Chapter 99 – The Weight of the Prey.

The reddish mist of the Gluttony valley veiled the base of the ramparts when Diana met Boran by the east gate, promptly at five in the morning.

The old tracker wore his patched leather coat, carrying a skinning knife strapped to his waist and a coil of thick rope over his shoulder. His breathing was noticeably clearer than the day before. The ninety-five percent pure elixir Diana had given him had already begun clearing the sulfur burn from his inflamed lungs.

Boran looked at Diana's black leather coat and the amethyst circlet gleaming on her forehead, gesturing with his chin toward a narrow fissure between the red stones off the main road.

“Beelzebub's guards are changing shifts now,” Boran said in a hushed voice. “We slip under the moat bridge and cut through the Ironthorn Hills. The heavy patrols don't go there because of the razor-sharp roots.”

Diana followed the old man in silence.

The trek lasted about forty minutes through hard-packed dirt ravines covered with dry scrub whose thorns had the stiffness and hue of rusty nails.

Boran stopped at the edge of a stone rise, crouching low behind a thicket of thorns and pointing to a depression of red mud twenty meters below.

In the center of the mud pit, ripping thick roots from the earth with serrated teeth, was their quarry.

An Iron-Tusk Hill Boar (Level 44).

The beast was the size of a heavy bull, bearing a hump of dense muscle coated in a thick layer of gray lard and bristles stiff as steel wire. Two raw metal tusks a meter long curved upward from its lower jaw, gleaming from the friction of churning earth.

The appraisal from [Command Eye] confirmed the data with precision:

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[WILD BEAST APPRAISAL]

- Target: Iron-Tusk Hill Boar (Level 44)

- HP: 1,850 / 1,850 | MP: 200 / 200

- Attributes: Strength: 46 | Vitality: 48 | Agility: 32

- Properties: Thermal Fat Carapace (Reduces Fire and Blunt damage by 40%).

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“Stay up here, Boran,” Diana instructed in a low voice, unbuttoning her jacket collar to free her shoulders.

The old man stared at Diana with his good amber eye wide. “You're going down alone without a pitfall trap? That thing snaps trees in half with the impact of its snout alone!”

“I know what I'm doing.”

***

Diana slid down the red gravel slope without making a sound.

Fifteen meters from the mud pit, she activated [Arcane Domain Aura] and channeled her first direct strike.

Mana Prison + Arcane Ice Lance!

Translucent arcane chains erupted from the dirt floor, coiling around the animal's four legs, while a spike of pure ice shot straight into the joint of the boar's right foreleg.

CRACK!

The ice spike pierced the thick meat of the animal's leg, encasing the joint in a frozen crust.

In the Second Circle, that combo would have paralyzed a Level 35 monster for five whole seconds.

Here, the Level 44 beast's biological response was terrifyingly brutal:

The boar let out a shrill squeal of pure rage, flexed the colossal muscles of its legs with its 46 Strength, and simply shattered the mana chains and ice in less than two seconds of raw physical exertion!

Red earth flew in all directions as the beast whipped its body toward Diana, lowering its head armed with iron tusks and rocketing forward in a blind charge that shook the ravine floor.

The creature's speed was far greater than its ponderous bulk suggested.

Diana tried to maintain distance control.

She used [Arcane Teleportation], flickering eight meters to the right flank.

But the shockwave generated by the boar's displaced air grazed her side. The tip of an iron tusk nicked the edge of Diana's left thigh, tearing through the leather trousers and cutting into flesh.

Diana's health bar dropped from 550 to 510 HP.

The Commander landed on the packed earth, feeling the blast of wind knock the breath from her lungs. Without Kael's shield to absorb a head-on charge, facing that mass of 46 Strength required continuous millimeter-precise dodges.

The boar dug its hooves into the earth, skidding and spinning around for a second pass.

Diana raised her left hand, channeling eighty points of mana.

ORB OF THE ARCANE STORM!

The electrical sphere exploded right against the beast's snout.

Blue lightning enshrouded the creature's body, but instead of the usual three-second stun, the boar's high Vitality of 48 cut the shock's effect down to just one second of hesitation!

The monster shook its bloodied head and surged forward again, tusks leveled to cleave Diana in two.

***

Diana grasped the reality of that fight in half a second.

Simple impact spells would not bring that beast down before she burned all her mana dodging charges.

She needed surgical internal damage.

Diana waited until the boar was three meters away.

When the iron tusks were half a meter from her chest, Diana did not try to backpedal.

Arcane Teleportation!

She blinked into the air, materializing directly atop the charging beast's thick neck.

Diana sank the black obsidian claws of her left hand into the coarse bristles of the boar's hide to anchor her grip, while her right hand drove the black steel dagger coated in Fire Salt Poison directly into the beast's left eye socket.

STAB!

The alchemical venom reacted with the moisture of the monster's brain, torching internal tissues in a violent chemical flare.

The boar let out a deafening roar of agony, rearing up and attempting to throw itself backward against the ravine's stone wall to crush Diana.

Diana did not release the dagger's hilt.

With the blade buried to the crossguard in the creature's eye socket, Diana funneled fifty points of pure mana straight through the black steel.

INTERNAL ARCANE ICE LANCE!

Ice erupted from the inside out, freezing and shattering the creature's skull with a dull crunch of splintering bone.

The Level 44 Boar took two staggering steps forward, its forelegs buckling beneath it, and collapsed sideways into the red mud pit with a heavy thud, thrashing twice before going completely still.

***

Diana released the dagger, slid from the monster's back, and sank onto a dry stone beside the mud pit.

She was drenched in cold sweat, panting heavily, her hands trembling from the relentless focus of dodges and teleports. Her mana pool, which had begun the battle at 1,160 points, had plummeted to under three hundred points in just ten minutes of solo combat.

A single wild beast of Level 44 had demanded nearly eighty percent of her physical and mental stamina to bring down.

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[ENEMY DEFEATED: IRON-TUSK HILL BOAR (LEVEL 44)]

- Experience Gained: 650 EXP.

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Diana rested her elbows on her knees, drawing in the warm air of the valley until her vision stabilized.

The reality of the Third Circle was proven in practice: she could kill Level 44 monsters alone, but the energy cost made chain-hunting like she had done in the Second Circle impossible.

Boran picked his way down the dirt slope with cautious steps, halting two meters from the boar's colossal carcass, staring at the dead monster and then at Diana, his amber eye wide in mute astonishment.

“You took down an adult Iron Boar in single combat...” the old man whispered, his raspy voice laden with awestruck respect.

“Sever the tusks and harvest the prime cuts from the carcass, Boran,” Diana commanded in a calm voice, slowly rising from the stone. “We are returning to the city now.”

Boran drew his skinning knife and worked with seasoned speed. He pried loose the pair of one-meter solid iron tusks, retrieved the Level 44 core, and butchered fifty kilograms of the finest cuts from the beast's back.

***

By midday, the two crossed the outpost's east gates carrying the haul of their hunt.

Diana sold the pair of iron tusks and the prime meat directly to the largest butcher shop on Cauldron Square. With the passive bonus of +30% Commander's Loot, the sale yielded a clean return of 8 pure Silver Coins.

Diana paid the agreed-upon daily wage of one silver coin to Boran, who pocketed the money with a respectful bow before departing to purchase more medicine.

With the loot revenue and the guide's payment tallied, the total balance in the faction vault adjusted to an untouched 369 Silver Coins and 50 Bronze (36.95 Gold Coins).

Diana walked up the stairs of The Smoking Boar Tavern, locked the bedroom door, and fell onto her back across the straw mattress, kicking off boots soiled with red mud.

Her body burned with exhaustion, but her mind was crystal clear.

She had slain her first Level 44 beast. She understood the cadence of the terrain and the limits of her solo mana pool.

Diana slowly closed her eyes to sleep away the rest of the afternoon.

The first step had been taken. And tomorrow, her leveling strategy would resume with far greater precision.