Ulrich broke into a sprint, his sword gripped as he bolted toward the source of the cry. Though he often presented an emotionally detached exterior, he wasn’t so cold as to simply ignore a slaughter. If this were a Hunter in distress, he had a duty to intervene. These men and women actively risked their lives to keep his territory secure, and he would not let them die in the mud without a fight.

Vaulting over a massive, moss-slicked root, Ulrich channeled a burst of mana into his legs. He launched himself upward, landing silently on a canopy branch to gain a proper vantage point. Below him, the underbrush was violently swaying. The erratic rustling confirmed his suspicions: someone was being chased, and based on the pitch of the voice, there was a young girl.

Scanning the dense woods, his sharp gaze caught a flock of startled birds bursting from the treetops a short distance away. Pinpointing the exact location of the disturbance, Ulrich dropped from his perch and accelerated. He closed the distance in under a minute, bursting through a thicket of thorns to find the source of the chaos.

Looming in the center of a small clearing was a towering bear. Natural bears were already massive apex predators, but this creature dwarfed them entirely. It was definitely a Magical Beast. Its coarse fur shimmered with an unnatural reddish hue, and its massive paws ended in jagged claws as long as daggers.

The monster had effectively cornered two people against a steep rocky incline. At the front stood an elderly man, his knuckles white around the hilt of a battered sword. His left hand was pressed tightly against his shoulder, trying to stem the flow of dark blood seeping through his clothes. He was using his own body as a physical shield for a small, green-haired girl cowering behind him, a child who looked no older than Hermione.

In this era, adulthood arrived ruthlessly early. Children were forced into maturity, and it was common for a fourteen-year-old boy to take up arms depending on his family’s predicament. However, seeing a young girl dragged into a beast’s den was exceedingly rare. The responsibility clearly lay with the injured guardian standing before her. Ulrich briefly cursed the old man for bringing a child into a death trap, but his irritation was cut short as the bear shifted its massive weight.

"Run, Ceres!" The old man let out, his voice ragged with pain and panic.

Hearing that name, Ulrich froze for a fraction of a second, his eyes widening in shock. He immediately shifted his focus to the trembling child. Her green bangs obscured her right eye, but her left eye, wide and terrified, and swimming with fresh tears, was a vibrant green.

"N—No! Grandpa!" she screamed, her tiny hands clutching at the back of his bloodied tunic.

"RUN, CERES!" He roared a second time, forcefully shoving her backward just as the massive beast began its charge.

Sobbing uncontrollably, Ceres finally turned on her heel and bolted away into the dark foliage, leaving the injured man to face the monster alone.

Ulrich stood still for a fleeting second, his mind reeling from the impossibility of the encounter.

Ceres.

Of all the people to stumble across in a remote, monster-infested forest, he never expected to find her here. Shaking off his lingering shock, he snapped his focus back to the immediate bloodshed.

Below him, the injured old man let out a roar and charged straight toward the advancing bear.

"Come on, monster!" He shouted, throwing himself into a suicidal frontal assault.

The towering beast responded with a deafening roar, rearing up on its hind legs. It dwarfed the tall, broad-shouldered old man completely, pulling back a massive, clawed paw to strike a fatal blow.

Despite the overwhelming shadow cast over him, the old man merely smirked, preparing a final gambit. "Come—gahhh!"

His brave, cinematic final stand was instantly ruined. A boot suddenly slammed directly into his wounded shoulder. The impact sent the old man flying backward, tumbling unceremoniously through the dirt and snapping twigs as he rolled away from the strike zone.

The bear’s massive claws cleaved through nothing but empty air. Confused, the monster shifted its fiery gaze downward, only to find Ulrich already inside its guard.

Without breaking momentum, Ulrich twisted his body and drove a sweeping strike into the bear’s ribcage. His blade bit deep into the creature’s thick hide, drawing a sudden spray of dark blood, but it didn’t slice entirely through. The beast barely flinched, snapping its jaws in anger.

Ulrich immediately kicked off the creature’s chest, leaping backward and skidding to a halt in the dirt. He narrowed his eyes, analyzing the resistance he had felt through his sword hilt. The density of the muscle and the unnatural toughness of the hide confirmed his suspicions: this wasn’t a standard monster. He was staring down a 4-Core Magical Beast. A simple steel blade wouldn’t be enough to butcher it.

"Y—You..."

Sprawled in the dirt a few yards away, the old man groaned. He pushed himself up onto one knee, glaring angrily at the stranger who had just kicked him into the mud.

"Get up," Ulrich said, or rather almost ordered, not even bothering to glance at the injured man.

The old man grimaced, his jaw clenching as he swallowed the string of curses he desperately wanted to shout. He knew the stranger had saved his life, even if the method was infuriatingly crude. "Be careful," the old man warned, clutching his bleeding arm. "That’s a dangerous beast—"

His warning was cut off instantly. Before the old man could finish speaking, Ulrich snapped his fingers. A massive, translucent crimson dome erupted from the earth, encasing the roaring bear in a cage.

"Go get the girl," Ulrich ordered, his eyes locked on the trapped monster.

The old man stared in shock at the complex, instant spellwork. Blinking away his stupor, he gave a sharp nod and scrambled to his feet, sprinting off into the trees to track down Ceres.

Left alone, Ulrich faced the beast. Inside the dome, the fiery bear threw its massive weight forward, hammering its thick claws against the crimson wall. A web of sharp, splintering cracks instantly spread across the barrier’s surface. Because Ulrich had erected the shield so rapidly, it lacked his usual fortified density. It wouldn’t hold a 4-Core beast for long.

But as Ulrich tightened his grip on his sword and summoned a fresh surge of mana, he knew it didn’t need to hold forever. It only needed to buy him exactly enough time to finish this.

His red eyes tracked the trapped bear’s movements, analyzing the creature’s dense musculature and pelt. Behind his calm exterior, his mind was already working at a blistering pace, calculating the most efficient method to dismantle the monster before him.

Even in the chaotic heart of a beast den, Ulrich remained a man of pure, cold logic. He never allowed adrenaline to cloud his strategic judgment.

The most straightforward answer to a threat of this size would be to unleash a high-scale, devastating spell. However, generating that volume of concentrated mana required preparation. It would force him to break his engagement, constantly retreat, dodge massive claw strikes, and erect more temporary barriers just to buy the necessary channeling time. To Ulrich, that was a messy, inefficient way to fight. It was a waste of both time and energy.

He had no interest in mindlessly trading blows with a monster, nor did he want to turn the forest into a crater. While this 4-Core Magical Beast was far from the strongest creature that existed, its unnaturally thick, resilient hide was a highly displeasing variable. If standard steel couldn’t reliably pierce its armor, he simply had to enhance the steel.

The solution was clear: he had to slash completely through that impenetrable skin.

The crimson barrier shattered, raining fading, harmless magical shards over the forest floor. The 4-Core beast burst free with a deafening roar, plunging forward to crush the man who had trapped it.

Ulrich did not retreat. Instead, he raised his sword, his mind instantly constructing a masterpiece of runic layering in the span of a single heartbeat. To cleave through such dense, mutated flesh, a single element would fail. He needed a perfect sequence.

He initiated the blend with a foundational array of Universal Runes, surging raw, condensed force directly into the steel to ensure the weapon wouldn’t snap under the immense pressure.

The Universal Affinity was made of the most complicated set of runes in existence. Because of how mentally exhausting it was to structure these symbols and the difficulty of synchronizing them with simpler Runes like Elemental Runes, such as the one belonging to the Fire Affinity, they were mostly untouched by modern spellcasters. Yet, Ulrich possessed a mastery over them.

In practice, Universal Affinity provided vital leeway, acting as a binding agent that broadened the scope and stability of a constructed spell. Most mages refused to complicate their casting with an affinity so notoriously hard to control, especially since few possessed the innate talent required to anchor it. Ulrich, however, had dedicated his entire life to deciphering these systems, and he knew exactly how to bend them to his will.

Instantly, a tight spiral of glowing runes climbed the blade. These were drawn from his Earth affinity, utilizing metal and crystal variants to compress the sword’s edge down to a microscopic, indestructible sharpness. To bypass the intense heat radiating from the beast’s thick pelt, Ulrich wrapped the weapon in a pressurized cylinder of Air magic, creating a localized vacuum that stripped away all friction.

The blazing bear closed the distance, swinging a massive paw that carried enough force to shatter boulders. Ulrich waited until the very last fraction of a second. With a deft pivot, he slipped just beneath the creature’s sweeping guard, letting the monster’s own frenzied momentum carry it forward into the strike.

In one fluid rotation of his wrist, Ulrich brought his enchanted blade upward. The execution was flawless. The blade instantly sliced the impenetrable fur; the vacuum swallowed all physical resistance; and the crystal-reinforced steel glided through the beast’s thick hide, ribs, and vitals as smoothly as a blade slicing through still water.

Ulrich finished his swing, standing completely still as the runic glow faded from his sword. A second later, the massive bear collapsed behind him with a wet thud, neatly bisected and permanently silenced.