrielle answered without turning around.
"It was guarding the approach path."
"Guarding?" I repeated.
"That's what it looked like," Emily added. "It wasn't wandering like the other beasts we had seen. It stayed in one area."
"Huh."
Lyrielle stepped onto a higher ledge and scanned the terrain ahead.
"Not all of them are stupid. Territorial behavior is normal even for normal wolf's back on earth."
I frowned slightly.
"So technically, random monsters could be up here, waiting to ambush us?"
Emily grimaced.
"Which suggests we might be walking right into a trap as we speak."
"Some of them might be smart enough to stay back though." I added.
Neither of them argued with that.
We climbed in silence for a few minutes after that.
Then something strange caught my eye.
"...Hold on."
I crouched near a patch of stone near the path.
Scratches.
Deep ones.
Like claws had been dragged across the rock repeatedly.
Emily leaned over my shoulder.
"Oh... that's concerning."
Lyrielle stepped down beside us and studied the marks carefully.
"Something... Large."
I nodded.
"Definitely bigger than the Wolfs."
Emily slowly looked up the mountain.
"...Please tell me It's a low level atleast."
I stood up.
"Something tells me it isn't."
The wind shifted again.
And this time—
A distant sound echoed through the mountain.
Not a howl. Not a roar.
Something much heavier.
A deep rumbling growl that seemed to vibrate through the stone itself.
Emily froze.
Lyrielle's golden eyes narrowed slightly as she looked further up the path.
"It's not alone."
I followed her gaze.
At first I didn't see anything.
Then—
Movement.
Shapes shifting between the rocks higher on the slope.
Definitely more than one.
Emily whispered.
"How many is that?"
I squinted.
"...Three."
The shapes stepped forward slowly.
Four Abyss Beasts emerged from the shadows of the rocks above us.
But these weren't the same wolves.
They were larger. Broader.
Their bone plates were thicker, their claws longer.
A new system prompt appeared beside them.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Abyss Beast ×3
[lvl. 8]
[F-Rank]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Emily sighed.
"Of course there are Three."
I rolled my shoulders and lifted my sword.
I glanced at Lyrielle.
Then at Emily.
"Guess that mountain really doesn't want visitors."
Lyrielle stepped forward, blade lowering into position.
Her voice remained calm.
"...Formation."
Emily immediately moved to my right side.
I exhaled slowly.
"Got it."