Chapter 76: The White Portal.
The battlefield had become unrecognizable. The once-green valley was now a wasteland of shattered rock, frozen glaciers, and craters. Silas stood in the middle of it all, his breathing heavy with blood dripping from the corner of his lips. Across from him, the giant orc looked no better. Bruises covered its enormous body, blood trickled down its chin, and its breathing had become noticeably rough, and still, its grin remained.
"So this is humanity’s strongest..."
"No." Silas twirled his daggers once.
"I just awakened a week ago."
"What?" The giant blinked in confusion, not quite understanding what Silas meant, but the boy was nowhere to be found. Silas disappeared, the earth collapsing where he had stood. His speed had reached another level.
The giant swung its colossal club instinctively, but for the current Silas, he was too slow. He stepped onto the incoming club instead of dodging it. When he got close enough, he jumped, causing a crater to form where he jumped from, landed on the club, and ran on it.
His boots hammered against the moving weapon as though gravity itself had forgotten him. The giant’s pupils shrank in a not-so-surprise, almost shock.
"What-"
Silas reached the end of the club and launched himself like a pink meteor. The giant threw a punch, but he twisted around it in midair. The kind of acrobatics he was displaying shocked everyone watching. This was the first time they’d seen Silas fighting seriously in combat terms. Damien’s episode was thrashing with no finesse, but this...
Thread Perception had already shown Silas the opening. He landed on the giant’s shoulder and, without slowing down, sprinted upward. He sprinted across its neck, then its jaw, and straight toward its face. The giant roared and tried to grab him, but Silas ducked under the fingers of the giant that were thicker than tree trunks.
When he got close enough, both his daggers flashed. The first dagger buried itself into the giant’s top left eye.
"RAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!!"
Blood exploded while the giant screamed in pain, but before the scream could finish, the second dagger pierced the top right eye. The valley shook as the giant staggered wildly. But Silas wasn’t done. He ripped out the first dagger, using the second as a hold, and stabbed the third eye of the monster. The giant cried out, throwing all sense of finesse, if it even had one, and began clawing at its face, but Silas moved faster. He ripped out the second dagger while dangling on the other, and pierced its remaining eye. He had turned it completely blind. When its fingers reached him, he jumped on them and stabbed his dagger into them to secure a foothold.
The giant roared angrily and shoved its hand aggressively. Silas’s dagger failed to hold onto it, and he was thrown off. The shockwaves from its senseless movements alone forced everyone back.
"Silas!" Chloe shouted. She immediately raised walls of ice around the students, while Gromda intercepted a stray swing with both glowing fists. The impact blasted her hundreds of meters away, but she dug her feet into the ground and stopped the club from reaching the camp. Mr. Fatars raised an entire ridge of stone to divert another strike.
Meanwhile, Silas had already moved or was moving. He twisted mid-air, his eyes glowing, and used mana to push his trajectory towards its club. He landed on it and slid down, straight towards a thorn, but he used his daggers to stop his fall. He activated Electromagnetic Pull on both daggers and stabbed them into the club. The pull stopped his sliding entirely. Its blind rage made it forget one thing: Thread Sight. Well, it didn’t know the ability, but it should’ve considered the kind of person it was fighting.
Every movement, muscle, weakness, and balance point, Silas saw them all.
"There," He whispered, mana gathering beneath his feet, and kicked off with every ounce of strength he possessed. The giant unknowingly lifted its club again, and Silas caught it with timing, while activating Strong Grip on his gauntlets. The giant instinctively tightened its grip, but Silas smiled as he shot towards its chest.
"Thanks."
He planted his feet against its chest, and every muscle in his body exploded with power.
"Fall."
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!
The giant lost its footing, its own momentum becoming its enemy. The colossal body crashed backward onto the mountainside. The impact sounded like the world breaking apart. Before it could recover, Silas seized the opportunity and wrenched the gigantic club free from the giant’s loosened grip. Everyone watched in stunned silence as he did something physically impossible.
"He’s..."
"...Lifting it..."
The weapon that required several ordinary awakened just to move was being lifted by him. He activated Strong Grip again, granting him a powerful grip of the club, and swung it. The sheer weight generated terrifying momentum, and the giant finally sensed danger, raising both of its arms defensively.
Silas leaped with the gigantic club, mana erupting around him, his coat whipping violently in the wind, and descended like divine judgment. He was almost out of mana, but it was enough for this. The club came down.
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!
The impact shattered the mountain under the giant. Its skull caved inward, rock exploded, while blood erupted like crimson rain. The entire valley trembled before turning completely silent. Silas stood atop the ruined giant, breathing heavily. The enormous club rested beside him. He watched as the crimson glow faded from the giant’s body. Its aura disappeared, showing that it had died.
The impossible-possible had happened. A newly awakened student had slain an experienced A-Rank Orc Warlord, an Exalted Orc King. No one spoke. No one could. Everyone was staring speechlessly at him. Some even shivered unconsciously while staring at the blood-soaked pink-haired boy with glowing pink eyes.
Suddenly, a soft hum echoed through the valley. Everyone instinctively looked upward as space itself rippled. A point of brilliant white light appeared above the giant’s corpse. It rapidly expanded, growing larger, until it became a massive circular portal over thirty meters wide, glowing white. Unlike the yellow rift gate that had swallowed them, this one radiated warmth.
The system’s voice echoed inside Silas’s mind.
[World Rift Boss Eliminated.]
[Condition Fulfilled.]
[Exit Gate Generated.]
[Congratulations.]
[You have cleared the Rift.]
For several long seconds, nobody moved. Then Christian pointed toward the sky with trembling hands.
"A portal..."
Peter’s spear slipped from his fingers. Emma covered her mouth. Victor stared blankly at Silas, Mrs. Loraine’s knees nearly gave out, Mr. Sylvester laughed in disbelief, Miss Gertrude began crying, and even Ryan Fatars, the veteran B-Rank who had survived countless Rifts, looked at the white portal, then at the pink-haired young man standing atop the corpse.
A slow smile spread across his face.
"He did it... He actually did it."
They were going home... finally.
