This guy is crazy. He's really fucking insane.
Leroy stood frozen, staring at Ronin's face. That smirk—half-maniacal, half… confident?—was still plastered there like he had everything under control. Like he wasn't standing face-to-face with a monster that had already torn through half their team like wet paper.
Leroy didn't get it.
Actually, no, he did. This guy had a death wish. That was the only explanation. Because no sane man would be grinning like that.
He exhaled shakily and looked away from the two combatants, if only to settle the nausea twisting in his gut. His eyes settled on the swirling dimensional gate in the distance. Their exit. Their ticket out of this nightmare. The only thing between him and sweet, breathable, non-monster-infested air.
He could make it. Grab Kara and leave. Let the lunatic have his last stand.
But he didn't move.
He couldn't.
Instead, his mind wandered—to why the hell he even entered this place.
A month ago, he'd taken the Guild Leader exam.
The written part, anyway.
It was a bitch.
The Guild Leader Certification was one of the most sought-after qualifications for awakeners. It came with prestige, authority, and most importantly, money. Big money. You didn't even have to be strong—at least not in the traditional sense. Plenty of B-rank and even C-rank awakeners made damn good guild leaders. Hell, the exam didn't require you to be high-ranked at all.
Well… unless you were an E-rank. For some reason, E-ranks weren't even allowed to apply.
Leroy had passed the written portion of the exam after weeks of prep. Barely. The test covered everything from gate theory and survival logistics to team psychology and legal regulations. And then there was the second part: proving you could actually lead a team inside a dimensional gate.
That part was a formality, really. Just a field test to show you could make decisions under pressure. Deaths were expected. Even written into the evaluation rubric. As long as the survivors gave a decent recount of your leadership and didn't say you ran off screaming and left them to die, you passed.
Leroy had thought it would be easy.
He chose an E-rank gate—the weakest, least dangerous kind. The kind school kids got training runs in. He picked a small team. A few people he knew and trusted. Paul was one of them. Loud, brash, kind of a dick, but Leroy knew he could count on him.
He thought it would be a walk in the park.
It was hell.
This gate was nothing like the others. The goblins here weren't just vicious—they were coordinated, mutated. And now, standing across from Ronin, was something that looked like a goblin but moved like a fucking monster. Not just strong. Intelligent. Predatory.
And it wasn't even paying attention to him or Kara anymore.
Its eyes were locked on Ronin. Fully. Exclusively.
As if Ronin—E-rank Ronin—was the only one in this cave that mattered.
Leroy blinked slowly. His breath caught in his throat.
Could Ronin really beat it?
The thought seemed absurd. But that thing wasn't ignoring him out of pity. It wasn't distracted. No, it had judged Ronin to be the greatest threat. The most dangerous presence.
And that… that was something Leroy couldn't walk away from. Not yet.
He looked over at Kara. She hadn't moved either. Her body was tense, her hands clenched at her sides, but her eyes were locked forward, locked on the man standing between them and death.
She wanted to see the outcome too.
Ronin stood like a statue in the clearing, a faint yellow glow flickering in his eyes. His black hair was a mess, unkempt and wild, like it hadn't seen a brush in weeks. His beard was scraggly, uneven. His clothes—plain, stained, torn in half a dozen places—looked like something pulled out of a trash heap.
It was this exact look that made Paul call him a homeless guy.
Paul…
Leroy's chest tightened. The smirk faded from his face.
Paul had joined him on this mission without hesitation. Trusted him. Teased him for being nervous about the written exam. Called him "Guildmaster Leroy" for days.
He wasn't a perfect guy. Not by a long shot. But he didn't deserve what happened to him. None of them did.
A sudden CRACK of impact jolted Leroy from the memory.
He snapped his head up—just in time to see the explosion of dust and dirt where Ronin and the goblin collided. The clash had sent a shockwave rippling through the cave, strong enough to rattle the stones beneath his feet.
He squinted through the haze.
Two silhouettes danced inside the storm, darting back and forth with impossible speed. Blurs of movement. Blades clashing. Fists colliding. The goblin was faster than anything he'd ever seen—and Ronin was keeping up.
How?
How the hell is he doing this?
He remembered the scene vividly—Ronin bleeding out, a knife in his own chest, some kind of crystal embedded in the wound. They'd barely saved him. Kara had stitched him up, but he never explained what he did. What the crystal was. Why he was even bleeding like that in the first place.
He thought he was trying to kill himself.
Now he wasn't so sure.
It was supposed to be impossible to break out of your rank. Once you awakened twice, that was it. Set in stone. Your ceiling. Your limit. No amount of talent or training could change it.
And yet…
Ronin moved like someone who'd broken every rule of that system. Every expectation.
What the hell did he do to himself?
What the hell did this Dimension do to him?
A roaring BOOM shook the cave again.
This time, it came with fire.
A geyser of flame erupted outward from the epicenter of the fight, washing the cavern in a blinding orange glow. Leroy flinched back, raising his arm instinctively to shield his face. The heat was oppressive, suffocating. His skin prickled under his gear.
He glanced sideways—Kara was shielding her eyes too, but still watching. Still focused.
The firestorm began to die down, but the smoke and dust made it impossible to see. Leroy's ears rang from the explosion. His thoughts raced.
This… this can't be E-rank fire magic. No way.
It wasn't just stronger. It was alive. Volatile. Uncontrolled.
A force of nature, not a spell.
He thought back to the possibilities he'd considered after passing the exam. Being a guild leader didn't mean risking your life in every gate. In fact, most high-ranked guild leaders didn't go into the field at all. They stayed in comfortable offices, behind desks, managing rosters, securing contracts, handling finances. They let the frontline teams do the dangerous work.
There were other paths for awakeners too. It wasn't like the old days where every awakened was expected to throw themselves into battle. These days, if your rank was good enough, you had options.
Tournaments were one route—organized events for B to S ranks, broadcast across the world. Massive prize pools, sponsors, fame. Hell, some awakeners made their whole career off those alone.
Streaming was another. It had exploded in popularity. People loved watching awakeners go about their day—training, shopping, cooking, fighting minor monsters. If you had the charisma and a good enough rank, you could make bank without ever stepping into a gate.
Ronin could've picked any other path.
But he hadn't.
Instead, he was here. Fighting a monster one-on-one. Throwing his life into the fire for reasons no one fully understood.
And somehow, against all odds, he was winning.
The heat still lingered. The smoke still curled around the battlefield. But something shifted in the air—something electric, primal.
Leroy stared into the chaos.
This isn't just a fight.
It was a statement.
And suddenly, the question wasn't how is he doing this?
It was what has he become?
No—deeper than that.
What has he made of himself?