The shore of Yang Lake, once a place of tranquil, fiery beauty, was now a scene of utter devastation.
The corpse of the Abyssal Maw Leviathan lay half-subrged in the steaming water, a testant to a battle that had defied all known scales of power for a recruit-level assessnt.
Ayra Sand, the S-Grade Primal Fury Berserker, stared at the monstrous, unmoving form, her great-axe feeling less like a weapon and more like a child’s toy in her hands.
The crimson remnants of her berserker rage had been completely extinguished, replaced by a profound, chilling awe.
Her mind, accustod to the straightforward logic of overwhelming force, struggled to comprehend what she had just witnessed.
She turned to Lia, who was calmly tending to a minor cut on her arm, her A-Grade Staff of the World Ash glowing with a serene erald light.
"Lia," Ayra’s voice was uncharacteristically shaky, a hoarse whisper. "That... that thing.
The archives mark beasts like that as... as ’Cohort-level threats,’ right? The kind of monster they send an entire graduating class of geniuses, dozens of them, to fight, and still expect heavy casualties."
Lia nodded slowly, her calm grey eyes fixed on Daniel, who was standing at the water’s edge, his form silhouetted against the steam rising from the lake.
"That is correct. In fact, the last recorded encounter with a suppressed SS-Grade creature required the intervention of three A-Grade Vanguard Captains and resulted in the complete loss of the surrounding sub-dinsion.
The fact that Daniel not only faced it but defeated it... alone... is beyond unprecedented.
It’s a fundantal violation of established power trics."
Ayra swallowed hard, the word "monster" resonating in her mind. She had called Daniel that in anger before, but now she understood the true, terrifying weight of the word.
He wasn’t just a monster among recruits; he was a monster among monsters.
The gap between them, once sothing she fought hard to bridge, now felt like a vast, unbridgeable divide between a mortal warrior and a rising god of war.
The other Awakened, the survivors of the group who had so arrogantly pursued them, were huddled near the broken treeline, their faces pale masks of pure, unadulterated terror.
They had witnessed the entire, horrifying spectacle. They saw Daniel provoke the beast, survive its apocalyptic attacks, and then, in a flurry of movent too fast for the eye to follow, bring it down.
Their earlier greed had vanished, burned away and replaced by a deep, instinctive fear, not of the fallen Leviathan, but of the lone figure who had killed it.
They whispered amongst themselves, their voices trembling.
"He... he killed it... He killed a god..."
"Did you see his speed? He wasn’t even there..."
"That dagger... it just... it went right through its armor!"
"We tried to rob him. We tried to rob that." The realization sent a fresh wave of icy dread through their ranks.
Daniel, ignoring the peanut gallery of terrified recruits, turned away from the lake.
He could have easily dealt with them, taken their remaining cards, and asserted his dominance further.
But looking at their pathetic, broken forms, he felt nothing but a weary disinterest. They were gnats, irrelevant.
They had served their purpose by confirming the Leviathan’s existence.
He projected his voice, calm but carrying an undeniable weight that made the very ground seem to vibrate.
"The beast is dead. Its treasures," he stated, a subtle warning in his tone, "are mine.
Stay away from this lake. Do not provoke . Find your own way to the exit. This is your only warning."
A collective sigh of relief, so profound it was almost comical, swept through the group of onlookers.
They had expected retribution, annihilation.
Instead, they had been dismissed. They quickly scrambled to their feet, not daring to make eye contact with Daniel, and began to put as much distance between themselves and Yang Lake as possible.
Strangely, a few of them decided to make camp just over the nearest ridge, finding an odd sense of security in proximity to the very monster they feared.
After all, what other beast in the Taiji Basin would dare approach a place that slled so strongly of a freshly slain demigod and the even more terrifying predator who had killed it?
With the distractions gone, Daniel turned to his teammates. "Right. The fight is over, but the work isn’t.
According to the archives, these apex predators often guard significant resources or hidden passages at the bottom of their lairs."
He gestured towards the dark, steaming water. "Its hoard is likely down there. We need to retrieve it."
He looked at Lia and Ayra. "I’ll need one of you to co with . The other will have to stand guard up here.
The sll of this much high-grade blood might attract other, less intelligent but still dangerous, scavengers."
Ayra, her pride still smarting but her berserker spirit re-igniting at the prospect of more action and treasure, imdiately volunteered.
"I’ll go! I can hold my breath for ages, and if anything down there moves, I’ll hit it with my axe!"
Lia, however, shook her head, a faint blush touching her cheeks.
"I... I am not a strong swimr, Daniel. My talents are with the energies of life, not the pressures of the deep. I would be a liability down there."
It was a rare admission of weakness from the usually unflappable healer, a mont of vulnerability that made her seem all the more human.
Daniel nodded in understanding.
"Then it’s settled. Lia, you have the watch. Your [Aura Sense] and staff will be our early warning system. Ayra," he looked at the eager berserker, "you’re with . Try not to start a fight with any grumpy-looking fish."
Ayra grinned, her confidence returning. "No promises, Vance. If a fish looks at funny, it’s getting a taste of my axe."
Their plan set, they prepared for the descent, the dark, mysterious waters of Yang Lake holding the promise of their next great reward.
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