As Sera walked back to his group after what he would proudly call his debut, each step felt like he was dragging lead weights. His face had gone pale, sweat beading on his forehead as his body trembled with exhaustion. The display of power had drained him like a punctured waterskin—he'd burned through 35 of his meager 50 spirit points in those few devastating seconds, with the ability devouring 3 points every heartbeat it remained active.
The truth was brutal: Sera was still just a novice drowning in an ocean of power he barely understood.
Since their grueling training, Sera had become obsessed with understanding both the Zen forest and the mysteries of his own transformed body. His system—once familiar as breathing when he was a god—now felt alien and unpredictable. Through countless experiments and near-death encounters, he'd discovered that consuming cores from creatures he'd already surpassed granted him precious attribute points. Five crazy-eyed monkey cores, with their innate Mirage Blitz ability which was a speed based ability, boosted his agility by one point.
Each small gain felt like a victory torn from the jaws of impossibility.
The automated voice in his system taunted him with fragments of knowledge about Zhou, the world that had become both his prison and proving ground. Spirit energy wasn't like mana—it was the very essence of life itself, flowing through every beating heart, every being whether human or monster is born with a signature and while monsters are born with cores when they are named, humans gain their core through cultivation and training. Eight levels stretched before him like rungs on an impossible ladder: Novice, Intermediate, Advanced, Expert, Master, Grand Master, Ascendant, and the legendary Transcendent—a realm no one had touched for over a millennium.
Sera clawed at the middle stages of Novice while monsters like Grimjaw, Venna, and his own father Sarion towered at Master level. The gap between them felt like an abyss.
His Space Lord ability could only be used once before his spirit energy collapsed entirely, while the Allborn Katana, though requiring no energy to summon, would cost him 10 precious points to unleash its first technique. With only 15 points remaining, he was walking a razor's edge. Yet his mana reserves remained vast and untapped—a sleeping giant waiting for him to break through his current bottleneck.
"You look like death warmed over," Nokka's voice cut through his spiraling thoughts like a blade. Her dark eyes, usually sharp with mischief, now burned with genuine concern. Even Grimbold's massive frame seemed to hover protectively nearby, while Gia's worried gaze felt like it could see straight through to his soul.
"I'm fine," Sera replied, forcing his trademark smile despite feeling like his legs might give out. "Just need to catch my breath. That little demonstration took more out of me than I'd like to admit."
Grimbold's hands clenched into fists, his voice shaking with disbelief. "How? How in the nine hells did you do that? Ragna was a true oni—forced evolution or not, he'd ascended beyond our level entirely. It should have been impossible for any ogre to even scratch him, let alone..." He gestured helplessly at the crater where their supposed strongest had fallen.
Sera's laugh held no humor, only grim satisfaction. "Simple, really. Power without control is just noise." He explained how Ragna's transformation had been his downfall—too much strength with no finesse, like trying to thread a needle with a sledgehammer. "His evolution was novice-ranked, same as my ability. The difference was that I understood my limitations. He was drunk on newfound power."
The group gradually shifted to lighter topics, desperate to wash away the taste of violence that still lingered in the air. Their usual bickering and banter felt forced but necessary, like bandages over wounds that hadn't stopped bleeding.
As night claimed the forest, exhaustion finally dragged most of the young ogres into uneasy sleep. But Sera's eyes snapped open in the darkness, every instinct screaming danger. The air itself felt wrong—thick with malice and the promise of death.
He rose silently, scanning the shadows between ancient trees. That's when he saw him: Ragna, awake and watchful, his eyes reflecting starlight like twin coals. Their gazes locked across the clearing, and in that moment, old hatred seemed insignificant.
The rustling came from everywhere at once.
Low, hungry growls rolled through the darkness like thunder, surrounding them in a symphony of predatory intent. Both boys moved as one, shouting warnings that shattered the night's peace and sent every ogre scrambling awake in panic.
Then it emerged from the undergrowth—a horn gleaming like polished bone in the moonlight, followed by a creature that embodied nightmare. Five feet of corded muscle and gray fur, moving on four legs that seemed to flow over the ground like liquid death. Its teeth were ivory daggers, each one designed for tearing flesh from bone. But it was the eyes that truly terrified—burning crimson orbs that held no mercy, no hesitation, only the endless hunger of an apex predator.
The aura of death that rolled off the beast made several ogres stumble backward, their courage crumbling like sand. This was a horned lycan, and the rustling around them meant it hadn't come alone.
The pack had found them, and the real hunt was about to begin.