From the thicket emerged a demonic monster. However, calling it a “demonic monster” almost seemed like an exaggeration. It wasn’t particularly large, barely taller than the average grown man. If it were to stand beside Berald, Berald would probably look bigger.

Its frame, its posture, everything about it resembled a human far too closely. At a glance, one could even mistake it for a person. Yet, I instantly knew it was a demonic monster; the reason was its grotesque face.

This monster had no nose, no mouth, and no ears. Its features were fused, like melted wax after a fire. Instead of facial organs, all it had was smooth and scorched flesh on its face. The only things visible on that face were the five pairs of eyes that covered its face, glowing eerily.

A ten-eyed demonic monster, huh. No wonder it looks so bizarre, I thought.

At first sight, it was impossible to tell what kind of creature it had been before it turned into a demonic monster.

Professor Baldwin’s eyes trembled. “That thing...”

I released my arm, which had been holding her, and stood up. “Have you seen it before, Professor?”

She bit her lip hard and nodded. “Yes.”

Her expression was grim enough to make me want to ask where she had encountered such a thing, but the monster didn’t give us the time to have a casual conversation.

It let out a distorted cry. “Hrroooaaaah!”

Then it raised its right arm. The arm began to melt like clay, reshaping itself into a crimson blade.

I clicked my tongue. Questions could wait. First, I had to deal with the arrogant monster exuding killing intent that could suffocate the air itself.

Drawing in a sharp breath, I gathered my mana. “Haa!”

The power dormant within my soul stigmata flowed through my meridians, spreading across me.

The beast lunged, letting out a nauseating scream. “Grroooaaaah!”

It didn’t even have a mouth, so how it made that sound was beyond me. Nevertheless, I raised my sword to meet its charge. The crimson blade that was once its arm flared with a crimson aura.

It was a demonic monster that could wield aura. Just that savage aura was enough to show why only top-tier Rankers could handle ten-eyed demonic monsters.

Steel clashed against its flesh-forged blade, and the shock rippled through my hands. Despite its humanlike appearance, this was no human. Its physical strength alone surpassed human limits by a vast margin.

At that moment, Professor Baldwin shouted, “Bind!”

Her webs shot forward, wrapping tightly around the beast. The creature shrieked and violently thrashed. The recoil tugged at the threads, and with it, Professor Baldwin herself was nearly yanked off her feet, dragged toward the monster.

She cursed. “Guhh!”

After severing the web herself, she glanced toward the corpse of the wolf monster we had slain earlier and frowned. “To think that just adding two more eyes would make such a difference.”

Shaking off the numbness in my arm before gripping my sword again, “Being a ten-eyed marks a massive power jump. But even so, this one’s far stronger than a normal ten-eyed demonic monster.”

In my past life, I had fought many of them, but few had been this formidable.

Professor Baldwin bit her lip again, as though she had realized something. I stepped past her, eyes fixed on the enemy. While this one was indeed unusually strong for its kind, could handle aura, and possessed monstrous strength despite its humanoid size, at the end of the day, it was just a ten-eyed demonic monster.

I had once burned a twelve-eyed demonic monster that resided in the Abyss to ashes. While I wasn’t in that same Incarnation of Fire state right now, I could still recreate a fraction of it.

“Ignite.”

Ash-gray flames flared around me, wrapping me in a ghostly shroud. Smoke billowed from my pores, spreading like mist. I exhaled a breath tinged with ashes and kicked off the ground.

The demonic monster swung its crimson blade-arm at me in fury. “Grroooaaaah!”

I executed Ashen Flame Style First Form: Ash Severance, and my flame-wrapped sword cut through the air.

The monster’s scream tore through the forest. Clutching its severed right arm, it staggered backward. I followed it up with a sharp kick. My leg swept low, smashing into its knee. Its limb bent in an unnatural direction as its body reeled.

“Hrraaaah!”

With a roar, its twisted leg melted like mud, only to reform into a sharp, scythe-like weapon. It twisted its body and swung the new limb upward, aiming for my head. The crimson aura flared once more, trailing death in its wake.

“Not so fast!” said Professor Baldwin.

She crossed her arms into an X, spreading them wide. Dozens, no, hundreds of silken threads shot from her fingertips toward the monster.

Perhaps remembering how it had broken free before, the demonic monster didn’t hesitate this time. Even as the webs shot toward it, it swung its leg-scythe to cut through them. However, that was a wrong move.

Professor Baldwin flashed a cold, calculating smile. “How arrogant.”

She brought her outstretched hands together and twisted them sharply. Hundreds of silken threads tangled in midair, braiding together into thick cords. In an instant, the ropes coiled tightly around the monster’s legs, halting its movement completely.

The creature shrieked and struggled violently, but no matter how hard it thrashed, it couldn’t break free from the enchanted web.

I approached the writhing monster slowly. “Stay still, you bastard.”

Should I capture it alive for now? I wondered.

I dragged a nail across my palm, letting a thin trickle of blood seep out. Then, from within that blood, I summoned the Demon Sword that slumbered inside me. After that, like driving a stake, I thrust the Demon Sword deep into the demonic monster’s chest.

As the sword greedily drank the creature’s blood, its body began to weaken visibly, its thrashing slowing to feeble tremors. “Hrrooo! Hrgh!”

I turned toward Professor Baldwin. “Well then...”

She stood there silently, lips pressed tight, gazing down at the demonic monster with a complex, almost haunted expression.

I called out to her. “Professor.”

“Ah! Sorry. My mind wandered for a moment.”

“Where have you seen this demonic monster before?”

Closing her eyes for a moment, she answered, her voice trembling faintly, “When I was a child, my village was attacked. I remember seeing one then.”

“Then that means...”

“Yes. It’s not a normal demonic monster. It’s one of Jackal’s familiars.”

That explained it. The sudden appearance of powerful demonic monsters in what should have been a low-risk, C-rank area was all Jackal’s doing.

Professor Baldwin frowned, clearly unable to make sense of it. “But why would one of Jackal’s familiars be here?”

Jackal had smuggled a familiar into the Hero Academy’s testing grounds before, but that one had been only an eight-eyed demonic monster. A ten-eyed familiar was a different story. Those were among Jackal’s elite forces, beasts he wouldn’t dispatch lightly or without purpose.

Just then, Professor Baldwin said, “It doesn’t seem like he sent only one.”

“What?”

Professor Baldwin’s purple Cursed-Eyes gleamed faintly as she scanned the forest where the demonic monster had first appeared.

“There are multiple traces. I’d say this one isn’t alone. There are other familiars nearby.”

“Then the first eight-eyed wolf monster we fought...”

“It was likely one of Jackal’s familiars as well,” Professor Baldwin said.

A cold thought crept into my mind. Jackal’s legion—thousands, even tens of thousands of beasts—could have made their way here.

Professor Baldwin turned toward me. “Dale. In your past life, did something like this ever happen before?”

Her words stirred a memory, one that was very old, yet still burned vividly in my mind. It was the incident where Jackal’s beast legion appeared near the Hero Academy. It had been over a thousand years ago, yet I could recall it clearly.

I answered, “Yes. It happened before. Jackal’s beast legion appeared near the Hero Academy.”

“Oh?”

My expression darkened as I continued. “But that incident took place ten years after I graduated, around twelve years from now.”

It was supposed to happen twelve years in the future. It was after I had ended my decade as a mercenary, around the time I had formed a party with Yuren.

“What exactly happened?” she asked.

I hadn’t been there in person when it started, but I knew the details well.

“It was an ambush,” I replied.

“An ambush?”

“Yes. A large-scale assault led by Jackal’s beast legion.”

Professor Baldwin’s face hardened, her eyes wide with disbelief. “Jackal attacked the Hero Academy?”

I nodded. “Yes. To stop the assault, heroes from the tri-nation allied army gathered. Over a thousand heroes fought against the beast legion, and it turned into an all-out war. In that war... Professor Baldwin, you were the one who killed Jackal.”

Her eyes slowly turned to me, heavy and searching, as if trying to read my face. “And after that, what happened to me?”

I didn’t answer.

“After killing Jackal, what became of me?” she asked again.

“You died,” I said finally.

That had been the end of Elisha Baldwin, the Cursed-Eye Spider.

A faint, bitter smile curved her lips, not of shock, but of quiet acceptance. “I see. Hearing about a death I don’t even remember, from someone else’s mouth at that. That’s quite a strange feeling.”

I rested a hand firmly on her shoulder. “It’s all right, Professor. This time, I’ll be the one to protect you.”

She cleared her throat, turning her head away to avoid my gaze. The tips of her ears, barely visible through her black hair, had flushed red.

After a moment, she asked, “A-anyway, does that mean there’ll be another large-scale assault this time?”

“Hard to say. We can’t be certain just because one of Jackal’s familiars appeared near the Hero Academy. But it could happen,” I replied.

“Then we should report this to the headmaster immediately.”

If an ambush from the beast legion really was coming, we needed to prepare before it was too late.

“Let’s return to the Hero Academy.”

“Yes, Professor.”

After ensuring the captured ten-eyed demonic monster was dead, we carried its body down the mountain. We loaded the corpse into the trunk of Professor Baldwin’s magi-car and drove back toward the Hero Academy.

But then, something caught our attention, and our expressions froze at the same time.

“Wait, is that?”

“Huh?”

In the distance, where the Hero Academy stood, thick, black smoke was rising into the sky.