The beast lunged from the crushed car onto the glimmering ice.
The moment its paws hit, the ice surface cracked apart with a sharp snap, splitting into numerous pieces under its weight.
Her eyes widened..
Everything she'd built, the plan that had carried her through the swarm, was undone in a heartbeat.
The beast started to circle her, slow and deliberate, like a predator sizing up its prey. Each step left fresh cracks in the ice.
Seraphine swallowed hard, her throat dried. Her breath caught, heart hammering against her ribs. Sweat beaded across her forehead, sliding down her temple despite the cold.
She blinked once..
just once...
A very fatal mistake...
By the time her eyelids flickered open, the beast was already in front of her, its shadow looming over her and its hot, predatory breath inches from her face.
It had pounced the moment her vision was obscured.
Seraphine's instincts screamed. With every ounce of strength, she forced her body to the side, desperate to avoid the crushing impact.
"Agh!" The beast's paw tore across her shoulder, the claws digging deep.
Blood poured from the wound that was already torn open.
"AHHHH!" she screamed in pain, biting her lip hard. Somehow, she forced herself to focus.
She clutched her sword with both hands. Her knuckles turned white around the hilt.
The beast started to circle her again, slow and patient, like it was playing with its prey until the prey dropped from exhaustion.
Seraphine knew it. The black panther was toying with her. The beast in front of her was way above her level. As a level 4, she can't—
'Wait. Level 4? Didn't I level up?'
In that split second, she pulled up her status window, eyes darting straight to her level and attribute points.
-----------------
NAME : Seraphine Ashbourne
RACE : Human
LEVEL : 18 DHARMA POWER : 3800 / 4800
-----------------
ATTRIBUTES :-
• STRENGTH : 20 (10) -- ( average human )
• AGILITY : 14 (10)
• ENDURANCE : 15 (10)
• INTELLIGENCE : 18 (10)
• PERCEPTION : 14 (10)
• WILL POWER : 22 (10)
• MANA (awakened) : 19 (10)
[Attribute points : 34]
-----------------
SKILLS :-
•ACTIVE : [Frost Spell]---- ( MAX - 3 )
•PASSIVE : NONE
[MESSAGE] -- Can't undo once a ACTIVEskill is Equipped
-------------------
"Dammit, am I an idiot?" she cursed herself. The notifications she had ignored during the massacre had piled up into a massive power spike. She didn't have time to do the math or check her strength.
But she didn't waste another moment. She didn't even need to check. She knew she had a lot of attribute points saved up.
'P.. PUT EVERYTHING INTO AGILITY! AGILITY!' She barked in her mind.
-----------------
ATTRIBUTES :-
• AGILITY : 48 (+34)
------------------
But it was too late...
Too late for the beast...
The instant the panther lunged, Seraphine moved on instinct.
Her foot barely pushed against the ground before the world blurred for a second.
Wind exploded past her ears as her body shot sideways with terrifying ease.
By the time the beast landed...
She was already several meters away.
The world snapped back into place.
Her heartbeat didn't speed up. Instead, everything else around her started to slow down in her vision.
The panther, mid-pounce, hung in the air. Claws stretched out like it was swimming through honey.
Her own blood dripped from her shoulder. She could see it fall in slow motion. The pain message reached her brain late, like junk mail. Irrelevant.
48 Agility. It wasn't just faster.
It was like her body had been moving underwater her whole life and someone finally drained the pool.
Seraphine stared at her own hand. Her breathing was steady now.
Too steady.
Her body felt absurdly light, like a feather caught in the wind.
Every muscle reacted the instant she thought about moving.
The panther's amber eyes widened. Its pupils blew out when it realized the prey wasn't there anymore.
She heard the panther's paws hit the ground where she used to be.
She could smell its hot, musky breath from three meters away. She could see the individual hairs on its tail twitch as it realized she was gone.
Seraphine felt her own body--alien and obedient at the same time.
There was no lag, no weight. If she thought 'up', she'd be in the trees. If she thought 'kill', her blade would already be moving.
She felt like her body had a mind of its own, outstripping the speed of her own conscious thought.
Seraphine smiled, a cold, dangerous expression.
"Your turn to be the prey," she whispered. The words left her mouth before the panther could even finish turning its head.
The beast lunged again, more ferocious than before. Its claws tore across the ice and pavement, crushing the ground instantly in a desperate attempt to pin her down. But Seraphine was already gone.
By the time it looked up, she was perched on a sturdy branch, one leg dangling casually, watching the predator like it was a bad joke.
"Too slow," she said, not even raising her voice.
The beast let out a raw, broken scream and launched itself at the tree. Bark exploded under its claws as it climbed furiously, searching for her.
Seraphine dropped lightly behind it, landing without a sound.
The thing was still climbing, searching for her in the branches.
She clicked her tongue. "Down here."
The beast snarled and launched itself from the branch, a black blur of muscle and teeth. This time, Seraphine didn't even disappear.
She just leaned back slightly. The claws passed so close she felt the rush of wind against her skin, but that was it. No scratch, no contact. The beast couldn't even touch her.
"Come on," she muttered, her eyes tracking its every move with boredom. "You were scary five minutes ago."
The black panther roared and pounced again.
But Seraphine was already gone. A gust of wind swept past the beast's face.
Then a small, gentle tap.
A hand landed lightly on its head.
"Good boy."
The panther spun violently with a snarl, jaws snapping toward her throat.
But there was nothing to bite.
Seraphine had already reappeared several meters away, balancing lazily on the edge of a broken divider.
"Too slow."
The beast roared, lunged again, claws slicing the air where Seraphine had been standing just a fraction of a second earlier.
But Seraphine sidestepped with absurd ease. Its claw barely grazed the air where she had been standing a fraction of a second earlier.
'Seriously? I was having trouble with this earlier?' Her lips curled into a grin.
The panther's movements became increasingly erratic. It circled her rapidly, muscles twitching under its midnight coat, its amber eyes locked onto her figure only for Seraphine to vanish every single time it launched an attack.
Left. Right. Behind. Above.
The beast couldn't keep up. Its coordination was fraying.
The predator stumbled awkwardly across the road. It looked furious, confused, and humiliated all at the same time.
Earlier it had hunted her like prey.
Now, it couldn't even touch the hem of her clothes.
Suddenly, the panther twisted and lunged blindly behind itself, only to freeze mid-motion.
Seraphine was sitting casually on its back.
"You're kinda cute when you're angry," she commented, her voice right next to its ear.
The beast exploded into a frenzy, thrashing violently and clawing at its own spine as it tried to throw her off.
Seraphine hopped away effortlessly before it could even touch her.
"Aww~ you almost got me that time."
The panther's breathing grew heavy and ragged, a mix of physical exhaustion and pure mental frustration.
Its movements began to lag, the fluid grace of the apex predator replaced by the desperate lunges of a dying fire.
It couldn't understand what was happening; every instinct it possessed screamed that the girl in front of it should have been dead minutes ago.
Instead...
She was playing with it.
Seraphine slowly rolled her shoulder before gripping her sword tighter.
The playful smile on her face slowly faded.
"Alright."
Frost began crawling along the blade. Moving with a life of its own.
-----------------
ATTRIBUTES :-
• MANA : 6 (-4)
------------------
Fine crystalline patterns bloomed across the metal as a freezing mist hissed into the air, swirling around her hand.
The sword trembled faintly under the pressure of the mana, then hardened beneath layers of compressed, razor-sharp frost.
The temperature around her dropped instantly, turning her exhaled breath into a thick cloud of white.
The panther's muscles tensed, its body lowering instinctively. For the first time since the fight began, hesitation flickered in its amber eyes.
Seraphine took a single step forward.
The ground beneath her boot cracked with a sharp frost, ice spreading from her footprint like a frozen shockwave.
"Play time's over."
The panther let out a final, desperate roar and charged, a mountain of black fur and muscle throwing everything into one last strike.
But Seraphine was already gone.
A freezing gust of wind swept past the beast's ears, and then...
CRACK !
Her blade slammed across its neck with monstrous force.
The frozen edge didn't slice cleanly through.
It didn't need to.
A horrifying wound tore open across the panther's throat as frost exploded deep into the flesh, ice crystals blooming inside the muscle.
The beast's momentum carried it past her. It staggered forward, its heavy paws scraping uselessly against the pavement.
One step...
Two....
Then, its legs gave out completely. The massive body collapsed with a dull thud onto the frozen road, sliding several meters before coming to a dead stop. Blood pooled beneath it, turning the white frost into a dark, steaming slush.
It…
It was dead.
Seraphine stood still for a moment, the white light of the drops began to glow from the panther's corpse, but Seraphine just exhaled, watching the steam of her breath rise into the air.
Her lips parted, whispering to herself, almost in disbelief. "…It's over."