Inside the Mistwell Lake region, Moon stood tall over a field of corpses.

Beasts of varying sizes, races, and strengths lay scattered across the fog filled area. Wolves with shattered skulls. Boars split open from neck to belly. Felines with their spines severed. Larger creatures collapsed in heaps of fur and blood and broken bone.

His chest rose and fell rapidly. Sweat dripped from his jaw and mixed with the blood that wasn’t his on his forearms.

It had started simply enough. During his exploration of the Mistwell, hunting for beasts to fill his reserves, he had stumbled across a gathering near the lake’s edge. A cluster of territorial creatures drawn to the water. So he engaged them.

They fell within minutes.

But it wasn’t the end.

More came. Another group emerged from the mist almost immediately, as if they had been waiting for the first to fall. Seven of them, charging from the fog with teeth bared and claws out. Moon cut them down, and before the last body hit the ground, a third group arrived.

Then a fourth. A fifth. A sixth.

Each wave numbered between seven and ten. Each one arrived faster than the last, drawn by the noise, the blood, or something else entirely. The Mistwell was a territory with layers, and during his hunting, Moon had disturbed every single one of them.

By the end, he had slaughtered six groups in succession.

Moon fought with his sword, his staff, his body. He forced himself into close quarters with every wave, weaving between attacks rather than obliterating them from a distance. He dodged jaws that snapped inches from his throat. He struck from angles he had never tried before, testing the limits of his footwork, his timing, his ability to read multiple attackers simultaneously.

Each group pushed him harder than the last. By the fourth, his muscles were burning and his reactions were sharper.

He could feel the improvement after every fight, and it was an addicting feeling. By the end of it, his body was spent. His arms hung heavy at his sides. His legs trembled beneath him. The fatigue was bone-deep, the kind that came from pushing every muscle past its limit and then pushing further.

Moon looked at the notification flashing across his retina, a grin crossing his face.

[Battle Instinct]

[Order: First]

[Rank: Rare]

[Details: You have been through countless battles of life and death. You have developed a battle instinct that provides you with high awareness, reaction, and pain suppression. Perception +30%. Combat Sense +15%.]

Moon read through the details. Once he was done reading through it, he felt very pleased with his new skill.

This skill was different from everything else in his arsenal. Every other skill he possessed had come from somewhere else. Copied from another class, gained from a system reward. Even Dagger Arts, which he had gained through practice, had started as someone else’s foundation that Moon built upon.

Battle Instinct was entirely his own.

Born from nothing but his own experience. Perhaps hundreds of fights against thousands of creatures across two Sanctuaries. Battles against beasts, spirits, and Evolvers that pushed him to the edge of understanding what his body and mind could handle.

All of it had accumulated, forming into a skill that the system itself recognized.

"I can create my own skills. As long as I meet certain conditions."

He turned the idea over in his mind. He wasn’t entirely sure what those conditions were. But from this single experience, two things were clear.

Repetition mattered. He had fought in close combat relentlessly over the past months, pushing himself through hundreds of exchanges until his body began to react without conscious input. And enlightenment in the field mattered too. That moment during the sixth wave when his instincts took over completely, when his body moved ahead of his thoughts, that was the tipping point.

Whether there were additional conditions, he couldn’t say. One skill was too small a sample to draw definitive conclusions from.

"Only time will tell." Moon sheathed his sword and looked out across the Mistwell. The mist hung thick and indifferent around him, unchanged by the carnage at its edges.

Moon cast Minor Mend and Purify on his body. The warm energy spread across his muscles, easing the deep fatigue that had settled in.

He turned and looked at the small army standing behind him.

After subduing the hydra, Moon had continued his rampage through the Mistwell. Every beast he encountered was evaluated, and those strong enough to be useful were either subdued immediately, or humiliated before doing so.

Alongside the Four-Headed Hydra, Moon had subdued a second beast of comparable strength.

A Flame Hound.

Despite its name, it resembled a panther more than any dog. Its body was massive, bulkier than most felines, covered in dark fur that smoldered faintly at the tips.

It wasn’t fast for a Second Star creature, but what it lacked in speed it made up for in pure elemental power. It wielded fire like a pyromancer would, capable of launching powerful strikes of flame and coating its claws in fire hot enough to melt stone.

Behind those two, ten peak First Star beasts stood too. Various species, various builds, these were subdued by the simply cast of his skill, without any issues. They were too weak to handle the skill’s effect from a person like him.

Two Second Star beasts. Ten peak First Star beasts. Plus Mirage, the D-Rank spirit, and himself.

"This is my limit." Moon muttered, looking over the group.

Increasing their numbers further would be difficult, even for him. Unlike Layla, Moon wasn’t a backline commander content to sit on a throne while his subordinates did the work.

He was a frontliner. Always had been. Every fight he entered, he was at the front, casting spells, swinging his sword, dodging attacks, making split-second decisions.

Maintaining the curse connections to twelve beasts while simultaneously fighting at full capacity was already taxing on his mental stamina and mana reserves. Adding more subordinates wouldn’t make him stronger. It would spread his concentration thinner, slow his reaction time, and drain the mana he needed for his own combat skills, even with the new skill he gained, it would be difficult to maintain. 𝗳𝐫𝚎𝗲𝚠𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝘃𝚎𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝗺

More subordinates wasn’t the answer. Better coordination with the ones he had was.

"This is enough." Moon said. "Quality over quantity."

"Status."