A vision paved in front of Gabriel, yet at the same time, they remained conscious of their surroundings, stopping only for a second for the surprise.

They visualized themselves with an enraged expression, scaring the shit out of the first man with a growl, then entering inside his defenses with Kata of the Surge, blasting him in the chest and propelling him forward. After that, they kicked the man's groin and successfully took hold of his machete.

The vision, or sensation, or whatever they would call it, disappeared. What appeared was instead a message from the Anchor Page.

Epiphany has successfully triggered, Element alignment: Dark.

Current synchronization 0.1%

What has just happened?

They had already tried visualizing the Anchor Page, just as much as they tried using Skill, and nothing had ever happened.

As the burning message disappeared, they tried calling for their Anchor Page once again, but nothing happened.

That was when they stopped running.

"Manifest yourself, you fucker!" Gabriel said, spitting from the effort and his bridled rage bursting forth.

With rage fueling their spirit, fueling that request, they heavily focused on calling for the Anchor Page. Once again, nothing appeared but, there was something new, a weird tickling at the back of their head.

Then Gabriel knew the Anchor Page was there, but it was simply blocked for their lack of… strength, maybe their lack of willpower. The Tyrant's will was surely the one thing muting the Anchor, and it was most probably too much for them to battle.

Fifteen thousand years of anguish and rage, and solitude, there was no way they could compare to that.

They shook their heads. There were other things to worry about.

Gabriel heard the mean approach, they had stopped for too long, and the first pursuer was upon them.

With fury, they turned around, successfully managing to surprise the pursuer. Just a little surprised by it, Gabriel used the Kata of the Surge for the first time against a living adversary.

They got inside the enemy's defenses in but a moment, nullifying the machete's reach. With the same movement, they formed punches with both their arms extended in a double punching-push.

During his learning of the Kata's movements, the attack would have unleashed their body's full weight, magnifying it as the force was transferred from their legs to their core and finally toward their arms.

On the receiving end, the man was pushed back, raised from the ground, and flew through the air for a few yards. He ended on the ground with his back and beat his head hard.

Gabriel and Liz did not waste time. They ran forward, to the still confused man kicking him in the nuts, feeling a wet crunch. Next, they removed the machete from the grip and slashed the man's throat.

Gabriel looked at the machete in his hand and grinned.

It's time to hunt.

They shot forward, not caring to try the old strategy, but something entirely else, a full-on approach.

Maybe the decision wasn't one of the best and brightest they took until then, but at least it would be better than to commit the same mistakes again and again. Because as a wise man once said, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result.

They did feel rather insane at the moment, but that would be best put to use differently.

Three men paved in front of them this time, though they were expecting two, Gabriel and Liz would be attacking instead of acting in defense.

Gabriel increased their speed. He himself shooting for the leftmost man, Liz, for the rightmost.

The young man decided to take a wide shot at the man with a katana, leaving the machete man be, and leaving Liz, the ax-wielding man, he was the slowest one, increasing the lizard's survival rate.

Close behind the incoming group came, in order, the gladius-wielding man and the woman. It would be a savage race for survival- No, for carnage! They decided.

Gabriel smashed into the katana man with an overhead slash with the machete, the defender, taken aback, couldn't help but raise his weapon in defense. The machete cut right through it, slashing his neck.

Gabriel rapidly evaded to the side. The man they had just hit would stop being a threat with his arm almost severed and his weapon broken.

Liz, by Gabriel's side, was rabid. Through her, they had bitten through the ax-wielding man's neck, killing him. And they did not stop there. The lizard launched to the side as soon as they hit the floor, tackling the machete man's leg and making him trip.

The momentum was not wasted, as Gabriel swiftly came in, slashing the man's leg and his arms right away.

They picked up the second machete just in time to absorb the gladius-wielding man.

As they held him, they realized that arrows would swiftly come in their way.

They didn't even have to think how but simply reached for that same feeling, that desperate emotion that ended up in activating Epiphany. Sure as hell Epiphany activated.

The sight manifested at the back of their mind.

In the vision, they pushed inward with their crossed machetes defense, overwhelming the gladius-wielding man and cutting his throat. Next, they dropped one of the machetes, and grappling the man's collar, they went forward, his body soaking the bolts from the woman's arbalest.

Gabriel and Liz repeated just that.

Before they knew it, Gabriel had thrown the man's dying body on the woman, and as she stumbled back, they impaled her through the neck.

Gabriel stood there, huffing and puffing, adrenalin's level shooting through the roof. A manic smile on their face. They had made it.

Yet many footsteps could be heard in the distance. And after four days of battle and death, the only ones they had really prepared against had been those six.

Eighteen more enemies or more were coming at them, to get a piece of them. To torture, piss on, and kill them.

They'll not have their way. We're going to slaughter them all!

.

.

.

Gabriel's panting echoed through the forest.

They managed to kill four more bastards.

One of them had a fucking chainsaw, and another had a gun.

They could swear those weapons were not there before. They had never seen them. But the man and his lizard did not back down; they only smiled.

Anyway, they had been slow. It took time to adapt to the new enemies, too much time. The second group of a dozen people was almost there, and there were still two people they had to face. One was a man with a rifle; the other was a sniper lying in wait. Liz had been killed by the eighth attacker.

Gabriel and Liz knew they would have to change their approach. Yet they smiled. For the fifth time, Epiphany appeared in front of them, suggesting the best, most furious approach.

It suggested death.

Death by launching themselves at the enemies to get shot at, and start again.

Gabriel laughed, laughed like a maniac. They got up, screaming like a crackhead, then they launched at the incoming enemies.

***

It was night when they breached through the lake's defenses. They had an advantage in the night. They could shroud themselves in darkness. But the Tyrants were not the only ones capable of doing so; there was one whose skills were much, much better at hiding.

A panther entirely, invisible in the darkness, stalked them. Death didn't even have to waste Spirit points to cast Spirit Fade. She was blessed with much more useful Skills, to turn practically invisible both at their eyes and to their senses.

Even demonstrating almost a sentient level of intelligence, the Tyrant did not know that each of their nocturnal moves had been followed in the last few days, and a genius mind orchestrated the defense against them.

Darte Reevers saw what Death did, heard what she heard, and felt everything as if he was there himself. But he wasn't there.

He was by the table in the Champion's tent, where they decided the tactics and the strategies the sentient's front would take.

A woman, a rare half-fairy, half-elf, her name was Nadiya, acted as a medium. Every single decision and order planned in that room, she could stream to battle division leaders, which would then relay them to their party leaders.

Graskielle was on the front line, lying in wait with the other four battle division leaders.

Darte, though, a beast on the battle floor, would have been much more useful as a strategist.

The Giant's Champion saw Darte's worth right away, and when he informed her of his Ranking placement, she couldn't help but smile and raise his role as her left arm.

But the boy's surprises did not end there. She had noticed that he was a real genius, a mastermind, though a bit lacking in some other important aspects, such as humanity.

Thing, which made him extremely suitable as a strategist, a role in which the boy shone right away.

Another person stood in the room right then with Darte, and it was an old Giant, with a rare class.

He was Graskielle's right-hand giant, Theor.

Theor was an Enchanter, an infrequent Class for a Giant race member, and though he looked old, he was a Master Class, a Tier 6.

The Enchanter was not a battle Class, but he had been pivotal in supporting the heavy hitters. Darte had, of course, knowledge of the results of applying enchanting to a piece of equipment or directly on a person, but he had never studied the practice, not even the basis behind it, but had a rough knowledge about the difference they could have in a direct confrontation or even in defense.

Theor enchanting were at a level Darte had never before seen, though. Thus he couldn't help but treat the giant with the respect he deserved.

Both Theor and Nadiya were members of Graskielle's party; though Nadiya was a new addition, she was also a formidable tool.

Nadiya was not that much of a talker, while Theor was stern but did not shy away from small talks.

Small talks were, in fact, the only method Darte knew to relate to others. The only persons with whom he had managed to open himself to and to whom he had shown a real connection had been his mother and, after her death, his grandpa.

To all others, in part, even to his father, or so he thought, he looked like a psychopath who was grandly trying to hide his deficits.

Right now, all that was not important; what he cared for was winning this war. It was about money, after all.

There was something else as well, though it didn't scratch at his mind the same way the search of the Herald did, but… he had heard Theor keep asking about the lack of a direct attack from the Tyrant's Boss; for him, it was a mystery why it hadn't happened already.

Darte shook his head. He had no answer for him.

About two days in, Champion Graskielle saw it was wise to claim the event all for herself, not inviting any other Champion.

Darte knew the reason. It was pretty obvious even to his young mind.

She had done so to bolster the Giants' forces with the war and, at the same time, hinder any other organization or groups' hopes of claiming rights above Turtle Island dungeon.

"They're coming through division four and division two's territory like we suspected. All shrouded, not teleporting. The traps will trigger in 4...3…2...1." As the traps started triggering, Theor, standing on the other side of the table and in front of him, reached with his arm on Nadiya's shoulder, enveloping her in a great golden light.

After that, the girl fainted, and a healer shot in the tent to fix her up.

The light disappeared, while at the same time, by the lake's bed and on the islets, golden flames enveloped the still undercover people's bodies.

At that point, they all rose up, and it became magic casters heaven.

A barrage of Skills, magic bolts, arrows, projectiles, and whatever one could imagine flew in on the Tyrant's army. Their power to teleport sealed for a couple of minutes, thanks to the traps.

The golden light, Theor signature Skill, magnified the next few ranged Skills by a factor of up to four, based on Nadiya's Tier. It could have amplified them by up to a factor of six, but she would have to be a Tier 6 for that.

The Tyrant had not been expecting such resistance.

Many of them, regular and guardians level, blew up in smithereens, the Elites received significant damage, a few of them even succumbing to the process.

The Champions, however, having the ability to instantly cast their rock manipulation Skills, protected themselves. However, one of them was reduced to a cripple during the attack.

The Paragon, thankfully, the only one leading the charge, shrugged the attacks off. Focusing solely on intercepting the Champion.

Darte's gaze and consequently, Death's gaze, was following Graskielle.

She had to dive in to intercept the Paragon. It could have made mincemeat of all those standing on the closest islet, which thankfully had yet to arise from their slumber.

Hell, that beast could make mincemeat of the Champion, too, if she was unsupported.

Darte had seen the monster fight, and it had been much more dangerous than the Champion.

Nobody on the battlefield could even remotely compare to her in terms of combat ability, but the Paragon was on another level.

To barely stand her ground against it, she had to face it with half a squadron of support, which meant twenty-five people.

One of the monster's regular strikes was enough to compare to her Skills augmented batting.

During the nine days since the start of the war, she had to fend off three of them. And only managed to kill two, with the full support of the raid, the other one had fled, but had taken one of her arms. Healing something of the caliber of a Champion was not a joke. It took two hours of work from all of their ten Tier 4 healers and twelve of their Tier 3 ones.

One of her Skills made her almost immune to magic, which in turn had her suffer heavily and only rely on her personal Recovery had she to recover from such a setback. At the same time, incredible Resilience made her heal slowly because of the heavy difference from her Recovery Attribute.

Being almost immune to regular damage is not that huge of an advantage, he had noted at the time.

Turning back to the present, she was not in the same danger. The entire raid had her back, but a Paragon was a Paragon. A monster among all other monsters and the Tyrants were heavy hitters. Their attacks and defense style really similar to hers. Which meant that they would have to exchange direct blows, and purely in terms of Attributes, she was inferior.

Hell, who wouldn't?

Legends, Legends maybe, but the Champion in front of Death's gaze was not a Legend. She was a Tier 6, after all, even if she was a Champion of her race.

So she started a smart fight, she would have followed the plan she and him had made.

Mostly me, to be fair.

He could see her engage the monster and back away, feigning a desperate approach, and sliding away just as it was about to take his opportunity. She was driving it toward the closest islet. It had been already freed by the raid members, which had advanced forward, taking the fight more directly toward the still incoming Tyrant's army.

She was sweating buckets. Darte could see it even from there; her drops of sweat were shiny as her Diamond skin was.

The seal on their teleport Skill would soon end, and she would have acted upon it.

It was at three seconds from the and that she made her move. Dashing with all her might toward the islet in one go. As she reached it, she started channeling her strongest Skill.

When the Tyrant decided to follow her, it was once again able to teleport, and it did, right on top of the islet. That was when she struck the ground with all her might startling the turtle awake just as the Tyrant, which had just teleported and, differently from his lower stages variation, had three seconds of cooldown on it, appeared on top of the islet.

The turtle raged in a second, turning its body up and tossing it in mid-air. The second it shifted its body up, sticking its head up, it started casting, an intense blue light forming down its throat, and at the start of the third second, it unleashed the ray on top of the Tyrant still being tossed in mid-air.

The ray struck with unparalleled power, only comparable to the Tyrants' own dark beam. Investing it full-on.

The sheer noise of it, perforating the air, with a profound screeching sound, much different to the eerie sound made by the Tyrant's version of it.

That ray of Water element energy, though, was the turtle's main weapon, and it was much more focused than the dark ray, the damage starting to show right away.

The Tyrant propelled in mid-air toward the sky, kept failing every attempt to teleport away.

Darte knew that it was fighting with all its strength to shroud himself in their dark mist, which protected it from damage and acted as too on its Recovery, enhancing it mightily. The first effect was something the Champions and the Paragons had access to, while the second one was only for the Paragons.

It had to choose between resisting the beam, or teleporting away because if he let go of the shroud even for just a moment, the damage would crack his armor, then his Resilience would drop many folds.

In the end, the Tyrant decided to resist it.

That was his greater mistake. As the beam kept going and going, it kept pushing the Tyrant toward the sky, reaching the Dungeon's Mana barrier and shattering it after a couple of seconds.

Once out of the Dungeon, the Tyrant started dissolving. A monster of that caliber, entirely formed of the Dungeon Mana signature, would not be able to live more than a handful of seconds outside of it.

The raid exploded in a roar of victory at that, and the Tyrant army started flickering away, escaping toward the forest. Soon the raid too had to raise their heels because the Paragon turtle did not really appreciate so many individuals around her lake.

What a waste of experience, thought Darte, shaking his head. It was not that it was normal for any person to take on a Paragon level monster by himself.

Anyway, he allowed himself to smile. It was his victory as much, if not more than it was for the raid, mostly composed of Giants.

Death's side locked on Nastia, the beautiful girl, showed a smile, a rare smile. Something at which even his young and frosty, twelve years old heart couldn't help but skip a beat over.

What the hell am I even thinking? He tsked.

But his attention was whisked away by something else, by azure eyes in the distance. Azure eyes, he knew very well.

Well, well, well, look who joined the party!