"Shit!" Stark launched an ice wall between Lara and the creature just in time, halting its second attack.
"Keep it distracted!" Hawk shouted.
Kira and the other D-rank dropped to their knees, starting an earth bind to lock the creature in place, but the moment their energy pulsed, the thing jerked violently and vanished...
...only to reappear behind Stark.
Stark turned, barely blocking with his arm. The force knocked him aside like a ragdoll.
"Teleportation?!" Kira hissed.
"No," Kaizen said through gritted teeth, pulling himself to his feet. "It’s not teleporting. It’s... bending its movement. Skipping frames."
Rael looked over, confused. "What does that even mean?!"
"It moves so fast it’s like it disappears, but it doesn’t. It just slips through in-between moments. Like... like time stutters."
Everyone was still processing that when Hawk shouted, "Focus! Watch for movement breaks! You see a twitch, attack!"
The squad spread again, forming a loose circle around the two beasts now circling the hound stone.
The four-legged glowing one let out a low growl, then charged at once.
The fight exploded into chaos.
Fire and water collided with snarling jaws and shadowed limbs. Stark shot shards of jagged ice to pin the glowing beast’s legs. Kira pulled up thick roots to tangle it down. The healer, Lara, even joined, throwing up defensive shields around Rael and Stark.
Kaizen didn’t engage directly this time. He watched and analyzed. He knew he’d just get killed if he tried charging in recklessly without properly understanding the pattern.
The soundless beast moved differently from anything they’d ever fought in a D rank beast realm portal. Unnatural, twitchy, its body jerked mid-swing, like it was glitching. It didn’t dodge in smooth motions, it blinked, blinked, blinked out of range.
But soon, Kaizen started seeing a rhythm.
"Left... pause... blink. Right... double blink. Left again..." he murmured under his breath, fingers tightening around his dagger.
He saw it lunge toward Hawk.
Without warning, Kaizen sprinted.
Hawk turned just in time to see the creature’s claw swinging down.
Kaizen jumped in, slamming his entire weight into the creature’s midsection. It wasn’t enough to do damage, but it threw off its rhythm.
That tiny break gave Hawk the second he needed to dodge and counter. His blade, laced with condensed water energy, slashed through the beast’s side. It screeched, still silent, but the air vibrated with the force.
Kira didn’t miss the chance. She launched a spike of earth straight into its leg. Stark followed with a wall of ice that slammed down on its back, pinning it temporarily.
The glowing beast roared too, now half-frozen and stumbling from Kira’s binds.
Hawk didn’t hesitate. "Take them both down. Now!"
The squad moved like a machine.
Rael, still recovering, held up a weak flame to keep the frozen beast burning. Kira crushed the ground beneath it. Hawk and Stark focused their strikes on the glitching creature, keeping it trapped.
Kaizen panted beside a tree, hands on his knees. He wasn’t out of strength, but his chest burned and vision blurred a little.
One clean slash from Hawk’s blade split the soundless creature’s chest. It shimmered for a second before dissolving into smoke-like dust.
The four-legged beast fell next, its gem core thudding onto the earth.
Everyone stood there for a moment, panting.
Kira knelt by the hound stone. "It’s active now."
Hawk gave a nod, walking toward Kaizen. His tone wasn’t harsh this time. Just firm. "You really have a habit of jumping into death."
Kaizen coughed and gave a faint shrug. "Guess I’m consistent."
Stark sheathed his weapon. "We all saw that, right? He predicted the freak’s movements. Who the hell learns that mid-fight?"
Rael wiped blood from his lip, giving Kaizen a sideways look. "You keep this up, people might actually start liking you."
Kaizen smirked faintly. "Let’s not get ahead of ourselves."
Hawk looked at the gem left behind by the creature, a dark red stone pulsing slightly in the dirt. "Kira, record that one separately. I want it analyzed later. We’re dealing with something abnormal in this portal."
She picked it up and nodded. "That wasn’t a normal beast. Something stronger is influencing this place."
"Everyone, stay sharp," Hawk ordered. "We activate the hound stone, close the portal, and then we report. We’re done here."
As they neared the exit point, Lara walked past Kaizen, then paused.
"...Thanks for earlier," she muttered, not looking back.
Kaizen blinked. "Uh... sure."
Rael snorted. "Hell really is freezing over."
Kaizen didn’t reply, but the corner of his mouth twitched again.
As soon as the last person stepped out of the portal, it closed almost immediately.
"Was beginning to wonder when you’d be done," Cladius said as he stepped forward from where the rescue team had been waiting.
"We ran into trouble," Hawk answered flatly. "C-rank beast showed up. Two of them, actually. One of them... wasn’t normal."
Cladius frowned. "C-rank? In a D-rank portal?"
"Yeah. I’ll be filing the report myself," Hawk added. "This one needs to be reviewed immediately. We got lucky."
The squad was silent. Everyone looked drained. Blood, dirt, torn clothes, even Rael was still half-leaning on Lara to stand. She had done a good job healing his wounds but there was still a limit to what a C rank healer could heal.
Kaizen sat on a low rock, wiping his blade clean, eyes half-focused. This raid had been his toughest yet, and compared to when he newly started as a hunter, he had made great improvements.
Kira approached Hawk, dropping the pouch of harvested gems into his hand. "Final count’s fifteen," she said, her voice tired. "That last one from the glitching beast... it’s weird. Wasn’t like the others."
She pulled it out separately.
A dark red gemstone, roughly the size of her palm. It pulsed once, dim, nothing alarming. Just a flicker.
Stark walked closer, looking over her shoulder. "That one gives me a weird feeling...it doesn’t feel like a beast core."
"It’s the core of a human turned beast." Kaizen cut in....and everyone’s head turned to look at him.
"What the hell did you just say?"