Screams erupted through the ruins, the remaining knights scattering as the sand exploded around them, another blast ripping through the dust to tear a second knight to pieces before he could draw his weapon.

Nobody knew where the attacks were coming from, the panic rising fast in the open sand, Hajin rolled away from a flaring red light under his own boots. 𝓯𝓻𝒆𝙚𝒘𝓮𝙗𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝒍.𝙘𝓸𝙢

He activated his Divine Eye, his vision shifting to show the gray world with glowing red threads of magic stretching across the ruins. Following the threads back to their source, he spotted a stone statue shaped like a dog sitting atop a nearby wall, its eyes glowing with the same crimson light.

He sprang forward, launching himself toward the wall with his sword drawn, swinging the blade down at the statue’s head with all his weight.

A barrier of red mana flared around the statue, deflecting his sword with a metallic clang, the impact sending him flying backward through the air.

Before he hit the ground, Juna leaped from a nearby pillar to catch him securely in her arms. She landed on a flat stone slab and put him down, her tail twitching in agitation.

"Thanks," he said, resetting his stance, looking down at the Captain and Helen who were struggling to coordinate the panicked knights.

"It’s the dog statue on the wall!" he shouted, pointing toward the stone figure, "it is controlling the runes!"

Helen looked up, her eyes narrowing as she spotted the statue, her hands already glowing with blue mana. The Captain unleashed his four shards, the amber crystals forming a protective barrier around the surviving knights.

"Hold your positions!" the Captain roared, his voice cutting through the noise of the explosions.

’What is this gate,’ Hajin thought, watching another rune flare up in the distance, ’first the surprise attacks, now a barrier protecting the source, is this whole place just one big trap?’

It reminded him of the dragon core during the ranker exam, that same kind of dense, layered mana structure that refused to break under normal force.

He stared at the crimson barrier flickering around the statue, wondering if his Assimilation skill would work on it. Back then, he had absorbed the core’s mana directly, but this barrier felt different, more volatile, like it would bite back if he tried.

Helen charged the statue first, her blue mana condensing into a sharp blade along her sword as she swung hard at the barrier. The wall flared bright on impact, absorbing the hit completely before pushing her back.

The Captain followed right after, swinging his claymore down into the barrier with both hands. The impact sent a shockwave through the ground, but the wall didn’t even flicker.

"It’s not working," Helen said, resetting her stance, "the barrier is regenerating faster than we can damage it."

The Captain stepped back, his jaw tightening, "we need to find another way, brute force will not cut it here."

He watched them from behind, his Divine Eye still active, tracing the red threads of mana that fed into the barrier. The threads ran down from the statue into the ground, spreading outward like roots under the cracked stone.

The stream chat was going wild.

[ ShadowMage44 ] bro just use the assimilation thing

[ CringeSlayer91 ] he’s just standing there watching, DO SOMETHING

[ Ashley (mod) ] wait, in setups like this there is always a hidden weak point, the barrier is not self sustaining, something is feeding it from outside

’Weak point?’ he thought, reading her message again.

[ Ashley (mod) ] look at how the mana is structured, barriers like that always have an external anchor, a rune or a node that channels power into the shield, if you destroy that anchor the barrier should collapse or at least flicker long enough to get a hit in

He looked down at the red threads running through the ground with his Divine Eye. She was right, the threads were not just spreading randomly, they were converging on specific points beneath the stone tiles, feeding mana back up into the barrier in a loop.

’So the barrier has an external power source,’ he thought, following one of the thicker threads with his eyes.

It led to a spot about twenty meters to the left, where a faint red glow pulsed beneath a cracked tile.

He didn’t wait, pushing off the ground and sprinting toward the glowing tile with his chain already uncoiling from his wrist, his body low to avoid the rune traps still scattered across the sand.

He made it halfway before the air shifted.

A blur of stone slammed into his side from the right, the dog statue crashing into his ribs with its full weight.

He heard the crack before he felt it, his ribs snapping inward as the force lifted him clean off his feet, the statue’s jaw clamping down on his torso for a split second before releasing him like a ragdoll.

His body hit the remains of a wall, the impact punching the air out of his lungs as his back cratered into the rock. Something warm flooded his chest from the inside, his vision going white, then red, then black as he slid down the wall and collapsed face-first into the sand.

The stream panel in his vision flickered once before shutting off on its own.

"HAJIN!" Juna screamed, already moving before his body hit the ground, her legs carrying her across the ruins at full speed. Loccy was right behind her, her face twisted in panic as she called his name over and over.

Juna skidded to her knees beside him, her hands shaking as she turned him over. His eyes were closed, blood running from the corner of his mouth, his chest rising in shallow, uneven breaths.

Several of his ribs were visibly caved in under his armor, the dent in the metal telling her everything she needed to know about the damage underneath.

"No no no," Loccy dropped beside her, her ears pressed flat against her head, tears already forming as she grabbed his hand.

"Shit," the Captain muttered, his eyes snapping between Hajin’s crumpled body and the dog statue, which had already leaped back to its original position on the wall. "Why did it move? It didn’t move when Helen and I attacked the barrier directly."

Helen stared at the statue, her jaw tight, "it moved the moment he went for the ground, not the barrier."

"It’s protecting something," the Captain realized, his grip tightening on his claymore.

Vella stood frozen a few steps back, her eyes locked on Hajin’s crumpled body, her hands hanging limp at her sides. The connection between them was flickering, growing weaker by the second, and she could feel it slipping through her fingers like sand.

This was not like before, when the worm had pierced his chest and she had felt the wound but his life had still burned strong beneath it. This was different, dim and fading, the thread that tied them together thinning to a hair’s breadth.

She could not move.

Then the thread pulsed once, weak, and something in her chest snapped.

She ran, her boots pounding across the ground as she dropped to her knees beside Juna and pressed both hands against his chest.

Golden light erupted from her palms, bright enough to make everyone shield their eyes as a barrier formed around his body, the threads of healing magic weaving into his broken ribs and sealing the wounds with a series of sickening cracks.

Her face was pale, her eyes wide in a way Hajin had never seen before. The usual teasing smile was gone, replaced by something raw and terrified as she poured more mana into the barrier, her hands shaking.

"Stay with me," she whispered, her voice trembling, "do not you close your eyes, please Hajin."