[Downtown - In An Alley.]

​"So this is earth... Why does it look like a junkyard?" David asked in confusion, rising his head to the sky. It was daytime, but dark clouds like suffocating ashes covered the whole sky, plunging the surrounding urban ruins into a permanent, eerie twilight. The skeletal remains of skyscrapers loomed over them like tombstones.

​"So Kent, was this your home?" He asked, turning his head to the nine members behind him. Kent stood before them.

​"No, I am from Canada, this is New York, although I dreamt of visiting this place, but looking at it now." Kent lightly shook his head, his eyes scanning the crushed asphalt and rusted, overturned vehicles. The reality of the apocalyptic Dead Zone was a far cry from the glittering metropolis of old-world lore.

​"Such high amount of death... How many humans died here?" Yi Chang asked, hugging his sword tightly to his chest. As a swordsman whose very intent was honed by the echoes of battle, the lingering, ambient despair of billions of lost souls weighed heavily on his mind.

​David turned back to the street ahead of them: "I think we shouldn’t stay in the open, we already lost two levels, if this continues, we won’t have the strength to fight a Lv200 monster." He said, staring at the unnatural, twisted shadows moving ahead of them in the smog.

​"Wait!"

​Everyone turned their heads to Nina. As a healer, her senses to ambient energy were vastly stronger than the other combat bloodlines. Due to this extreme sensitivity and their heavy reliance on environmental spiritual energy to cast, Healers, Priests, Mages, and aura-dependent Swordsmen lost two levels rather than one every five minutes. Earth’s vacuum was literally draining the energy from their cores.

​"What happened?" Violet asked, staring at her, her fingers gripped tightly on her high-class staff. Her knuckles were white, her own energy reserves dangerously fluctuating.

​"Something, something powerful is heading towards us." Nina muttered, cold sweat rolling down her pale temples as her sensory perimeter was violently tripped by an overwhelming force.

​GRAAA!!

​BAM!!

​The earth quaked violently. A huge, monstrous paw smashed onto the ground, the single leg so massive it completely covered the whole alley entrance. The impact sent a shockwave of dust over the students. It stopped, and one gigantic, glowing green eye slowly lowered, staring deeply into the alley, aggressively searching for the scent of living flesh.

​"No one should make a move." David said in a desperate whisper. Both his hands were outstretched, trembling under the strain. Five complex, glowing, invisible runes hovered before them, bending the light and completely making them invisible to the twenty-meter-tall World Boss standing right at the end of the hallway.

​’This... This is a world Boss!’ Violet exclaimed inwardly, not daring to move even a muscle; her terrified eyes were just fixed on the glowing description flashing in red before her:

[Information.]

[Name: Great Wolf Demon.]

[Stage: World Boss.]

[Origin: Unknown.]

[Level: Lv450.]

[Traits: Immune to Lightning and Physical attacks. Demon fur defense. Shadow merge. Demon dark ball. Energy Tracker. Spirit transformation.]

[Attack: 1,450,000.]

[Health: 1,450,000.]

[Defense: 2,150,000.]

[Agility: 1,450,000.]

​’We are so dead!’

​The absolute terror of the thought rung out in everyone’s minds simultaneously. As the panic spiked their auras, the wolf’s green eyes suddenly glowed with a blinding, predatory light. Its innate trait—Energy Tracker—locked onto their fluctuating spiritual signatures, easily and violently shattering the fragile invisibility skill before them.

​BAM!!

​David vomited a mouthful of dark blood due to the sudden, brutal mental backlash of his runes breaking. His face paled to the color of ash:

​’This?! If there were more rune masters here, We would be able to hide, but now...’ He looked up at the towering wolf, staring at the drool rolling down its massive, jagged maw and dropping against the pavement.

​GRAAAAAAAA!!!!!

​It roared at the ten exposed students, a sound that threatened to burst their eardrums, and casually swung its massive claw, intending to reap them all in a single strike.

​"Run!!!"

​Kent jumped in front of the group, a heavy, enchanted shield materializing in his hand: ’This shield is a lot weaker than the one I lost in the angel ground... But at least, I can withstand one of its attacks.’ He thought, bracing his legs and channeling every ounce of his remaining energy into the metal. 𝒻𝘳ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝒷𝘯ℴ𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝑐ℴ𝑚

​BOOOOOOM!!!

​The sheer force of the wolf’s claw bypassed the shield’s dampeners entirely and shattered the remaining ruined buildings around them, sending massive concrete rocks and deadly debris flying all over the place.

​The nine students all leaped back, their Agility stats flaring as they easily escaped the falling rocks and debris, landing hard on the cracked street at the other side of the alleyway.

​"What about Kent?!" Nina yelled in shock, staring desperately at the thick, choking cloud of dust before them.

​"Run!!"

​Kent yelled, miraculously running out of the dust cloud. His armor was dented, his shield cracked, and he was completely unaware of the two massive, glowing green eyes staring straight at him from the darkness above.

​GRAAAA!

​A second claw moved towards him from the blind side, easily destroying everything in its path—lampposts, cars, and concrete pillars pulverized into dust.

​"Watch out, Kent!!" David exclaimed, ignoring his internal injuries and quickly creating a powerful kinetic repulsion rune, sending it flying towards the incoming claw.

​BOOOOM!

​The rune detonated violently against the beast’s wrist. The attack diverted the claw’s movement just enough, which pushed the deadly strike back by mere inches, saving Kent from being instantly crushed.

​"These humans are weak, but difficult to deal with... Are humans these strong or am I too weak?!"

​".....?!!"

​The ten students, who were just about to run for their lives, froze completely in sheer horror, hearing the deep, rumbling, and highly intelligent demonic voice echoing from behind the dust screen.

​"As a spirit General from the Third World, I got teleported to this unknown world... Although it doesn’t have spirit energy, we monsters could withhold some of our strength... From Ninth star, I was reduced to a mere four star..."

​The ten students slowly turned their heads around, moving stiffly like broken robots who could only move their heads. The implication of its words crashed over them. This wasn’t a mindless native Earth beast or a standard dungeon spawn; this was an entity from the highest realms.

​Before their stunned eyes, the innate trait Spirit Transformation activated. The huge, twenty-meter-tall wolf shattered violently into a massive cloud of dense, dark smoke. The demonic miasma swirled and moved together, rapidly condensing and compressing until it formed a towering humanoid creature. He had two pointed wolf ears and piercing, glowing green eyes. He was clad in heavy, spiked black armor from the head down, his long black hair moving wildly in the dead wind.

​"....?!"

​"How can mere slaves escape from me?" He asked, his voice dripping with ancient, aristocratic arrogance, as the surrounding shadows in the ruined street started moving and boiling, as thick, dark tentacles rose violently from them, cutting off all avenues of escape.