The risk was real. Winston wasn’t pretending otherwise.

But the opportunity sitting behind that risk was hard to ignore. One of the biggest factors in spell acquisition was level disparity, the greater the gap between the holder and the monster they killed, the higher the chance of the spell dropping.

Winston was sitting at a natural Mastery of 5.6. Whatever had killed a high-Mastery initiate was going to be well above his natural level. Which meant if he somehow pulled off the kill, the spell reward would not only be guaranteed it would also be exceptional.

’That’s worth the risk.’

He made his decision and moved.

『IGNITE』

The burning sensation hit his chest as he activated Soul Burn and directed the energy outward, one soul into the Dark Wolf’s Mantle, one into the Lesser Drake Gladius. Both spells responded immediately.

[Dark Wolf’s Mantle — Level 4]

[Lesser Drake Gladius — Level 6]

Boosted and ready. Winston pushed north through the trees, following the pull of that roar, and it didn’t take long before the forest opened up ahead of him.

Then he saw it.

The creature moved through the clearing with the slow, grinding inevitability of something that had never needed to hurry.

Nearly twenty feet tall when it raised its head. Its lower body was built wrong, with two short, pillar-like legs that looked structurally impossible under that mass.

To compensate, it moved on four arms instead, the lower pair thick and gnarled, had their knuckles digging deep furrows into the earth with every forward push.

Its hide was grey and vast, layered with old scars that had hardened into ridges across the skin.

Above a barrel chest, two massive tusks swept downward from the upper jaw in long ivory arcs, framing a heavy-browed face like the buttresses of a fortress wall.

Beneath that brow, its eyes burned with a dim ember-red glow.

[Grey Tusk — Level 15]

Winston’s stomach dropped.

Level 15. The gap between them wasn’t just large, it was the kind of gap that ended first entries permanently.

Every confident thought he’d built up over the last hour suddenly felt a lot smaller standing in front of something that had apparently eaten a high-Mastery initiate for breakfast.

’Maybe I should rethink—’

The Grey Tusk’s ember-red eyes snapped to him.

For one second, nothing happened. Then it opened its jaw and the roar that came out hit Winston like a physical force, rattling his teeth and shaking leaves from the canopy overhead.

Then it charged.

Twenty feet of grey-skinned muscle and ivory tusks accelerated toward him with no hesitation and no intention of stopping and Winston had about half a second to figure out how he was going to survive this.

❖❖❖❖

High in the branches of a nearby tree, Freya watched the Grey Tusk charge.

’Is he an idiot?’

She had run into that exact monster herself just minutes ago.

Her encounter was the reason it had roared in the first place, after she’d slipped away from it.

And she was no ordinary student. Even she had chosen to disengage. Yet here was some boy she didn’t recognize, standing his ground in the clearing below, facing down a Level 15 monster with a shortsword.

The situation itself had already been bothering her before he showed up.

A Level 15 monster this far from the beacon wasn’t normal. In a Tier One gate, a creature that powerful should have been sitting close to the guardian’s territory at least.

Finding one out here in the general forest made no sense. She had been trying to work out why, when the boy had appeared and replaced that problem with a more immediate one.

’Why isn’t he moving?’

Freya’s hand went to her sword. She didn’t know him. But she wasn’t going to sit in a tree and watch someone get crushed to death when she could do something about it.

She started mapping her approach. She would drop in, draw the Grey Tusk’s attention and give him a window to run.

But her thoughts froze as she noticed something forming on the young man’s blade.

A shimmering film was wrapping around the shortsword, vibrating with concentrated energy.

Energy Coating. She recognized the spell immediately. But the feeling coming off it was completely wrong for the level it should have been.

’Why does that feel stronger than normal?’

She didn’t get time to finish the thought.

The Grey Tusk had reached the young man and one of its massive forearms swung in a brutal lateral strike and connected square with the boy’s body.

BOOM!

The impact launched him off his feet like he weighed nothing, and he tore through the treeline in a straight line, crashing through trunk after trunk before the sound of it finally stopped somewhere deep in the forest.

Freya’s eyes didn’t follow him. They stayed on the Grey Tusk.

Its striking arm ended at the wrist. But its hand was now on the ground.

The shortsword had passed clean through it on the way out, severing the limb entirely in the same moment the creature sent its wielder flying.

The Grey Tusk stumbled, let out a broken, furious sound, and swung its remaining arms in confused aggression.

Freya stared.

Then she looked toward where the boy had landed.

He was standing up and there was no sign that he had just been launched through half a dozen trees by a Level 15 monster.

He was upright, Gladius still in hand, ember-red eyes already locked back onto the Grey Tusk like the last three seconds hadn’t happened at all.

Freya slowly lowered her sword.

’What exactly is going on here?’

She stayed in the branches and kept watching.

❖❖❖❖

Winston got to his feet and took stock of the damage.

He hadn’t felt the impact because he’d blacked out the instant the Grey Tusk’s arm connected.

One moment he was swinging, the next he was coming back to consciousness against a broken tree trunk with Life Tithe already spent and one soul gone.

The passive had triggered automatically, rebuilding him to full before he even hit the ground.

’I was an idiot thinking this would be easy.’

Level 3 Kobolds and a Level 15 Grey Tusk weren’t in the same category. They weren’t even in the same conversation.

The confidence he’d built up cutting through the forest had made him sloppy with the threat assessment, and that sloppiness had cost him his first resurrection charge.

He wouldn’t make that mistake again.

But retreating wasn’t an option anymore.

The Grey Tusk had him locked. It was already turning back toward him, three remaining arms driving its bulk forward, ember-red eyes fixed and furious.

A creature like this didn’t disengage once it had a target. Running would just mean dying tired. The only exit from this fight was through it.

Winston checked his energy. He had Fifty left, exactly the cost of one Energy Coating cast.

He had used soul burn on the spell before the first exchange, and the result was sitting in his panel waiting to be used again.

[Energy Coating — Level 10]

[Type: Expendable]

[Cost: 50 Energy]

[Effect: The caster’s equipped weapon or armor is enveloped in a shimmering, high-density kinetic film for 30 seconds. Increases base physical damage by 10% and adds "Vibrational Bypass," allowing the gear to ignore 8% of the target’s physical resistance. At Level 10, the coating generates a secondary reactive shield, automatically absorbing one incoming projectile or spell of moderate power before dissipating.]

Level 10 Energy Coating on a Level 6 Gladius. Combined, the attack output pushed his effective strike power to roughly Level 16, one above the Grey Tusk’s ceiling.

It wasn’t a guarantee. But it was the best card he had, and he had exactly enough energy for one cast. After this, his energy would be at zero.

He had one resurrection free on Life Tithe. One cast of Energy Coating and thirty seconds on the clock once he activated it.

He had to time this perfectly.

The Grey Tusk closed the distance, tusks lowered, ground shaking under its weight. Winston activated the coating, felt the kinetic film wrap tight around the Gladius, and lunged forward to meet it.