Lukas lay flat and waited, counting the seconds under his breath.

The Turtle grew closer and closer as the wave of disturbed sand rolled towards him, the enormous outline of the shell growing more distinct with each passing second.

Spikes continued to launch from its surface at intervals, blurring through the air towards him. His reflexes saved him each time, rolling or pressing flat to avoid them.

The moment the distance felt right, he slammed his palm into the sand and activated [Bone Wall].

The mana left him in a rush so large it felt physical, like pressure releasing through his arm and into the ground all at once. His reserves dropped sharply and the sand erupted.

Bones tore themselves free from whatever lay beneath the desert floor and fused together as they rose, locking into a solid barrier that stretched wide in both directions, climbing to a height that blocked the Turtle’s line of sight entirely.

The wall was thick and dense, the bones fused so tightly that the surface was nearly flat.

The Turtle kept firing.

Spikes slammed into the wall in rapid succession. Several buried themselves halfway through and stopped, held by the mass of fused bone. Others punched all the way through, leaving jagged holes that opened onto the other side.

But unlike the [Hex Shield], the wall absorbed the impacts without collapsing, the remaining structure holding its shape.

It was working.

Lukas activated [Void Step].

The world changed immediately.

The color drained from everything around him, replaced by a deep, pervasive dusk, as if the sun had dropped below the horizon all at once and left the world lit by something that wasn’t quite light.

He could see everything clearly, but filtered through a darkness that sat over the whole world like tinted glass.

He moved.

The moment he committed to the direction, he was already there. If there had been any observers, it would have looked as if he was simply in one place, then he was in another, the gap between them collapsed entirely.

He understood in that instant that this wasn’t truly teleportation. It was speed so complete that the concept of travel had become meaningless.

He was atop the bone wall.

He looked down at the Turtle from above. It was still running towards him, its enormous legs churning slowly through the sand and its green eyes tracking the wall.

Spikes continued launching from the shell, with new ones growing immediately in the place of each fired one, the shell restocking itself in real time like a weapon reloading.

He tried to activate [Smite], but nothing happened. The skill wouldn’t connect to the world outside the void.

He’d expected that.

He exhaled, then he moved.

He appeared in the stretch of land between the Turtle and the bone wall.

He looked down at the sand beneath his feet, slipped out of his [Void Step], and activated [Cursed Ground].

Immediately, a shadow spread out from his feet in a wide, dark ring, the hex sinking into the sand and taking hold.

Then he activated [Void Step] and was gone, blinking away a half second before a spike tore through the exact place he’d been standing.

He reappeared several meters to the left, activating [Cursed Ground] again. Another dark ring appeared, spreading out and overlapping with the first, expanding the hexed area.

He was already moving before the spike came, blinking to the right this time, then forward, then to the left again, each appearance lasting only long enough to plant another [Cursed Ground] and disappear before the Turtle’s spikes could track him.

The hexed ground grew with each pass, the shadow spreading across the desert floor in a wide, uneven stain that covered the corridor between the wall and the advancing Turtle.

When he judged the coverage large enough, he stepped back into the void fully and moved, reappearing atop the bone wall.

The moment he arrived there, a spike passed directly through his chest.

He froze, looking down.

He’d felt nothing. There was no impact, no pain, and no resistance. The spike had moved through him as if he wasn’t there at all, continuing its arc and disappearing beyond the wall behind him.

His heart hammered anyway.

He pressed a hand flat against his chest on instinct, confirming what he already knew. He was in the void, and nothing could touch or harm him.

But the sight of something passing through his body, even without consequence, sent a cold shiver through him that had nothing to do with logic.

He exhaled slowly and turned his attention back to the Turtle in anticipation.

It was almost at the edge of the [Cursed Ground].

He counted down the seconds until its front left leg came down inside the hexed area.

The effect was immediate. The Turtle’s speed slowed. It wasn’t particularly dramatic, but it was visible.

With its already slow speed, even shaving away a fraction was noticeable. But the effect of the [Cursed Ground] wasn’t limited to a decrease in speed.

Its movement became heavier, its legs responding with just a little less certainty. And along the shell, the new spikes growing to replace the fired ones were coming in slower too, the rate of regrowth dropping alongside everything else the hex weakened.

Lukas couldn’t help the smirk that spread across his face.

Perfect.

He moved, crossing the distance through the void in an instant, the dusk-tinted world blurring around him as he reappeared behind the Turtle, outside the boundary of the [Cursed Ground].

He stepped out of the void entirely and reality snapped back into place. The full brightness of the desert morning hit him and the heat slammed into him, almost like a physical force.

He raised both hands toward the sky and activated [Smite] after [Smite] after [Smite], pouring mana into each one as fast as the skill could take.

He didn’t pause for even a fraction of a second between each activation, not even bothering to aim carefully.

All he was preoccupied with was just driving the pillars of golden light down in a continuous, hammering sequence onto the Turtle’s exposed shell.

The first pillar hit with a crack that rolled out across the desert like a thunderclap.

The second hit before the echo of the first had finished.

The third, fourth, and fifth followed in rapid succession, each one slamming into the shell with concentrated divine force.

The densely packed spikes along the surface of the shell snapped from the force of the attack.

The golden light descended faster than the shell could replace the spikes it was losing, each pillar landing before new growth could fully form.

Spikes cracked at the base and fell, bouncing off the shell and dropping into the sand around the Turtle’s legs. 𝑓𝘳𝘦𝑒𝑤𝑒𝘣𝘯ℴ𝘷𝘦𝓁.𝑐𝑜𝑚

The sound of it became constant, the air filled with a rapid series of cracks and snaps layering over each other as more came down.

Lukas kept his hands raised and kept pouring.

The [Cursed Ground] drained and weakened everything inside it. And that included the Turtle’s constitution, its regeneration rate, and its resistance, all of it running below its natural level as long as it stayed inside the hex.

And that meant that as long as the C-rank beast was standing inside the [Cursed Ground], it was no longer C-rank.