Chapter 57: Breakthrough To Epic-rank, Trouble?
Across the valleys, Solenne was having the time of her life.
She had spent so long tucked away in a fold of space, watching the world through a slit, that solid ground under real sky felt like a gift. And this ground was crawling with prey.
"Left," Tom said from her shoulder, bored. "Big cat thing. Its core is packed. Good for your foundation."
Solenne moved.
Hollow Step carried her sideways out of the world for half a breath, and she reappeared beside the beast before it registered she had ever been in front of it. Her spirit technique flared, a thin silver light gathering to a needle-fine point.
Silverpierce Lament sang once, and the light went straight through the monster’s core.
It dropped. She knelt, drew the essence out, and let it flood into her.
Her body drank it down like dry earth taking rain. Warmth, pressure, growth. She could feel her stats climbing with every beast, her SS-rank foundation swelling toward the ceiling.
"Another," she breathed, already scanning the ridge.
"You’re a maniac," Tom said admiringly. "I respect it. Arthur, find her a fat one."
Arthur dove out of the clouds, sniffed the wind, and jabbed his tail toward a cave mouth. "Three big ones in there. Very rude looking. Can I eat two?"
"Take all three of their bodies after I core them," Solenne said, and vanished into another Hollow Step.
By the time the light in the sky dimmed, she had lost count of the kills and gained something far better.
A wall inside her, the one that had held her at SS-rank for so long, finally cracked and gave way.
Power roared up through her in a clean, rising tide.
[SS-rank ceiling broken. Ascending.]
She did not see any system, of course. She only felt it, the sudden lightness, the sharper senses, the way the whole world seemed to slow down and hand itself to her.
"SSS-rank," she whispered, staring at her own hands.
"Congrats," Tom yawned. "Now find me somewhere comfortable. Watching you work is exhausting."
Solenne laughed, bright and free, and the sound surprised even her.
...
Aidan left the dimension alone.
Tom’s lock held the gate shut behind him, sealed to everyone but him, with Solenne and the two beasts still hunting happily inside. The only one who came with him was Jovan, folded quietly into his summoning space, close enough to move if anything tried something clever.
’Just in case a certain Devil Prince decides to say hello,’ Aidan thought.
He did not walk out as Garen.
A touch of the Dread Light Mask, and his white hair went brown, his face went forgettable, his height dropped a few centimeters. Just another mid-rank Hunter with a heavy inventory and nothing worth remembering.
The Shelter’s trade hall was a roaring, crowded thing, hundreds of merchants and Hunters shouting prices under a ceiling of floating exchange boards.
He found the busiest bulk broker, a broad woman with too many rings, and started emptying his haul onto the counter.
Cores. Bones. Fangs. Organs. Hundreds of Epic-rank pieces, stacking higher and higher until the woman stopped chewing her snack and actually paid attention.
"That’s a serious haul for a face I don’t know," she said, eyes narrowing.
"Got lucky in a Tear." Aidan smiled easily. "You buying or admiring?"
She grunted, ran her appraisal, and started counting.
By the end, a small mountain of glowing Epic-rank Spirit Stones sat between them.
[Sale complete. 37,140 Spirit Stones received.]
"Pleasure," Aidan said, sweeping them into his inventory, and was out the door before she could ask a single follow-up question.
...
He did the actual breakthrough back inside his own world, in a quiet corner of the valley where nothing could reach him.
He sat, cross-legged, and pulled ten thousand Spirit Stones into his palms.
Then he absorbed.
The stones crumbled to light and poured into him, and his whole body lit up from the inside.
’Oh, that’s the good stuff.’
Energy slammed through every channel, filling him, thickening him, hammering at the wall that had capped him at SSS-rank for so long. His monstrous foundation, built across a billion years and anchored by Divine-10 Health, had never lacked strength. It had only ever lacked fuel.
Now it had fuel.
The wall did not crack. It shattered.
His stats surged past the SSS ceiling and kept climbing, breaking cleanly into new ground.
[Breakthrough Quest complete.]
[Base Rank raised: SSS-rank to Epic-rank.]
[Player Aidan]
[Rank: Transcendent-Median]
—Attributes—
[Attack = Epic-1]
[Speed = Epic-2]
[Defense = Epic-1]
[Health = Divine-10]
[Control = Epic-1]
[Reward: 5 x Omni-Slot Machine Tickets.]
Aidan opened his eyes.
The valley looked the same, but he did not feel the same. Everything sat a little sharper now, a little more his. The aspects that used to strain at the edges of his control moved like water.
’Epic-rank.’ He flexed a hand, watching a lazy arc of lightning crawl between his fingers. ’And that’s just the raw floor. With the bonds stacked on top, I’m hitting a lot higher than that.’
He tucked the twenty-seven thousand leftover stones away for later. Bonds to feed, breakthroughs to come, a certain someone who might need a top-up too.
Then he stretched, popped his back, and thought about the next step.
Now that he had crossed into Epic-rank, the system had promised to walk him through the real work. Keeping the Eidos alive. Cleaning the corruption out of the thing that ran this whole world, so the place would still be his when the dust settled.
’Right.’ He looked up at the bruised sky of the world he owned and cracked his knuckles. ’Let’s go save the little engine that makes my pantry run.’
He paused.
"After food, though. Let’s hope Chef Jiran is not busy."
...
"Hmm? What’s going on?" Aidan frowned. A commotion was ongoing at the campsite of Earth’s hunters near a Terror Tear.
He learned that the Blazeworth guild and Thorn Guard guild took up the mission to clear this Legendary-rank Terror Tear since their Leaders were Legendary-rank, and both guilds had two of their peak Epic-rank hunters breaking through to Legendary-rank thanks to the Legendary-rank Terrorized Dimension the alliance gave them.
They got just enough resources needed to break through. From the Blazeworth Guild were Jiran Patir and Leona Bellfin, who became Legendary. The Thorn Guard were Yakun Kolon and Danish Carter.
But all four of them lay there in the camp, bloodied and unconscious.
’What the hell happened to my chef?’ Aidan frowned. "Can someone tell me what just happened?"
