Chapter 250: The Forest That Wasn’t There

The forest exploded.

Branches snapped, while roots tore out of the ground, and the earth trembled as countless monsters poured from the darkness between the trees.

At the front of the horde stood one enormous creature.

It had the body of a bear, the head of a horned wolf, and six thick arms covered in black scales. Its eyes glowed crimson as it released a roar that shook the entire battlefield.

[Target Identified!]

[Name: Horned Chimera]

[Rank: A]

Behind it, five larger monsters emerged. Two were four-legged beasts with bodies covered in stone plates. One looked like a giant mantis with blades for arms.

Another had the appearance of a black panther, except its body was surrounded by flickering shadows. The final one was a tall humanoid monster with a mouth stretching across its entire face.

[Five B−Rank Monsters Detected!]

[Low-Rank Monster Horde Detected!]

[Combat Evaluation Beginning!]

Silence filled the battlefield. Then Neil slowly raised his hand.

"Everyone, formation."

The students of Valecrest moved immediately.

Peter and Darren took the left flank. Victor and Christian moved to the right. Salmoa and Natalia remained behind them, preparing their abilities.

Chloe stood near the center with her arms folded. Silas, meanwhile, was staring at the monsters with a strange expression.

"Is it just me," he said, "or does this place look a little fake?"

Damien glanced at him.

"Everything looks fake to you."

"That’s not true. Your face looks real."

Damien’s eyebrow twitched.

Alpha stepped forward before the argument could grow.

His long hair moved gently in the wind. Despite the feminine beauty of his face, his presence was unmistakably that of a powerful male warrior. His eyes remained fixed on the A-Rank monster.

"Leave the large one to me."

Neil immediately turned toward him.

"Alpha, that is an A-Rank monster. We should surround it and attack together."

Alpha did not look back.

"If all of you surround it, the five B-Rank monsters will tear through the formation."

The Horned Chimera lowered its body, its six arms pressed against the ground.

Alpha smiled faintly.

"And I want to see what it can do."

The monster vanished, and a deafening boom erupted where it had been standing, but Alpha was already gone. The Horned Chimera appeared above him, all six arms swinging down at once.

BOOM!

Alpha crossed his arms in front of his body to block, but the impact drove him into the ground. A crater formed beneath his feet.

"Alpha!"

Alicia’s expression changed.

The monster raised another arm, but Alpha suddenly twisted his body and slipped between the creature’s attacks. His movements were smooth, almost impossible to follow. He stepped onto one of its arms, then the monster’s shoulder.

In a single motion, he leaped toward its head. The Horned Chimera roared and snapped its jaws at him, but he had disappeared. The monster’s teeth closed around empty air.

A second later, Alpha reappeared behind it- his fist struck the back of its skull.

CRACK!

The A-Rank monster stumbled forward, and the entire battlefield went silent for half a second.

Silas’s eyes sparkled.

"Oh. He’s bullying it."

"He is not bullying it," Chloe said.

Alpha appeared above the monster’s head. He drove his knee into its spine.

BOOOOM!

The Horned Chimera crashed into the ground. At the same time, the five B-Rank monsters charged toward Valecrest.

"Now!" Neil shouted.

The battlefield erupted.

***

Peter slammed both hands into the ground, and a crimson mist burst from his palms. The blood crystallized instantly, forming a jagged, scarlet wall of hardened gore that stopped the stone-plated beasts dead in their tracks.

Darren rushed forward, his weapon raised, using the bloody barrier as leverage to launch himself into the air. Beside him, Victor launched a wave of raw energy across the right flank, cutting down a group of low-rank monsters in a single sweeping arc.

Salmoa and Natalia moved in perfect sync, their abilities covering each other’s blind spots as they turned the chaotic battlefield into a controlled meat grinder.

In the center of the fray, Christian suddenly found himself completely surrounded by twelve low-rank monsters.

He stopped and stared at the circle of snarling beasts. "Seriously?"

One of the creatures lunged, its fangs dripping with venom. Christian’s eyes narrowed. In a flash of light, two massive, muscular extra arms materialized from his ribs. With four arms working in unison, Christian threw a devastating double punch.

The monster didn’t just fly backward; the impact was so violent that the creature crashed through three thick trees, snapping them like twigs before collapsing into pulp.

Christian stared at his extra fists, opening and closing them. "Okay. That worked."

More monsters rushed him. His expression melted into pure misery. "Why are there so many of you?"

He blurred into motion, all four limbs striking, tearing, and throwing beasts in every direction.

Behind him, Silas stood casually with his hands in his pockets. Pink threads stretched from his fingers, almost invisible in the chaotic battlefield. One thread wrapped around a low-rank monster’s ankle. Another connected to a tree. A third attached itself to a second monster.

Silas pulled his fingers together with a gentle tug. The monsters collided in midair.

THUD! THUD! THUD!

He continued walking calmly while the creatures crashed into one another behind him, their skulls fracturing under the sudden momentum.

Chloe, standing a few paces away, watched him from the corner of her eye. "You’re not fighting seriously."

"I’m fighting emotionally," Silas replied, not even looking back.

"What does that mean?"

"I’m emotionally supporting everyone."

A low-rank monster suddenly leaped toward Chloe from the high branches. She did not even turn. Silas flicked one finger, and a pink thread pierced the creature’s chest, yanking it sideways mid-flight. The monster slammed into the dirt beside Chloe with a bone-crunching thud.

She looked down at the twitching beast, then at Silas. "Stop interfering."

"You’re welcome."

"I didn’t thank you."

"You were going to."

"I wasn’t."

"You thought about it."

Chloe sighed, turning her attention back to the forest.

Meanwhile, Alicia stepped into an open glade. Her body rippled as her ability activated. Her skin turned a polished obsidian hue, massive scales rippled along her forearms, and a fiery crown of crimson horns erupted from her brow- a near-perfect humanoid adaptation of a Void Drake.

With a terrifying roar, she lunged into a cluster of B-Rank beasts, her clawed hands tearing through monster hide like paper.

The battlefield was growing increasingly violent. The five B-Rank monsters were vastly stronger than the low-rank horde, but Valecrest’s formation held firm.

The stone beasts shattered Peter’s hardened blood wall and charged. Darren intercepted one, the sheer force of their collision sending a shockwave through the dirt. Victor and Christian- his extra arms spinning like a vortex of bludgeons- attacked another from opposite sides.

Salmoa trapped a mantis-like monster in a web of light, giving Natalia the window she needed to sever its joints.

Then came the shadow panther. Moving faster than the others, it vanished into the darkness and reappeared directly behind Neil. Its razor-sharp claws slashed toward his exposed back.

A figure appeared between them. Alpha.

He had somehow crossed half the battlefield while simultaneously fighting the A-Rank monster. His hand caught the panther’s claw mid-swipe. The creature froze, completely unable to advance an inch.

Alpha looked at it coldly. "You’re not my opponent."

He swung his arm, throwing the shadow panther directly into the path of the Horned Chimera. The massive A-Rank monster caught the panther with one of its six arms and crushed it against the earth without skipping a beat. The shadow panther dissolved into black particles.

One B-Rank Monster Eliminated.

Silas tilted his head. "Alpha is stealing everyone’s kills."

"Focus on your own side!" Neil shouted, ducking behind his shield.

"I am focused," Silas called back cheerfully. "My side is doing great."

At that moment, the Horned Chimera let out a deafening roar. The sound was fundamentally different this time. The entire forest shook. The low-rank monsters stopped moving. The remaining four B-Rank beasts froze in place. Even the students felt an overwhelming pressure weigh down on their chests.

The A-Rank monster’s wounds began closing instantly. Its six arms expanded, and black lines spread across its body like cracks in glass.

Alpha narrowed his eyes. The creature’s rank had not changed, but its underlying strength had spiked exponentially. "Interesting," he murmured.

The Horned Chimera slammed all six arms into the earth, and a wave of black energy spread through the forest. The trees twisted into unnatural shapes. The sky darkened. The ground beneath everyone’s feet became soft, shifting like quicksand.

Then, reality tore.

The trees grew unnaturally tall. The distance between each person stretched infinitely. The battlefield seemed to expand without end.

Neil looked around, panicked. "Everyone, stay close!"

His voice echoed strangely- not once, not twice, but hundreds of times, overlapping into an unbearable chorus.

Stay close... stay close... stay close...

Silas slowly removed his hands from his pockets, his lazy smile disappearing completely.

The monsters were still there. The students were still there, but the fabric of the environment had shifted.

Leaves moved without wind. Shadows pointed in four different directions at once. The sky had no sun, yet the entire forest was brightly, unnaturally illuminated.

Silas looked upward. "Okay."

Chloe glanced at him, her weapon raised. "What?"

Silas pointed at the sky. "There’s no light source."

Nobody answered.

Alpha stood directly in front of the Horned Chimera. The monster’s body had become blurry around the edges.

Alpha attacked. His fist passed cleanly through its head as if hitting air. The monster flickered like a broken projection and reappeared several meters away. Alpha’s eyes narrowed.

The Horned Chimera lunged; Alpha dodged and countered, but his strike passed through its torso again. There was no blood, and no reaction. It simply flickered.

Alpha stepped backward, his expression turning deathly serious. That wasn’t camouflage.

He looked around. A tree had a broken branch; a second later, the branch was whole. He looked at the earth; his own footprints were actively fading out of existence. The forest was rewriting itself in real-time.

Deep within Alpha’s core, his ability reacted. A faint shimmer spread across his skin. Alpha’s pupils contracted.

The world shifted. For the first time, he could see the thin, fragile layers covering the battlefield. The forest was not a forest. The monsters were not entirely real. The entire domain was built from overlapping, delicate illusions. Every tree was a false image. Every sound was an acoustic trap.

Alpha turned toward Silas. "Don’t move."

Silas blinked. "That’s usually my line."

Alpha ignored him, turning to Chloe, Peter, and the others. "None of this is real."

Neil frowned, wiping sweat from his forehead. "What are you talking about?"

Alpha raised one hand, slicing the air. The space in front of him shimmered. Behind the fake trees, he could see it, a vast, circular structure- a massive domain. The battlefield was merely its surface layer. The monsters were hard-light projections created to exhaust them. And the Horned Chimera standing before them was merely an anchor.

Alpha’s Camouflage had deepened enough to conceal his existence from the domain itself. Because the environment could no longer perceive him, its disguise was shattering in his vision.

Alpha pointed toward the Horned Ravager. "That monster is bait."

The Horned Chimera let out a distorted scream. The entire forest shuddered. The remaining B-Rank monsters turned toward the students, their bodies stretching unnaturally, their faces splitting open into endless rows of teeth. The low-rank monsters melted into black sludge on the ground.

Silas’s eyes widened. "Oh." A brilliant pink thread snapped into existence between his fingers. "So this is the real stage."

Alpha’s gaze remained ice-cold. "The battlefield is an illusion domain."

Silas smiled, his teeth sharp. "Alpha."

Alpha turned toward him.

Silas’s pink threads began expanding, multiplying by the hundreds, weaving through the air like a web. "Can you see the real battlefield?"

Alpha looked deep into the center of the warped forest. Behind the illusion, the truth waited.

A massive, horrifying black eye had opened beneath the earth, its iris pulsating with void energy. The Horned Chimera was just a puppet attached to its nerve endings. The entire domain was nothing more than the eye’s living dream.

Alpha nodded. "Yes."

Silas’s smile widened into something terrifyingly wild. "Good."

He yanked both hands apart. Hundreds of pink threads snapped taut across the domain, anchoring into trees, monsters, false ground, and space itself.

"Then let’s tear the dream apart."

The false forest screamed in a thousand voices. And somewhere beneath reality, the true monster finally opened its eye.