The moment Vaelor and Kaelith stepped through the spatial barrier, reality twisted around them. Colors inverted, stretched, compressed—then snapped back into focus with disorienting abruptness.
[DING! You have entered a Tier 1 Abyssal Rift]
[Difficulty: Level 1]
[Warning: Death is permanent. Emergency extraction available via distress beacon.]
"So this is an Abyssal Rift..." Vaelor murmured, his golden eyes taking in the alien landscape.
The sky above was a featureless gray expanse—no sun, no clouds, no discernible light source, yet somehow providing dim illumination that cast no shadows. The ground beneath his feet was dark volcanic rock, hard as iron and cracked into geometric patterns that hurt to look at directly. Jagged stone formations jutted from the terrain at impossible angles, defying normal geology.
The air tasted wrong—not toxic exactly, but carrying a metallic tang that suggested this atmosphere operated on slightly different chemical principles than Earth's.
Through his consciousness link, Vaelor's main body absorbed every sensory detail with fascination. So this is what dimensional overlay feels like. The physics here are subtly different. Gravity feels about 5% heavier. The electromagnetic spectrum is shifted slightly toward infrared...
Kaelith thrust her hands into her jacket pockets, tilting her delicate face upward with an expression of profound disdain. "Still the same. Filthy air. Oppressive darkness."
Her tone carried such familiarity—such tired recognition—that it immediately caught Vaelor's attention.
He turned to stare at her directly.
Kaelith felt his gaze and looked back with irritation. "Why are you staring at me?"
"We're both Tier 1 Warriors," Vaelor said slowly, his analytical mind processing the inconsistency. "Both entering an Abyssal Rift for the first time, officially. Yet you're talking about it like you're intimately familiar with the environment."
His golden eyes narrowed slightly. "Academy Beauty Kaelith... you wouldn't happen to—"
Kaelith's ice-blue eyes widened fractionally. Shit. Did he realize I'm a regressor? I was too casual with my comments!
"ROOOAAAAR!"
A bestial roar in the distance cut through the tension. Both teenagers' heads snapped toward the sound, conversation forgotten.
"Be careful," Kaelith said, already moving toward the source.
But Vaelor was faster—explosively so.
He kicked off the volcanic rock with enough force to crack the surface. His Infinite Momentum Concept activated instantly, and he became a golden-black blur that covered a hundred meters in under a second.
After learning that Tier 1 Abyssal Spawn equal one merit point, which equals 10,000 currency points, Vaelor's thoughts raced as he accelerated, I only have one objective: Kill. Everything.
Hunting spawn provides experience for leveling, merit points for income, and combat data for analysis. Only an idiot would pass up this opportunity.
"THAT'S MY PREY!" Kaelith's furious shout echoed behind him as she activated her own movement abilities and gave chase.
But Vaelor's speed—even while suppressing his power to reasonable levels—exceeded 300 meters per second. He was essentially moving at near-sonic velocity, his passage creating sonic disturbances that kicked up dust and debris.
"Damn it! How is he so fast?!" Kaelith gritted her teeth, ice forming beneath her feet to create frictionless acceleration paths. "That's right... he's an assassin-type profession. Burst speed is their specialty..."
Wherever Vaelor passed, violent winds swept across the barren landscape. To normal vision, he appeared as little more than a black-gold shadow racing across alien terrain.
His enhanced perception—courtesy of Absolute Insight and his mastered Intents—locked onto the target instantly.
"Found it."
Standing atop a cone-shaped boulder approximately 150 meters distant, a wolf-like creature raised its head and howled at the gray sky. The beast stood nearly two meters at the shoulder, covered in midnight-black fur that seemed to absorb light. Its most distinctive feature was its skull—enlarged and reinforced with what appeared to be natural bone armor plates.
Vaelor's Absolute Insight activated automatically, analyzing the creature.
[Abyssal Spawn Identified]
[Species]: Ironskull Wolf
[Skills]: Crushing Bite, Ramming Charge
[Notable Traits]: Pack hunter. Extremely hard cranium capable of withstanding significant impact. Highly vengeful—killing one often alerts the pack. Dangerous in coordinated groups.
[Weakness]: Relatively fragile body compared to reinforced skull. Vulnerable to overwhelming force that bypasses physical defense.
Perfect test subject, Vaelor thought with clinical detachment.
He raced across the rugged volcanic terrain, his enhanced agility allowing him to navigate the treacherous landscape without slowing. The distance evaporated in seconds.
When the Ironskull Wolf finally sensed danger and began turning its massive head, Vaelor had already launched himself into the air from a elevated position, descending on the creature like a meteor.
The wolf's green eyes widened—barely registering the approaching threat before it was already too late.
Vaelor's right fist—containing approximately 5% of his actual strength, which still translated to several tons of kinetic force concentrated into a small impact area—struck the wolf's reinforced skull directly.
CRACK!
The sound wasn't a dull thump. It was the sharp, crystalline report of something structural breaking catastrophically.
The Ironskull Wolf's head simply exploded.
Not crushed. Not dented. Exploded.
Bone fragments, brain matter, and blood erupted outward in a grotesque sphere of gore. The creature's body remained standing for approximately two seconds—headless, blood fountaining from its neck stump—before collapsing sideways.
[DING! You have slain Ironskull Wolf (LV4)]
[Experience gained: +40 EXP]
[Merit points earned: +1]
The wolf never even saw what killed it.
Vaelor landed gracefully beside the corpse, examining his blood-splattered fist with mild interest. Hmm. I should have reduced power further. That was messier than necessary.
Through the consciousness link, his main body noted: Combat power differential too extreme. Need to calibrate suppression more precisely for cleaner eliminations.
"The experience gain is disappointingly low," Vaelor muttered aloud, pulling out his record card. He watched the display shift from [0] to [1] with satisfaction.
"Ten thousand points deposited. Not bad for five seconds of work."
He smiled slightly. "Hunting Abyssal Spawn is simpler than expected."
If any experienced Tier 1 Warrior had heard this casual dismissal, they would have suffered psychological damage.
Ironskull Wolves were notoriously difficult for new warriors—their reinforced skulls could deflect most conventional attacks, forcing hunters to target vulnerable areas while avoiding their devastating charges and bites. Pack coordination made them even more dangerous. Most novice warriors required full parties and careful strategy to bring down even a single specimen.
Many beginners had died learning that lesson.
Yet this teenager had just one-shot the creature's hardest, most defensively optimized body part.
With his fist.
"AWOOOO!"
"AWOOOO!"
"AWOOOO!"
Howls erupted from multiple directions simultaneously—close and getting closer.
Vaelor turned his head, scanning the terrain. "What's happening?"
Kaelith—who had finally caught up and now stood atop a different boulder about twenty meters away—called out with obvious satisfaction. "You think it's simple? Let me educate you about Abyssal ecology."
She gestured toward the approaching sounds. "That creature is called an Ironskull Wolf. They're pack hunters with strong social bonds. Kill one, and you alert the entire pack within territorial range."
Her ice-blue eyes glinted with anticipation of watching him panic. "You're about to face a coordinated assault. Enjoy."
Vaelor's eyes literally lit up—his golden irises brightening with genuine excitement. "Isn't that perfect?"
Kaelith blinked. "...What?"
"More targets means more merit points and experience." Vaelor's smile widened slightly. "This is exactly what I wanted."
Kaelith stared at him in stunned silence. It's the first time I've ever met someone this aggressively suicidal, she thought with disbelief.
She simply sat down on her boulder, propping her chin on one hand with queenly composure. "Fine. I'll just watch and see how many you can kill before you're overwhelmed and begging for rescue."
As if responding to her words, pairs of glowing green eyes ignited in the darkness surrounding Vaelor—dozens of them, approaching from all directions. Health bars materialized above their heads as the System Integration tracked incoming threats.
"CRASH! CRASH! CRASH!"
The sound of breaking stone and cascading debris filled the air as massive black-furred bodies emerged from concealment and charged.
Over a dozen Ironskull Wolves—each weighing 300+ kilograms and moving with predatory coordination—converged on Vaelor's position simultaneously.
"ROOOAAAAR!"
The pack attacked as one. Several leaped from elevated positions, their enormous jaws opening to reveal teeth like alloy daggers, aiming to tear the tiny human apart from multiple angles.
But in Vaelor's perception—enhanced by Thought Acceleration Intent and Absolute Insight—the world had slowed to a crawl.
He could see every detail. The flexing of muscles beneath midnight fur. The trajectory calculations for optimal intercept paths. The pack coordination patterns programmed into their predatory instincts.
All experience points, his thoughts crystallized with absolute focus. All merit points. All mine.
"SO MUCH MONEY!"
His eyes blazed with excitement—not fear, but genuine enthusiasm at the prospect of mass harvesting.
A wolf descended from above, jaws aimed for his throat. Vaelor tilted his head casually, the creature's bite passing through empty air where his neck had been a fraction of a second earlier.
His right fist shot upward in a rising uppercut.
BOOM!
The impact transferred kinetic energy through the wolf's jaw, into its skull, and throughout its entire body. For an instant, the creature's form distended grotesquely as hydrostatic shock propagated through its tissues.
Then it simply exploded—blood, flesh, bone, and internal organs detonating outward in a spherical pattern of gore.
[DING! You have slain Ironskull Wolf (LV5)]
[Experience gained: +50 EXP]
Instant kill.
Before the blood rain even began falling, another wolf had already committed to its attack—claws extended, three parallel slashes that could rend steel descending toward Vaelor's torso.
He raised his left arm in a seemingly casual blocking motion.
CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!
The sound of claws striking his forearm produced metallic impacts rather than the wet tearing of flesh. The razor-sharp natural weapons—capable of slicing through military-grade armor—left only three shallow white scratches on his skin before shattering.
The wolf's eyes widened with incomprehension at the impossible durability.
Vaelor's right leg snapped up in a devastating knee strike.
CRACK!
The wolf's chest cavity imploded. Its ribcage collapsed completely, bone shards puncturing every vital organ simultaneously. Blood erupted from its mouth in a pressurized spray as it was launched backward, dead before its body hit the ground.
[DING! You have slain Ironskull Wolf (LV6)]
[Experience gained: +60 EXP]
[DING! Level increased to LV3! All attributes +10. Free attribute points +10 acquired.]
Two down. Merit points +2. Level +1.
But before Vaelor could appreciate the gains, a particularly large wolf—nearly three meters at the shoulder and easily weighing 3+ tons—lowered its reinforced skull and charged like a biological battering ram.
The creature accelerated to approximately 100 kilometers per hour within seconds. Its momentum—mass multiplied by velocity—contained enough force to demolish a small house or flip a heavy vehicle.
Any normal Tier 1 Warrior facing this charge would have two options: dodge successfully, or die.
Vaelor chose a third option.
He extended his left hand and placed his palm directly against the wolf's reinforced skull as it made contact.
BOOM!
The collision created a shockwave that radiated outward, kicking up volcanic dust and debris in expanding rings. The impact's acoustic signature was profound—like two trains colliding at full speed.
"GRRRR... ROOOAAAR!"
The Ironskull Wolf's claws scraped against volcanic rock, gouging deep furrows as it pushed forward with every ounce of strength. Muscles bulged beneath midnight fur. Its roar became desperate, enraged, confused.
It couldn't move forward even a single centimeter.
Vaelor stood completely motionless—unmoved, unshaken, as solid as a mountain. His left arm didn't even tremble under the multi-ton impact force.
Compared to my current attributes, his thoughts remained analytical despite the violence, these Tier 1 creatures below LV10 are simply insignificant.
With a casual flex of his arm, Vaelor lifted the 3-ton wolf off the ground entirely and threw it sideways like discarding trash.
"ROOOAAAAR!"
The creature sailed through the air, crashing into a cluster of jagged rocks with bone-breaking force.
But Vaelor's attention had already shifted. Another wolf lunged from his right flank, jaws clamping onto his exposed forearm with crushing pressure capable of splintering steel.
The bite produced no screaming. No blood. Just the sound of teeth scraping against impossibly durable flesh.
Vaelor's backhand strike caught the wolf across its face with devastating force, sending it tumbling. Before it could recover, his right fist descended in a hammer blow that pulverized its skull into fragments.
[DING! You have slain Ironskull Wolf (LV7)]
[Experience gained: +70 EXP]
The pack continued its assault—coordinated, desperate, increasingly frantic as their numbers dwindled without inflicting a single meaningful injury.
Vaelor moved through them like death itself.
A dodge here. A punch there. A kick that shattered spines. An elbow that caved in skulls. Every movement was precise, economical, brutally efficient.
He wasn't fighting. He was harvesting.
Wolves flew through the air—alive for a moment, then explosively dead. Blood painted the volcanic rock crimson. Gore accumulated in spreading pools. The sounds of breaking bone and tearing flesh became a rhythmic percussion.
Kaelith sat frozen on her boulder, watching the massacre with wide ice-blue eyes.
The brutal scenes unfolding before her challenged her understanding of normal combat progression. In her previous life—even accounting for top-tier talents and legendary professions—newly awakened Tier 1 Warriors didn't perform like this.
"Is his physique abnormally enhanced?" she murmured to herself, analytical mind attempting to rationalize what she was witnessing. "Even those legendary physical specialists with S-Rank body reinforcement talents weren't this overwhelmingly dominant when they first entered Tier 1..."
Her eyes narrowed with calculation. A possibility occurred to her—one that made disturbing sense.
Could it be... he also concealed his true talent and profession like I did?
If his official E-Rank / Shadow Reaper classification is false, then what did he actually awaken?
What kind of talent produces this level of physical superiority?
Gradually, genuine interest began replacing her earlier contempt. This boy she'd met for the first time today was becoming increasingly intriguing.
I need to investigate him properly. Determine whether he's a potential ally or a variable I need to account for in my plans...
Less than five minutes after the pack's initial assault began, silence returned to the volcanic wasteland.
Corpses of Ironskull Wolves lay scattered around Vaelor in various states of dismemberment. Blood had saturated the porous volcanic rock, creating a crimson zone approximately thirty meters in diameter.
Only the boy remained standing—completely calm, barely breathing hard, his expression one of mild satisfaction rather than exhaustion or fear.
Kaelith found it difficult to maintain her composure.
She'd planned to wait until he exhausted himself fighting and begged for rescue, at which point she'd graciously intervene and establish dominance in their relationship.
Instead, he'd simply... annihilated the entire pack.
With his bare hands.
While making it look effortless.
This doesn't match any scenario from my previous timeline, she thought, a frown creasing her beautiful features. Who is this Vaelor Draeth? And why does he feel like an anomaly the timeline is struggling to accommodate?
Vaelor examined his record card with satisfaction.
[Current Merit Points: 15]
[Current Level: LV3]
"Not bad for five minutes of work," he said aloud, then looked up at Kaelith. "So. Are you planning to actually participate, or just observe all day?"
Kaelith's eye twitched. "I was giving you a chance to prove yourself. Don't get cocky just because you handled a basic pack encounter."
"Then let's proceed deeper," Vaelor suggested. "Unless you're afraid?"
Her ice-blue eyes flashed dangerously. "I'll show you what real Rift diving looks like."
She leaped down from her boulder with athletic grace, landing softly despite the height. "Follow me. And try not to steal all the kills this time."
"No promises." Vaelor said as they ventured deeper into the Abyssal Rift.