The transition through the gate was disorienting, a sudden shift from the crisp, artificially lit streets into a suffocating, humid nightmare.

Hide’s boots hit solid ground. He blinked against the sudden glare of harsh, greenish sunlight.

The interior of the Three-Star loop gate was a sprawling, apocalyptic reflection of the city they had just left. It was a mess of broken, shattered buildings and completely fractured streets.

Super-thick, vibrant green moss covered everything—from the rusted husks of abandoned cars to the sides of the collapsing skyscrapers.

The ground was entirely overgrown with waist-high, razor-sharp grass, and massive, ancient-looking trees had burst through the asphalt, their roots wrapping around the ruins like giant fingers. It looked like an abandoned world left to rot for hundreds of years.

"Well," Elara said, adjusting her glasses as she looked around at the overgrown ruins. "This is delightfully depressing."

Before anyone else could speak, the tall grass thirty yards to their left exploded violently.

A massive beast charged out of the overgrowth. It looked vaguely like a buffalo, but twice the size, corded with grotesque, pulsing muscles. Its hide was covered in thick, dark armor plating, and four jagged, wicked-looking horns protruded from its skull. It let out a terrifying, guttural roar, its red eyes locked directly onto Evelyn.

Hide instantly dropped his stance, summoning Night Singer.

He didn’t need to draw it.

A sleek metal band on Elara’s wrist suddenly snapped apart, elongating and reforming in a split second into an elegant, silver-white wand. She didn’t even change her relaxed posture. She just flicked her wrist casually toward the charging beast.

A compressed spike of pure, freezing ice materialized in the air and shot forward with the speed of a bullet.

It hit the charging beast dead in the center of its armored skull. The impact sounded like a cannon firing. The ice spike didn’t just pierce the beast; it completely crushed its head inward, scattering dark blood and shattered bone across the mossy asphalt. The massive body collapsed, sliding across the dirt and stopping just a few feet away from them.

"Bullseye!" Elara cheered, spinning the wand in her fingers before it collapsed back into a bracelet.

Hide stared at the headless corpse. The beast had moved fast, but Elara’s cast time had been practically zero.

"Show off," Evelyn muttered, though she didn’t look particularly bothered.

Evelyn raised her right hand. A surge of pale, silvery mana pooled in her palm. Two distinct streams of energy flew out, hitting the ground on either side of her and taking shape.

The light faded, revealing two massive, stunningly beautiful white foxes. They were easily the size of large wolves, their fur pristine and glowing with a faint, ethereal light. They circled Evelyn playfully, nudging against her legs.

Evelyn reached down, patting both of them on the head.

"These are my tamed Shikigamis," Evelyn introduced, scratching the female fox behind the ears. "Shiro and Yuki. I will stay here and establish a secure perimeter with them while you two go in different directions to clear the zone."

The male fox, Shiro, turned his head toward Hide.

The fox paused. Its ears flattened against its skull, and it let out a low, warning growl, taking a slow step backward until it was pressed firmly against Evelyn’s leg.

Evelyn blinked, looking down at her Shikigami. "Shiro? What is it?"

Hide kept his face perfectly blank. He knew exactly what it was. The Dark Abyssal Core inside him practically reeked of a Calamity Lord’s authority. Animals and beasts with high sensory instincts were naturally terrified of it.

"He’s probably just shy," Hide offered unhelpfully.

Evelyn eyed him suspiciously but didn’t press the issue. She tapped her tablet, bringing up a localized scan of the ruins.

"Alright," Evelyn said, looking between Hide and Elara. "So, you both know how to properly clear a Loop gate, right?"

"Yep! Leave it to me!" Elara beamed, giving a thumbs up.

Hide stood there in a sudden, awkward silence.

A formal, proper first time clearing procedure for a Loop gate? He had absolutely no idea.

Hide slowly, embarrassingly, raised his hand. "I don’t actually know."

Elara blinked at him in surprise. Evelyn just stared at him for a long, heavy moment.

Evelyn let out a long, deeply exasperated sigh.

"Give me a second," she muttered.

She reached up, grabbed the collar of her heavy NEA overcoat, and pulled it off. In a fluid motion, the coat vanished, stored away in a sleek spatial storage ring on her finger.

She then reached up, loosened her dark tie, and unbuttoned the top button of her crisp white shirt.

Hide immediately looked slightly to the left, realizing very quickly that Evelyn had a surprisingly large, distracting chest that the overcoat had been hiding entirely.

"This place is fucking hot," Evelyn winced, fanning herself with her hand. The humid, tropical air of the ruins was sweltering. She shook her head, refocusing her attention on Hide.

"Listen closely, rookie," Evelyn started, adopting a lecturing tone. "Have you ever wondered why all the Loop gates are perfectly contained inside the Training facilities?"

Hide tilted his head. "I just assumed the government built the facilities around the gates after they manifested."

"No, dumbass," Evelyn snorted. "How would fifty different gates coincidentally open in the exact same geographic location? Statistically, it’s impossible. We moved them there."

Hide frowned. "You can move a gate?"

"You can move a Loop gate," Evelyn corrected, holding up a finger. "Spot dungeons are anchored to the earth. Loop gates are different. Actually, there is a unique object located at the very center of every Loop gate. It acts as the anchor point for the spatial distortion."

Evelyn tapped her tablet, projecting a small, holographic image of a glowing, multifaceted crystal.

"This is the Gate Core," she explained. "It only physically manifests in the environment when all the Calamity beasts inside the gate are dead. Once the boss—the Gatekeeper—is killed, the Core appears. We have to collect that item. That Core is what allows us to move the Loop gate to a facility, or reset it for future use."

Hide nodded slowly, absorbing the information. "So, kill everything, kill the boss, take the shiny rock."

"Essentially, yes," Evelyn sighed, rubbing her temples. "But in a Three-Star gate, the environment is massive, and the beasts like to hide. If we miss even one scavenger, the Core won’t spawn. That’s why we split up."

Evelyn pointed to the left, toward a dense cluster of ruined skyscrapers. "Elara, you take the western quadrant. Flush out the nests."

She turned and pointed down the long, overgrown main street to the right. "Hide, you take the eastern strip. I’ll monitor your progress from here and alert you if you miss any stragglers. Once the outer rings are clear, we converge on the center to deal with the Gatekeeper."

"Understood," Elara smiled, her wand snapping back into her hand.

"Sure," Hide said.

He turned toward the eastern strip, looking down the long, ruined avenue. The tall grass rustled ominously, and the faint, guttural snarls of hidden beasts echoed through the broken buildings.

Hide smiled, a cold, predatory glint in his eyes. He didn’t just have to hunt them, Zenith was very hungry for experience points.