The ogre flinched.
A muscle the size of a barrel twitched along its arm as it stepped back. Not out of fear, but instinct. Even beasts recognized death when it stood before them.
Eris exhaled softly. The air left his lungs in a rush. His blade pulsed faintly, the same cerulean glow tracing delicate cracks along its edge. He stepped forward.
Then again.
His boots barely disturbed the forest floor, whispering over the scattered leaves like shadows on silk.
"I really should've stayed in bed," Eris muttered, the breath fogging faintly in the morning chill.
From the clearing ahead came the ogre's snarl—a low, guttural sound that bled into a growl. It wasn't just noise. It was pressure.
A sound that settled into the bones and gripped the spine like a vice.
The beast emerged, hulking and hunched, its gray-cracked hide taut over slabs of brute muscle. Its rusted axe scraped against stone, shrieking like metal dragged from a grave, the sparks lighting its narrowed, bloodshot eyes with feral purpose.
Eris exhaled slowly and slid one foot back, settling into a stance.
"Of all things…" he muttered, drawing his blade in a silent hiss. "How did I end up facing an ogre?"
He didn't need a bestiary. Because he already knew.
Ogres aren't just mindless brutes.
They were Grade-4 apex predators.
Capable of tracking prey across miles of terrain without rest and taking explosions head-on and charging through the smoke like demons.
While learning, adapting, and hunting not just with instinct, but with brutal intelligence.
And worstー
Ariel and I are in the 2nd grade. At best.
"She's already injured," Eris thought, flicking a glance to where her silhouette leaned weakly against a tree in the distance, aura dim and flickering.
The ogre stepped forward again. The earth groaned.
"This is a suicide," he murmured. "There's no chance of winning with my current strength…"
And yet—he didn't move.
Because even if it was madness, if it meant stalling the beast for even one more second—
He'd make that second count.
Steel screamed against rusted iron. The axe swung downward with the weight of a collapsing mountain, and Eris ducked under it, his body flowing sideways like water. He spun once, then struck—a shallow slice across the beast's shoulder.
The cut barely pierced the skin.
Of course, he thought grimly, twisting away from a backhand swing that flattened a tree trunk where his head had just been—thick-skinned bastard.
The ogre kept coming—wild, relentless.
A left swing. Eris leapt back. A crushing stomp. He rolled sideways. A headbutt—unexpected. Eris ducked too late and caught the edge of the blow across his shoulder. He staggered, breath stolen, but kept his footing.
Then the ogre lifted its axe again.
Eris tightened his grip.
"Crimson Vein… Awaken."
The blade in his hands flared red. Lines of light—like glowing wounds—traced down the steel as his Crimson Energy surged. The air around him shimmered with heat.
He darted forward, feinting left, then struck right.
His blade sliced through the ogre's arm just below the elbow. A gush of blackened blood sprayed into the air, hissing where it hit the ground.
The ogre roared—a horrible, ear-tearing sound.
"Gotcha—"
Boom.
The ogre's remaining arm crashed into Eris like a battering ram. A wall of muscle. A club made of bone and fury. He flew.
Crack.
His back slammed against a thick tree trunk with a sickening crunch. Bark exploded. The air left his lungs.
Blood filled his mouth. He coughed, crimson dribbling down his chin.
"ERIS!" Ariel screamed from the clearing.
He slumped down to the forest floor, barely able to breathe.
His sword lay a few meters away. His chest burned. His ribs screamed.
"I was careless," he thought, wincing as he tried to sit up. "I should've gone for the head."
He looked up.
The ogre's wound was still gushing, but it hadn't slowed. If anything, its eyes had changed.
Bloodlust.
Unfiltered. Uncontrolled.
A dark mist hissed from its body, steaming off its skin.
It was demonic energy. The demonic energy was overflowing now, wrapping around its limbs like smoke. Its eyes glowed red.
"It has gone berserk."
He feels no pain. No hesitation. Just pure, animal killing instinct.
Eris swallowed thickly.
"It's over. We can't win like this."
His vision swam. His fingers curled into the earth.
"What should I do? I'm running out of aura… Ariel's injured… I can't keep dodging forever."
The ogre lifted its axe again.
Eris hissed through his teeth and forced himself upright.
His head pulsed. Blood trickled from his temple.
"I think…" he whispered, voice hoarse, "…I have no other choice."
The ogre stepped forward.
"…but to use that."
It roared.
The earth shook again.
Eris vanished in a blink, darting low past the ogre's swing—the axe missed by inches, cleaving another tree in half behind him.
He slid beside Ariel, grabbing her shoulder gently.
Her eyes widened. "You're alive—!"
"Barely," he muttered. "Listen to me."
She blinked, startled by the look in his eyes.
"I have an idea. We can defeat it. But I need your help."
Her mouth opened—but he cut her off.
"I can't explain. … believe in me."
Ariel hesitated. Her leg was still trembling. Her sword hand shook.
But her eyes met his.
And she nodded.
"…If you screw this up, I'm haunting you."
No hesitation. No complaint.
Just faith.
She tightened her grip on her sword and hobbled to her feet.
Even with her broken leg, she turned toward the ogre, raising her blade once more.
"I'll distract it," she said through clenched teeth. "Just don't die ."
Eris let out a breath and watched her run—not gracefully this time, but with fury.
Then he closed his eyes.
"If you screw this, I will haunt you forever."
He dropped to one knee and gripped the earth.
"Visualize the aura… all of it."
Blue threads swirled around his body.
"This technique wasn't meant to work yet… but if the timing's perfect… if the moonlight aligns…"
White sparks joined them, drifting up like fireflies.
"Yes… I've got it."
He opened his eyes.
And raised one hand.
A subtle signal to Ariel.
She saw it and veered left, diving behind a rock just as the ogre lunged after her.
Eris rose.
His body now bathed in light, swirling tendrils of blue and white aura licking at the edges of his cloak.
He took a stance.
The wind around him seemed to have stopped.
The forest—once filled with creaking trees and crackling branches—now listened.
Eris bent his knees slightly, spreading his weight.
His sword, slick with blood and heat, dipped low—angled across his body like a sleeping fang waiting to strike.
His eyes locked forward.
Calm. Focused. Quiet.
The faint white aura hissed upward like smoke.
And for a moment, he was no longer human—just intent.
The ogre thundered forward, its warped axe dragging fire from the dirt as it chased Ariel. Its roars shook the trees, but she moved like a phantom now, darting and limping between trunks, buying seconds.
Pain be damned.
She flung herself behind a tree trunk, gasping.
"Now, Eris—now!"
He moved.
One breath. One blur.
And then—
Silence.
The sound vanished for a heartbeat, as if reality itself held its breath.
Then—
"Eden Codex Volume III Blade Chapter 144," he whispered, voice barely audible but sharp as glass,
"Lunar Solstice Slash."
He surged forward, sword flashing.
His body seemed to vanish, replaced by motion, a streak of blue and white cleaving across the air.
The first strike came silently.
A wide arc—horizontal—clean and glowing. Moonlight traced the blade's path, as if the stars themselves reached down to guide it.
The wave of silver-blue energy carved outward, slamming into the ogre's ribs.
The force of it cracked the bone. The wind shrieked behind it. For the first time, the ogre reeled—not from pain, but something more profound.
Its demonic aura flickered.
Sputtered.
And then—purified.
The glow burned across its chest, sapping the black mist away like sunlight scattering shadows.
Its roar turned to a cough. Its eyes burned wide with confusion.
That was Phase One.
Then came the second.
A burst of white-hot light exploded behind Eris's back, like a rising sun tearing through night.
Solar Burst.
He pivoted, reversed his grip mid-motion, and slashed upward.
The blade screamed, cutting through the remaining aura in a blinding flash. The slash didn't stop at the ogre's flesh—it tore through the demonic energy that wrapped it like armor.
Time seemed to slow.
The ogre's neck was sliced clean through.
Its eyes still burned red.
Then dimmed.
Its body staggered forward once, twice—
Then collapsed like a felled mountain.
A tremor pulsed through the clearing as dirt and blood scattered in every direction.
Ariel shielded her eyes from the blast of light and wind. When she opened them, blinking—
The ogre was gone.
Just a massive body crumpled on the earth.
And Eris stood beyond it.
Sword still angled downward.
Aura fading like morning fog.
He didn't move.
Didn't breathe.
Then—
His shoulders dropped.
His arms slackened.
His knees nearly buckled.
But he remained standing.
Barely.
He glanced up at the sky.
A few slivers of moonlight had slipped through the canopy—just enough to bathe the clearing in faint silver.
He watched them.
Quiet.
Then he smiled.
Exhausted, battered, drained.
But smiling.
"I really should've stayed in bed," he whispered.
Ariel limped toward him, sword dragging behind her, her face torn between awe and relief.
She opened her mouth—then closed it again.
No words felt right.
Instead, she just stood beside him.
The two of them—bloody, broken, bruised.
But alive.
And victorious.
End Of The Chapter...