The silence that followed Garret’s collapse was absolute.

The towering walls of the mana box had shattered into glowing dust, leaving the party completely exposed. Claire stared at the motionless, giant body of the A-Rank Warrior, her red eyes shaking.

Elara was still, her hands clamped over her mouth, completely paralyzed by a terror so profound it had broken her mind.

And the bug-beast was celebrating.

Hundreds of black cockroaches and centipedes crawled out of Garret’s mouth, ears, and wounds, multiplying rapidly as they swarmed together and mixed into the main body.

"A feast!" the insect-man shrieked, its thousands of mandibles clicking in zealous joy. "A sacrifice for the great Lord!"

But Hide wasn’t looking at Garret.

He was staring at the swarm.

A cold, paralyzing numbness washed over his entire body, instantly followed by a violent, suffocating heat.

Shhhhhk.

It wasn’t just happening now. It had happened before.

The memory tore through the mental barricades he had built for years, flashing vividly in his mind.

His mother had died the exact same way... protecting, his weak form.

"Raaaagh..."

A low, guttural sound escaped Hide’s throat. It didn’t sound human.

The pain from the massive hole in his stomach simply vanished, eclipsed entirely by a rage so deep, so ancient, and so violently absolute.

The veins in his neck bulged, turning a dark, corrupted violet. His glowing blue eyes widened, the pupils contracting into terrifying, predatory slits.

His Abyssal Scale Carapace reacted to the sheer, unadulterated hatred pouring from his soul.

The shifting black plates didn’t just cover his neck. They violently crawled upward, locking over his jaw, his cheeks, and sealing across his nose. His world narrowed into two sharp slits of blue light framed by indestructible dark metal.

And then, the scales converged on his forehead.

They stacked, pushed outward, and formed eight short, brutal spikes of dark metal curving backward.

Hide didn’t register the massive amount of blood still dripping from the unhealed wound in his stomach. He should have drank a potion. But logic and survival were entirely gone, replaced by a singular, burning desire to completely erase the entity in front of him.

"Now for the rest of you!" the insect-man hissed, turning its faceless mass toward Claire.

But Claire moved first.

Her red aura exploded. She didn’t swing her greatsword—she threw it with devastating telekinetic force directly at the B-Rank Calamity Lord hovering thirty feet away.

Vora smirked, preparing to turn her body into golden liquid to let the blade pass through.

Mid-flight, the massive black greatsword violently dismantled. The blade broke into fifty jagged, razor-sharp pieces of shrapnel that scattered into a wide, unpredictable cloud, completely bypassing Vora’s gravity.

The Golden Sovereign’s mismatched eyes widened in sheer shock as the shrapnel surrounded her.

Claire clenched her fist.

The fifty pieces violently converged back together, instantly reforming the massive greatsword directly inside Vora’s physical space.

Claire didn’t stop. She sprinted forward, her boots kicking up dirt, and grabbed the hilt of the reformed sword in mid-air. With a feral scream, she ripped the blade sideways, completely cleaving the B-Rank girl in half from the inside out.

The two halves of the golden girl crashed to the ground. But the moment they hit the dirt, the flesh instantly liquefied into a thick, golden puddle. A second later, the liquid surged upward, flawlessly reforming Vora’s naked body.

"You insolent—!" Vora snarled, her perfect face contorting in pure fury.

Behind Claire, the insect-servant surged forward, turning its arms into two massive scythes of compressed beetles, aiming to decapitate the telekinetic Warrior while her back was turned.

CRACK!

A towering, jagged wall of pitch-black ice violently erupted from the earth, completely blocking the insect-man’s path.

The swarm shrieked, instantly abandoning its humanoid shape to flow around the sides of the ice wall like a black river.

But as the bugs poured around the edges, a figure stepped directly into their path.

It was Hide.

He stood there, blood pouring from his stomach, the dark crown of scales resting on his helm. In both of his hands, dark, violent, roaring violet flames burned with catastrophic intensity.

Hide thrust his hands forward.

The Level 2 Abyssal Flame erupted like a volcanic geyser.

The roaring inferno washed over the entire front wave of the swarm. The heat was so intense it instantly vaporized the bugs, turning them into a cloud of screaming ash before they could even hit the ground.

"Ahhhhh!" the insect-man shrieked.

The surviving swarm violently recoiled, abandoning the attack on Claire and rushing backward to re-condense into its humanoid shape, frantically trying to escape the apocalyptic heat.

But Hide was already moving.

He didn’t use Weightless. He used pure physical speed.

He closed the distance in a fraction of a second, appearing directly behind the newly formed insect-man.

Hide didn’t use his sword. He didn’t use magic.

He pulled back his right arm, the black scales on his gauntlet shifting and locking into a brutal, jagged point, and drove his fist straight into the center of the creature’s back.

His fist punched completely through the dense mass of bugs, emerging from the center of the insect-man’s chest.

"You’re not a swarm," Hide’s distorted, metallic voice grated from behind his helm. "You’re just hiding in one."

Hide’s hand opened inside the creature’s chest. His fingers clamped down hard onto something solid—a thick, pulsating, grotesque core bug that was controlling the rest of the hive.

The insect-servant shrieked in absolute, genuine terror. The swarm instantly tried to scatter, thousands of bugs dropping to the floor to burrow into the dirt.

"No," Hide whispered, his blue eyes burning with absolute madness.

Hide slammed his left hand into the dirt.

"Abyssal Frost."

A massive, perfectly circular dome of pitch-black ice violently erupted from the ground, sealing Hide, the core bug, and every single escaping insect inside a fifteen-foot frozen prison.

There was nowhere to run. There was no dirt to burrow into.

Hide tightened his grip on the core bug.

"Burn."

He unleashed the Abyssal Flame, directly into the enclosed space.

The inside of the ice dome turned into a literal incinerator. The corrupted violet fire filled every square inch of the enclosed space. Because the ice was made of dark mana, it didn’t melt. It simply contained the apocalyptic heat.

The screeching was deafening. It sounded like thousands of humans screaming in agony all at once.

Hide stood in the center of the inferno, the dark flames washing harmlessly over his Abyssal Scale Carapace. He watched with absolute, dead-eyed satisfaction as every single bug was turned into white-hot ash. He didn’t let go of the core bug until it was completely, undeniably erased from existence.

The screeching finally stopped.

Hide dismissed the flames. With a thought, the black ice dome shattered, dissolving into the air.

He stood alone in a perfect circle of scorched, blackened earth.

A pale blue system window drifted into his vision.

[Calamity Beast (Flock Master) - Eliminated]

Experience points gained: 11,000

[Level Up]

Level: 18 → 19

Exp: 7120 / 4100

Level Up reward has been added to inventory.

[Level Up]

Level: 19 → 20

Exp: 3020 / 4300

Level Up reward has been added to inventory.

Hide felt his knees give away and he fell on the ground, unable even to move his hands. He had pushed past his limits within a matter of seconds. And that took too much of a toll on his body with the giant wound still intact.

Then suddenly... Another window appeared.

[Congratulations, You have reached the threshold for Class Evolution]