If anyone had been watching closely, they would have known one thing: Laura was now dangerous.
The air around her shimmered with static energy, the very molecules seeming to tremble in anticipation. A quiet stillness settled before the storm, an ominous, reverent silence that wrapped around her like a cloak. Her chest rose and fell in slow, deliberate breaths. The world around her dimmed, as if holding itself still to acknowledge what she had become.
A cascade of blue screens flickered faintly in her vision.
[YOUR LEVEL HAS INCREASED]
[YOUR LEVEL HAS INCREASED]
But Laura didn't open her eyes to read them. She didn't need to. She felt it, an overwhelming surge of clarity, control, and power. It flooded every nerve, every muscle, every inch of her body. She had tapped into something vast, something primal. It was unlike anything she had ever felt before, pure, boundless dominion.
She raised one hand slowly. Her palm faced upward, then with a subtle downward flick of her finger, she commanded.
The sky obeyed.
A blinding flash.
BOOM... BOOM!
Twin bolts of lightning tore through the sky like the wrath of a forgotten god, striking the frozen grasshopper Jon had pinned in place. The first hit with such force that it charred the massive creature instantly. The second reduced the remains to scattered ashes, smoldering into nothingness.
The field trembled from the aftershock.
Jon stood motionless, lips parted, eyes wide. He had expected her to use lightning; he had suggested it moments ago, but this… this was on another level. His mind struggled to reconcile what he was seeing with what should've been possible. Her aura had swelled dramatically, her level was increasing.
The moment Laura closed her eyes earlier, Jon had activated his Moon Gaze to observe her transformation, and what he saw shook him to the core. The energy convergence, the density of mana, the elemental harmony, it was like watching a flower bloom under moonlight, only this flower wielded the power of storms.
The grasshopper had once been a fearsome opponent. Now it was a little more than a stepping stone.
Jon clenched his fists. "It seems one can gain levels not just by killing," he realized. "So that's another way."
The question that had haunted him before the one about what would happen in a world where no enemies remained now had an answer. Not all strength came from blood. Some came from resonance, from wielding power in harmony, from becoming something more.
Laura finally opened her eyes. Her breath came in slow gasps, mana threads dancing like sparks across her skin. She had poured almost everything into that strike. Two whole minutes had passed since the last bolt of lightning faded. Her body trembled from the mana depletion, but her smile…
She was smiling.
It was not a grin of pride or arrogance. It was a smile of relief. A smile that spoke of long-awaited potential finally realized.
She looked at Jon, her chest still heaving. "Thank you," she said softly, her voice carried on the fading wind. "I'll return this favor… I swear I will."
She straightened, almost expectantly, glancing at Jon again. But to her dismay, he wasn't looking at her. He was already scanning the battlefield, his attention focused elsewhere.
'At least look at the person thanking you,' she thought bitterly, her smile faltering. With a sigh, she turned and walked toward Cynthia.
Cynthia had remained rooted in the same spot Jon left her, wide-eyed. Her hand still hovered over her mouth in shock.
She had asked Laura a simple question about skill optimization. And in response, she had witnessed divine fury fall from the heavens.
It wasn't the first time she'd seen lightning-based skills. But this... this was lightning summoned from the clouds above, not conjured from one's hand. It was the sky itself answering Laura's call.
Cynthia blinked rapidly as Laura approached.
"Umm… Cynthia?" Laura waved a hand in front of her face.
"Oh, Laura, congratulations," Cynthia stammered, regaining her composure. A grin crept up her face. "You're officially on the list of natural disasters."
"Baa, look who's talking," Laura rolled her eyes, but couldn't help chuckling. Her gaze drifted toward Jon again. "Is he always like that?"
"Like what?" Cynthia tilted her head.
"Talking to someone without looking at them."
"What? He does that?" Cynthia laughed. "Honestly, I don't know him that well either. After the… betrayal, he became distant."
Her voice dipped low at the word betrayal, trailing off into the silence that followed. Both women turned to scan the battlefield. The carnage was fresh, blood and mana mingling in the wind.
The faces of the volunteers were dark with fatigue and fear. Even the more experienced fighters from earlier scouting missions looked shaken. They were strong, second only to the elite group, but this had still been a close call.
Despite the loss of comrades, they couldn't afford to rest. The next step was crucial: inspecting the buses for functionality and looting the grasshoppers for cores and orbs. It was grim work, but necessary.
Yet beneath their actions, an unspoken question loomed:
Should they continue?
Should they still try to get stronger in a world that could kill so randomly, so cruelly?
Ten minutes passed as they scavenged through the monster corpses. The group slowly reconvened near the battle's epicenter, quiet and somber.
Jon, scanning the area with clinical precision, had nearly forgotten.
There were people he needed to check on, two of them.
He saw the first.
"Alexa!" he called, sprinting toward her. She sat against a wall, her arm wrapped tightly in a cloth stained crimson. Her face was pale, but alert.
"I—I-I'm fine," she said, her voice trembling as she clutched her side.
Relief washed over him for a brief moment. But only briefly.
"Where's Tunde?" he asked, heart rate spiking.
His gaze darted across the battlefield. "Tunde!"
Nothing.
He activated Moon Gaze at full capacity, pushing it harder than he ever had before. His pupils glowed silver-blue, spinning like twin spirals. Mana surged through his nerves, and suddenly, he saw.
A pulse of panic raced through him. People turned to look, as if realizing whom he was calling for.
Then, he expanded his aura.
A wave of pressure surged outward from his body. The sheer density of his spirit energy crashed like an invisible tsunami. A fierce pressure descended over them.
Even Jenny and Cynthia reeled a bit.
Cynthia stumbled, barely remaining upright. Jenny gritted her teeth, her own mana shielding her just enough to avoid collapse.
"W-What the hell is happening?" Jenny murmured, shielding her eyes.
And then Jon found him, 800 meters away, just barely within his range. What he saw froze his heart.
Jon ran.
He ran with everything he had, legs screaming, breath ragged. Trees blurred past him. Wind ripped at his face.
He prayed he was wrong. Maybe it wasn't Tunde. Maybe he misread the aura. That maybe, just maybe, his friend had only passed out.
But when he got there—
His knees buckled.
Tunde's body lay dismembered, cleaved horizontally. Blood had pooled into a sticky, glistening puddle beneath him, already darkening from exposure. His eyes were open.
Unseeing.
"No..." Jon whispered, falling to his knees. He reached out with trembling fingers, brushing them against the ruined uniform.
"W-Why?" he asked. No one answered.
And then… he screamed.
"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
His voice echoed across the landscape like a thunderclap. A raw, soul-rending wail of anguish and rage. The sound tore through his throat, the pain forcing his vocal cords to rupture, but he didn't stop.
The scream was powerful.
It radiated.
The remaining fighters heard it meters away. Jenny and Cynthia immediately coordinated the retreat.
"Carry them!"
"Run! Move!"
The students who had fainted earlier were picked up and rushed away from Jon's position. No one dared stay behind.
Jon remained kneeling.
Tunde's death shattered something inside him. The loss tore through the already fragile dam holding his emotions back. Alex was gone. Tunde was gone.
He couldn't take it anymore.
[*******]
A distorted system notification blinked into his mind, barely readable. It flickered, corrupted, as if even the system couldn't define what had just happened.
His throat was too damaged to scream again, so he screamed internally, burning his soul from the inside out.
The atmosphere began to warp.
Dozens of monsters began converging toward him, drawn like moths to a flame.
Jon stood, his movements jagged and animalistic. His eyes had turned blood-red, veins visible against pale skin. His hands trembled. not from fear, but from rage barely kept in check.
He gently laid Tunde's body down.
Then he gripped a dismembered limb of a grasshopper, the severed leg of a monster. and turned toward the approaching horde.
They came at him.
He ran to them.
Without any care for thoughts of their general strength or their numbers, he charged into the mass of creatures with a fury, unlike anything he had ever unleashed before.
His usual precise and accurate movements were now brutal and random, fueled by grief. His usual calculating and calm mind was now clouded with rage.
SHNG...SLASH BOOOOM
With each wild swing, he severed the heads, legs, and waists of the monsters, and unknowingly, a certain red flicker began to appear around him. The red flickers fed on his pain, agony, grief, and rage, amplifying his strength and slowly overriding the calming effect of 'Composure'.
Carnage.
Limbs flew. Heads rolled. A crimson haze bled from Jon's form, flickering like red static. It wasn't mana. It wasn't aura. It was something older, something darker.
Each kill fueled it. The seed planted during the massacre of the Krad group had sprouted.
And now, it was growing, increasing in size with each life he took. It was a power built on pure raw negative emotions. Jon, now on a path to unlocking something far darker within himself, something that was evolving with every step and life he took, and whether it was a good thing or not was still unknown.