Alvian gave a slight bow of respect, not to the examiner, but to the grieving father. Then, he turned and set off towards the looming silhouette of the DeathWood Arena, his silhouette vanishing into the darkening trees.
The weight of Andre's gaze lifted, but the weight of his quest settled onto Alvian's shoulders like a shroud. He turned his back on the disguised examiner, the S-Tier quest a glowing, golden promise in his interface. Glory was forged in danger, he had said. It was a hollow platitude. For him, glory was irrelevant. All that mattered was power, forged in the crucible of knowledge and opportunity.
He drifted back into the forest's dim throat, swallowed by its quiet. Each step unhurried, each movement clean. Behind him, the clearing roared with noise...steel, shouts, leveling chimes. A festival of sweat and delusion. They fought like heroes chasing glory, blind to the fact that the ladder they climbed ended with a blade.
A flicker of pity touched him, thin and cold. It vanished before it could grow. He wasn't their savior. Not this time. Every ounce of mercy was a chain, every distraction a knife aimed at his back. To stop was to die. To hesitate was to repeat the same grave. He couldn't afford another.
His route wasn't a road, barely a suggestion. The forest resisted him...roots, thorns, sunless puddles...but he threaded through it like code following its own secret syntax. He knew the safe gaps, the dry soil, the invisible patterns where the world forgot to place danger.
He passed the mud pits where Mire-Crawlers slept beneath their own stink. Their territory ended a step before his boot. Not one stirred.
Later, the woods opened to a shallow clearing. A hulking Dire Boar lay there, tusks slick with blood, its breath thick with decay. A mini-boss. A mistake waiting for anyone else. Alvian didn't slow. The beast twitched in its sleep, and he was already gone.
This was the true power of his regression. It wasn't just knowing where to find treasure; it was knowing where not to waste his time. Every second saved, every point of durability on his non-existent gear preserved, was a victory.
His mind, however, was already deep within the DeathWood Arena. He remembered it from his past life. A guild of elite players had tried to conquer it a year after the game launched. They went in with a hundred of their best members and came out with twenty, their spirits broken. They spoke of an unnatural silence, of beasts whose eyes glowed with a malevolent intelligence, and of a corruption that seemed to seep into their very souls, weakening them from within.
The corruption bled from a single source...the Heart of the Grove. Once a spirit of wild growth and calm renewal, it now pulsed with decay. The ancient seal that bound it had begun to rot, its life force curdling into poison. Players had thrown themselves at it for weeks, hammering, blasting, dying. They treated it like a door to be kicked down. The key had been lying in the open the whole time. Alvian almost pitied them. Almost.
The world shifted as he drew closer. Color drained from the forest, greens collapsing into tired shades of grey. The air thickened, cold and damp, pressing against his lungs. No birds. No hum of insects. Just silence so deep it rang in his ears. The ground itself seemed to breathe slower here.
Then came the bridge...thin ropes, planks slick with moss, spanning a black chasm that had no visible bottom. It looked like it would crumble at a glare. Across it, shadows moved.
Five of them. Wolves.
Their pelts were soot-dark, their eyes violet fire. Smoke curled from their claws, eating at the grass beneath. One raised its head and sniffed the air, and the faint scent of rot rolled toward him.
┏━━━━━━━[ Monster Profile ]━━━━━━━┓
│ Name: Gloomfang Wolf
│ Level: 7
│ Type: Corrupted Beast
│
│ Description: A forest predator driven to madness by the DeathWood Arena's corruption.
│ Possesses enhanced speed and its bite carries a weak necrotic poison.
┗━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┛
Level 7. For a Level 1 player with baseline stats, it was a death sentence. A single bite would be fatal. Fighting them head-on was suicide.
His heart remained steady. Panic was a luxury he couldn't afford. He crouched behind a thick, gnarled tree, his eyes scanning the scene with cold, analytical precision. The wolves weren't just standing there; they were patrolling. Their movements were tight, coordinated. They covered the entrance to the bridge perfectly.
But they were still beasts. Driven by instinct.
He saw it. A pattern. The two wolves on the left would pace to the edge of the chasm, sniff the air, and turn back. The three on the right did the same in the opposite direction. For a fraction of a second, as they turned, a tiny gap of about five feet opened up in the center of their patrol route. It lasted no more than a single breath.
It was an impossible window for anyone else. But for Alvian, who had spent years in his past life dodging the senses of demons and horrors beyond imagination, it was an invitation.
He waited. His body was coiled like a spring, every muscle tense. He watched the wolves complete their patrol once. Twice. He timed their movements to the rhythm of his own heartbeat. On the third cycle, as the lead wolves reached the peak of their patrol and began to turn, he moved.
He didn't run. He slipped through the dark like liquid shadow, soundless, deliberate. His feet kissed the wet soil, barely leaving a trace. The wolves were close...five hulking shapes, their breath steaming, their stink thick enough to taste. He threaded between them, timing each step with the rhythm of their growls.
A gap opened. Five feet, maybe less. He passed through it like smoke.
Then one stopped. Its ears twitched. The air shifted. It smelled him.
Alvian froze mid-step, lungs locked. The bridge loomed ahead, rotting planks and whispering ropes. He eased onto it, slow enough to make the wood sigh instead of creak. The wolf took a step closer, a deep rumble building in its throat.
He scanned the ground...nothing but dirt, bones, and a small stone near the cliff edge. His ankle twitched. The pebble jumped, rolled, then slipped off into the abyss.
The sound was tiny. In the stillness, it thundered.
The wolves turned as one, eyes burning violet, hackles raised. They snarled at the void. Some unseen prey, they thought.
He moved. Not fast...clean. The bridge shivered beneath him, but he flowed with its sway. The ropes moaned; his boots made no sound.
By the time the pack realized the trick, he was gone. Their howls tore through the night, echoing after him, swallowed by the forest's heavy silence.
He didn't look back. The DeathWood closed around him...trees like bones, shadows that breathed. The air felt alive, watching.
He tightened the straps of his worn pack.
The Heart of the Grove was waiting.
And with it, his first real skill, and the first charge of his SSS-Rank talent.