The air crackled not with ozone, but with the raw, newborn energy of seven breakthroughs. The four remaining Flame Draco Lizards halted their advance, their primitive brains processing a sudden, alarming shift in their prey's magical scent. They didn't look like battered students anymore. They looked like a thunderstorm that had learned how to hold a grudge.
Kael felt the difference immediately. The chaotic, hard to control "unmaking" energy in his core had condensed into a volatile, spinning sphere of black-gold power. It was like trading a wildfire for a contained star. He clenched a fist, and the air around it wavered, reality itself becoming pliable.
"Alright, lizards," he said, his voice echoing with newfound power. "My turn."
He didn't just run. He blurred. Enhanced by his breakthrough, he closed the distance to the nearest lizard in a heartbeat. Last time, his unmaking had been a slow seep. This time, he slammed his palm against its pebbled chest and willed the scales to forget their hardness.
A patch the size of a dinner plate instantly turned as brittle and porous as ancient shale. The creature looked down in stupid confusion.
"Sophia!" Kael yelled, leaping back.
Sophia didn't need the cue. A bolt of lightning, sharper and brighter than before, lanced from Storm's Verdict, not aiming for the whole beast, but piercing directly through the weakened spot Kael had created. There was a sound like a cracking egg the size of a barrel, and the lizard's internal fire gland short circuited violently. It didn't just fall; it sort of deflated with a sad hiss, smoke curling from its mouth and the new hole in its chest.
"TARGET THE WEAK POINTS!" Lisa commanded, her voice cutting through the noise with frost-edged precision. "Sora, spatial compression on the hindquarters restrict mobility! Justin, draw aggro! Daniel, eyes and tendons! Ellora, be ready with healing! Dominic, you're with me we're creating environmental hazards!"
It was a beautiful, terrifying symphony of violence. Their breakthrough hadn't just given them more power; it had synchronized them.
Justin, shining like a silver beacon, became the anvil. He stood his ground, his sword a whirlwind of solid light, parrying bites and weathering tail swipes, his new tier mana reinforcing his body to absorb blows that would have broken bones minutes before.
Daniel was the scalpel. He darted in, his shadow blades now leaving deep, sizzling grooves in the scale where before they'd just scratched. He hamstrung one lizard, sending it crashing to the ground with a roar.
Sora was the vice. With a grunt of effort, she clenched her hands, and the space around a second lizard's legs compressed. It wasn't frozen, but moving became like wading through solid tar. It stumbled, off balance.
Lisa and Dominic became the architects of ruin. Lisa sprayed a wide arc of supercooled ice across the scorched ground. Dominic followed with a punch to the earth, not to uplift, but to fracture. The iced ground beneath the third lizard's feet shattered into a pit of jagged, frozen rubble. The beast crashed down, one leg snapping with an audible crack.
Camila, from the rear, was cheering and taking notes. "Fascinating! Post breakthrough coordination efficiency has increased by approximately 300%! The mana wavelength harmonization is—LOOK OUT!"
The fourth and final initial lizard, seeing its companions fall, panicked. It didn't breathe a jet of fire. It expelled its entire fire gland reserve in a desperate, sweeping inferno a wall of flame that roared toward the entire group.
"BARRIER!" Ellora yelled.
Her fox and turtle spirits shot forward, merging. A dome of interwoven crystalline moss and soft flame erupted, meeting the firestorm. The shield held, but it strained, glowing white hot. Ellora cried out, her nose bleeding from the effort of maintaining it against the enhanced beast's attack.
The fire died. The shield dissipated. The lizard, spent, panted heavily.
Justin, seeing his opening, moved. He didn't use a fancy technique. He simply channeled all his newly solidified sword bound magic into a single, perfect lunge. His blade became a line of pure silver light. It punched through the lizard's eye and into its brain. The creature stiffened and collapsed.
Silence.
Heavy, panting silence filled the smoky clearing. The ground was a mess of scorch marks, ice patches, shattered stone, and fallen reptilian bodies. The stench of burnt hair, ozone, and reptilian blood was overwhelming.
For a second, they just stared at each other, bruised, bleeding, soot stained, but alive. A disbelieving laugh bubbled from Camila's lips. "We… we did it? We actually did it! Against Rank 2s!"
Dominic leaned on his hammer, wincing as his blistered arms protested. "Told you they were dragons," he rasped, but a grin split his sooty face.
"They're not Dragons." Kael and Justin said in exhausted unison, before sharing a look of tired camaraderie.
Sophia walked over to Dominic, her expression unreadable. She stopped in front of him, looking at the blackened, blistered armor, the tremble in his arms he was trying to hide. Her pride warred with a feeling so foreign it felt like a stomach ache. Gratitude.
"You're burned," she said stiffly.
"It'll peel," he shrugged, avoiding her gaze. "You okay?"
'Why did you do it?' The question screamed in her mind. But her pride, her lifelong training in noble detachment, choked it. All that came out was a stiff, "I am undamaged. Thank you for the… tactical intervention."
Dominic just nodded, as if blocking a fire lance for someone who'd barely tolerated him was just another Tuesday. "Don't mention it."
Before the awkward moment could stretch, the ground trembled.
Not from a spell. Not from a footfall.
This was deeper. A resonant, rhythmic THUMP that shook the trees and made their teeth rattle. It was the sound of something very, very large, and very, very angry, waking up.
From the direction of the hot springs ravine, the trees began to snap and fall, shoved aside like twigs. A shadow loomed, blotting out the sickly green light.
It emerged.
It was a Flame Draco Lizard Alpha. It made its fallen kin look like hatchlings. It was the size of a small cottage, its scales not the color of cooling lava, but of the molten heart of a volcano deep, pulsating crimson and gold. Its crest was a crown of jagged obsidian like horns. Its six legs were trunk like pillars, and its eyes burned with intelligent, primal fury. The air around it shimmered with heat haze, and the very mana in the area bent toward its overwhelming presence.
Its head swung, taking in the carnage of its dead pack. A deep, rumbling growl emanated from its chest, a sound that vibrated in their bones.
Its mana signature washed over them like a physical wave: Rank 2, Initiate. Tier 3, five tiers away from reaching Ascendant .
Kael's newfound confidence evaporated. His shoulders slumped. "You have got to be kidding me."
Dominic let out a long, weary sigh that seemed to come from his boots. "Can't we have one break? Just five minutes? Is that too much to ask?"
The Alpha's chest glowed, a sun igniting behind its scales. It wasn't preparing a jet or a lance. It was building up for something far worse a cataclysmic firestorm that would erase them and their entire campsite from the map.
They were out of energy, out of tricks, and staring down a creature that outclassed them in every way. This wasn't a test anymore. This was an extinction event.