Chapter 75: The False A-Rank

Chapter 75: Chapter 75: The False A-Rank

Morning came without sunlight. A thick, unbroken layer of gray clouds covered the sky, leaving the forest bathed in a dull, cold light.

Felix stood on a rocky ledge, looking out over the endless sea of trees.

"There," he said, pointing into the distance.

Seraphina stepped up beside him. Far out near the center of the valley, a heavy wave of pressure rolled through the canopy.

The mana felt thick and aggressive: easily reaching the level of an A-rank threat. Yet beneath that raw power, something felt strange, like an engine running too hot on bad fuel.

Liora walked up to the edge of the rock, her five tamed beasts waiting patiently behind her: three hounds and two mountain cats.

Felix looked down at her. "Ready?"

She swallowed hard, her small hands balling into fists. "Ready."

"Go get it."

She leaped down from the ledge. Pitch-black mana flared around her body like dark fire as her five beasts bolted forward beside her.

Up ahead, the trees snapped like dry twigs. The rift boss broke into the clearing.

It was a terrifying beast: a massive, four-legged monster covered in thick obsidian scales, its broad skull crowned with two jagged horns. Its glowing yellow eyes locked onto Liora, and it let out a roar.

Her five beasts attacked at once, darting in from every side.

BOOM!

The boss didn’t even slow down. With a single sweep of its massive foreleg, one hound was sent flying into the rocks.

Another was crushed flat under its heavy paw before it could dodge.

Liora didn’t hesitate. She vanished, reappearing directly above the monster’s head. "Now!"

Dark mana wrapped tightly around her fist, and she slammed it down onto the beast’s snout with all her weight.

BOOM!

The force drove the monster’s knees into the dirt, cracking the ground beneath it. But it didn’t stay down. It shook its heavy head, snarling as its tail whipped across the clearing.

The surviving beasts kept darting in to draw its attention while Liora danced between the trees.

She phased her dark needles through empty space, making them disappear mid-air and strike the beast’s legs and joints from impossible angles.

She formed blades of shadow along her forearms, reinforced her muscles, and moved just like Felix had drilled into her.

Yet the boss was still stronger.

It had spent years surviving and killing in this world. Every move it made was sharp and experienced, something you couldn’t learn in a clean training room.

You couldn’t get that kind of timing from drills; it only came from surviving hundreds of life-or-death battles.

Liora was forced to learn it right now, in the dirt and blood.

The monster’s claws tore through the air. She twisted away as fast as she could, but the tip of a claw still carved a deep gash across her ribs, spraying blood onto the grass.

"Liora!"

She stumbled, pressing a hand to her bleeding side. Pain shot through her chest, but instead of panicking, a wide, fierce grin spread across her face. "I’m fine!"

She pushed off her back foot and charged right back in.

---

An hour went by.

The battle turned brutal. Trees were smashed to kindling, craters pocked the clearing, and dark mana tore through the brush. Her beasts fought bravely, but they were hopelessly outmatched.

One by one, they fell: a hound crushed in the beast’s jaws, another thrown against a boulder, the two agile cats wiped out in a single swipe.

Liora fought on alone. Wounds piled up on her body: a gash along her forearm, bruised and cracked ribs, and a limp in her left leg.

Seraphina watched from the edge of the clearing, her arms crossed. Her face was calm, but her eyes tracked every hit.

Liora was taking a beating, but she was adapting with terrifying speed. Every time the monster clipped her, she changed her footwork. Every missed strike was corrected on the next exchange.

Felix stayed close to the edge of the fight, letting her handle it herself. Only when her wounds became dangerous did he step in. A wave of emerald healing mana would wash over her, knitting her torn skin, setting cracked bones, and refreshing her tired lungs in seconds.

"Again," Felix would say, stepping back.

Liora would pant, turning back to the beast with fire in her eyes.

Two hours in, after getting knocked down more times than anyone could count, Liora looked like a completely different fighter.

Her footwork was smooth. Her reactions were instant. She ducked under a sweeping claw, shifted through space, and drove a solid needle into the back of the monster’s knee before it could even turn around.

She vaulted into the air and hammered both fists down onto its neck, driving its face into the stone.

For the first time, genuine rage flashed in the monster’s yellow eyes. It roared, its mana exploding outward like a storm, and charged straight at her with murderous speed.

Liora dropped into a low stance to meet the charge.

Suddenly, her body locked up. Her mana core violently seized inside her chest.

"What...?" she gasped.

A wild pulse of energy tore out of her, followed by another. Her entire core began to shake violently, glowing bright through her chest.

"Liora!" Felix yelled, his eyes wide.

A huge mana vortex formed around her. The ambient energy of the entire forest rushed into her body, whipping up dirt, leaves, and rocks into a howling wind.

Seraphina stepped forward, her hand dropping to her waist. "Her core... she’s breaking through."

The vortex grew louder. Liora floated an inch off the ground as the walls of her mana core cracked, expanded, and snapped outward.

BOOM!

A shockwave of dense, pure mana exploded across the clearing. The bottleneck was gone.

She had officially broken through into A-rank.

Her eyes snapped open, wide and disoriented. The sudden, massive flood of high-tier mana was overwhelming, freezing her in place for a critical second.

The boss saw the opening. Roaring with open jaws, it lunged forward to bite her in half.

BOOM!

Felix appeared directly in front of her like a wall of iron. He took the monster’s full charge on his braced forearms, his boots digging two deep trenches into the earth as he skidded back five yards.

He didn’t use an attack or counter; he simply stood between them, taking the hit so she wouldn’t be disturbed.

"Felix!" she cried out.

"I’m fine," he said calmly, not even looking back.

"Take your time. Get your grip on the mana."

He wasn’t going to steal her kill.

Behind him, Liora took a deep breath. She pulled the wild, rushing power into her pathways, smoothing out the flow until the massive pool of A-rank mana obeyed her will completely. She looked down at her hands, clenching them into tight fists.

"I’ve got it," she whispered.

Felix smiled, stepping to the side. "Then put it down."

Liora glanced toward the trees. Her remaining three beasts lay battered and breathing weakly.

"Stay there," she ordered gently.

She stepped past Felix. Her dark mana flared again, but this time it was pitch-black, thick as tar, and utterly silent.

The boss roared, throwing its full weight at her once more.

Liora met it head-on.

BOOM!

Their collision shook the very ground beneath them. The beast swung its heavy claws; Liora brought her forearm up, blocking the strike clean without budging an inch.

She looked up into its furious eyes and smirked.

"That all you’ve got?"

She punched back.

BOOM!

The monster staggered. She danced around its heavy swings, hitting it with brutal, condensed strikes again and again. For ten straight minutes, she tore through its scales and cracked its joints.

Covered in sweat and blood, her eyes shone with pure adrenaline. She gathered a massive ball of condensed darkness around her right fist, pulling her arm back.

The beast let out one final, desperate roar.

She drove her fist forward.

BOOOOOOM!

The concussive hit shattered the beast’s skull plate, driving its massive head deep into the fractured earth. Its giant limbs gave a final twitch before going completely limp.

Silence fell over the clearing. The boss was dead.

Liora stood there frozen for three seconds, looking at the dead giant. Then, she threw her arms up into the air:

"I DID IT!"

She flopped straight onto her back in the grass, breathing heavily, her face glowing with pure joy.

Felix walked over, laughing. "Great fight, Liora."

"I actually beat an A-rank boss..." she breathed, staring at the sky.

"You really did."

"All on my own!"

"Every bit of it."

Her smile widened until her cheeks hurt. "I can’t move my arms. I’m completely wiped out."

"You earned the nap," Felix said warmly.

Felix walked over to the monster’s massive corpse. He crouched by its chest, used a mana blade to cut open the thick scales, and reached in to pull out the beast’s core.

The moment his fingers touched the crystal, his smile vanished.

The core was small, dull, and clearly B-rank.

Felix’s brow furrowed.

"Felix?" Seraphina called out, noticing his expression. "What is it?"

"Did something go wrong?" Liora asked, propping herself up on her elbows.

Felix didn’t answer right away. He turned the crystal over in his hand, feeling a strange, faint trace of foreign mana clinging to the outer shell.

It didn’t belong to the beast, and it didn’t belong to the rift.

He stood up slowly, looking up at the gray sky.

The gate wasn’t trembling. The pocket world wasn’t breaking apart. Everything remained completely steady.

"If the boss had actually broken through on its own," Felix said quietly, "the whole dungeon would have shaken to adapt to its new rank."

"Which means...?" Seraphina asked, her voice dropping.

"It never broke through," Felix said, holding up the dull stone. "This is still a normal B-rank core. Someone pumped artificial mana into this creature to make it temporarily hit like an A-rank."

"Someone?" Liora asked, her eyes widening.

"Yes. And whoever did it is still inside this rift."

The three of them looked around at the dark, silent forest. Suddenly, the trees felt much colder.

"Something smart is living in this world," Felix continued. "Some creature or an intelligent species: that knows how to experiment on other monsters and manipulate the ecosystem."

Liora pushed herself up onto her feet, her exhaustion forgotten. "What do we do?"

"Catch your breath and circulate your mana," Felix told her. "If there’s an intelligent enemy out here, we’re going to need all the firepower we can get. Are your channels stable?"

Liora closed her eyes, running the thick A-rank mana through her pathways. It flowed smoothly, calm and powerful, without any backlash or headaches. She opened her eyes, smiling up at him. "Yes. I have full control now. Thank you, Felix."

"Good." Felix turned to Seraphina. "Sera, you take the southern and eastern ridges. Keep your eyes open."

"I’ll find them," she said, her violet eyes turning razor-sharp.

Felix looked toward the northern peaks. "I’ll scout north and west. Liora, stick close behind me and keep your hounds nearby."

Liora nodded firmly, stepping into formation.

Somewhere deep in the forest, an intelligent force had tampered with an entire dungeon’s ecology. And now, the three of them were going to hunt it down.

"Stay sharp," he said.

They moved out into the trees, disappearing into the shadows of the forest.

---