The Wrong Target

Stealth in Ascension worked exactly the way it looked on paper.

An Assassin could disappear from another player's sight completely, their body erased from view as if they had never existed. No outline. No warning.

But stealth couldn't erase physics.

Grass still bent beneath a footstep. Leaves still shifted when someone brushed past them. A branch still snapped if too much weight landed on it.

Tiny things. Details that ninety-nine percent of the server would never notice.

Kael wasn't part of that ninety-nine percent.

He had spent an entire lifetime learning to recognize things that were out of place. The half-second of silence that shouldn't exist.

A rustle that didn't match the wind. A shadow moving where no shadow should be.That instinct hadn't come from playing a game. It had come from surviving one life already.

So when the Assassin began following him, Kael noticed almost immediately. He simply didn't react.

His footsteps remained steady as he continued along the road, neither speeding up nor slowing down. His expression stayed relaxed, his eyes fixed ahead.

Whoever was behind him was careful.

They never stayed at the same distance for long.

Sometimes the presence seemed to fall far behind. Other times, it crept closer before disappearing again.

Patient. Testing him.

Kael almost smiled.'So that's how you want to play it.'

He kept walking.

A few minutes passed. Then the forest ahead suddenly erupted.Players burst from the trees on both sides of the road, their movements coordinated as they spread outward.

One after another, they appeared from the undergrowth until Kael found himself surrounded.

Twenty seven players. They had positioned themselves carefully, cutting off every obvious escape route.

Several unrelated players who had been grinding nearby immediately backed away.

Nobody wanted to become part of someone else's PvP fight, but they weren't leaving either. They retreated to the edge of the clearing, forming an unwilling audience as the trap closed.

At the center of it all stood a Level 7 Warrior.

His equipment was a mismatched collection of Iron-tier pieces and starter gear, clearly assembled from whatever he had managed to acquire during the first few hours of the game.

His gamertag hovered above his head.

ReaperDrake.The moment he stepped forward, Kael understood. This wasn't some random group looking for trouble.

ReaperDrake must had spent the better part of an hour chasing the creature from the forum post.

He had bought information from several players, sent people into the surrounding areas, and personally followed multiple sets of coordinates.

Every lead had ended in nothing. Then his people had discovered something else.

A player in the starting village had been running a stall filled with equipment far beyond what most players should have possessed at this stage.

More importantly, that player had refused every offer of real-world money.

ReaperDrake had immediately connected the dots.

He couldn't find the monster. But someone had it.And now that someone was standing right in front of him.

ReaperDrake folded his arms and smiled.

'Somebody's going to pay for wasting my afternoon.'

He stepped closer.

"Pretty bold, turning down cash for a few pieces of copper-tier trash."

Kael raised an eyebrow. ReaperDrake's smile widened."Since you want to make things difficult, I'll give you two choices."

The players behind him tightened their formation."Hand over every piece of gear you're carrying and beg for your life."

He paused deliberately.

"Or..."His grin turned vicious.

"I make sure you don't leave this starting zone in one piece for the rest of the week."

A few members of his group laughed. The surrounding players remained silent.

Kael stared at him for a moment. Then he laughed.

"The Voss Cartel."

His gaze swept over the surrounding players."That's supposed to scare me?"

The laughter behind ReaperDrake died instantly. His face darkened.

"You've got a death wish."

He threw one arm forward.

"Get him!"The clearing exploded.

Over twenty players surged toward Kael at once.Warriors charged from the front while two players moved to cut off his flanks.

An Assassin vanished into stealth again, circling around for what was supposed to be a killing strike.

Weapons flashed beneath the sunlight.

Kael didn't retreat. He didn't even draw his weapon.Instead, he calmly raised one hand.

"Come out."

The air beside him twisted. A violent pulse of energy erupted across the clearing.

Then something massive dropped from it.

BOOM!

The ground cracked beneath the impact.

Dust and dead leaves blasted outward, forcing the charging players to shield their faces.

A three-meter monster stood between Kael and the attackers.

Dark purple flesh stretched over a frame covered in jagged bone spurs. Its shoulders were broad enough to dwarf a human, and its limbs ended in enormous claws.

The Ravenous Husk lifted its head. Its jaws slowly opened.Then it roared.The sound ripped through the forest.Leaves shook loose from the branches overhead.

Several nearby players instinctively stumbled backward, while the attackers who had been charging Kael came to an abrupt halt.

For one heartbeat, nobody moved. The clearing fell completely silent.

Then the spectators erupted.

"What... WHAT IS THAT THING?!"

"Wait! Isn't that the monster from the forum post?"

"No way! That's someone's pet?!"

"I'm a Beastlord too! My starter looked nothing like that!"

"That has to be the hidden class everyone's been talking about!"Someone stared at the Husk's level and nearly forgot to breathe.

"Level 10. Iron-tier. Look at that thing!"

A nervous laugh escaped another player.

"These guys picked the wrong stall to rob."

The Husk didn't care about any of them. It had already chosen its target.

A Warrior near the front raised his sword and charged.The Husk moved.One moment it was standing beside Kael. The next, it was already in front of the Warrior.

Its massive jaws opened.

The Warrior barely had time to widen his eyes.

CRUNCH!

The Husk's teeth closed around his upper body.His health bar vanished. His avatar dissolved into a burst of white light before his sword even finished falling from his hand.

The surrounding players froze.

Then the Husk swung its tail.

The enormous appendage cut through the air with a heavy WHOOOM, slamming into three attackers at once.

BAM!

All three were launched backward.

One crashed into a tree hard enough to shake loose a shower of leaves.

Another rolled across the dirt before finally stopping. Their health bars had all been ripped down by more than half from a single strike.

The crowd went wild."What the hell?!"

"One hit!"

"That thing just deleted him!"

ReaperDrake's expression changed. The confidence vanished from his face.

He looked from the dead Warrior to the monster standing over the battlefield.

Then someone on the ground suddenly noticed something in the combat log.

His eyes widened.

"Wait..."

He scrambled backward.

"Unrivaled?"The name came out almost as a whisper.Then he shouted.

"Unrivaled! That's him! That's actually him!"

The name spread through the clearing.

"The server-first player?!"

"He's the one who killed the two bosses!"

"You're telling me THAT monster belongs to Unrivaled?"

"That makes the forum post make sense!"

The atmosphere changed instantly.

The Cartel members who had been charging Kael stopped dead.

A moment ago, they had believed they were surrounding an easy target.

Now they were staring at the player who had already secured two server-wide boss kills only hours after launch.

And beside him stood a Level 10 Iron-tier monster that had just erased a Level 7 Warrior in a single bite.Nobody wanted to be the next person to move.

ReaperDrake stared at Kael. His mind raced.

Then the realization hit him.The monster he'd spent an hour chasing. The creature everyone on the forum was talking about.

The supposed super boss hiding somewhere around Ashwood Outpost.

It had never been wild. It had been this player's companion the entire time.

'That bastard.'

His hands curled into fists.

He had wasted an hour chasing a monster that was practically standing beside the person he had just decided to rob.

Worse, everyone watching had seen it.

They had watched him set up an ambush. They had watched his men attack.

And they had watched his first fighter get erased in a single bite.

His humiliation burned hotter than his anger.

Then the anger swallowed everything else.

"Cowards!"

ReaperDrake spun toward his own men.

"What are you all standing around for?!"

Nobody answered. He pointed toward Kael.

"So what if he's Unrivaled?! I don't care who he is!"

His voice grew louder, desperate to drown out the hesitation spreading through his own group.

"We're taking him down right here!"

The surrounding players stared.

ReaperDrake suddenly turned toward the spectators.

"If anyone gets the killing blow on Unrivaled, I'll pay ten thousand dollars!"

That got a reaction. He raised his voice even further.

"Cash! No questions asked!"

Several players exchanged looks.

"Somebody record this!"ReaperDrake pointed toward Kael.

"I want this posted the second it's over!"

His breathing was heavy now, but he forced a grin onto his face.

"Number one player, my ass."

He drew his weapon.

"He bleeds like everyone else."

Across the clearing, Kael simply watched him.

Behind him, the Ravenous Husk lowered its massive head. Its claws dug into the dirt.

The forest seemed to hold its breath.

The fight had only just begun.