The Battle of Eastwind Shore
Time: 5:12 AM – The Rift Breaks Open
The sea roared unnaturally. At the center of the rift, a spinning vortex of violet-blue energy opened, swallowing and distorting the very horizon. Lightning-like cracks burst across the sky. Waves crashed backward, as if repelled by something immense.
Then––
The first monsters came.
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PHASE ONE — The Swarm
Screeching beasts—scaled like fish, shaped like hounds—burst from the rift. D-level and C-level monsters, dozens of them, charging in chaos toward the sandy shoreline.
A-level hunters moved into action immediately. Lines formed. Shields raised. Arrows fired. Fireballs and ice spears rained.
Carl stood at the top of the sand dunes, palms to the earth. His shadow spread wide like a spider's web, anchoring the terrain in thick tendrils. As the monsters ran, his shadows reached up from the sand, piercing, binding, snapping bones in brutal silence.
Rosalind rode on wind currents, raining down bursts of compressed lightning and flame. "Second line, hold tight! Push them back!"
Adrian moved like a burning meteor, fists igniting as he smashed through monsters in brutal hand-to-hand.
Richard stood atop a fallen lifeguard tower, launching kinetic spheres that exploded mid-air, ripping monsters into pieces with sonic blasts.
Meanwhile, the twins—Eli and Elara Vale—stood hand-in-hand at the farthest edge of the beach. Eli blinded waves of enemies with light pulses; Elara warped terrain, creating gravity pits that crushed the monsters as they ran.
Result: Phase One cleared in 28 minutes.
Minimal injuries. The beach held. But the water churned, darkened… and began to boil.
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PHASE TWO — The Giants and Beasts
The second wave began with silence.
Then came the tremors.
Massive, armored crab-like beasts emerged from the rift—B-level. Behind them, sharp-fanged ape-creatures and dragon-lizard hybrids—A-level monsters—followed.
Carl narrowed his eyes.
"Shadows up," he muttered.
He called forth four massive shadow beasts—silhouettes of panthers, lions, and ravens—that charged into the second wave. Each moved independently, clawing and ripping at enemies while Carl coordinated strikes with the other hunters.
Adrian met a towering ape head-on. His fists burned so brightly they turned sand into glass with every blow. "COME ON, YOU OVERGROWN CHIMP!"
Richard leapt from tower to tower, using his telekinetic force to collapse one of the crabs on top of its kin.
Eli and Elara began pushing enemies back toward the water by folding space itself.
Then Guildmaster Irene stepped forward.
With a flick of her hand, threads of soul energy extended like ghostly spiderwebs. The monsters that touched them slowed, confused, turned on each other. Her illusions danced between real and false. "Watch your minds, everyone," she warned. "These creatures aren't just brawn. Some whisper."
One A-level monster mimicked Carl's voice to lure hunters into a trap.
But his shadows struck first, beheading it before it could act.
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PHASE THREE — The True Threat
A deafening roar silenced the battlefield.
A monstrous being crawled from the rift. Humanoid, twenty feet tall, with crystal-covered skin and four crimson eyes glowing from its face.
An S-level beast.
And it wasn't alone.
Three more followed—serpent-like, one floating above ground, another surrounded by freezing mist.
The battlefield broke into chaos. One by one, the S-level Awakened split into coordinated pairs:
Carl and Irene took on the serpent. Irene lured it with illusions; Carl stabbed from its shadow, over and over.
Rosalind and Elara handled the floating monstrosity, distorting space while bombarding it with magic.
Adrian and Richard clashed with the ice-covered beast, melting and shattering it piece by piece.
Roque Thorne and Eli worked together to ground and impale the humanoid giant using summoned steel spears and focused light attacks.
It took over two grueling hours.
By the time the final S-level creature let out a dying shriek and collapsed back into the waves, the sky was nearly evening. Hunters dropped to their knees. Exhausted. Shaking.
Carl stood last.
Shadow claws still extended. His body bloody. But his eyes clear.
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Aftermath — Victory… But Not Peace
As the sun began to set, the rift finally closed. The swirling vortex vanished with a final gust of wind.
But something was… strange.
All around the battlefield, faint purple dust particles floated through the air, glimmering in the fading sunlight. Not vanishing. Not dispersing.
Nobody noticed at first.
The teams were focused on healing, on transporting the wounded, on debriefing the mission.
But the dust remained—hovering silently over the beach, like ash caught in time. When one A-level hunter passed through it, he sneezed—but nothing seemed wrong.
Later, someone would ask, "Did anyone else notice… that it didn't blow away?"
But by then, the battlefield had been cleared. Hunters gone. Sand reclaimed. And the dust…
Still swayed in the sea breeze.