Chapter 333: The Smile Before the Fall

Leo didn’t answer. He felt the rising mana too, and he knew what was coming. High above them, the sky flared violently. The light swallowed the pale winter sun entirely as the mountain ridge groaned beneath their boots.

He shifted his stance. He looked down the line at the exhausted faces, then turned his gaze toward Alice. She was already looking toward the gate.

"...Alice," Leo said, his voice cutting through the whistling wind. "You know what’s coming out of that Gate right now, right? Surely you don’t need me to tell you what to do?"

Alice turned toward him, her amber eyes locking onto his. She gave a sharp, short nod. "...Yeah. I know."

"Good... then," Leo said. He stepped closer and lowered his voice so only she and Roan could hear. "I’m leaving the boss monster to you. Me and the others will clear the remaining monsters coming out of that Gate and make sure nothing else touches your side."

A short, dry laugh escaped Alice’s throat. "It’s about time you trusted me. I’ll handle the boss. Besides, this is exactly what I asked you for."

"Alright," Leo replied flatly. He was already turning on his heel to signal Roan and the frontline reserves. "Don’t drop your guard."

Alice didn’t wait for him to finish.

She stepped past the narrow point and left the shelter of the main defensive line behind as she walked straight toward the pulsing Gate. The ground beneath her boots changed from trampled snow to bare, jagged rock. The howling wind coming straight out of the sky had swept it clean of ice.

Above her, the thirty-meter tear in the sky stretched wider. The dark light didn’t just shine, it pulsed, swelling and shrinking in rhythm like a dying lung.

Then came the sound.

It wasn’t a roar yet. It was a deep, bone-shaking groan that vibrated straight through the soles of Alice’s boots and settled in the marrow of her shins. The sheer pressure in the air made her ears ache, forcing her to swallow hard against the sudden rush of sickness in her throat.

A massive, four-toed limb tipped with jagged black talons hooked over the icy edge of the rift. The claws dug into solid rock with a screech of tearing stone, sending a shower of grey sparks down the cliff face.

A second limb followed, and then the full upper body pulled itself out of the void.

It was a nightmare built of bone-white plates and dense, grey-scaled muscle. It didn’t look like a normal beast; it looked like a walking siege engine carved out of a glacier.

Thick ridges of armor ran along its spine, and its head was a heavy, flat, hammer-like shape with no eyes — only a pair of horizontal slits that glowed with a dull, sickly light. A long, jointed tail whipped behind it, the tip ending in a heavy, spiked club of solid bone that left hairline cracks in the ground whenever it dragged.

Alice stopped fifteen paces away from where the creature’s massive front legs hit the snow.

The wind died down for a single heartbeat, replaced entirely by the crushing weight of the monster’s presence. It was a heavy aura, so completely empty of warmth that it felt like standing at the bottom of a freezing ocean with a heavy weight pressing down on her head.

She stood there, her swords held loosely at her sides, and felt a strange, cold shiver run down her spine.

What is this...?

She blinked, her breath puffing into the freezing air in short, shaky clouds. Her heart was pounding against her ribs, but it wasn’t the wild, blind panic she used to feel in the slums when people cornered her.

This was different. This was pure, heavy awareness.

She stared up at the towering mass of muscle and armor, measuring the distance, the height, the thickness of the shoulder plates, and the steady beating of the core buried deep inside its chest. Without a doubt, this was the single strongest opponent she had ever faced outside of academy spars against students.

And yet, as she looked at it, the corners of her mouth twitched.

A grin spread across her face, slow, sharp, and completely wild.

Why am I smiling?

The thought came into her head, uninvited and strange. She could feel the muscles in her cheeks pulling upward, stubborn and defiant. She tried to flatten her expression, but the grin refused to move.

Are you losing your damn mind, Alice? she asked herself, her inner voice sharp with irritation. That thing is twelve feet tall and looks like it could snap you in half with a flick of its tail. And you’re standing in front of it grinning like an idiot.

Was it because it was just a simulation? Because deep down, she knew that even if that monster killed her, she wouldn’t really die, her real body wouldn’t stop breathing?

No. That was a lie.

She knew what real fear felt like.

Fear was a shadow living under her skin, a permanent constant that never truly left a person. It wasn’t something you outgrew, and no amount of rank or training could ever truly erase it. Ever since she was old enough to hold a weapon, fear had been there, quiet, persistent, waiting for her footing to slip.

She didn’t mind the fear. What she hated was sitting still while it ate at her.

For her, fighting was the only moment fear stopped being a cage and became fuel. It was the one place the noise in her head went dead silent, leaving nothing except the weight of the sword in her hands and the target in front of her.

If fear was a truth she couldn’t escape, stepping straight into its teeth was the only way to breathe.

She adjusted her grip on the longsword, her fingers locking tight around the hilt. Her amber eyes locked onto the massive beast as it shifted its weight forward.

Let’s see what you’ve got.

The monster didn’t give her another second.

With a sound like a falling tree trunk, the creature lunged forward, closing the fifteen-pace gap in less than a second. Its massive front paw swept outward in a wide, flat curve meant to turn her into a red smear across the snow.

Alice didn’t try to block. Trying to take that kind of heavy, crushing force on her sword would have shattered her wrists instantly.

She dropped her weight, throwing her whole body into a hard, sliding duck. The massive limb hissed through the air directly above her head, the sheer wind pressure tearing the collar of her dress and driving the freezing air straight into her chest.

Before the monster could pull its leg back, Alice planted her left foot hard into the ground and pivoted on her heel, driving her longsword upward in a two-handed thrust into the soft, unarmored flesh behind the creature’s knee joint.

The blade bit deep, carving through two inches of tough muscle before hitting the hard bone beneath. A hot spray of dark, thick fluid burst over her shoulder, smelling of blood and rot.

A sharp jolt of pain traveled straight up her forearm, rattling her teeth, but her Reave Affinity answered the hit right away. A thin, blood-red pulse traveled up the steel, pulling the force out of the wound and feeding it back into her strained muscles, numbing the ache in her wrist before it could settle in.

"Got you bastard," Alice hissed through her teeth.

The monster didn’t even flinch. It didn’t roar in pain, it simply shifted its weight, snapping its heavy, spiked tail around in a blind, wild backhand.

Alice saw the shadow coming from the corner of her eye and threw herself backward, but she was half a beat too slow. The bone club caught her left shoulder with the force of a falling boulder.

Crack!

The sound of her shoulder guard breaking echoed over the wind. The hit lifted her clean off her feet, sending her spinning through the air before she slammed hard into the frozen ridge. She rolled twice in the snow before slamming hard against a rock sticking out of the ground.

"Gah—!"

A mouthful of blood spilled past her lips, staining the white snow bright red. Her left arm hung uselessly at her side, the shoulder joint screaming in fiery pain. Every breath she took felt like breathing broken glass.

She spat a clot of blood onto the ground, her vision swimming for a split second as the cold air rushed into her cracked ribs. The monster turned its head toward her, its eye slits flaring brighter. It didn’t rush. It walked forward with slow, steady steps, each one shaking the ground beneath her.

Alice pushed herself up with her right hand, using her sword like a cane to steady her shaking legs.

She could feel her core pulsing weakly, her mana draining faster than she could refill it. Her attacks were leaving scratches, while a single glancing blow from the beast had almost torn her shoulder apart.

It’s too thick, she realized, her teeth gritted so hard her jaw ached. I’m not getting enough power behind my swings to cut through the shell.

Every time the heavy blade hit, the armor absorbed almost all of the force. If she kept trading blows like this, her core would burn out before she even cracked its chest plate. She needed a clean opening. She needed to get past the outer plates entirely and hit the core pulsing right behind its ribs.

The Behemoth let out a low, rattling hiss, gathering a thick cloud of freezing mist around its jaws before lunging forward once more, its front claws closing in like a pair of iron gates meant to crush her between them.

Alice didn’t retreat.

Instead of dodging outward, she took a hard, deliberate step forward, diving straight into the narrow gap between the monster’s incoming claws.

The creature’s jaws snapped shut on empty air right behind her back, the sheer snap of its teeth creating a pull of air that dragged her forward. Alice ignored the freezing wind, her eyes fixed entirely on the center of the monster’s chest, where the armor plates parted slightly to reveal a glowing, violet node.

The core.

She poured every last scrap of remaining mana into both arms, the wide steel blade of her longsword glowing with a dull, vicious light as her Reave affinity reached its breaking point. The monster realized too late what she was doing. It tried to rear back, swinging its massive head down to crush her skull.

Alice didn’t have time to dodge. She saw the heavy bone snout coming down toward her face, and she knew, with certainty, that she couldn’t get away from the hit. It was going to land right on her chest.

"Ah, crap," she muttered, a breathless, bitter laugh escaping her lips even as she committed to the strike.

She didn’t pull back. She drove her longsword forward with both hands, forcing her broken left arm to move through the searing pain, straight into the monster’s exposed core, burying the steel deep into the glowing flesh.

At the exact same moment, the monster’s heavy skull slammed directly into her. The impact felt like a mountain falling on her. A deafening snap echoed out as her chest armor cracked under the weight, the blow launching her off her feet like a broken doll.

She flew back across the open snow and slammed hard into the frozen ground.

The momentum dragged her body through the cold wet snow, rolling violently until she slid to a stop over the dark rock near the narrow point. Her longsword clattered onto the ice several paces away, its red glow flickering out completely.

Her vision blurred instantly, dark spots swimming at the edges of her sight. Blood pooled hot in the back of her throat, spilling out past her lips every time she tried to draw air.

"Kh—! Hah..."

She coughed hard, her body jerking as she forced her right hand to claw at the ice, trying to push herself up. Her broken ribs screamed with every shallow, shaky breath. Her amber eyes, bloodshot and covered in dirt, tried to focus through the haze of the blizzard.

Across the ridge, the Behemoth staggered, the longsword still buried deep in its chest core. Black, foul-smelling blood burst from the wound, but it wasn’t down. The beast let out a horrible, angry screech that shook the mountain, its eye slits locking right back onto her.

Alice tried to drag her legs under her, but her core was completely dry.

Then, a shadow fell over her.

The biting wind died down for a fraction of a second as a tall figure stepped into her line of sight, standing before her broken body. Through her blurred, blood-stained vision, she could only make out a dark, towering shape against the grey sky.

"....Hah... who?" she managed to rasp out through the blood in her mouth.