Elsa stood motionless as the world around her began to fracture.
Hair fluttering gently in the warped air, eyes locked coldly on the twitching, groaning mass before her—the Aberrant—its grotesque form lay curled, twitching in pain. A lesser hunter would have taken this as a victory. A moment to breathe. But not her.
Her gaze remained sharp.
Unblinking.
Because this… wasn't over.
The monster's body trembled. It twitched as if dying, convulsing like a puppet with its strings cut.
But she didn't move forward.
Didn't approach.
Not even a step.
She knew better.
This was a trap.
It wanted her closer—closer so it could strike.
Her fingers tightened slightly around her weapon.
That thing was no B-rank.
It had never been.
Its performance, the pressure it emitted earlier—it had all been a lie. A calculated mask. What stood before her, barely clinging to life, was an A-rank Aberrant… pretending to be weak.
And now that it realized Elsa had seen through its little act…
It moved.
A shudder ran through the blood-stained ground. A second presence began to form.
The air behind the beast twisted like a writhing sheet of oil—shimmering, flickering—and from the corpse's side, a shadow peeled itself free.
A perfect copy. No… not a copy.
Its true self.
The monster's fake body and its real shadow—two parts of a singular whole—launched at her at once.
Its fangs gleamed, coated in venom that reeked like death itself. She could feel the infection in its presence—rot that spread through mana, corroding life, breaking even through S-rank defense.
If it bit her—if even a drop of its saliva touched her skin—it would be dangerous.
And yet, she didn't panic.
Her body shifted, graceful and controlled, avoiding the jaws and the lashing tail by mere inches. Her spear flashed out—clang!—meeting one tail mid-air, deflecting it before it curved around and struck again.
She didn't let it touch her.
Not once.
She knew exactly what this thing was capable of.
A beat passed.
Elsa took a step back, breath calm, eyes narrowing as she readied her bow. With one silent thought, her spear dissolved into cold mist, and in its place, a bow of ice formed in her hand, it look like any normal bow made of ice.
The monster roared.
It lunged again.
So did the shadow.
She sidestepped cleanly, her form flowing like water, once more refusing the fangs even a taste of her blood.
And then—just as her fingers pulled the string—
The air changed.
A heavy pressure radiated from the drawn bow, so sharp and absolute that it tore through the air like an executioner's blade.
The atmosphere turned deathly still, cold enough to bite skin and freeze breath. Even the faint trembling of mana in the distance grew silent, as if the Mirror Realm itself feared what was about to be unleashed.
Elsa's blue eyes narrowed slightly. Her expression didn't change—but her surrounding did.
The shadow froze, sensing the danger coming from her.
That slithering mass of corrupted darkness, so confident only a heartbeat ago, recoiled. Its instinct—screamed that death was near.
It abandoned its attack.
And then—it split.
With a Crack!
The dark mass exploded into four blurs—two-headed snakes, moving in synchronized pairs.
A trick.
A tactic to escape.
They scattered in different directions, moving like dark lightning, trying to flee her field of control.
She watched in silence. Her aim never wavered.
Her thoughts, however, raced—not from panic, but from calm, calculated precision.
"Heh" Elsa's lips curved in the faintest smirk. "Coward."
Eight heads. Four shadows. one body.
Even if she was an s rank, chasing all of them would be impossible. Killing two might be guaranteed. Maybe even three. But four? Even she had limits.
And they knew that.
That was the true danger of A-rank monsters—not just raw power, but cunning. Intelligence twisted by the Mirror Realm's corruption into something vile and unnatural. These monsters evolved, gaining sentience as they grew. The stronger they became, the more intelligent they were—until they could strategize, deceive, and manipulate like seasoned hunters.
Still, she didn't panic. She didn't even flinch. Her fingers remained steady on the string, her gaze locked onto each flickering shadow with surgical precision.
She already knew.
Killing it now was impossible—not with things as they were.
But that was never her goal to begin with.
A faint, almost imperceptible curl touched her lips.
As she blinked—
Whoosh!
Her spear shimmered into existence midair, reformed from frost and mana. It spun like a wheel of ice, cutting through the cold silence, before launching itself forward in a violent burst of motion.
Not to kill—
But to redirect.
It slammed into one of the escaping shadows with brutal force, knocking it violently off-course and crashing it into another fragment. The impact split the air with a deafening crack, while the main body—a decoy—was forced to veer sharply away.
It struck its real body—but only just. The spear pierced through its back, not deeply enough to kill, but enough to wound.
The monster screamed.
A harsh, metallic wail—like rusted iron scraping against bone.
Panic.
It bolted, instincts overriding all reason.
But the spear wasn't done. It chased.
Twisting through the Mirror Realm's fractured terrain, the spear guided its prey like a shepherd steering a panicked beast.
It became a maze—And there was only one path left to run.
With no choice left, the monster fled—
Exactly where she wanted it to go.
Right toward him.
Toward Grey.