A Bug In Fate

While Alden moved to search for another target, the trio on the city walls had been watching him from the very beginning, their eyes filled with amazement.

"His physical strength is really something. Back in the arena, he barely moved, so I assumed he focused entirely on his technique and neglected the physical side. But it seems I was wrong. I don’t know his actual strength yet, but his speed matched the monster the entire fight, and we still don’t even know how much he’s actually shown," Hilton said, narrowing his gaze as Alden moved through the battlefield.

The old dwarf grunted, arms crossed, his eyes never leaving the boy below. "Matching a Metamorphosis realm monster’s speed at his age isn’t something you can just train into overnight. Talent like that is rare enough on its own."

"It’s not just the speed," the old librarian added quietly, stroking his beard. "Did you notice how he fought? He wasn’t reacting to the monster’s attacks. He was already three moves ahead of it. Every dodge, every projectile, it all looked planned before the monster even moved."

Hilton’s brow furrowed. "You’re saying he predicted its attack patterns that fast? Against a monster he’s never faced before?"

Hilton’s brow furrowed. "You’re saying he predicted its attack patterns that fast? Against a monster he’s never faced before?"

"That’s what it looked like to me," the librarian said, his gaze sharpening as he watched Alden’s small figure weave effortlessly toward another cluster of monsters in the distance. "Either he’s fought a Metamorphosis realm monster before, which I doubt, or..."

He trailed off, and the old dwarf finished the thought for him.

"He’s an anomaly."

The statement was bold, but none of them objected.

A heavy silence settled between the three of them as they watched Alden disappear briefly into a cloud of dust, another blast of frost and ice erupting a moment later.

Hilton let out a slow breath. "Just who exactly is this kid?"

Neither of the old men answered. Because truthfully, none of them had the faintest idea.

Meanwhile, Alden moved from one monster to another, all of them Metamorphosis realm, leaving a trail of frozen corpses behind him.

It didn’t take long for the other Metamorphosis realm cultivators to notice, several of them stealing glances his way between their own fights, disbelief written across their faces.

"What the hell is he, really?" Alice muttered mid-battle, finishing off a monster with a sharp swing of her blade.

Other adventurers and hunters shared the same thought, many of them recognizing him from the arena.

Cultivators kept rotating out due to low mana, while the Metamorphosis realm fighters remained firmly on the front line, still holding their ground. The gap between the two groups was clear enough for anyone to see.

Everything seemed to be going well. If things continued at this pace, it looked like they’d be able to head home within another two hours.

But that expectation shattered in an instant as a heavy aura suddenly descended over the battlefield. Lower-ranked monsters and cultivators alike were forced to their knees, the pressure alone enough to crush them into the ground, as behind the endless tide of monsters, a presence finally revealed itself.

It was an Ascendant realm monster.

The excitement they’d felt after holding their ground for more than an hour vanished instantly, the color draining from their faces in a heartbeat.

Even the Metamorphosis realm fighters struggled just to keep their feet planted on the ground.

"An Ascendant realm monster," Alice muttered under her breath, her gaze shifting toward the creature.

The creature that emerged from the tide of monsters defied easy description. It stood nearly thirty meters tall, a hulking mass of obsidian-black flesh fused with jagged crystalline growths that pulsed faintly with violet light, as if something ancient burned beneath its skin. Its head bore no clear face, only a single vertical slit that split open to reveal rows of teeth like broken glass, and its four arms ended not in claws, but in massive, crystal-tipped talons that dragged deep gouges into the earth with every step.

Its name, whispered in old hunter records, was the Voidmaw Titan.

Its ability was Gravitic Collapse, the power to warp space around itself, crushing anything caught within its radius under unnatural, bone-shattering weight. Worse still, it could tear localized rifts in the air, swallowing attacks, projectiles, even spells, whole, before spitting them back out doubled in force.

It didn’t need to be fast. Space itself bent to serve it.

On the city wall, the trio narrowed their eyes at the monster. Unlike the others below, they weren’t scared, the reason behind their reaction was something else entirely.

"That’s a Voidmaw Titan," the old librarian said, his expression thoughtful. "But they’re a rare species. For one to appear here is unusual."

Beside him, the old dwarf and Hilton both raised their brows.

"That’s a tough one, since it can manipulate space itself," Hilton said, his voice calm.

"I suppose this is going to be a long battle."

He nodded at the two of them before vanishing from the spot, reappearing directly above the battlefield.

Hilton was an Ascendant realm cultivator himself, but that didn’t mean the monster before him was any less dangerous.

He spread out his aura, canceling the suppressive weight pressing down on the battlefield below. Cultivators and monsters alike gasped as the pressure lifted, air rushing back into starved lungs.

The Voidmaw Titan’s single vertical eye-slit split open, fixing on Hilton the moment his aura touched the air. Something passed between them, not fear, not hesitation, but recognition. Two beings who understood exactly what the other was capable of.

They moved at the same instant.

Dark element attacks tore from Hilton’s palms, streaking toward the Titan in overlapping waves. But the moment they closed the distance, jagged rifts split open in the air before the Titan’s crystalline talons, swallowing the attacks whole into pockets of distorted space.

A heartbeat later, the same attacks tore back out of the rifts, doubled in force, hurtling toward the exact spot Hilton had been standing.

He was already gone.

By the time the reflected blasts crashed down, Hilton had reappeared several dozen meters away, his expression unreadable. The redirected attacks slammed into the horde behind the Titan instead, sound erupting like a collapsing mountain as hundreds of lower-ranked monsters were vaporized in an instant, caught entirely off guard by their own ally’s power turned against them.

The Titan didn’t react to the loss. If anything, it seemed indifferent, its crystal-veined body pulsing faintly brighter as it turned its massive frame fully toward Hilton.

Understanding that ranged attacks would only feed the creature’s ability, Hilton shifted his approach. A spear formed in his grip, wild dark energy coiling around the blade like living smoke, and he closed the distance in an instant, thrusting straight for one of the Titan’s four crystal-tipped limbs before it could open another rift to defend itself.

Their clash caused the surrounding monsters to scatter, while some unfortunate ones died without offering any resistance at all.

Both fighters stood some distance apart now, Hilton rising into the air before halting at a considerable height. He looked down at the monster below with an unreadable expression.

"Dark King’s Spear," he muttered.

Nothing happened for a moment. Then the sky itself darkened, black clouds swirling into existence above the battlefield.

Before long, a pressure descended from above, heavy enough that people below instinctively glanced up, awe written across their faces.

A dark spear formed in the sky, massive in scale, roughly a hundred meters long, black lightning crackling violently across its surface as the sky itself seemed to answer its call.

Hilton stood just beneath it, calm and composed, and raised a single hand. The spear, still humming with black lightning, surged downward at his command.

The Voidmaw Titan’s talons tore open another rift, wide enough this time to swallow the entire spear whole, space folding inward as if trying to consume the attack completely.

For a moment, it seemed to work. The spear vanished into the tear, black lightning flickering out of existence along with it.

But then the rift shuddered.

Cracks spread across the edges of the distortion, the sheer force behind the attack proving too much to fully contain. The rift collapsed violently, unable to absorb it all, and a fraction of the spear’s power tore back out, slamming into the Titan’s shoulder. Crystalline flesh split open, dark blood hissing where it met open air, and for the first time, the massive creature let out a sound closer to pain than indifference.

It didn’t stay wounded for long.

The Titan surged forward with terrifying speed for something its size, all four crystal-tipped talons converging on Hilton at once, each strike bending the space around it, warping the very air into jagged, unnatural angles.

Hilton moved on instinct, twisting midair as one talon grazed past where his ribs had been a heartbeat earlier, the pressure alone enough to crack stone dozens of meters away. He caught the next strike on the shaft of a newly formed spear, the impact sending shockwaves rippling outward, and gritted his teeth as the force nearly wrenched the weapon from his grip.

"Still got some fight left in you," Hilton muttered, sliding back through the air.

The Titan’s eye-slit narrowed, crystalline light pulsing brighter across its wounded shoulder as it readied itself to attack again.

No words were needed. The moment their eyes met again, both of them threw themselves fully into the fight, close-range strikes, long-range blasts, spells layered over raw physical force, nothing held back. Wherever they clashed, destruction followed, craters tearing open across the earth, the sky above flickering with the afterglow of strikes too fast for the eye to properly follow.

The battle had reached its peak. Below, the cultivators pressed on, cutting through the endless horde, trusting Hilton to hold his own against the Titan and focusing everything they had on their own front.

None of them noticed that something else was already closing in.

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