Bellio was out cold.
The plush-sized creature lay curled in Sherry's arms like a soft toy, his fins twitching faintly as he snored. A lazy blorp escaped his lips, as though even in sleep, he dreamed of distant oceans.
Bellio was a C-rank aquatic monster. Against a B-rank monster like the Stonehide Grizzly—an earth-type brute encased in layers of natural stonehide armor—it shouldn't have been a fair fight.
And it wouldn't have been, if not for Bellio's transformation.
In his full—or at least partially full—form, Bellio's power scaled drastically. That Aqua Surge attack hadn't been just a pressurized burst of water. It was a tidal weapon, condensed from a staggering concentration of mana.
But that kind of strength came at a cost.
The transformation alone drained a significant portion of Bellio's own mana reserves. And the attack itself had burned through nearly a quarter of Sherry's mana pool.
Meaning Bellio wasn't a reliable option for prolonged encounters—not unless they had time to rest and recover between fights. And in a region crawling with B-rank threats?
Not likely.
Alex stood, brushing the dust from his pants. His eyes drifted back to the Stonehide Grizzly's remains. Something about it gnawed at him—not the fight itself, but the detail he'd noticed in the interface.
Its name had appeared in orange.
Not white, like every other monster he'd encountered up to this point.
He'd ignored it at the time, too focused on the fight to question it. But now, with the adrenaline fading, the detail stuck out like a warning flag.
'What does orange mean?'
He opened the interface again, scrolling to the Monster Insight skill description.
No mention of color codes. Just the usual information: monster ranks, affinities, core abilities. Nothing that explained the shift in display.
'Could it mean threat level?'
It was possible. The Stonehide Grizzly was the first B-rank monster he'd fought.
He exhaled sharply, frustration prickling.
'Maybe it was stronger than average. Or had some kind of mutation. Or maybe…'
He rubbed the back of his neck and closed the interface with a sigh. Overthinking wouldn't help. Not yet.
If it happened again—if he saw the color shift with another monster—maybe then he could start identifying a pattern.
And if not?
Well, then he'd just have to ask the system directly.
"We should move. If there's one B-rank monster, there might be more nearby." Sherry's voice broke through his thoughts. "And Bellio... he's done for a while." She hugged Bellio a little tighter.
Alex nodded. "Yeah. You're right." He turned toward her and added, more casually, "Still… you don't need to worry too much."
Sherry tilted her head, slightly puzzled. "Why not?"
He gave a faint smile, eyes narrowing with calm confidence. "Because I've got a pretty solid idea of their strength now."
His gaze drifted back to the Stonehide Grizzly's massive corpse. The fight had given him more than just a victory—it had given him perspective.
"After going head-to-head with it… I have a rough idea of their limits. I can kill a single one easily. Even if two or three show up—I can handle them."
There was no arrogance in his voice. Just measured, quiet confidence.
He pointed upward. "With the drone overhead, I can't risk using magic. But I can still use magic artifacts, right?"
Spells were dangerous under surveillance. But artifacts? Anyone could own and use one. It was perfectly normal—expected, even.
And that gave him room to maneuver.
The sword he'd used in the last fight had shattered—completely ruined. But he had planned for that.
Alex reached into his storage ring and drew out a new weapon.
It wasn't a sword, at least not in the traditional sense. The blade was shorter, sleeker—closer to a short sword and curved like a crescent moon. Its edge gleamed with a toxic violet shimmer, the metal itself carrying a subtle sheen, dark as obsidian.
It was the reforged remains of his broken Black Iron Sword—now fused with the Poison Essence Orb he'd recovered from the Poison Mist Forest near Opal Village.
==============================
[Magic Artifact]
Name: Obsidian Venomshard
Grade: C+
Type: Dagger
Description:
- A large circular dagger forged from the remains of the Black Iron Sword and fused with a Poison Essence Orb.
- Grants the wielder enhanced reflexes and agility in combat, improving evasion and precision during close combat and swift, precise strikes.
- Each strike inflicts poison that immediately reduces the target's HP by 100 and applies a stacking poison effect causing an additional 1 HP damage per second.
- The poison stacks with each hit, rapidly deteriorating the target's health if left untreated or unhealed.
==============================
It wasn't his ideal weapon. He preferred swords. But with both Intermediate Combat Expert and Intermediate Weapon Expert skills, he wasn't exactly limited to one weapon.
He ran his thumb along the flat of the blade, feeling the faint thrum of embedded mana.
He was eager to see what this dagger could do.
◆ ◇ ◆ ◇ ◆ ◇ ◆ ◇ ◆
Alex moved like a phantom, weaving in and out of the Stonehide Grizzly's massive reach. The dagger looked almost laughably small against the massive monster—but where his old sword had struggled, the new weapon thrived.
The Stonehide Grizzly's stone armor cracked under relentless strikes. Unlike brute-force slashes, the Obsidian Venomshard pierced with surgical precision, slipping through fractured plating and burying itself deep into the muscle beneath. Each successful strike left behind a faint, toxic violet hue that spread from the wound like ink blooming in water.
The poison was working.
He hadn't expected it to be this potent. It wasn't just a slow health drain—it sapped the Grizzly's strength, dulled its reflexes, made its massive limbs feel like dead weight. A status effect, clearly. Some kind of weakening debuff layered into the toxin—likely a result of the Poison Essence Orb used in forging.
And with Alex's mana infused into the blade, it didn't just cut—it bled power. Sharper. Faster. More lethal with every strike.
But it wasn't just the blade doing the work.
Sherry was all in. "Gleam, intercept it!" she called sharply.
Gleam might not have matched a B-rank monster in raw power. But its crystal body—smooth, geometric, unyielding—was nearly impervious to both physical and magical attacks. A perfect wall.
One of the Grizzlies raised its arm and hurled a massive boulder toward Alex.
Gleam surged forward with unerring precision, interposing itself just in time. The boulder exploded on impact, scattering into harmless shards.
"Good timing." Alex muttered, darting past the summon and sliding beneath the Grizzly's overextended arm. His blade found its mark again, slipping between stone plates and severing something vital.
The Grizzly roared in fury, staggering. The venom was taking hold. Its balance faltered, strength faltering with each second.
But just as one fell, another burst in from the treeline—roaring, unrelenting.
"Bellio, now!" Sherry called out.
Bellio, freshly awake and no longer groggy, didn't need to transform. Still in plush form, he was wide-eyed, focused.
He opened his mouth—and a razor jet of compressed water surged forth, slamming into the charging Grizzly's face. The monster recoiled, stumbling, blinded.
Bellio wasn't just support anymore.
It was artillery. It intercepted thrown boulders with precision blasts, knocked down hastily summoned rock walls before they could offer cover, and forced openings with the efficiency of a siege weapon.
The fight settled into rhythm.
Gleam stood firm—a stalwart wall buying Alex crucial seconds. Bellio disrupted the battlefield, crumbling defenses and applying pressure. And Alex, swift and fluid, danced between his summoned allies like a reaper—dagger flashing, carving deep into joints and gaps with every step.
One Grizzly fell. Then another. Then another... and so on.
Each kill lit up the interface, their point total climbing rapidly—pushing their team steadily higher in the rankings.
◆ ◇ ◆ ◇ ◆ ◇ ◆ ◇ ◆
Everything had been going smoothly, until—
Alex was mid-dash, ducking under a clumsy swing, when the ground beneath him trembled. He snapped his gaze to the right—too late.
The earth erupted.
The Stonehide Grizzly brought both of its colossal arms down in a devastating Seismic Slam. The shockwave blasted outward, pulverizing dirt and rock in a ten-meter radius. Trees cracked like matchsticks. Dust exploded into the air.
And Gleam—who had moved to intercept—took the full brunt of it.
"Gleam!" Sherry cried out.
The crystal golem was flung backward like a shattered statue. Its radiant body, once pristine, now bore a jagged fracture across its chest and shoulder. Shards of gleaming crystal scattered like glass across the battlefield.
Half of it was simply… gone.
Alex's jaw clenched. A hit like that would've turned either of them into a red smear.
But Gleam wasn't human. It was a golem.
Sherry rushed to its side, dropping to her knees beside the broken creature. The remaining half of Gleam tried to lift itself, one trembling limb bracing against the ground. At its center, nestled where a heart might be, a soft white orb still pulsed faintly.
The core was intact.
"That slam... would've turned a person into paste." Alex muttered, stepping forward to block the advancing Grizzly.
Sherry nodded, her voice tight. "Golems don't die the same way we do." She steadied herself. "As long as their core survives, they can be rebuilt. It'll take time, but… Gleam will recover."
Golems weren't exactly monsters—not quite. But as long as their core remained intact, they could endure anything—yet still return.
Alex glanced back at her. "I've got this one. Focus on Gleam."
She didn't argue.
A surge of mana pulsed through his legs.
Alex shot forward. The Grizzly raised its arm, but he was already inside its reach. The Obsidian Venomshard flashed once in the light—then disappeared into flesh.
The monster collapsed like a felled mountain. Alex yanked the blade free, flicking blood off the edge.
When he returned to Sherry's side, Gleam was stabilizing.
The glow at its core pulsed brighter now, steady. Tiny shards of crystal hovered in the air, gravitating toward its body. They began to fuse—slowly, piece by piece—as if drawn by invisible threads, rebuilding what had been lost.