Boosted by the Helm of Advancement, Aurelia’s agility stats spiked into the red zone. She dodged to the side with blinding speed, a phantom in the dust, as the massive battleaxe smashed right into the ground where she had stood a fraction of a second before, shattering it upon impact with a concussive shockwave.

​"You bastard!!"

​Aurelia cussed at it, her daggers flashing into her hands, but instead to attack, she turned towards the city, her assassin’s perception picking up a massive anomaly. She froze, seeing thousands of monsters—a rolling tide of scales, fur, and demonic energy—rushing towards the estate.

​".....?!"

​Realizing a single strike would leave her swarmed, she leaped backward, clearing the ruined courtyard in a single bound, and landing gracefully beside Hitachi.

​"This making the second time. Why are you always attracting monsters?!!" Austin yelled at her with a deep frown, his heavy shield raised as he prepared for the inevitable clash of the frontline.

​"Yeah, Yeah, I am just too beautiful, even the monsters can’t reject me." Aurelia said with a smile, moving one of her ponytail over her shoulder. It was a flawless mask of arrogance, a defense mechanism to hide the ice-cold terror gripping her heart as the horde closed the distance.

​"Wait, why haven’t the monsters attacked us?"

​Austin asked. Everyone turned towards the gate, right in front of the estate property. The monsters—ranging from rabid dire-wolves to hulking Orc chieftains—were piling up against the Estate’s line. None dared to enter.

​"....?!"

​The eight students were speechless, staring at the monsters. It wasn’t just the fodder; even the towering World Bosses at the back of the pack didn’t dare to move forward, pacing nervously at the edge of the ruined perimeter.

​BAM!!!!

​"....?!"

​The eight blinked, blinded by a sudden shift in atmospheric pressure, and raised their heads to the sky. The clouds violently parted, revealing a huge eagle. It was so huge it covered the entire estate, plunging them into a suffocating shadow. Its red eyes, burning with the concentrated energy of a apex predator, fixed on them.

​"That... That is a realm Boss!!" David yelled in terror, his legs giving out as the sheer pressure of the creature forced him falling to the ground.

​"It’s Lv500!!" He added, his Voice trembling as he read the impossible numbers hovering above the beast.

​"Fuck! We didn’t fight Realm Boss in our one-year training. And this thing is not only gigantic, it’s also powerful." Precious said, as sweat rolled down her temples. A Realm Boss wasn’t just a high-level monster; it was the sovereign of a dimensional zone, wielding authority over the very elements.

​"Are those monsters scared of the Realm Boss?" Kent asked, summoning his armor, shield and sword in a flash of golden light, ready to fight a hopeless battle.

​"No."

​Hitachi lightly shook his head, his crimson eyes analyzing the flow of energy and the behavioral algorithms of the beasts. "Look at the realm Boss, it itself is hesitating to descend... All these monsters are scared." He said.

​".....?!!!"

​They all stared at him in pure terror. Their minds raced to comprehend the hierarchy of Galaxy Fall. If a Realm Boss—a creature capable of wiping out a human empire with a flap of its wings—was terrified, what could possibly be nesting in the estate?

​"Don’t overthink it." Hitachi said, as his legendary class armor appeared on his body, the interlocking plates humming with energy. He held his sword, and drew it from the sheath, the blade shimmering with an icy, resolute light.

​"The meats are right before us, and above us. But instead of getting the meat, we are all in the meat grinder." He looked over his shoulder at the two, his stoic facade cracking just enough to reveal the grim reality of their situation, as his celestial eyes, stage two activated.

​"The monster below us is more powerful than a Lv500 Realm Boss!! Get ready to go all out!" He said seriously.

​The seven looked at one another, and swallowed hard. The Captain had sent the sword team away to face a difficult trial, but they had unwittingly chosen to stand directly in the devil’s maw.

​"If this thing Is underground, can you see it, Young master Hitachi?" Rose asked, her hands gripping her staff tight enough to turn her knuckles white.

​"Let me see."

​Hitachi muttered, as his vision plunged downward, piercing through the earth, bypassing layers of soil, concrete, and the reinforced lead of the bunker, going deeper into the ground.

​"What are those?" Hitachi was stunned, staring at the glowing, pulsating the glowing cocoons buried deep below the earth. He pushed his ocular powers to their absolute limit, diving deeper into the abyss.

​’Are those... People and monsters?’ He thought in horror, realizing the entity was using both natives and invaders as a food source. The next moment, the darkness shifted. A huge red eye, resting at the absolute center of the webbed cocoons, opened wide, staring straight at him through the layers of earth.

​"This?!!"

​PUFFF!!

​The psychic backlash of looking directly at an entity of such an unfathomable rank shattered his mental defenses. Hitachi spurted out a mouthful of blood, the shock dropping him to his knees: "Ahhhh!!"

​He screamed, holding his head, as blood flowed out from both his eyes, his celestial vision violently forcibly deactivated.

​"Young Master Hitachi!!"

​The group exclaimed in horror. Aurelia rushed towards Hitachi, her heart leaping into her throat, and caught him before he fell heavily on the rough ground.

​"We... We must... Run." Hitachi muttered, his voice weak and completely devoid of its usual strength, and collapsed on Aurelia’s body, unconscious.

​"....?!!!"

​Now the group were terrified. Hitachi was the anchor of their vanguard, clearly the second strongest in their team, second only to Mirabella. Not only that, he was a Lv400 prodigy possessing all the bloodlines. What the hell did he see that bypassed his legendary armor and made him lose consciousness instantly?!

​"What did he say last?!" Kent asked in shock, his shield lowering.

​"He... He said we should run." Aurelia said, her voice shaking, staring at Hitachi’s pale, blood-stained face, which was resting on her body.

​"He said we should run?! What the hell?! But the Captain, she is inside!" Daniel yelled at them.

​"Where can we run to?!! We’re surrounded by monsters--" Rose was stunned, cutting her sentence short as she watched the impossible happen. The thousands of monsters all turned around, and ran away, stampeding over one another to escape the territory, none even looking back at them. Even low level monsters joined the race, driven mad by an absolute, primordial terror.

​She looked up at the sky. The massive shadow was gone; even the Lv500 Realm Boss was gone, having fled the airspace.

​"What the??"

​BOOOOM!!!!

​The ground before them burst opened with the force of a volcanic eruption. Chunks of concrete and impenetrable black webbing blasted into the sky. From the epicenter of the crater, Mirabella, Adira, and Cupcake flew out, completely out of control, smashing heavily on the ground. There was blood all over their bodies. On Cupcake’s massive, battered back was the unconscious Carl—his golden angelic armor shattered—and Grace.

​".....?!!"

"Captain?!"

​They were all dumbfounded, staring at the blood on Mirabella. The invincible Captain, a sovereign who treated Eight-Star Fourth World elites like bugs, was broken. Her black skull helmet was cracked in half, and her dark armor was dissolving into fragments.

​"ALL OF YOU!!! RUN!!! GET OUT OF HERE!!!!" Mirabella screamed at them, coughing up blood, her voice laced with a genuine, desperate panic they had never heard before.

​{Warning!! Host’s Health point is 20%!}

​{All Defense armors and stats has been completely destroyed.}

​The system prompts blared in the air, a chilling confirmation of their absolute defeat. And then, from the smoking abyss, the air temperature plummeted to absolute zero.

​"Hehehehe... So fun."

​A demonic voice sounded from the hole deep in the ground. It didn’t just vibrate in the air; it echoed inside their minds, bypassing all auditory senses, sending paralyzing shivers down everyone’s spine.