There were other items scattered within his perception, faint glimrs of weapons and miscellaneous drops lingering at the edge of his awareness, but Xavier’s attention never lingered on them for long.
They simply... didn’t matter.
His gaze locked onto one thing.
The class module.
Everything else faded into the background.
He had only seen such a drop twice before.
The first ti—when he had killed the Executioner Zombie, barely clawing his way through a battle that should have ended his life. That fight had rewarded him with the legendary class DeathWill Executioner.
The second—
Lich King Rokos.
Even recalling it made sothing tighten in his chest.
Both encounters had been brutal.
Not just difficult—fatal.
The kind of battles where a single misstep would have ant death.
Against the Executioner Zombie, he had survived through sheer calculation, squeezing every ounce of advantage out of the situation, forcing victory through tactics alone.
But Rokos...
That had been different.
There had been no grand strategy.
No clever plan.
Just chaos.
Blind, reckless survival.
And luck.
Pure, absurd luck.
The kind that didn’t co twice.
Now, standing here, staring at the class module resting quietly in his inventory, Xavier could feel anticipation rising within him—thick, heavy, almost suffocating.
It coiled in his chest, pressing outward, urging him to take it out, to see what it contained, to grasp whatever power it promised.
But he didn’t move.
Didn’t reach for it.
Instead—
His eyes shifted.
Slowly.
Toward the figure standing a short distance away.
Aria.
She hadn’t moved.
Not even a step.
Her body stood frozen, as if the world around her had stopped the mont Xavier’s fist had shattered the Lich King.
Her frost-blue eyes were wide, unblinking, locked onto him with an intensity that bordered on disbelief.
Shock.
Raw.
Unfiltered.
The image replayed in her mind again and again—
Xavier stepping forward.
Closing the distance.
And then—
A single punch.
No skill.
No technique.
Just... force.
And the Second Sequence Lich King collapsing like sothing fragile.
The mory looped endlessly, refusing to settle into sothing understandable.
Her thoughts churned, searching for logic.
For reason.
For anything that could explain what she had just witnessed.
But there was nothing.
How...?
The question echoed hollowly in her mind.
How can a non-evolved creature kill a Second Sequence being... with a punch?
It wasn’t ignorance speaking.
She had seen Rokos before.
Fought him.
asured his power.
Understood, at least partially, the gap that separated them.
That was why this made no sense.
None at all.
Xavier could feel her gaze.
Unusually Heavy and Sharper than a sword.
Almost probing.
But he didn’t respond.
Didn’t acknowledge it.
Instead, he slowly closed his eyes.
The tension in his body didn’t ease—it shifted.
Focused.
Pulled inward.
Because no matter what had just happened—
This wasn’t over.
Not yet.
Rokos was dead.
But they were still deep inside enemy territory.
And places like this didn’t stay quiet for long.
Trouble didn’t announce itself.
It simply arrived.
With that thought anchoring his mind, Xavier pushed everything else aside—the class module, Aria’s stare, the lingering aftershock of the battle.
His lips moved slightly.
Barely a whisper.
"Take us out of here."
These words were not spoken into empty air.
They were ant for Zerin.
Even though Xavier couldn’t see her, couldn’t sense her directly, he knew she was there—sowhere within the folds of space, watching everything unfold with that quiet, detached gaze of hers.
Hidden beyond sight, Zerin stood still.
Her eyes remained fixed on the fallen body of Lich King Rokos, sprawled lifeless across the ground, its presence still carrying a faint, lingering oppression even in death.
For a mont, she didn’t move.
Didn’t think.
Didn’t react.
The scene had rooted her in place.
Then—
Xavier’s voice reached her.
Soft and Calm.
As if nothing extraordinary had just happened.
It snapped her out of it.
Her eyes flickered.
Clarity returned.
But the shock—
That didn’t fade so easily.
Others might not understand what they had just witnessed.
They might call it luck.
A miracle.
An anomaly.
But Zerin...
She knew better.
She knew exactly how vast the gap was between a non-evolved creature and a being at the Second Sequence.
It wasn’t a gap that could be bridged.
It wasn’t sothing that could be overco.
It was the difference between heaven and earth.
Absolute.
Unquestionable.
And yet—
That very boundary had just been shattered.
By a single punch.
Her fingers curled slightly.
A thought surfaced, sharp and persistent.
How did he do it?
No matter how many tis she replayed the scene in her mind, the answer refused to appear.
All this ti, she believed she understood Xavier.
His strengths.
His limits.
His thods.
But now—
That confidence cracked.
There were things she didn’t know.
Things he hadn’t shown.
Things that shouldn’t even exist.
And that realization lingered, heavier than the shock itself.
Still—
When Xavier called out to her, she didn’t hesitate.
Her response ca almost instinctively, her voice steady despite the storm beneath it.
"Don’t worry."
Her gaze finally shifted, pulling away from Rokos’s corpse.
"With the shadows forming outside, the portal can be restored."
A faint pause.
"Everyone can leave safely."
The mont those words reached him—
Xavier exhaled.
The tension in his shoulders eased just slightly.
That had been his only real concern.
Not the fight.
Not the aftermath.
But getting them out.
Now that problem was gone.
With that settled, he turned.
His gaze moved over the group—
Aria.
The others.
Their faces still pale from everything they had just witnessed.
He didn’t complicate it.
Didn’t soften it.
Didn’t prepare them.
"Prepare yourselves."
His voice was calm.
Firm.
"We’re heading ho."
For a mont—
No one moved.
The words hung in the air, almost unreal.
Then—
They broke.
"Ho...?"
One of them whispered, her voice trembling.
"By ho... you an Earth?"
Another stepped forward, disbelief written across her face.
"We can actually leave this place?"
"...You’re not joking, right?"
The questions ca one after another, overlapping, desperate.
And then—
The tears followed.
Not quiet ones.
Not restrained.
They fell freely, uncontrollably, as if sothing long held back had finally snapped.
For them—
This place had been a prison.
A nightmare.
A world they had long since accepted they would never escape.
The idea of leaving had beco nothing more than a distant fantasy—sothing too fragile to even hold onto.
And now—
It was being handed to them so casually.
So suddenly.
It felt unreal.
Too good to believe.
So of them laughed through their tears.
Others simply stood there, trembling, unable to process it.
Xavier watched them for a mont.
Then shrugged lightly.
There was nothing he could say.
No words that would make this easier to accept.
They needed ti.
That was all.
His gaze shifted.
Aria.
Unlike the others, she hadn’t reacted.
She stood quietly, her expression calm, her eyes steady. Simply absorbing all the happening.
When she had stepped through that portal for the first ti—
She had already abandoned the idea of returning.
In her mind, there had only been one goal.
Kill any goblins that she saw.
Survive.
Repeat.
Nothing else mattered.
That sa thing was being placed in front of her.
Without warning, Without any effort.
Xavier didn’t try to read her thoughts.
Didn’t question her silence.
He simply turned away.
There was nothing more to do.
Nothing more to say.
All that remained—
Was to wait.
For Zerin—
To open the portal.
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