Day 4 in the Dimensional Gap did not begin with the gentle caress of sunlight or the chirping of birds. It began with a violent acoustic assault.
CLAP.
The sound was singular and sharp, less like hands meeting and more like a thunderclap detonating at ground level. It tore through the heavy, magically induced slumber of the Gremory peerage, jarring their nervous systems awake before their eyes could even open.
"Rise and shine, sleeping beauties! Sun's out, guns out! Let's get this bread!"
Ren Ming stood in the center of the encampment, radiating an obnoxious amount of morning energy. He wasn't holding his usual coffee mug today. Instead, he stood with a loose, relaxed posture, looking like a man who had just scrolled through a particularly funny thread rather than a terrifying instructor from a higher plane of existence.
The peerage groaned, a collective chorus of misery, as they untangled themselves from their sleeping bags.
Issei rubbed the sleep from his eyes, his hair a spiked mess. Rias stretched, managing to look elegant despite the dirt smudging her uniform, while Koneko just stared blankly at a nearby tree, looking like she was contemplating murdering it.
They shambled into a formation in the center of the clearing. The air was thick with tension. They knew the drill now. Ren Ming didn't do "light warm-ups" or "stretching."
Ren Ming surveyed them, his grey eyes gleaming with the faint, spinning runes of the Immortal Soul Bone. He nodded, satisfied.
"Yesterday, we started with fear," Ren Ming began, his voice dropping the playful lilt and settling into a calm, resonant baritone. He made eye contact with each of them, his gaze heavy. "You guys are beginning to look death in the face and not soil your pants. That's step one. That's defense. That's survival."
He paced a small semi-circle, his sneakers crushing the conjured grass.
"But here's the thing about the world we live in. Survival isn't enough. If you just survive, you're a victim who got lucky. And let me be clear—I don't train victims."
Rias straightened her posture, her blue-green eyes narrowing. The mention of victimhood struck a nerve. "Then what are we training for today, Ren-san?"
Ren Ming stopped pacing. A devious, razor-sharp smile curled the corners of his lips.
"We're training for the other side of the coin," he said. The temperature in the clearing seemed to drop ten degrees. "If you want to completely face death, you also need to learn how to give it."
A chill wind blew through the clearing, carrying the scent of ozone.
"Giving... death?" Asia whispered, her hands trembling slightly as she clutched her Twilight Healing rings.
Ren Ming's expression softened just a fraction as he looked at the blonde nun. "Don't look at me like I just kicked a puppy, Asia. I know, you're a sweet girl. You heal people. That's your vibe, and it's a good one. But you're a Devil now. You're in a world where Fallen Angels will try to rip your wings off and Stray Devils will try to eat your heart."
He stepped closer, his presence looming over them. "Sometimes, the only way to save your friends is to put the other guy in the ground. Permanently. You can't heal a threat away."
He shifted his gaze to Issei. "And you, Issei. You possess the Boosted Gear. Ddraig isn't a house pet. He's a Heavenly Dragon, a weapon of mass destruction that once challenged Gods. You can't use him with hesitation. You have to be willing to break things."
Issei gulped, looking down at his left hand where the red gauntlet slept. "I... I know. But killing..."
"I'm not telling you to become a murder hobo," Ren Ming said, using a term from his old tabletop RPG days that none of them understood, though the context was clear enough. "I'm telling you that you need the capacity for violence. You need to be able to flip that switch. If you hesitate, you die. If you hesitate, Rias gets married to that Phenex dumbass and spends the rest of her life as a trophy wife."
Rias flinched. The mention of Riser Phenex sharpened her gaze immediately, replacing the fatigue with cold fury.
"I won't hesitate," Rias said, her voice hard as diamond.
"Words are cheap, my dear," Ren Ming grinned, a predatory expression that showed too many teeth. "Let's see if you can walk the walk."
Ren Ming reached into the sleeve of his jacket. The air in the clearing suddenly grew heavy, smelling of sulfur and ancient dust. The space around his hand distorted, rippling like heat haze.
"I went shopping last night. Picked up some friends for you to play with."
He withdrew the compressed spatial orb—a swirling marble of chaotic energy—and tossed it into the air with the casual disregard of someone flipping a coin.
CRACK.
The sound was like a glacier fracturing. Space didn't just break; it shattered like cheap glass.
With a roar that shook the trees and caused the artificial sky to tremble, the Primal Elemental Stormlings burst free from their confinement.
The peerage gasped, stepping back instinctively as the sheer pressure of the creatures hit them like a physical wall.
These were not the polite, summoned familiars of the Underworld. These were calamities given form.
A massive Gravity Golem, towering twenty feet high, formed from swirling jagged obsidian and crushed spatial debris, groaned with the sound of tectonic plates grinding together.
A Lightning Serpent, composed of screeching, corrosive purple plasma, coiled through the air, its hiss sounding like frying bacon amplified a thousand times.
A Hydro-Sphere, a pressurized ball of water and razor-sharp ice blades, spun like a darker, deadlier sun, shredding the wind around it.
And a Wind Horror, a shapeless, terrifying entity of vacuum blades and cyclonic force, shrieked with a voice that made ears bleed.
They were mindless, furious, and radiating High-Class energy signatures that bordered on Ultimate Class due to their chaotic nature.
"What... what are those?!" Issei yelled, panic spiking his adrenaline. He summoned his Boosted Gear instantly, the green gem flashing.
[BOOST!]
"Those are Primal Stormlings," Ren Ming explained calmly, leaning against a tree and crossing his arms as if he were watching a mildly interesting YouTube video. "Native to the deep Gap. They don't have brains. They don't have souls. They are just pure, unadulterated elemental violence. They have zero chill."
The creatures spotted the devils. They sensed the foreign, orderly energy of the Underworld beings. They roared—a sound that vibrated in the peerage's bones, triggering deep, primal alarms in their hindbrains.
"Wait, Ren!" Kiba shouted, summoning a Holy Eraser sword, his stance widening. "These things feel like High-Class threats! There are four of them! This is insane!"
"Yeah, pretty fair odds, right? Six of you, four of them," Ren shrugged, picking at a nonexistent piece of lint on his jacket.
"They're going to kill us!" Koneko hissed, her tail bristling, her golden eyes wide.
Ren Ming looked at them. His grey eyes were devoid of sympathy, cold and ancient as the void itself.
"Kill or be killed, kiddos. That's the lesson. Welcome to the real world."
He waved his hand dismissively at the monsters.
"I'm not stepping in. I'm not giving hints. Use the Myriad Origin Scripture. Use your Soul Palace. Use the guts you found yesterday. If you die..." Ren Ming paused, letting the silence hang heavy in the air. "...well, try not to. It'd be a lot of paperwork."
"Have fun."
The Stormlings attacked.
The first minute was an absolute disaster.
The Gremory peerage fought the way they always fought: with logic, with turns, and with the rigid structure of Magic.
"President! I'll take the front!" Issei yelled, trying to play the hero.
But the Lightning Serpent didn't care about aggro tables. It was faster than anything Issei had ever tracked. It didn't move like a person; it moved like electricity. It flashed, a purple streak of devastation, and suddenly Issei was blasted backward.
"GAH!" Issei screamed as volts of chaotic purple lightning fried his nerves, his body smoking as he tumbled across the grass.
"Issei!" Rias screamed, horror etched on her face.
She raised her hand, her Power of Destruction flaring in a chaotic crimson aura. She aimed for the Serpent, intending to blast it apart. "Disappear!"
But the Wind Horror moved. It didn't dodge; it simply altered the atmospheric composition around Rias. It created a vacuum sphere, stripping the oxygen from the air. Rias's Power of Destruction, which relied on a medium to travel, fizzled out like a candle in a jar.
"What?!" Rias gasped, clutching her throat as the air was stolen from her lungs. "My magic... it won't ignite!"
"It's eating the air!" Akeno realized, her face pale. She tried to summon her own lightning to counter the Serpent, raising her hands to the sky.
But the Gravity Golem slammed its massive obsidian fist into the ground.
BOOM.
A wave of distorted gravity, heavy enough to crush a tank, rippled outward. Akeno, Asia, Kiba, and Koneko were slammed face-first into the dirt. It felt like the world had tilted sideways, like gravity had increased twenty-fold in a split second.
"Heavy!" Koneko grunted, struggling to push herself up, but the earth beneath her was cracking under her own weight.
Within thirty seconds, the Gremory peerage was scattered, suppressed, and bleeding. The monsters loomed over them, ready to deliver the final blow.
Ren Ming watched from the sidelines, his expression unreadable. He didn't flinch when Issei took another hit. He didn't move when Kiba barely deflected a rock shard that would have taken his head off.
'They're fighting like Devils,' Ren Ming critiqued internally, shaking his head. 'They're trying to use turn-based RPG tactics against real-time chaos. Rias is looking for an opening to cast a spell formula. Issei is trying to tank with his face. Wrong. You don't tank a storm. You weather it. You become the storm.'
He sighed, pushing off the tree. He decided to throw them a lifeline—not help, but guidance.
"Use the Engine!" Ren Ming barked, his voice cutting through the chaos like a blade, loud and commanding. "Stop relying on your external magic! It's too slow! The power comes from the inside! Spin the Palace! Don't calculate the math—feel the flow!"
Issei was on his knees, panting, blood trickling from his lip. The Lightning Serpent was coiling back, preparing for a strike that would definitely put him in a coma, or worse.
'I can't beat it,' Issei thought, panic rising in his chest. 'It's too fast. I can't see it. I'm just a pervert with a gauntlet, I'm not a warrior!'
'Don't look with your eyes, partner!' Ddraig's voice roared in his head, ancient and furious. 'Eyes are for mortals! You have a Soul Palace now! You have the foundation of an Emperor! Feel the intent!'
Issei gritted his teeth. He closed his eyes, shutting out the terrifying sight of the serpent.
He felt it. Deep in his gut, the Myriad Origin Scripture was cycling. It was a burning wheel of energy, recycling his waste heat, compounding his power. He focused on it. He grabbed that spinning energy and, instead of pushing it into his arm for a punch, he flooded his entire nervous system with it.
Snap.
Issei felt the air shift. He felt the static charge building to his left before the bolt was even fired.
He didn't think. He didn't plan. He moved.
Issei ducked, his body moving with a fluidity he had never possessed before. A split second later, the Lightning Serpent snapped through the space where his head had been, crying out in frustration.
"I... I dodged it?" Issei gasped, eyes snapping open.
"Don't celebrate, you simp! Hit it!" Ren Ming shouted from the sidelines.
Issei roared. He reached out and grabbed the Serpent's tail—which was composed of pure energy. Normally, this would burn his hand to ash. But his hand was coated in a dense, shimmering layer of refined aura from the Scripture.
[BOOST!]
"Get over here!" Issei bellowed.
He swung the Serpent like a whip, using its own momentum against it. With a grunt of exertion, he slammed the chaotic elemental into the Gravity Golem.
CRACK-BOOM.
The impact shook the clearing. The Golem stumbled, sparks flying as the lightning disrupted its gravitational field. The crushing pressure lifted instantly.
Kiba stood up. He was bleeding from a cut on his forehead, but his eyes were shining with a strange, manic light. The pressure had forced his mind into a corner, and in that corner, he found clarity.
"Speed," Kiba muttered, clutching his sword. "I need more speed. Not magic speed. True speed. Weightless speed."
He funneled all his Soul Palace energy into his legs. His Sacred Gear, Sword Birth, flared. But this time, he didn't make a hundred swords. He made one.
He condensed all the metal, all the sharpness, all the demonic power into a single, needle-thin blade.
He vanished.
A sonic boom cracked the air. Kiba reappeared behind the Wind Horror.
The Wind Horror paused... and then split in half.
SCHLICK.
"Whoa," Kiba breathed, looking at his hands as the wind monster dissolved into harmless breeze. "That felt... heavy."
"Keep going!" Rias yelled, her authority returning, but evolved. She stood up, her red hair floating in the anti-gravity residue, her eyes glowing with a terrifying crimson light.
She looked at the Vacuum sphere that had blocked her earlier. She stopped trying to cast a "spell." She stopped trying to use the Gremory formula she had learned in school.
She reached into her Soul Palace. She grabbed the essence of Destruction—pure, unadulterated erasure—and coated her skin in it. She didn't project it; she wore it.
"If you eat air," Rias glared at the regenerating remnants of the Wind Horror, "then I'll just erase your hunger. I'll erase your very concept."
She waved her hand. Not a beam. A wave.
A crimson tide of absolute negation washed over the area. It didn't explode. It was silent. It was the silence of the void.
The energy hit the remaining wind elemental. It didn't fight back. It just ceased to exist. The chaotic energy was devoured by Rias's own dense aura, erased from the timeline of the battle.
"Akeno! Koneko! Now!" Rias commanded, her voice ringing with the authority of a Queen.
Koneko didn't need to be told twice. The petite Nekomata was already moving toward the stumbling Gravity Golem. She jumped, spinning in the air, her white hair whipping around her like a halo.
Usually, Koneko used Touki (Life Force). But this time, she mixed the Touki with the refined mana of the Scripture, compressing it into a singularity at the tip of her fist.
"Super... Punch," Koneko deadpanned.
She hit the Golem in the center of its chest.
It wasn't a loud hit. It was a deep, resonant thud, like a mallet striking a heavy bell.
For a second, nothing happened.
Then, the back of the Golem exploded outward.
KA-OOM!
The force had traveled through the object, ignoring the hard outer shell and destroying it from the inside out. The massive construct shattered into a thousand rocks, raining down like hail.
Akeno finished the job. She flew above the battlefield, her usual sadism replaced by a cold, calculated efficiency that was far more terrifying. She saw the Lightning Serpent trying to reform, twitching on the ground.
"Oh no you don't," she whispered, her eyes glowing with violet intent.
She summoned stronger surges of Lightning. But instead of throwing bolts, she wove the lightning into a net, a cage of pure voltage. She trapped the Serpent, compressing the cage smaller and smaller.
"Squeeze," she murmured.
The cage shrank until the serpent was just a sparking marble of compressed plasma.
"Pop," she said, clenching her fist.
The marble imploded with a sharp zing, vanishing into nothingness.
Silence fell over the clearing.
The four Stormlings were gone. Dissipated back into the ambient mana of the Gap.
The peerage stood amidst the craters and scorched earth. They were bruised, bleeding, and their clothes were shredded. But they were standing. Their auras were no longer leaking; they were blazing like signal fires, tight and controlled.
And they were vibrating with power. The rush of adrenaline mixed with the profound sensation of cultivation success was electric.
Ren Ming pushed himself off the tree. He walked into the center of the carnage, clapping slowly.
Clap... Clap... Clap.
"Not bad," Ren said, a genuine smirk on his face. "Not bad at all. You actually looked like you knew what you were doing for the last thirty seconds."
Issei fell onto his butt, laughing breathlessly, clutching his chest. "We... we killed them? Those were High-Class, right? Like, legit monsters?"
"They were," Ren confirmed, looking down at the boy. "And you dismantled them in under three minutes once you stopped acting like scared little kids playing make-believe. You stopped trying to solve a puzzle and started winning a fight."
He looked at Rias. She was glowing. Literally. Her aura was tight, hugging her skin like a second layer of armor, swirling with a potency that she had never possessed before.
"That was the breakthrough," Ren Ming explained, walking over to inspect Kiba's sword, nodding at the sharpness. "Cultivation isn't like Magic. Magic is math. You study, you learn a spell, you cast it. It's rigid. Cultivation is evolution. You hit a wall, and your body says 'I don't want to die,' so it forces a mutation. It forces the energy to find a new path."
Ren Ming grinned, a look of profound satisfaction on his face. This was the "Grit" he wanted to see.
"That's the power of cultivation. Pressure makes diamonds. Or in your case, pressure makes monsters."
He patted Issei on the shoulder, hard enough to make the boy wince, but the camaraderie was real.
"You guys finally stopped thinking and started flowing. How does it feel?"
"It feels..." Akeno looked at her hands, sparks of violet lightning dancing between her fingers without her even trying. The energy felt docile now, waiting for her command. "It feels intoxicating. I feel like I have so much more room to grow. Like the ceiling just disappeared."
"Exactly," Ren nodded. "You just unlocked the next level cap. Welcome to the grind."
He looked at the sky. The artificial sun was high now, casting long shadows across the battered training field.
"Take five. Drink some water. Heal up," Ren Ming ordered. "Asia, patch up Issei before he bleeds out and ruins my grass."
He turned to walk away, slipping his hands into his pockets. But he stopped after a few steps and looked back at them over his shoulder, a mischievous glint in his eye.
"By the way... don't get too cocky. Those Stormlings?" Ren Ming smirked, pointing a thumb back at the empty space. "They were the appetizers. Just some trash mobs to wake you up."
He gestured vaguely toward the edge of the clearing.
"Tiamat is getting bored over there. I think she wants a turn after lunch."
The color drained from Issei's face instantly. "T-Tiamat? The Dragon King? The strongest Dragon King?!"
"Don't worry," Ren laughed, walking off with a swagger that suggested he found their terror hilarious. "She promised not to eat you. Mostly. Just try not to look like a snack."
As he walked away, Ren Ming mused to himself, the ancient power of the Ming bloodline humming contentedly within him.
'They're getting it,' he thought. 'They're actually getting it. Rias is shedding that aristocratic stiffness. Issei is finding his spine. Kiba is realizing swords aren't just metal. This... this might actually work.'
He caught Tiamat's eye across the clearing. The Dragon King, in her human form, was looking at the peerage. For the first time, her expression wasn't one of disdain or boredom. It was one of acknowledgment. She had seen the raw potential flare, and as a creature of power, she respected it.
Ren Ming winked at her, a cheeky, distinctly modern gesture.
Tiamat rolled her eyes, crossing her arms, but the corner of her mouth twitched upward in the barest hint of a smile.
'Yeah,' Ren Ming thought, feeling the wind of the Gap brush against his face. 'This is going to be a fun week.'