Starting With an SSS-Rank Goddess Summon!

The bear didn’t even flinch.

It easily absorbed the bite against its thick fat-layered hide, spun around with terrifying speed and backhanded the young wolf with a massive, bone-plated paw.

CRACK!

The impact sounded like a cannon going off.

The crushing weight of the bear’s strike sent the young wolf flying through the air like a broken toy.

It slammed brutally against the rocky cliff face, crumbling to the ground in a motionless bloody heap.

The female wolves outside the cave let out a deafening howl of grief.

The Alpha male didn’t retreat.

Seeing its packmate fall, the Alpha surged forward, pushing its exhausted, bleeding muscles past their physical limit.

The purple umbral energy flared brilliantly across its fur as it launched itself into the air, aiming a fatal bite directly at the Grizzly’s exposed throat.

It was a perfect strike...

But the bear was simply too big and too heavy.

The Grizzly raised its massive armored forearm, catching the Alpha out of mid-air.

The bear’s rusted-iron claws dug deep into the wolf’s shoulder, completely stopping its momentum.

”GRAH!”

With a roar, the Grizzly lifted the struggling, snarling Alpha high above its head and violently slammed the wolf straight down into the solid bedrock of the clearing.

SNAP!

A sickening crunch echoed through the basin as the Alpha’s ribs shattered under the crushing force.

The wolf bounced off the stone, a spray of dark blood erupting from its mouth, and collapsed into the mud.

The Alpha tried to stand, its claws scrambling weakly against the dirt, but its legs gave out.

It collapsed back into the muck, wheezing wetly, hovering right on the brink of death.

”GRAH!”

The Grizzly let out a triumphant roar, dropping down onto all fours and slowly lumbering toward the cave entrance, its eyes locked onto the whimpering pups.

Up on the ridge, the squad watched in horrified silence. Reina was completely frozen, her hands trembling as she clutched the snare ropes.

The pack she needed... the majestic proud animals she had dreamed of taming was being butchered right in front of her eyes.

A heavy, calloused hand violently shoved Reina’s shoulder, knocking her entirely out of her paralyzed stupor.

Reina gasped, looking over.

Brida was crouching next to her, the woman’s stormy eyes burning with intense aggression.

The commander had her massive battleaxe gripped tight in both hands, the gravity runes on the heavy shaft already humming with violent suppressed power.

Brida didn’t look at the dying wolves.

She looked directly at the Beast Tamer.

”Reina,” Brida demanded, her voice tight with the desperate, adrenaline-fueled need to drop into the clearing and start swinging. ”What should we do?”

The heavy stench of wet rot and fresh blood hung thick in the damp air of the Unknown Zone.

Up on the muddy ridge, hidden behind a dense cluster of massive ironwood ferns, the squad lay flat on their stomachs.

Below them, the sunken clearing had been turned into a horrific violent slaughterhouse.

The massive, twenty-foot-tall Blood-Mane Grizzly roared, its rusted-iron claws dripping with dark crimson as it stood over the broken, shattered body of the Alpha Umbral Wolf.

The remaining female wolves backed against the dark cave entrance, snarling desperately to protect the whimpering pups hidden behind their legs.

Reina stared down at the carnage, her ash-blonde braid plastered to her sweating neck.

Her Beast Tamer class didn’t just give her the ability to throw snares... it gave her a deep instinctual read on animal behavior.

As she watched the bloody scene below, her mind rapidly processed the raw data of the wild.

This wasn’t a standard monster encounter.

When beasts fought for territory or food, they fought with pure aggression but the wolves down in the mud weren’t fighting for territory.

Their fur was standing straight up, their ears were pinned flat against their skulls, and their snarling was laced with a high-pitched frequency.

They were fighting out of pure terror.

They were parents making a suicidal final stand to keep a nightmare away from their den.

Reina’s eyes darted from the dying Alpha male, to the younger brother bleeding out against the rocks, to the towering bear taking a heavy step toward the cave.

If that bear reached the females, the entire bloodline would be wiped out in less than a minute.

Her analysis snapped into sharp focus.

The conclusion was instant.

”We need to help them. Right now,” Reina whispered fiercely, turning her head to look at Silas and Brida. ”But we cannot go in there swinging wildly. If the heavy hitters drop into that basin and start crushing things, the wolves are going to think we’re just a bigger, deadlier boss monster coming to finish the job. They’ll panic and attack us too.”

She pointed a dirt-smudged finger directly at the towering Grizzly.

”We engage the bear,” Reina ordered with her voice becoming very. ”Only the bear. Nobody touches the wolves.”

Silas nodded, his instincts instantly recognizing the soundness of her plan.

He shifted his weight, preparing to push himself up from the mud and draw his new hand-and-a-half sword.

Before Silas could move, Brida threw a muscular arm across his chest, stopping him flat in the dirt.

”Hold on a second, My Lord,” Brida grinned, a wicked entertained spark lighting up her stormy eyes.

She looked past Silas and locked her gaze onto the junior infantry girls lying in the brush. She singled out the swordswoman, Vala, and the archer, Elara.

”You two,” Brida commanded, pointing a thick finger at them.

Vala and Elara flinched, their eyes going wide.

”The Boss and I have been carrying you through the mud all afternoon,” Brida told them with her tone changing into that of a strict expectant commander. ”You want to prove you deserve to wear the territorial crest? You want to show us the fruits of your training? Get down there and take the aggro off those wolves.”

Vala swallowed hard, looking down at the massive armored bear.

It was a Tier 2 monster, easily weighing over two tons, with bone plating thick enough to deflect standard arrows but she didn’t hesitate.

She was a shieldmaiden of the Blessed Land. She drew her shortsword, the steel scraping softly against the leather scabbard.

Elara didn’t back down either.

The young archer reached over her shoulder and unslung the brand new, compact tactical recurve bow she had just assembled in the forge last week.

She pulled a heavy, steel-tipped arrow from her quiver and nocked it to the spider-silk string.

”We’ve got this, Commander,” Vala whispered, her hands gripping her hilt so tight her knuckles turned white.

”Make it quick,” Silas told them, keeping his golden-ringed eyes locked on the bear. ”If you lose the advantage, fall back instantly. I’ll cover your retreat.”

Vala and Elara didn’t waste another second.

They pushed themselves up from the ferns, scrambled over the edge of the rocky ridge, and slid rapidly down the steep muddy embankment directly into the sunken clearing.

Their boots hit the wet bedrock with a loud splash.

The Blood-Mane Grizzly stopped its advance toward the cave.

The massive beast slowly turned its gargantuan, bone-plated head, its beady bloodshot eyes locking onto the two tiny human girls who had just dropped into its hunting ground.

The bear opened its jaws, letting out a deafening wet roar that blew a foul wave of rotting breath across the clearing.

Vala didn’t freeze. She remembered the harsh, brutal sparring lessons Morwenna had drilled into the infantry all week.

’Don’t let the enemy dictate the pacing... Take the space.’

”Hey! Ugly!” Vala screamed at the top of her lungs, stepping boldly into the center of the mud to draw the monster’s full attention away from the bleeding wolves.

She didn’t just yell. She planted her boots wide, turned her hip, and aggressively slapped her own canvas-clad ass with her free hand.

She stuck her tongue out, pulling her eyelid down in a universally mocking disrespectful gesture.

”Come get a piece of this, you overgrown rug!” Vala taunted loudly.

Up on the ridge, the rest of the Vanguard squad stared in stunned silence at the sheer audacity of the taunt.

Down in the mud, Elara was already moving.

The young archer sprinted to the right flank, finding a solid patch of dry rock to plant her boots.

She raised her short bow, drawing the spider-silk string back to her cheek.

”Careful, Vala!” Elara yelled across the clearing with a fierce reckless grin on her face as she lined up her shot. ”He can’t have your ass! It already belongs to the Lord!”

Up on the ridge, Brida let out a massive booming bark of laughter, slapping her thigh.

Aeliana’s silver eyes widened in shock at the scandalous quip, while Silas just pinched the bridge of his nose with a deeply amused sigh escaping his chest.

Vala’s face flushed a violent shade of crimson at her friend’s public joke, but she didn’t break her stance.

The Blood-Mane Grizzly didn’t care about the banter. The insult registered as a direct territorial challenge.

The bear abandoned the wolves completely, dropping onto all fours and charging straight at Vala like a runaway freight train covered in fur and bone.

The ground physically shook under the monster’s immense weight and mud flew into the air as the rusted-iron claws tore the earth apart.

THWIP!

Elara released her bowstring.

The high-tension ironwood limbs snapped forward with terrifying velocity.

The heavy steel-tipped arrow screamed through the damp air and slammed directly into the thick fleshy gap between the bear’s shoulder bone-plates.

”GAH!”

The Grizzly roared in pain, but the momentum of its charge didn’t slow down an inch.

Vala took a deep breath.

She didn’t have an elemental affinity.

She couldn’t summon fire or throw waves of heavy ocean water like the commanders. All she had was her raw mana pool and the heavy steel in her hands.

’But that’s enough...’

She visualized her mana circuit, pushing a concentrated surge of pure, non-elemental energy down her arms and directly into the blade of her shortsword.

The steel ignited with a vibrating white hum, increasing the sharpness and durability of the edge.

The bear was five yards away.

It reared up onto its hind legs, towering twelve feet in the air, and brought its massive right paw down in a devastating crushing swipe aimed directly at Vala’s skull.

Vala didn’t block.

Blocking a two-ton bear would shatter her collarbones instantly.

She used Morwenna’s footwork.

She pivoted sharply on her left heel, dropping her center of gravity and sliding smoothly to the outside of the bear’s arc.

The rusted-iron claws missed her face by less than two inches with the wind of the strike whipping her dark hair wildly.

BOOM!

As the bear’s arm crashed into the mud beside her, Vala struck.

She drove her mana-coated shortsword in a sharp upward horizontal slash, aiming for the exposed tendons behind the beast’s knee joint.

The humming steel bit deep into the thick muscle, drawing a heavy spray of dark blood.

The Grizzly bellowed, staggering sideways as its leg briefly gave out.

It quickly recovered, spinning its massive bulk around with terrifying agility and snapping its jaws toward Vala’s torso.

THWIP! THWIP!

Elara was a machine.

The compact bow allowed her to draw and fire with blinding speed. Two arrows slammed directly into the thick, sensitive flesh of the bear’s snout, burying themselves deep into the cartilage.

The Grizzly flailed wildly, distracted and blinded by the pain, swiping its massive claws at the air.

”Keep hitting the joints!” Vala yelled, ducking under a wild chaotic swing.

She darted forward, her boots sliding in the slick mud.

She channeled another burst of raw mana into her blade, stepping directly inside the monster’s guard.

Vala didn’t aim for the thick bone plates on the chest, instead he drove the sword straight into the soft unprotected armpit of the beast, twisting the hilt violently to maximize the tissue damage.

The bear shrieked, a deafening sound that rattled the stones of the cave. It dropped its heavy bulk downward, trying to crush the swordswoman under its chest.

”Nice try fucker!”

Vala ripped her blade free and threw herself backward, rolling through the wet mud to avoid being flattened into paste.

She scrambled back to her feet with her canvas uniform completely soaked in muck and monster blood and her chest heaving as she gripped her sword.

”Keep attacking me... it helps me look cool for my Lord yunno.”