What is a Terror?
A creature that causes nightmares?
Perhaps a tale meant to frighten children into obedience?
If that is your answer… then you are only half right.
A Terror belongs to the Depraved Rank — the weakest rank, ironically. Yet they are not called Terrors because of their appearance alone… but because of what they can do.
These creatures spread discomfort merely by existing. They are bringers of chaos. Vile beings driven by instinct and destruction, stubborn beyond reason.
The Goblin Husk suddenly lunged at them, wind rippling around it.
The other cadets were nowhere to be seen at the moment. It was just Grey and Marcus facing the horrific creature alone.
The Husk landed where they had been standing only a heartbeat earlier, leaving grave shades of white pile, its eldritch claw sweeping outward in a wide arc.
Grey barely dodged, the attack went for his throat. He slid backward across the pale ground, boots carving thin lines into the ivory dust.
Marcus on the other hand, had launched himself atop one of the towering trees, stopping on a thick branch, high above the battlefield, as it shook of leaves. He stared downward, surprise flickering across his face.
'Hmm… He didn't run away.'
He had expected Grey to retreat in terror like the other two. Instead, the boy stood his ground against the horrific creature.
The Goblin Husk charged again.
Its claws tore through the forest, splitting apart trees in violent bursts of splintered wood. Yet Grey moved with unnatural precision.
Small movements, tiny shifts. He made these steps at his own pace.
It was rather fast, considering who he was.
The one who had survived the System Realm—traversing the deadly foreign grounds, battling countless monsters for months, where the sun woke and the night slept, across seas and twisted lands without rest. The monsters came, relentless and unending.
They tore through everything in their path.
And when the silence finally arrived… only Grey returned. Even the one he couldn't kill was left behind, confused and disoriented.
Regardless of that, he only managed to avoid the claws by a hair's breadth, and clenched teeth.
But it was still progress, barely noticeable adjustments, in footwork.
It was one of the combat techniques they had learned during training.
Because of that… every strike started missing by mere inches.
Grey was dulling the monster's assault.
Elsewhere…
The boy with glasses stumbled through the forest, frantically searching for his friend.
"Danielll!"
"Daniel!"
He adjusted his spectacles nervously, glancing around in panic.
"Come out before this ugly monster kills me!"
He continued shouting while whining meticulously to himself.
Behind him, the forest trembled beneath distant booms, debris raining through the white space.
Back on the battlefield…
Marcus had drawn out a long staff this time, not sure if Grey could hang on any longer.
"Are you doing alright, friend?" he asked casually.
Grey was beginning to lose ground.
He grunted, frustration burning in his chest.
'Ha… to think I'd actually lose to a fifth-class Goblin.'
But Grey was wrong.
That monster had already surpassed its normal ranking.
It had existed as a Husk for far too long within the Ivory Waste. Over time, its body had begun mutating… evolving into something far more terrifying under the corruption of a Terror.
Its flesh had turned completely white.
The Ivory Waste had begun influencing it.
Truthfully… Grey and the others had started noticing traces of white, appearing on their own bodies as well.
Though, unlike monsters, they constantly brushed the strange substance away.
Not with water, of course. That would be cruel… and outright insanity in a place like this. Monsters were just monsters, no matter how smart and cunning they claimed to be. They did not clean themselves. They were savage creatures, rough and grotesque beings, concerned only with preying.
So when the pale dust began settling onto their flesh… Once it slowly fused into their bodies… ordinary shaking was no longer enough to remove it.
And eventually…
It became part of them.
The Husk was becoming a blur to Grey, shifting between feints and sudden bursts of movement. Each exchange left only shallow wounds on his body—but even that was changing.
The wound soon took shape and gained notice, Grey grimaced. The situation turned dangerous.
His gaze followed the husk's movement—until he realized too late that he had been led into a blind spot.
A sharp pain erupted from his shoulder.
The Husk had bitten down.
Grey gritted his teeth, but there was no time to push it off properly.
He could see it—but his body could not respond in time.
Then—
Marcus moved.
He lunged forward, sliding in behind the creature. His staff clashed against its claws with a sharp, ringing impact that echoed through the forest.
A burst of wind scattered outward from the collision, forcing the Husk back half a step.
Marcus turned his head slightly, his eyes flicked toward Grey's shoulder.
"Are you okay?"
Grey exhaled sharply. "Yes."
He smiled, but his eyes never left the monster.
The Husk studied its own claw with strange curiosity, tilting it slightly as though it was trying to understand what had just happened. A faint grin formed on its twisted face, regarding it as meaningless spasm. It ran its slithering tongue across its blood gaping mouth.
"For a moment there…" Marcus said lightly, almost laughing. "I thought you were going to die. I mean—you weren't landing any attacks. Yes, that's it."
He let out a short chuckle.
Grey turned to him and groaned.
"I was about to, before you interrupted me."
'This madman… did he just imagine my death?' Grey thought. But there was no time to dwell on it.
His gaze snapped back to the Husk. The creature began to move.
Then—
It vanished.
Grey's instincts screamed.
He immediately understood.
It wasn't retreating.
It was preparing to strike again—faster, and far more dangerous than before.
Marcus also moved.
His staff slammed into the monster's arm with a heavy crack.
Grey watched them airborne for a brief moment, his eyes locked on the battlefield. Something in his expression shifted—like he had already predicted what was coming next.
Marcus pivoted instantly.
The Husk's eldritch claws tore through the space he had just vacated, in the same motion, Marcus drove a crushing kick into its chest.
The impact forced black blood to spill from the creature's gnashing mouth.
The force sent it skidding backward—straight through several trees, wood exploded apart as it crashed into the forest.
But in the next instant—
It reappeared near the fleeing gboy in glasses. The boy froze, his eyes widened in terror.
Before the creature could strike—
A black staff slammed down like a falling wall.
"Sorry, Grandpa!" Marcus shouted, his staff extended—longer than before, both wide and heavy like a collapsing pillar.
The monster staggered back, forced into the deeper forest as the staff swept through trees like paper, sending wooden splinters and shattered trunks exploding outward like shrapnel. Leaving nothing but destruction in its wake.
"I am not of the same lineage as you!" the creature snarled, violently thrashing.
It lunged toward Marcus again.
Marcus recoiled his staff.
"I was just being sarcastic," he muttered. "Learn to take a hint." His weapon changed.
The staff compressed and vanished, then a dagger appeared in its place.
Even the monster hesitated for a fraction of a second.
Lightning cracked across the crimson sky.
Blood spilled as the creature's arm was severed mid-motion.
The second it's bloody limb touched the ground, its fangs snapped forward—
But instead of flesh, they met Marcus's elbow.
The impact sent it flying towards the stream.
Marcus followed immediately, cutting through the trees in pursuit. But before he could arrive—
The monster planted its limbs and stopped abruptly, like a nightmare refusing to fall.
Marcus was already close at the time, too close.
Then—
Black claws erupted from its back like twisted tendrils.
Not goblin limbs.
Something else. Something that was not of the goblin lineage. It felt wrong, indeed.
But Marcus had no time to retreat.
Grey arrived, slightly leaned downward. A ghostly white aura flickered across his scarred body—the mark of the last storm born on his skin. Both attacks were already in motion.
Marcus had already struck forward.
The monster wanted to respond. Neither could stop, they were already mid-attack.
Grey made his calculations in an instant. He moved, in that moment he became faster than both of them.
His blade swept in a wide arc slightly below Marcus's path, who was still airborne.
Even before reaching the target, he adjusted his grip—preparing for impact timing.
The blade glowed faintly as it met resistance. But it cut through. He grunted, as the husk watched him in painful disbelief. It's attack broke sequence.
The black tendrils twisted away from Marcus at the last second, striking empty air instead.
All of it—accounted for in Grey's chain of predictions.
He stepped through the opening, pivoted, and withdrew from the strike zone.
Marcus followed through his original notion, driving his weapon into the monster's body.
Both of them were launched apart from Grey's position.
Silence followed.
The battlefield splitted in two.
Grey stood near the monster's lower half.
Marcus stood near its upper body in the distance.
The two boys who had been hiding slowly emerged from the forest, drawn by the noise.
What they saw made no sense. Two cadets. A broken battlefield. And a monster that should have already killed them.
Yet it had fallen.
Not because it was weak—
But because it had been outplayed.
The monster laughed weakly.
"Ha… what a surprise…"
It coughed blood, still smiling despite its dying body.
"I only lost because of this weak, feeble body."
Marcus's expression darkened.
"Now thats the part, I don't like."
He pulled his dagger free from its chest, then stepped forward.
The monster's eyes widened—
The blade struck its skull.
"Losing means you lost," Marcus said coldly. "Own it."
He stepped down, forcing the weapon deeper.
Then his gaze shifted to Grey strangely.