Elius shook his head slowly, still standing over the goblin's fresh corpse as the system screen faded away like vapor.
His fingers twitched slightly at his sides—not out of stress, but out of memory.
A memory so distant and so deeply buried, it rarely surfaced.
But now, it came crashing in.
In his previous life… things were different.
Back then, when he and his online friends would discover a hidden rift, a newly formed pocket dimension inside the cultivation game, there was never a plan to fight together.
That wasn't how the game was played.
That wasn't how they won.
Once inside, everyone would scatter—spread out like wolves unleashed into a blood-scented forest. Cooperation wasn't the goal. Efficiency was. It was a race. A silent, violent competition.
Fragments of martial skills were rare, elusive, randomly placed across the landscape.
They were never marked.
Never announced.
They had to be earned. And whoever found the most? Whoever collected the highest number? That person got the full skill.
The others, those who were slower, less lucky, less ruthless—they'd have to barter.
"I found one fragment," one might say. "You found four. Give me 30 bucks and I'll sell it to you." That was the rule. That was the game. It wasn't about loyalty. It was about results.
It had always been that way.
And now… now, he was living it again.
Except it wasn't a game anymore.
There was no respawn.
There were no friendly chuckles or laughing over mics about who got the most loot.
He exhaled deeply, nostrils flaring slightly. His swords still floated behind him like loyal phantoms, soaked in drying green.
Even though I miss my old life, he thought, it's only the friends I miss. Not the rest. Not the family.
He had no interest in remembering them.
He blinked once, glancing toward Shiro, whose silver-white eyes still shimmered dimly in the cavern's glow. The boy was quiet, breathing steadily. Uninjured.
But a thought struck him like a knife.
What if he dies?
Elius' fingers clenched.
No.
He wouldn't let it happen.
He'd kill anyone—anything—that dared touch them.
But still… the logic was undeniable.
If Shiro died, at the very least, the Shadow Clone ability he'd already obtained would remain. Permanently.
So he should be thankful.
Right?
He should be…
"Elius…" Ron's voice broke the silence gently. "You okay?"
Elius inhaled deeply and stood tall.
A soft breeze swept through the chamber, carrying with it the lingering scent of blood and rust. His voice came out calm. Controlled.
"It's time."
"For what?" Klee asked cautiously, her eyes still haunted.
Elius turned, facing them fully.
"For practice," he said simply. "For the four of you."
They froze.
Ron blinked. "Wait, what?"
Shiro frowned. "Practice?"
Lina glanced at the bloody walls, then back at Elius. "Here?"
Elius nodded. "Yes. If I can't protect you, I need to make sure you can survive."
The cave seemed to get quiet after he said that.
The four of them exchanged glances—unspoken questions flickering in their eyes.
They were still shaken from earlier.
From the massacre.
From the effortless slaughter.
They still saw Elius not as a boy, not as a fellow student, but as something else.
Something inhuman.
A superhero, but a scary one.
But they nodded.
Even Klee.
And so, without a word, Elius turned and led them deeper.
After ten minutes of winding through branching tunnels and veering past narrow choke points, they entered a wide lair.
This one was different—dirt floors instead of stone, moss carpeting every inch, old bones stacked in corners.
The air was warmer here.
Ranker.
More alive.
Goblin lair.
Dozens of them stirred when Elius stepped inside.
He didn't hesitate.
The massacre resumed.
Like a whirlwind made of knives, his swords tore through the lair with violent precision.
Goblins screamed in confusion, shouted war cries, tried to flee—but it didn't matter.
He was death incarnate.
And within moments, nearly every goblin was down.
Except four.
Elius had spared them.
Not out of mercy.
Out of intention.
The four goblins—each slightly different in build and weapon—stood in a defensive huddle, snarling, blades raised, eyes burning with hate.
Elius turned to his group.
"This is your test," he said calmly. "Kill them."
"What?!" Klee almost shouted.
"Four versus four," Elius said. "I won't let you die. But I won't help unless I must. Ron, you're going to be fine. You've got strength. But the rest of you... don't disappoint me."
Ron stepped forward immediately, eyes narrowing with newfound determination.
"Got it," he muttered, cracking his knuckles.
Shiro hesitated but drew his blade. Lina summoned her ghost hands, swirling with translucent fingers. Klee swallowed her fear and pulled a small device from her belt, letting it hum with unstable energy.
"Now," Elius said.
The goblins rushed.
And the battle began.
Ron charged the biggest one—a brutish goblin wielding a jagged cleaver—and the two clashed with heavy swings.
Velociraptor claw versus Goblin dagger.
Sparks flew.
The goblin roared. But Ron didn't flinch.
He ducked a strike and slammed his velociraptor claw into the goblin's gut, then followed with a vicious upper claw cut that sent the monster crashing to the ground with blood of rain from its wounds.
One down.
The others weren't so lucky.
Klee screamed as her goblin lunged at her, barely blocking the strike with her shield device. The thing shattered. She fell backward—but before the goblin could finish her, a sword flashed through the air.
SHNK.
The blade stopped a hair's breadth from its neck.
The goblin froze.
Elius was watching.
"Keep fighting," he said coldly, stepping back.
Klee gulped and scrambled up.
Lina's ghost hands coiled around her like protective tendrils, parrying strikes, but she lacked killing intent. Her attacks were shallow. Hesitant. The goblin she faced grinned, battering through her defenses.
CRACK!
She fell.
Before the goblin could crush her chest, a blade stabbed down from above, slicing the goblin's leg.
Elius' voice echoed from the shadows.
"You hesitate again, you die."
Lina gritted her teeth and rose.
Shiro's fight was messier. His goblin was agile—darting in and out, slashing with twin daggers. Shiro dodged, barely. He parried, slashed—but he was too soft, too defensive.
A dagger nearly pierced his eye—
TING!
One of Elius' swords intercepted.
Shiro blinked, wide-eyed.
Elius' expression was unreadable.
"Use your clone," he said.
Shiro did.
His illusion flickered to life—and for a brief moment, the goblin attacked the wrong one. That was all the time Shiro needed. He slashed across its back. Again. Again. Then, finally, down its spine.
The goblin collapsed.
Moments later, Lina managed to overpower hers with a coordinated blast of her ghost hands, tearing its arms away. She didn't kill it—so Ron walked over and finished the job for her.
Klee's fight ended when she trapped her goblin in a sudden electromagnetic field and cooked it alive, sobbing the entire time.
When it was over, the four of them stood among the corpses.
Panting.
Sweating.
Shaking.
Elius stepped forward, gaze like steel.
His words cut deeper than his swords.
"That's not good performance," he said. "None of you impressed me."
"If you were to call that performance…" Elius' voice cut through the aftermath like a blade. The stench of goblin blood still lingered. "You all were sloppy."
Ron, still panting in his velociraptor form, glanced down at the twitching corpse beneath him. He'd shredded the goblin's torso with sharp talons, but its claws had torn a gash across his scaled bicep before it died.
Elius' gaze turned to him first. "Ron. You took too long."
Ron's brows furrowed, sweat clinging to his forehead. "I beat mine faster than anyone else."
"That's not the point." Elius stepped forward, eyes narrowed like sharpened obsidian. "You're strong. Your form enhances that. But you're still thinking like a human. You're hesitating between decisions, taking time to adjust every strike. You could've taken out your target in three moves. It took you seven."
Ron gritted his fanged teeth but nodded slowly, muttering, "Got it…"
Then Elius turned toward Klee.
She stiffened immediately, knuckles white around the mangled remains of her device. Her face was pale. Her hands trembled, and her eyes still carried that scared, unsure glint.
"Klee," Elius said, voice gentler—yet still firm. "You panicked. That's understandable. But you're not a fighter. Not yet. So don't try to be one."
She looked up, blinking. "Then what am I supposed to do?"
"Focus on your strength." Elius stepped closer, folding his arms. "Your power has green shimmer trails. That's not normal electricity. It's regenerative in nature, isn't it?"
"I… I think so," she muttered. "My ability might be some kind of rejuvenation..."
"Exactly. Then your focus should be on healing, restoring, and bolstering the others. Not attacking. When you switched to offense, you dropped your defenses entirely. That nearly got you killed. In a real battle, hesitation is death."
She nodded. Slowly. Shame and understanding washing over her like cold water.
Elius' eyes settled next on Lina.
Lina flinched.
Her ghostly arms were fading, the afterglow of their use flickering out like dying embers.
"You're the worst offender."
Lina's lips parted slightly in disbelief.
"You've got a defensive power and a versatile construct," Elius said coldly. "Yet you're using both as if you're the vanguard."
"But I was trying to help—"
"You're a support class in cultivation terms," Elius interrupted. "You're not the blade. You're the shield. Your job is to protect Shiro and Klee. Especially Shiro—he's a dual-type, a shadow-based conjurer with low base defense."
Lina lowered her eyes, cheeks heating.
"Next time, use your clone as a decoy. Let it draw the aggro. Redirect attacks. Wrap Shiro in your ghost limbs, defend him. That's what makes a team. Not swinging wildly and leaving your healer exposed."
"I understand," Lina said quietly.
"No." Elius leaned forward. "You will understand. Or the next time I'm not around, you'll all die in under five minutes."
Silence followed.
Each of them stood amidst the blood, tired and battered—not from the fight, but from the truth. The cold, brutal truth of being unready.
And yet, none of them argued.
Not anymore.
Elius exhaled and turned toward the darkness of the cave, where another corridor split off to the left—damp, narrow, and glowing faintly green with bioluminescent fungi.
He walked.
And they followed.
Ten minutes passed. Then twenty. Then, as they rounded a jagged stone pillar shaped like a crooked tooth, Elius' steps stopped.
Another goblin group.
This one was larger—twelve in total—but Elius moved with chilling precision, his floating swords slicing down eight in the blink of an eye.
Their heads rolled. Green blood sprayed across the cave walls like grotesque paint.
Only four were left.
He stepped aside.
"Again," Elius said.