Hearing Shawn’s words made his heart stop for a moment. His gaze stayed on the fuming beast in front of him.

His instincts were screaming. This was the same kind of instinct that once warned soldiers about artillery before impact.

Run.

That thought appeared immediately. There wasn’t any room for a strategic retreat or any form of repositioning. It was just plain run.

The creature towering beyond the overturned vehicle no longer resembled a dangerous animal. It felt close to a natural disaster.

The massive, ape-like beast stood nearly five meters tall. Now that it had fully straightened its posture, black armoured plating covered its shoulders and forearms, resembling grotesque natural armor. Long white scars crossed its chest beneath thick dark fur while exposed fangs protruded from a jaw visibly powerful enough to crush steel.

It looked like the meaner version of the first Ape.

Its red eyes were still fixed on Silver.

It inhaled again, as though confirming something, and then roared. The sound physically hurt.

Silver staggered instinctively while the surrounding plains trembled beneath the force of it.

Shawn drew his sword immediately. The weapon slid free with a metallic hiss sharp enough to cut through the pressure.

"Did you clean your blade properly?"

Silver blinked once in confusion.

"What?"

"The scent? You were supposed to thoroughly clean and..."

Shawn stopped short. He didn’t even know what to say at the moment. He knew there was no point in blaming him, since Silver was an amateur, and he had been too focused on reporting the breach that he had forgotten to check on him. And it slipped his mind afterwards.

But he still couldn’t control his budding anger, every one of these instructions was something they were taught years before the official awakening.

Shawn glanced at the confused Silver his voice getting colder.

"The blood from its offspring."

Silver’s stomach dropped instantly. The combat dagger still rested against his waist with a small blood stain at the end of the blade where it met with the handle.

The realisation hit harder, the Teir three ape yesterday, the blood and the scent he had been carrying around.

Shawn kept his eyes locked on the massive creature ahead while speaking quietly.

"Boneplate Apes are territorial during migration seasons. Especially females."

The beast slammed one massive fist into the earth violently. The ground cracked afterwards.

"They track their young through scent markers since they give birth every ten years," Shawn tightened his grip against the sword," if one dies nearby..."

The beast roared again.

"... They will hunt whatever killed it. Blood is the easiest way."

Silver’s throat felt dry suddenly. He remembered how Shawn had insisted he change his clothes after a clean scrubbing and leave them at the checkpoint.

So, the ape’s appearance had not been random at all. It had clearly followed him across the plains, through the migration routes because he failed to clean one weapon properly.

Such a tiny and stupid mistake. And now, a Tier 5 beast stood in front of them fuming.

Silver finally understood something horrifying then. In this world, most deaths didn’t arrive through dramatic destiny or elaborate schemes, sometimes it was just a small carelessness from one forgotten detail.

Shawn stepped forward slightly.

"When I tell you to run, you run."

Silver immediately looked towards him.

"What?"

"This thing is stronger than me."

The admission shocked him more than the beast itself since Shawn never sounded uncertain. Yet now, he was admitting weakness.

The older contractor’s expression remained sharp and controlled, but Silver noticed the tension immediately.

The ape moved first. Unlike the younger ape that had charged at them, this one just disappeared from their vision.

Silver’s eyes widened.

BOOM!

The impact hit before any coherent thought could form.

Shawn’s sword collided against the beast’s forearm in an explosion of force that shattered the ground beneath both of them instantly.

The shock waves alone blasted Silver backwards several meters through the grasslands. The sound of steel screeching dominates the plains.

The ape roared directly into Shawn’s face before slamming its second arm downwards. Shawn twisted sideways and narrowly avoided it. The ground exploded where he had stood a second ago.

Silver forced himself upright immediately while reaching for his handgun instinctively.

He pointed it at the roaring ape and fired.

[Phantom Draw LV2 Activated]

Bang! Bang! Bang!

The reinforced rounds struck across the ape’s side and bounced off harmlessly. The beast didn’t even react since its hide was too thick for it to even feel it.

Shawn’s voice snapped across the battlefield right after.

"Don’t use the gun!"

Silver froze briefly but then he understood. The handgun couldn’t penetrate deeply enough to matter.

The ape swung again.

Shawn met the strike directly this time and lost ground immediately. The impact blasted him backward across the plain hard enough that his boots carved trenches through the ground.

Silver’s eyes widened.

This was a sight that he never thought he could see probably because he had at some point placed Shawn on a pedestal, forgetting that the man had only been a contractor for only a year and only had one tattoo on him.

He was just a far-advanced amateur at this point. Yesterday Shawn handled the tier three ape like it was nothing but now, this one was overwhelming him physically.

The ape lunged before Shawn could fully recover.

Silver moved, instinctively.

The sword appeared in his hand while his body sprinted forward before fear could stop him.

The beast’s arm swung toward Shawn’s exposed side but Silver slashed directly across the elbow joint, following the last ape fighting style.

Sparks exploded upon contact.

The blade barely cut through the thick armoured hide but he had managed to interrupt the ape’s movement.

Shawn reacted instantly. His free hand rose sharply and the air around him distorted.

Invisible telekinetic force slammed against the ape’s upper body hard enough to shift the massive creature sideways several feet.

Silver felt the change in the atmosphere at that moment. It felt as though something heavy and sharp was pressed against him like an invisible weight compressing the surrounding space.

The ape roared furiously before digging its massive arms into the earth to stop the forced movement.

Shawn’s expression tightened slightly and Silver noticed the change instantly. The telekinesis wasn’t working properly, it wasn’t enough to entirely bring it down.

The tier five beast was too physically powerful and clearly more experienced.

"Move!" Shawn barked.