The moment all three Soul Servants moved, the ravine became something else entirely.

The Bone Crawlers had frozen for exactly one second when the three figures appeared, and that one second was the last organised moment they had.

The Blade Ant Queen went left, her mandible blades cutting through the pale creatures on the ravine wall like they were made of paper. The Bone Crawlers on that side tried to flow around her the way they moved around everything else, shifting their flat bodies into the gaps between her legs and attempting to climb.

She didn’t let them get that far.

Her Blade Spray activated without warning, dozens of small razor edges launching outward in every direction from her body, and every Bone Crawler within a five metre radius went still at once.

[Soul Servant Kill: Bone Crawler. EXP forwarded to Host. +40 EXP.]

[Soul Servant Kill: Bone Crawler. EXP forwarded to Host. +40 EXP.]

[Soul Servant Kill: Bone Crawler x4. EXP forwarded to Host. +160 EXP.]

The Blue Goblin King moved through the centre of the ravine floor with his bone sword swinging in wide deliberate arcs, each sweep clearing a path through the densely packed creatures beneath his feet. The Bone Crawlers that tried to climb his legs found out very quickly that his armour had no accessible gaps at the lower joints, and the ones that found a surface to grip found themselves shaken off by the force of each sword swing.

One of his Traits, [Aggressive Slam] was doing something interesting. The Blade Ant Queen and the Dire Wolf Alpha were both fighting within his range, and Roman noticed that their movements had picked up a slight but noticeable edge since the King entered the ravine.

Faster reactions. Heavier impacts.

Roman filed that away.

The Dire Wolf Alpha had gone right, into the deepest section of the ravine where the bone coverage on the ground was thickest and the walls were most heavily populated. His [Devour] Trait activated the moment he reached the centre of that section, a deep resonant sound rolling through the ravine and hitting every Bone Crawler in range like a physical force, as many were tore to shreds.

More creatures froze.

Not from fear, exactly. More like their systems had been disrupted, their coordinated flow interrupted by something they had no response prepared for.

The Alpha used every second of that window.

Dark Crash carried him through the frozen formation at full speed, his body acting as a battering ram that sent creatures flying off the walls and into each other, and he followed it immediately with a series of precise bites and paw strikes that finished the ones the charge had only staggered.

[Soul Servant Kill: Bone Crawler. EXP forwarded to Host. +40 EXP.]

[Soul Servant Kill: Bone Crawler. EXP forwarded to Host. +40 EXP.]

[Soul Servant Soul Points updated.]

[Blade Ant Queen: 89 Soul Points.]

[Blue Goblin King: 72 Soul Points.]

[Dire Wolf Alpha: 103 Soul Points.]

Soul Points were exactly what they sounded like. A count of every kill a Soul Servant had made in service of their master. The more they accumulated, the stronger they grew within the Soul Bank, their stats climbing slowly with each milestone the way an Entrant’s stats climbed with levels and EXP.

It was something Roman read and understood a while ago.

...

The first rank had been the standard Crawlers, pale, flat, fast in numbers but individually fragile once you got past their camouflage.

The second rank was different.

[Monster: Bone Crawler Sentinel.]

[Rank: Ordinary.]

[Level: 18.]

[Traits: Hardened Shell, Pincer Grip.]

They were larger, their bodies carrying a visible ridge along the top that the Standard Crawlers lacked, and their movement was less fluid and more deliberate. They came in from the upper sections of the ravine walls in a coordinated drop, landing in a spread formation designed to split the attention of whatever they were engaging.

Roman stepped forward.

He had been watching from behind the Soul Servants since the fight began, letting them work, reading the terrain and the movement patterns of the creatures. Now he drew Queenfang and felt the familiar warmth of the blade in his grip.

The nearest Sentinel came at him fast, its pincer ends snapping open in preparation for a grip strike.

Roman activated [Blade Rush].

He closed the distance before the Sentinel had finished its approach, Queenfang driving forward at full extension and catching the creature at the ridge joint where the hardened shell met the softer underbelly connection. 𝐟𝗿𝐞𝚎𝚠𝐞𝚋𝕟𝐨𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝕔𝕠𝚖

The blade went through cleanly, slash triggered on contact, a deep laceration that immediately began bleeding the dark fluid that passed for blood in these creatures.

[You have killed a Level 18 Ordinary Monster, Bone Crawler Sentinel. +95 EXP gained.]

Two more Sentinels came from his left simultaneously.

Roman activated [Cross Slash] without hesitation. This time he wouldn’t even blink, and he was so free because guess what?

He was alone today!

Two diagonal strikes in rapid succession, the X pattern landing at the junction point between body and movement limbs on both creatures in a single fluid motion. The first dropped immediately. The second staggered, its movement compromised, and Roman finished it with a straight horizontal cut before it could recover.

[You have killed a Level 18 Ordinary Monster, Bone Crawler Sentinel. +95 EXP gained.]

[You have killed a Level 18 Ordinary Monster, Bone Crawler Sentinel. +95 EXP gained.]

The Sentinels kept coming, dropping from the walls in groups of three and four, and Roman worked through them steadily while the three Soul Servants handled the Standard Crawlers and the Sentinel groups on the outer edges of the ravine. The combination of Blade Rush for closing distance, Cross Slash for grouped targets, and Queenfang’s slashes for fast and clean finishes.

He was finding a rhythm.

The third rank showed up twenty minutes into the fight, and Roman felt the shift in the ravine the moment they arrived.

[Monster: Bone Crawler Dreadshell.]

[Rank: Ordinary.]

[Level: 28.]

[Traits: Crushing Weight, Shell Reformation, Swarm Pulse.]

They were twice the size of the Sentinels, their bodies so heavily plated that the ridge along their backs had become a full raised crest of dense bone material. There were six of them, and they moved in a tight group rather than spreading out, their [Crushing Weight] trait making the ground beneath them compress slightly with each step.

Roman looked at them and then looked at his Soul Servants.

The Blade Ant Queen and the Alpha were still working through the outer sections. The Goblin King was the closest.

"Hey, King," Roman voiced.

The Goblin King turned.

Roman pointed at the six Dreadshells.

The King turned back, raised his bone sword, and walked toward them.

What followed was the most straightforward collision Roman had seen in the ravine so far. The Dreadshells tried to use their Swarm Pulse, a shockwave generated by all six of them slamming their bodies against the ground simultaneously, designed to knock anything nearby off its feet.

The Goblin King staggered but did not go off his feet.

He absorbed the pulse through sheer mass, staggered one step or two, and then drove his bone sword through the shell crest of the nearest Dreadshell with enough force to split it down the centre.

Shell Reformation activated on the others, their cracked shells beginning to seal, but Roman was already moving.

[Execution Edge activated.]

He had been watching the Dreadshell on the far left accumulate the damage from the Goblin King’s shockwave impact, its Life dropping as the King engaged the others. It was sitting just below thirty percent.

Roman hit it once.

The bonus damage from Execution Edge combined with the natural strike of the sword.

[You have killed a Level 28 Ordinary Monster, Bone Crawler Dreadshell. +210 EXP gained.]

The King finished two more before their Shell Reformation completed, and the Alpha arrived from the far side of the ravine and closed out the remaining three with a combination of [Dark Crash] and sustained bite pressure that did not give the reformation trait enough time to work.

[Soul Servant Dire Wolf Alpha Soul Points updated.]

[Soul Points: 114 Soul Points.]

Roman noticed how the Alpha had done the job very smoothly, as so far it had been the most fun servant to watch. Actually, Roman would just say that because it was the strongest of the monsters he killed.

Roman nodded at it, and the Dire Wolf Alpha turned back and kept working.

...

Meanwhile, on the northern ridge above the ravine, five figures lay flat against the rock surface, looking down at everything happening below.

They had been making a group hunting around the valley just like most days, and somehow, they stumbled upon Roman here, where most of every rookie would avoid.

Word had been moving through Blood Trial Outpost for days about the Fourth Class rookie who kept coming back from solo hunts with kill counts that did not make sense, and they had suggested trying to find out what was going on.

Well, today looked that they would be getting that chance.

They had expected a Mage throwing fireballs at things.

This was not that.

"I thought he was a Mage," Dregs said quietly, his eyes fixed on Roman moving through the Sentinels with his sword.

"He fights nothing like a Mage," the girl beside him, Calla, said. "That’s a Swordsman. Look at his footwork."

"He is good with that sword," another one muttered. "Really good."

"Where did he even get a blade that colour? That is not a standard Common Grade weapon we all had in the outpost."

They watched in silence for another few minutes, and then Calla grabbed Dregs by the arm.

"Dregs. Look at the walls."

Dregs looked carefully, trying to grasp what she was pointing out.

He saw the Blade Ant Queen first, moving along the left ravine wall with her mandible blades working through the Crawlers. His first thought was that a monster had somehow gotten into the territory fight, and he started to say something about it.

Then he saw the Blue Goblin King in the centre of the ravine floor.

Then the Dire Wolf Alpha on the right.

"What..." Dregs stopped talking.

"Is that a Goblin?" someone said.

"Why is there a wolf down there?"

"And is that an ant? A giant ant?"

"Why are they all in the same place? Monsters don’t just gather like that."

"They are not gathering," Calla said slowly, her voice dropping to almost nothing. "They are fighting the Bone Crawlers."

Silence on the ridge.

"They are fighting together," she added.

More silence rose, as their eyes lit up.

"They are fighting for him," the fifth figure said. He was the one who had not spoken yet, the oldest of the group, a bigger senior named Aldric who had been in Blood Trail Outpost for two years months and considered himself a reasonable judge of what was and was not possible in the valley.

He was watching Roman very carefully now.

"Isn’t that the Fourth Class kid?" Dregs said, his voice doing something strange. "The one with the terrible potential? The one Arnold wants gone?"

"That’s Roman Rings," Aldric said.

"How is this even possible," Calla whispered.

"I don’t know," Aldric said.

"Is this a dream? Am I actually seeing this right now???"

Nobody answered that one.

They all watched as Roman activated Execution Edge and dropped a Level 28 Dreadshell in a single strike, and as the Dire Wolf Alpha cleared the remaining three without slowing down, and as the Goblin King stood in the centre of the cleared ravine floor like it was somewhere he had always belonged.

Aldric was quiet for a long time.

Then he said right after...

"If that is really Roman Rings down there, then every single one of us needs to rethink how we have been treating him. Starting right now... We have to change our perspective towards him."

"Because in the future, he might be that guy we might want to roll with."