Professor Jeff Aldren, a master of arcane combat at the University, was not accustomed to being ordered around—especially not by someone like Mitra. Yet here he was, trudging through the dense, overgrown forests surrounding Mount Gol, his boots sinking into the damp earth as the scent of pine and decay filled the air.

The mission had come directly from Lazarus Vaal, the imperious head of the Arcane Eye College and the unofficial head of the entire university. There had been no room for refusal, no time for argument. A rogue student—a criminal, according to Vaal—had fled into these woods, and Jeff, along with a handful of forevers, some wary police officers, and a few mercenaries with questionable loyalties, had been hastily assembled into a search party.

And, to Jeff's irritation, Mitra was in command.

He gritted his teeth as he felt indignant. "Her? Giving me orders?" The thought rankled him. Mitra was competent, yes, but she lacked the refined mastery of the arcane arts that he possessed. She was a blunt instrument, a soldier—not a scholar. Always doomed to be second best compared to someone like Yarren.

Around him, the search party moved methodically, overturning rotting logs, scanning the tangled underbrush, and peering into the shadows where the forest grew thickest. The officers muttered among themselves, their hands never far from their weapons, while the mercenaries moved with the predatory patience of hunters.

Jeff: "Such a waste of time," he mumbled under his breath, frustration lacing his words as he kicked a small stone off the path.

Lewis: "What's a waste of time?" came a voice from behind him, cutting through the thick air of the forest.

Turning, Jeff saw Lewis, a senior officer who had been assigned to their search party. Lewis was impeccably put together, his uniform crisp and his demeanor exuding professionalism. There was an air of authority about him that Jeff couldn't help but respect, even if he was feeling particularly irritable at the moment.

Jeff gestured vaguely at the sprawling forest, the jagged silhouette of Mount Gol looming in the distance.

Jeff: "This whole operation. We're expected to scour an entire mountain with what—ten groups of twelve people? It's a fool's errand." He squinted up at the sky, where the sun had begun its slow descent, painting the horizon in hues of amber and rust. "We've been out here for hours, and now night's closing in. If the kid's even still alive out here, they're long gone."

Lewis crossed his arms, unfazed.

Lewis: "I heard reinforcements are on the way."

Jeff barked a humorless laugh.

Jeff: "Fantastic. So we get to stumble around in the dark, tripping over roots and rocks while our illustrious leader barks orders." He shook his head. "Mitra's incompetent. This whole thing is a farce."

Lewis raised an eyebrow.

Lewis: "Really? I wouldn't call her incompetent. She's a S-rank mage, for one. And from what I've seen, she knows how to run an operation."

Jeff smirked, rolling his eyes at Lewis's defense of Mitra.

Jeff: "Big deal. S-rank is a dime a dozen when we're talking about the University. She'd have to become a Two-Star Mage at minimum for me to give her a crumb of respect."

???: "That's ridiculous, and you know it!"

A sharp voice cut through the air like a blade. Both men turned to see Han, one of the University's elite enforcers, striding toward them. His white uniform was pristine despite the grime of the forest, the silver insignia on his collar glinting in the fading light. His dark eyes burned with quiet intensity—the kind of look that warned of a man who had seen bloodshed and hadn't flinched.

Han: "Mitra's already powerful enough to be an Archmage," he said, his voice low but edged with steel. "She just lacks the academic pedigree for the title. But power? She's got more than half the so-called 'scholars' sitting in their towers."

Jeff's grin turned venomous.

Jeff: "Typical enforcer. One of her loyal dogs leaps to defend its master." He spread his hands mockingly. "But facts are facts—she doesn't have the title. And she's not a Two-Star. So until then, she's just another overhyped soldier playing commander."

A thick silence settled between them, heavy with unspoken history. Lewis—suddenly feeling like an outsider in a feud he didn't understand—cleared his throat.

Lewis: "Uh… what's a Two-Star Mage?" he asked, forcing a casual tone. "I thought the ranking system only went from F to S?"

Jeff turned to him with exaggerated disbelief.

Jeff: "You're a senior officer, and you don't know what a Star Rank is?" He crossed his arms, his smirk returning. "Pathetic. No wonder the police always need the university to help clean up their messes."

Han's jaw tightened, but before he could retort, Lewis held up a hand.

Lewis: "Alright, enlighten me then. If you're so keen on judging everyone else's ignorance."

Jeff scoffed but couldn't resist the chance to lecture.

Jeff: "Star Ranks are for those who've gone beyond the standard system. It is mostly reserved for archmages, since the normal system doesn't fully encapsulate the power an archmage poses. Most archmages are just a one star mages, which is a little bit more powerful than those around the level of a S-Class but it gets interesting once you hit two stars. "

Han cut in, coldly precise.

Han: "And Mitra's closer to that than you'll ever be, Professor."

Jeff's eyes flashed.

Jeff: "Keep telling yourself that, enforcer. Maybe one day she'll pat you on the head for your loyalty."

Lewis rubbed his chin, absorbing the information.

Lewis: "That's… interesting. I'm actually surprised I never learned about this in school."

Han gave a small shrug, his tone measured but firm.

Han: "In all honesty, the professor is talking big. Most people outside the University—or certain government institutions—never hear about Star Rankings. They exist only for archmages to measure themselves against each other. To everyday folk, even a regular archmage is already an unstoppable force."

Lewis let out a dry chuckle.

Lewis: "I guess when you put it like that, there's no point in me knowing. In my line of work, I've never even dealt with a mage above B-rank. Anyone stronger than A-rank? That gets handed off to the Federal Arcane Response Division." He paused, curiosity flickering in his eyes. "So, does Two-Star mean you're the strongest among archmages?"

Jeff scoffed, but it was Han who answered, his voice grave.

Jeff: "Hardly. The range goes from One to Five Stars. A Two-Star mage's power is equivalent to a dozen S-ranks working in unison. Yaren, the head of the Shroom Pact college, is a two star mage. And Five Stars?" He exhaled sharply. "They're natural disasters."

Lewis blinked.

Lewis: "Come again?"

Jeff continued, his voice dripping with condescension.

Jeff: "It's exactly as I said. A Five-Star mage isn't just a person—they're a force of nature. Fighting one is like trying to stop a hurricane with your bare hands. The only reason civilization still stands is that there are fewer than ten on the entire continent, and none of them are deranged cultists… that we know of."

Han nodded grimly.

Han: "And our University houses three of them: Lazarus Vaal, Jenna Lor, and Linda Yazhu. Rumor has it any one of them could reduce Graheel to a crater if they ever lost their temper."

A heavy silence followed. The forest around them seemed to grow darker, as if the mere mention of such power had drawn the shadows closer.

Then Jeff muttered, almost to himself,

Jeff: "Technically, we used to have four Five-Stars… but we don't talk about that."

Lewis's eyes widened.

Lewis: "Wait, what—?"

But Jeff was already walking away, his boots crunching deliberately over dry leaves as he dismissed the question—and the man who asked it—with a wave of his hand. He had no interest in explaining University secrets to some ignorant officer. These people were beneath him—all of them. Mitra's lackeys, glorified mercenaries, and pencil-pushing policemen who couldn't tell a cantrip from a catastrophe.

The fading sunlight bled through the canopy as he stalked toward the edge of the group, where the trees grew denser and the shadows pooled like spilled ink. He needed space. Needed to—

He stopped.

There was someone else here.

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A figure stood motionless before the gnarled trunk of an ancient oak, their back turned to him. They wore a hooded gray robe, its fabric frayed at the edges but unnaturally undisturbed by the evening breeze. Jeff frowned. He didn't remember any mercenaries dressed like that. In fact, he didn't remember seeing this person at all until now.

A prickle of unease crawled up his spine.

Jeff: "Hey," he called, his voice sharper than he intended. "You. Who are you?"

The figure didn't move.

Jeff's gathered his aether in perpetration to cast a spell.

Jeff: "I said, who are you? You're not part of this search party."

A beat of silence. Then—

The robed figure tilted its head, a subtle motion that felt unsettlingly wrong—too fluid, too deliberate, as if it were a marionette controlled by an unseen hand. The air around it seemed to shimmer with an strange energy, sending a chill down Jeff's spine.

Suddenly, the figure's body jerked unnaturally, a grotesque spasm. In the blink of an eye, a piercing wail erupted from the figure, a sound that resonated with pure malice and despair.

The attack came faster than human reflexes could follow. One moment the figure stood five paces away - the next, Jeff felt white-hot agony erupt through his chest. He looked down in disbelieving horror to see a blackened arm buried to the elbow in his ribcage, fingers clenched around his still-beating heart. With terrifying ease, the figure lifted Jeff's twitching body clear off the ground, his boots dangling a full foot above the forest floor.

Blood bubbled from Jeff's lips as he tried to scream. His fingers scrambled weakly at the impaling limb, nails tearing against rough fabric. Then - with a wet crunch - the figure twisted its wrist. Jeff's body arched violently before going limp, a final death rattle escaping his slack jaw.

Lewis: "WHAT THE FUCK?!" he scream shattered the stunned silence.

Nearby, Han was already moving, his hands flashing through arcane seals. A shimmering blue ward erupted around him just as Lewis fumbled to create his own ward. The air hummed with sudden energy, ozone sharp in their nostrils.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Another officer—a rookie whose name Lewis couldn't recall—opened fire, his service pistol barking in rapid succession. The robed figure didn't even flinch. With terrifying casualness, it swung Jeff's limp body around like a macabre marionette, letting the bullets thud wetly into the dead professor's torso. Blood misted the air with each impact.

Click. Click.

The officer's gun emptied. In the sudden silence, the only sound was the drip-drip of Jeff's blood pattering on fallen leaves.

The figure cocked its head again, the motion eerily reminiscent of a predator sizing up its prey. In a swift, fluid motion, it swung its arm, still impaled through Jeff's lifeless body, toward the rookie officer who had just fired at it. The officer, a fresh recruit with wide eyes and a shaky grip on his weapon, barely had time to register the threat before Jeff's body was hurtling toward him.

Lewis: "Look out!" he shouted, but it was too late.

The force of Jeff's body, propelled by the figure's unnatural strength, struck the officer with a sickening thud. The rookie hadn't created a ward around him like he was supposed to do, so he took full force of the attack. The impact was brutal, sending the officer crashing into a nearby tree with a resounding crack. The sound echoed through the forest.

The officer crumpled to the ground, unconscious, his body contorted at an unnatural angle. Several ribs had shattered upon impact, a pain of which would never be felt by him again.

The mercenary captain from the group, a burly man with a fierce look, leaped into the fray, his sword crackling with fiery aetheric energy. The blade glowed a fierce red, illuminating the darkening forest as he swung it in a powerful downward arc, the air around him shimmering with heat.

Mercenary: "Let's see how you handle this!" he shouted, his voice filled with adrenaline.

But the robed figure merely stepped to the side, its movements fluid and almost mocking as it effortlessly avoided the attack. The mercenary, undeterred, launched into a series of rapid strikes, each swing aimed with precision and fueled by rage. Yet, the figure continued to dodge with an unsettling grace, as if it were dancing around the very essence of danger.

Frustration began to mount within the mercenary as he realized that brute strength alone would not suffice. In a moment of desperation, he swung his sword in a wide arc, channeling all his energy into a final, powerful strike. Just as the blade was about to connect, the figure swung its arm toward him, a dark blur of motion.

In that instant, a shimmering blue barrier erupted around the mercenary, a protective ward he conjured before jumping in. The impact of the figure's attack struck the barrier with a force that sent shockwaves rippling through the air, causing cracks to spiderweb across the surface.

The ward held, but physics couldn't be denied. The ward was anchored to mercenary, not the earth - and the mercenary captain became a human projectile, hurtling backward through the air. He crashed into an ancient oak with bone-breaking force, the massive tree toppling like felled timber from the impact.

The barrier shattered upon collision, and the residual force of the blow reverberated through him, leaving him gasping for breath. Pain shot through his body, and he grunted as he slumped against the fallen tree, feeling the sharp sting of a broken rib.

Yet when the dust settled, the mercenary captain was... smiling. A bloody, feral grin split his grizzled face as he reached into his combat vest, pulling out a small transponder device. He pressed the large red button with a sense of grim satisfaction.

Suddenly, a beeping sound erupted from a device, echoing ominously at the foot of the robed figure. The robed figure barely had time to glance down at the thermal charge mercenary had planted during his final attack - a compact, military-grade explosive disguised as a belt buckle that had detached during his flight.

Boom!

The explosion was deafening, a fiery eruption that lit up the forest in a blinding flash. Flames roared to life, engulfing the area around the figure in a violent inferno. The shockwave rippled outward, sending debris flying and igniting the underbrush in a chaotic dance of fire and smoke.

For a moment, the forest was alive with the sound of destruction, the air thick with the acrid scent of burning wood and the crackle of flames. The mercenary, despite his injuries, managed to push himself up, his eyes wide with exhilaration as he watched the chaos unfold.

But as the smoke began to clear, the figure emerged from the flames, seemingly unscathed, except its robes had now been burnt away from the explosion. Now everyone in the search party could see clearly who was under that robe.

That robed figure wasn't a person at all—it was a monster.

The creature stood wreathed in fading flames, its true form now fully exposed. At first glance, it maintained a grotesque parody of human shape, but every detail betrayed its unnatural existence. Its flesh was the black of long-dead embers, the skin bubbling and shifting like molten wax frozen mid-drip. Rivulets of viscous, tar-like substance oozed from countless cracks in its epidermal layer, hissing where they struck the scorched earth.

The face was a nightmare of exposed bone and smoldering fire. Its skull-like visage had no skin—just jagged patches of blackened cartilage stretched taut over burning bone. Where eyes should have been, twin infernos blazed in deep-set sockets, the flames pulsating with unnatural rhythm. Beneath its lipless rictus grin, a gaping orange maw glowed like a furnace door in its chest, the edges of the hole crackling with embers that floated upward like malignant fireflies.

The group stood frozen in shock, their minds racing to comprehend the horror before them. This was not the rogue student they had been searching for; this was a creature born of nightmares, a manifestation of darkness that had come to claim them.

Lewis: "By the light…" the senior officer whispered, his voice barely audible over the crackling of the flames. "What is that thing?"

The infernal abomination threw back its skull-like head and unleashed a roar that shook the forest—a sound like a collapsing furnace, all grinding metal and roaring flames. The light radiating from its chest maw flared violently, casting hellish orange shadows that danced across the terrified faces of the enforcers and officers. For a heartbeat, they were frozen, their training failing in the face of something so utterly unnatural.

But the mercenaries, they moved.

Mercenary: "Eat this, you burning bastard!" snarled, another grizzled mercenary with scars running down his neck. He thrust his palm forward, and a spear of condensed earth aether—a jagged lance of compressed stone—shot toward the monster with enough force to punch through plate armor.

The creature didn't even flinch.

It sidestepped the attack with contemptuous ease, the earth spear shattering harmlessly against a distant tree. Then, it moved.

Fire erupted beneath its feet as it charged, each step leaving behind searing imprints of molten earth, the grass blackening and curling into ash in its wake. Before the mercenary could even widen his eyes, the abomination was upon him.

The mercenary's ward—a shimmering blue barrier that had saved him from arrows, bullets, blades, and even lesser spells—might as well have been paper. The monster's clawed hand punched straight through, the magical shield shattering like glass under a hammer. Its burning fingers closed around the mercenaries outstretched wrist.

There was a wet, tearing crack.

Blood sprayed in a wide arc as the creature yanked—ripping the man's arm clean off at the shoulder. The mercenary's mouth opened in silent shock, his brain not yet registering the agony. But before he could scream, the monster swung his own severed limb like a club—

THUD.

The first blow smashed into his temple, snapping his head sideways with a sickening crunch.

THUD.

The second strike caved in his cheekbone, teeth scattering like broken porcelain.

THUD.

The third impact landed with enough force to burst his skull like overripe fruit, sending fragments of bone and gore splattering across the forest floor.

The abomination stood there for a moment, the mercenary mangled arm still clutched in its grip, dripping onto the scorched earth. Then, almost lazily, it tossed the limb aside, turning its blazing gaze toward the rest of the group.

Lewis: "FALL BACK NOW!" his's voice cut through the stunned silence, sharp with command.

The abomination turned and lurched toward Han and Lewis, its burning gaze locked onto them with predatory intent. Flames rippled across its molten flesh as it charged, leaving smoldering footprints in the earth—until, with a sickening crack, its left leg buckled at the knee. Blackened bone snapped, and the limb tumbled away, dissolving into embers before it even hit the ground.

The creature collapsed face-first into the dirt—but it didn't stop.

Fingers clawing into the soil, it dragged itself forward, its remaining leg kicking uselessly as its chest-maw pulsed with erratic, feverish light. The stench of burning rot filled the air as it inched closer, its jaw hanging slack, its flaming eyes still fixed on Han with undying malice.

Han didn't waste a second.

With a sharp gesture, he summoned a massive glacial spike above the creature—a spear of ice so cold it made the surrounding air crackle with frost. A flick of his wrist sent it hurtling down, impaling the abomination through its back and pinning it to the earth like an insect specimen. The creature shrieked, a sound like metal warping in a furnace, but still, it moved. Its arms flailed, its fingers gouging deep furrows in the dirt as it tried to pull itself free, its shattered body refusing to acknowledge death.

Han's breath caught in his throat. Nothing should have survived that.

He didn't hesitate.

A second icicle formed—smaller, sharper—and this time, he aimed for the skull.

The ice dagger struck true, piercing through the creature's forehead with a wet crunch. For a heartbeat, everything went still. The flames in its eye sockets flickered… dimmed… then winked out.

Silence.

Then—

The abomination's chest-maw bloomed like an exploding star.

Han and Lewis barely had time to throw up additional barriers before the detonation hit. The blast was colossal—far larger than the mercenary's earlier explosive—a firestorm that vaporized nearby trees in an instant and sent a shockwave rippling through the earth. The heat was so intense that rocks split apart, their surfaces glazing into molten glass.

When the smoke finally cleared, there was nothing left. No corpse, no embers—just a smoldering crater where the creature had been, the edges of the pit still glowing faintly orange.

Han coughed, staggering to his feet.

Han: "What in the burning abyss was that thing? Was that an undead? Actually, that looked like something that crawled out of the burning abyss," he said, recalling the myths told of that hellish place from the Church of Light.

Han stared at the scorched earth, his face pale.

Lewis: "I don't know," he murmured. "But, we have some injured people. We need to contact the other groups and let them know—."

Then, from the darkness of the forest, a familiar sound echoed. It was the same roar as the creature they just killed.

And then another roar.

And another.

And another…

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