SSS-Class World Shatterer

Ethan hit the bottom of the slope with a jarring thud that rattled his teeth.

Gravel and dirt bit into his palms.

He rolled, scrambling to get his feet under him, his heart hammering a frantic rhythm against the back of his throat.

Above him, perched on the cliff face like a vulture, Damien Cross's hateful sneer was the last thing he saw before his world became a flurry of black fur and burning eyes.

The Cinder Wolf pack abandoned the climbers in an instant.

A new meal, a closer meal, had just been served.

They flowed down the slope like a river of shadow and teeth, their guttural snarls weaving into a terrifying chorus of hunger.

Ethan's eyes darted around, calculating.

Twelve of them.

Cinder Wolf, Level 4, Attack 50.

His mind did the math with chilling, System-infused clarity.

His defense was forty-five.

Fifty minus forty-five.

Each hit would deal five damage.

Twelve wolves, all hitting at once, meant sixty damage a second.

His health bar, a full one hundred points, would evaporate in less than two seconds.

This was it.

This was how he died.

A panicked, hysterical laugh almost escaped his lips.

"So much for being the chosen one," he breathed, his voice a ragged whisper.

The lead wolf lunged, a blur of motion, its jaws snapping open to reveal fangs like hot daggers.

There was no time to think.

Only to act.

"System!" he screamed, not out loud, but with the focused intent of his entire being.

"Evolve the tunic! NOW!"

A prompt, shimmering with the faint, otherworldly glow of his Transcendent talent, flared in his vision.

[To evolve 'Vanguard's Tunic +1' to +2 requires 10 Primal Essence. This action is irreversible. Confirm?]

The wolf's hot, sulfurous breath washed over his face.

"CONFIRM!"

The world seemed to fracture.

Ten points of Primal Essence, his hard-earned currency of survival, vanished from his reserves.

BOOM!

A shockwave of pure, white light erupted from Ethan's chest, a silent, concussive blast that sent the leaping wolf tumbling backward through the air with a surprised yelp.

The other wolves skidded to a halt, their burning eyes wide with confusion and instinctual fear.

The light didn't scatter.

It imploded, wrapping around Ethan's Vanguard's Tunic in a blinding, holy cocoon.

The dark grey fabric dissolved into threads of starlight, reweaving itself at an impossible speed.

The faint silver runes on the collar and cuffs blazed with blinding intensity before being absorbed into the material itself, which now looked thicker, tougher, like armor forged from midnight and moonlight.

The transformation was absolute.

It was over in a heartbeat.

[Evolution Successful!]

['Vanguard's Tunic +1' has evolved into 'Vanguard's Tunic +2'!]

[Rank: Steel -> Steel]

[Defense: +55 (Previously +40)]

[Durability: 300/300]

[Special Effect Upgraded: Novice's Vigor -> Adept's Vigor - The wearer regenerates 200 HP per second. This effect is doubled outside of combat.]

Ethan's eyes snapped to the new stats.

Defense: fifty-five.

Regeneration: two hundred per second.

A slow, cold, predatory smile stretched across his face.

The game had just changed.

The pack, recovering from its shock, renewed its assault.

Their fear was eclipsed by their hunger.

They swarmed him.

A wolf on his left leaped, claws extended, aiming to disembowel him.

Clink.

The sound was pathetic.

Anticlimactic.

Like a spoon tapping against a dinner plate.

Ethan glanced down.

The wolf's razor-sharp claws, capable of tearing through ironwood, slid harmlessly off the fabric of his tunic.

A notification, almost mocking in its simplicity, appeared in his vision.

[-0 Damage]

Another wolf bit down hard on his shoulder.

CRUNCH.

The sound was of the wolf's teeth cracking against an unyielding surface, not of his bones shattering.

[-0 Damage]

A third lunged for his throat. He didn't even bother to block, instead letting its jaws clamp down on his collar.

[-0 Damage]

The pack was a frenzy of snapping jaws and raking claws, a whirlwind of futile, impotent rage.

And Ethan just stood there, in the eye of the storm, completely unharmed.

He looked down at the wolf still gnawing uselessly on his arm.

"Is that it?" he asked, his voice calm, conversational. "Are you done?"

The wolf paused, its glowing red eyes filled with a primal confusion it couldn't comprehend.

"My turn."

BOOM!

The ground shuddered.

He moved, a blur of motion, his Evolved Iron Sword +1 a streak of wicked silver in the gloom.

The wind shrieked as he swung.

The first wolf didn't even have time to register the attack.

The blade passed clean through its neck.

Its head flew from its shoulders in a spray of black blood and embers.

[You have slain a Level 4 Cinder Wolf!]

[You have earned 25 EXP.]

[Your talent, Maximum Evolution, has extracted the target's life force. You have earned 5 Primal Essence.]

He spun, the momentum of his first kill flowing into the second.

His sword met the next wolf's charge with a brutal upward slash that split it from groin to jaw.

CRUNCH!

The creature's dying howl was cut short as its two halves fell to the ground.

[You have slain a Level 4 Cinder Wolf!]

[+5 Primal Essence.]

The remaining ten wolves hesitated, a flicker of true terror finally entering their predatory minds.

They had encountered prey that fought back.

They had never encountered a god.

"Don't run," Ethan said, his voice a low, chilling promise. "It's more fun this way."

He dashed forward, a specter of vengeance.

The ground exploded under his feet with every step.

He stabbed one through the eye, the blade exiting the back of its skull.

He ducked under another's lunge and brought the pommel of his sword up in a vicious hammer-blow that shattered its jaw.

The Corrosive Wound from his sword began to trigger, sickly green poison eating away at the wolves he didn't kill instantly, their pained howls adding to the symphony of slaughter.

Up on the cliff, Samantha and Ben watched in stunned, horrified silence.

Damien Cross's triumphant sneer had long since melted into a mask of pale, disbelief.

"No… no, that's impossible," Damien stammered, his knuckles white where he clung to the rock. "He should be dead! He should be a pile of chewed-up bones!"

Samantha didn't answer.

She just watched the man she had dismissed as an arrogant fool become a whirlwind of death.

He wasn't fighting.

He was executing.

Each movement was brutally efficient, each strike a final, definitive statement.

The last wolf, its packmates all dead or dying around it, turned to flee.

It was a fatal mistake.

Ethan was on it in a flash, his figure a dark silhouette against the eerie twilight.

He didn't use his sword.

He simply kicked the wolf in its side.

The impact sounded like a car crash.

A visible shockwave of force rippled through the creature's body as its ribs audibly shattered. It was sent flying, crashing into a tree with a final, wet smack before sliding to the ground, a broken heap of fur and bone.

Silence.

The only sounds were the crackling of dying embers on the Cinder Wolf corpses and Ethan's steady, even breathing.

He stood in the center of a charnel house of his own making, his tunic and sword pristine, untouched by the carnage.

[You have slain a Level 4 Cinder Wolf!]

[+5 Primal Essence.]

…

[+5 Primal Essence.]

He checked his status.

His Primal Essence was now 162.

He looked up at the cliff face, his eyes scanning the three figures still clinging there.

He saw Ben, his face a mess of tears and snot.

He saw Samantha, her expression a complex mixture of awe and terror.

And he saw Damien Cross.

He saw the fear in Damien's eyes, but underneath it, he saw the same raw, envious greed that had sent him tumbling down here in the first place.

Ethan's lips curled into a humorless smile.

The tutorial was over.

The protection period was a lie.

The real monsters in this world didn't have claws or fangs.

They wore human faces.

He hefted his sword, its corrosive aura pulsing faintly.

It was time to go hunting.