Kaede smiled faintly as she stared at the towering, mutated ant hovering before them. "Did you just eat [Commander's Authority]?" she asked, her tone halfway between amusement and disbelief.
Behind her, Kanae took a wary step back, gripping her sword tighter. "That sounds like something I should be worried about. He ate what, exactly?"
[I…]
Kaede blinked in surprise. "Oh. He talks now." Her smile widened. "This is starting to feel like a boss battle. Only… I'm not sure which one of us is the boss in this scenario."
The ant raised one of its arms, claws clenching into a fist as the space around him distorted.
[I am the one who will devour all.]
His aura surged, bursting out in a violent ripple that churned the ocean beneath into a raging whirlpool. Scarlet light radiated from his body, and the seething waves below began to boil under the pressure of his presence.
[I. AM. TYRANT.]
Thunder cracked overhead as storm clouds swirled into a spiral. Even the heavens seemed to reel at the sheer weight of his declaration.
Kaede froze, her expression turning blank, two comical dot-eyes replacing her usual sharp gaze. "Eh?"
She rubbed her eyes. Once. Twice.
---
[TYRANT] — The Ant King
HP: 150,000 / 150,000
MP: 20,000 / 20,000
---
"Is… is that a health bar?" she mumbled, taking a cautious step forward. "Ehhhh?"
She tilted her head, eyes narrowing.
In all the battles Kaede had fought since reawakening, against monsters, dungeon horrors, and even a Monarch, none of them had ever been given a visible health bar by the system. Not one.
Cinnamon was the only creature she remembered receiving any sort of formal introduction, and that was likely because the system had initially thought she was in danger… before immediately realizing she was the danger.
But this?
This was new.
A health bar. A nameplate. Something that came directly out of New World Online.
"So you're a real boss now?" Kaede questioned, not sure what to make of it. "You don't feel any different."
"Oh, he feels 'plenty' different, alright," Kanae muttered from behind Kaede, her gaze fixed warily on the hovering ant. "Why aren't you killing it? Are you trying to 'befriend' it? Don't even think about it, young lady!"
Kaede turned back with exaggerated puppy-dog eyes, clasping her hands like a guilty child. "But sis! He's such an odd monster, and kind of adorable too... look at those shiny wings!"
Tyrant, already inching backward through the air, stiffened. His eyes widened with visible surprise. Above his head, three floating dots blinked into view like a loading screen.
Knock!
Kaede flinched, clutching the side of her head where Kanae had whacked her with the pommel of her sword.
"Did you forget the part where it tried to kill me?" Kanae snapped. "After killing Goto and the others? I'm pretty sure the entire Korean team is gone."
Kaede sighed dramatically. "Fine, fine… I'll kill the stupid ant."
She raised a hand toward Tyrant, who jerked sharply to the side. His massive, blade-like wings crackled with energy, charging an ominous green.
Tyrant crouched midair, core flashing with a brilliant pulse of crimson.
And then...
Fwoosh!
He blasted off into the sky, tearing through the air with a sonic boom.
...
...
...
"…Ah," Kaede blinked, her expression flattening into deadpan disbelief. "He's running away."
Kanae gasped. "No! If he escapes, who knows what damage he could do!? Stop him!"
Kaede shook herself from her momentary shock, snapping her hand up.
"Commander's Authority!"
A radiant storm of multicolored aura surged from her palm, latching onto the fleeing ant like glowing tendrils...
...
...
"Ah," Kaede said again, blinking twice as her grip fizzled into nothing. "He… cancelled it. He really did eat it."
"Tch, Kaede!!" Kanae shouted, eyes tracking the rapidly shrinking dot that was Tyrant disappearing into the upper stratosphere. "Do something before he..."
Kaede suddenly smiled, calm and curious.
"I could... but look." She pointed skyward. "That odd guy is finally moving."
Kanae's eyes narrowed. "Odd guy?"
She followed Kaede's gaze, then froze.
High above the ant king's trajectory, suspended like a blade waiting to fall, was another figure. A shadow against the moonlight. The dot glinted for a split second...
And then it moved.
Kanae's breath caught in her throat.
"…Sung Jin-Woo?"
---
Sung Jin-Woo wasn't quite sure what to make of the new arrival.
The moment he sensed a powerful and dangerous presence flaring at the edge of his perception, followed immediately by something slamming into the ocean like a meteor, he'd expected a high-ranking hunter, maybe even one of the National-Level Hunters finally joining the fight.
What he got… was a girl.
Young. Younger than he expected. Younger, maybe, than Jin-Ah.
And yet, the pressure she exuded was undeniable. Reality itself seemed to bend around her. The sea had scattered at her arrival.
So, despite her unassuming appearance and childish demeanor, Jin-Woo remained cautious.
She didn't disappoint.
Not only had she stopped the ant monster without a single movement, but her aura, strange, chaotic, and unlike anything he'd sensed before, had turned the battlefield upside down. It was like watching the world remember that rules were optional.
Jin-Woo could only assume she'd come for the same reason he had. While he had arrived to protect what remained of the Korean Hunter Association's forces, she must've come to retrieve or avenge the Japanese squad.
That would explain the other girl, wounded, still alive somehow, whom the newcomer had gone straight for.
His thoughts slowed for a moment.
A memory flickered.
---
"I know that look, Mr. Sung," Kanae said with a smile, but her eyes held something sharper. "Let me put it this way, if every S-Rank Hunter in Japan, including Goto and myself, were to gang up on Kaede…"
She paused.
"We would all lose."
A beat.
"In the first half-second."
Her words were spoken with a chilling certainty.
---
'This must be her then,' Sung Jin-Woo thought, watching as the girl erupted in a haze of swirling, multicolored light. 'Japan's strongest.'
After he slipped from her grasp, he couldn't help but smirk. 'Impressive. Definitely deserving of the title. It only took me a few seconds to escape that kind of authority... If this were a real fight, I'd already be on the back foot.'
She began walking toward the ant with calm, deliberate steps, and in that moment, Jin-Woo understood, the fight was already over. The creature couldn't move. It wasn't just immobilized. It was helpless.
'If it can't even escape her ability… then it was never a threat to me in the first place.'
He watched her argue with the other girl, Kanae, one of the injured Japanese Hunters. Their conversation looked tense, though distant. The younger girl even looked reluctant to finish the job.
Jin-Woo turned, already preparing to leave. There was no point staying. He'd come expecting a battle, but this wasn't his to fight anymore. Besides, his match with Japan's strongest would come after the raid, no need to rush into it now.
Then… the air changed.
Stillness.
A prickle crawled across his senses, and Jin-Woo stopped mid-step, his eyes narrowing as he turned back toward the ant.
It was… mutating.
There was no other word for it. The beast's aura twisted, warped, pulsing with something dark and unnatural. Not like evolution, not even like awakening. This was something else.
Something interesting.
He turned to glance at the girls, curious how they would respond.
From what he could tell, the ant had somehow absorbed the younger girl's authority and used it as a catalyst for its transformation. A reckless gamble… but one that had paid off. The aura pouring off the creature was no longer something to ignore, it was starting to feel threatening even to him.
The ant declared its new name with thunderous pride. Tyrant.
'Cool name,' Jin-Woo mused. 'I'm definitely keeping that when I turn him into a shadow.'
And the girls..?
...
...They were arguing.
Right in front of the now fully evolved monster.
Jin-Woo blinked. Genuinely confused.
The oppressive aura rolling off the ant sent ripples through the atmosphere. The sea below trembled. The clouds swirled.
And the girls were still talking.
Arguing like they were in the middle of a grocery store aisle and not standing inches away from a boiling apex predator.
For a second, he could have sworn the ant itself hesitated, confused... embarrassed, even.
"…Is she really that confident?" Jin-Woo murmured aloud. "To not even acknowledge the threat right in front of her...?"
He watched the younger girl finally turn toward the ant, her expression calm, expectant. Jin-Woo tensed slightly, waiting for the eruption of power that would surely follow.
The ant turned… and fled.
Blasting into the sky with a sonic boom.
Jin-Woo blinked. He was fairly certain the girls did too. Even the ant looked like it wanted to.
'He's running?'
Recovering instantly, Jin-Woo's lips curled into a faint smile. 'That's fine. I don't mind the exp. And that shadow will be worth the chase.'
His fingers twitched. With a flash of black smoke, the Demon King's daggers appeared in his hands.
He crouched, power coiling in his legs, and with a single movement, launched himself skyward, cutting through the air like a missile after the fleeing Tyrant.
Extending a hand mid-flight, he reached out with [Commander's Touch], latching onto the ant's form. The force of the skill locked onto the creature, but without solid footing, Jin-Woo was the one being pulled.
'I guess that works too.' He adjusted, angling his body as the skill reeled him forward.
In a blur, he soared past the ant's path, twisting his momentum and repositioning himself high above.
He waited, poised in the sky with both daggers in hand, the wind ripping past his coat.
Tyrant struck first. A pulse of crimson energy exploded outward, a push. Jin-Woo tensed and shifted midair, dodging the wave, only to realize it wasn't aimed to hit, but to knock him off position.
He twisted in midair, letting the force shove him into a spin, and used the momentum to hurl a dagger toward Tyrant.
Tyrant slapped it aside with one claw, eyes flashing red.
Then he vanished.
Jin-Woo's danger sense flared.
Above.
He tilted his head just as Tyrant's claw slashed downward, narrowly missing his neck. In a flash, Jin-Woo retaliated, dragging his dagger in a vicious arc across the ant's chest, but the blow was caught mid-swing.
However... Tyrant's claw wasn't touching the dagger. It was holding it, remotely.
Sung Jin-Woo's eyes narrowed.
"So you really did learn to use it…" he muttered, before his feet exploded.
A shape surged upward beneath Jin-Woo's feet, vast, shadowy, and crackling with black flame. Just before Tyrant's counterstrike could land, two enormous, leathery wings snapped open with a thunderous clap, blasting Sung Jin Woo away from the strike with a gust of dark wind.
From the swirling shadows, a massive wyvern emerged, its scales forged from living night, eyes glowing like embers. It let out a bone-shaking roar that echoed across the sky, wings slicing through the air like blades.
Sung Jin-Woo stood tall atop its back, coat flaring, daggers in hand, his gaze locked on Tyrant with calm, lethal intent.
Down on the solid water platform, Kaede watched the battle. "I want a dragon."