Petrification

The real world was not a video game.

Before a Boss appeared, there would be no sudden CG cutscene, no grand open arena, no stirring background music to underscore the coming Hard Battle.

Combat began as abruptly and briefly as it ended.

More often than not,

adventurers were like rabbits beneath a Falcon's talons or mosquitoes in a tree frog's mouth, facing predators far stronger than themselves in nature.

They did not even know what danger they faced before they became corpses.

The first was Larry, who stood closest.

Dressed in fitted armor, sweat still streaming down his face, he had half turned to show Doris the exquisite statue he had discovered.

But then the sudden loss of sensation spreading from his back, along with the terror in the Blonde Girl's eyes, made him realize something was wrong.

There was no time to turn around.

Larry instinctively stretched out his hand as far as he could, seemingly intending to use every ounce of his strength to push Doris away from danger.

Yet unexpectedly, in response to Larry's action,

the frail Blonde Girl, who looked as though a gust of wind could knock her over, displayed courage utterly unlike anything she had shown before.

Not only did she not turn and flee, she even stepped forward. Her face was pale but resolute as she tightly clasped Larry's hand with both of hers.

She suddenly leaned backward, her slender arms trembling as they strained to pull him out of danger.

The two, who had been awkward with each other since the mission began, finally understood their relationship under the catalyst of mortal peril.

But that was as far as it went.

No matter how profound or moving their love, before that horrifying power beyond all measure, it would ultimately scatter like ash in the wind.

A lifeless, deathly gray spread from Larry's back at a visible speed.

It swallowed both life and color along with it.

Spine, chest, abdomen, arms...

In the time of a single breath,

Larry and Doris still remained locked in their posture of gazing at and pulling each other. One could even clearly see the strands of hair drifting beside the girl's cheeks and the veins bulging on Larry's neck.

But now, like the sculptures of snakes and scorpions on the ground, the two had become pale stone statues, utterly motionless and silent.

Next were the Half-Elf Hai An and his Guard, Wood.

Though they stood farther away, they still failed to escape the assault of that unknown power.

Almost at the exact moment the warning cry rang out.

"Clink!"

The sound of something fragile shattering suddenly came from the Half-Elf's body.

Immediately afterward, an emerald radiance as lush and vivid as new shoots after rain burst from Hai An's waist, enveloping his entire body in an instant.

The air before him twisted and warped, as though an invisible force had been blocked by the green light surrounding the Half-Elf.

It lasted only an instant.

A bewildered expression still lingered on Hai An's face.

Only the next second did he realize that they had been attacked—and that the Magic Item meant to save his life had been consumed as well.

Wood was the only Professional in the entire party.

Though he was far from outstanding among them and nowhere near the threshold known as "Transcendent,"

the extraordinary Agility bestowed by the "Wanderer" still allowed him to react at the very first moment.

His figure blurred in an instant, the black shadow beneath him trailing with his steps.

He neither dodged nor blocked.

Instead, in that instant, he gathered his entire mind and focused all his attention.

Like an ascetic facing the tide on a shore, he clenched his teeth and tensed his entire body against the invisible force surging through the air like waves.

Bzz—

His body suddenly stiffened, then abruptly relaxed.

The exceptional physical qualities granted by his profession allowed him to forcibly withstand the erosion of that invisible force.

There was no time to celebrate.

The Wanderer, who had always been calm and composed, displayed an utterly disheveled manner at that moment.

He spun around and lunged toward the Half-Elf behind him whom he had been protecting.

"Run!"

Finally, there was Xia Nan, who stood on the other side of the courtyard.

Having already decided to head back and return to explore these ruins another day, he had no intention of taking any souvenirs with him.

He was uninterested in Larry's excited shout, so he had fallen to the back of the group.

And precisely because of that,

he saw nearly everything that happened: Larry and Doris pulling at each other before turning to stone, and the green light that erupted from the Half-Elf afterward.

But like ripples raised by a dewdrop falling onto water, or the subtle arc traced by a bird's beating wings, those scenes that seemed so clear and detailed to the eye were, in truth, merely the most hurried instant in time.

Xia Nan felt that he had already reached the limit of what he could do.

Larry turned around—he stopped advancing.

Wood raised the alarm—he instinctively reached back for the Sword Hilt.

Green light flashed around Hai An—the iron-gray Beheading Longsword was drawn from his back.

And when the Wanderer's cry of "Run!" reached his ears, was transformed by his brain into comprehensible information, issued as a command, transmitted through his nerves, and moved his muscles and bones to take the first step,

that invisible force, which seemed to have already filled the air like mist, arrived before him as well.

Boom—

It was as though the world had been muted, and the vivid, bright colors before his eyes gradually faded.

It was difficult to describe what Xia Nan felt at that moment.

It was like winter swimming in temperatures below minus twenty degrees.

First came the instant chill and stabbing pain across his skin, as though the icy cold of the river sought to seep through his pores and into his flesh and bones;

then came numbness, as the sensation in the parts eroded by the cold gradually vanished as though frozen;

and immediately afterward, his body, sensing danger, instinctively constricted its blood vessels. The accelerated circulation sent waves of warmth surging throughout his body, resisting the intrusion from outside.

The two precious Attribute Points granted to Xia Nan by Mastery-level [Whirlwind Slash], combined with his fairly resilient will from having lived two lives,

formed a wall of "body" and "mind" that blocked the petrifying power from continuing to erode deeper into him.

They allowed him to pass that trial that determined life or death.

His consciousness suddenly wavered, and color flooded back into his vision.

His fingertips, knees, and even the toes of his leather boots were already covered in a layer of pale, deathly gray.

In his field of vision, Wood was carrying Hai An as he charged toward the forest outside the courtyard.

The Half-Elf's face was filled with panic. His bloodless lips opened and closed as he shouted two words at Xia Nan:

"Run!"

Only then did the culprit that had nearly wiped out the entire party within a single breath

drag its bloated, enormous body out from the mist-shrouded forest behind the courtyard, crawling slowly forward with the calm, leisurely gait unique to a predator.