CHAPTER 76: "I DIDN’T TRAIN THEM FOR THIS."

The moment they stepped through, the air changed.

No one said anything at first, but they all felt it. The pressure. Like they’d dropped underwater but could still breathe. The colors were wrong. The sky above wasn’t just dark—it was bleeding. Thick maroon clouds crawled across a red-lit sky, and the wind carried ash instead of air.

Reia stopped walking.

Her eyes narrowed, scanning the flow of ambient energy.

"...Wait."

Evelyn turned. "What is it?"

Reia’s gaze sharpened. "This isn’t right. The mana density just spiked. It was stable a second ago, but now... it’s off the charts."

Silas cracked his knuckles. "So it’s juiced up? Cool."

"No," she said, dead serious. "It shouldn’t be this high. This isn’t an S-rank gate anymore."

Lucian stepped forward, hands in his coat pockets.

He glanced up once, then nodded slightly.

"Yeah," he muttered. "This is SSS."

The silence hit like a slap.

Evelyn blinked fast, taking a shaky step back. "What—no. No, that’s not—this was supposed to be our graduation raid! It was cleared and monitored—this shouldn’t be possible!"

Vyn frowned hard, her voice lower than usual. "We weren’t cleared for this rank..."

Reia turned fully toward Lucian, eyes searching his face.

"You knew."

Lucian didn’t answer.

Evelyn shook her head, panic rising. "No, no—S-Rank was bad enough. If this is SSS, we shouldn’t even be here. We need to get out, we have to—"

She didn’t finish.

Because a low growl echoed through the trees.

The ground under their feet vibrated, dust trembling across stone. The crimson light above thickened—like the sky was leaning in to watch.

Lucian exhaled. "Panic later."

Silas grinned. "Guess we’re doing this the hard way."

Reia slapped the back of his head.

"Hey—!"

"Take this seriously, dumbass."

Lucian stepped past them, eyes fixed forward.

"Focus. Survival’s the only thing that matters now."

They moved as a unit, slowly pushing forward into the gate’s first zone. Trees here were skeletal, twisted like they’d been torched and frozen at the same time. Shadows moved where there were no light sources. Mana swirled unnaturally, thick enough to taste—metallic and sharp.

Then it came.

The first wave.

From the trees.

A rumble. Then the cracking of bark. And then—

Four beasts burst from the forest at once.

Jagged, armored hounds—twice the size of wolves, with molten veins pulsing under cracked obsidian skin. Their eyes burned like flares, and their mouths unhinged with rows of teeth made for ripping straight through bone.

Rank A? No.

At least high A, possibly low S.

They hit fast.

Silas swung forward first, arms glowing with kinetic plates. His punch caught the lead beast in the jaw—but it didn’t go down. It skidded, snapped back with a slash of its claws, and Silas barely blocked in time.

Vyn threw a bolt of dark matter at the second, forcing it to the ground as Evelyn raised a barrier—one that cracked the moment the third beast collided with it.

Reia leapt in, slashing across a tendon’s weak point—but even that only slowed the creature.

The fourth?

Lucian stepped in front of it.

It lunged.

And then—stopped mid-air.

Lucian’s fingers twitched once.

And the monster dropped like a puppet with cut strings.

Dead.

The others didn’t notice yet.

They were too busy struggling to hold their own.

Evelyn cried out as the barrier broke and a claw raked her shoulder. Blood sprayed. Reia yanked her back before the second hit landed. Silas got thrown against a rock, coughing out blood but standing again with a grin.

Lucian moved through the chaos like it wasn’t even real.

He didn’t draw a weapon. Didn’t speak.

Just walked forward and flicked his hand once more.

One beast twisted.

Another dropped.

The last one tried to run—but a step from Lucian sent it spiraling mid-air, like the ground lost its rules.

The fight ended in thirty seconds.

The others stared, panting.

The beast bodies steamed as they melted, leaving behind glowing monster cores. All of them above Rank A.

Silas wiped his mouth, eyes wide. "Dude."

Lucian didn’t respond.

He just stared further into the forest, jaw tight.

This wasn’t the real threat.

Not yet.

——

Outside the gate, Athena was pacing.

The red glow wasn’t fading.

She cursed under her breath, pulled out her comm crystal, and pressed the rune.

A few seconds passed.

Then a voice buzzed into the line. "Dean’s office."

"It’s me."

Athena’s tone was tight.

"I’m standing outside Blackridge."

"Gate activated?"

"Oh, it activated alright."

Pause. "And?"

She looked up at the portal. The way the glyphs still burned.

"The color changed."

Another pause.

"...To what?"

"Red."

Silence on the other end.

"I’m telling you," Athena hissed, "that gate is now SSS."

"No. That gate was scanned. Triple confirmed. Mana density was high but stabilized at S-Rank parameters."

"Something changed."

SSS gates weren’t just rarer—they were death zones. There were five official gate ranks:

E through A—standard. Dangerous, but manageable.

S-Rank—unstable, lethal to all but elite Hunters.

And then SSS—classified as world threats. Living biomes of mutated magic. Almost never cleared. Usually sealed or collapsed with the help of multiple national guilds.

A single squad wasn’t supposed to be anywhere near one.

And yet... Class Zero was inside.

Athena’s grip tightened. "Send reinforcement."

"Too risky."

"They’re kids!"

"They’re Class Zero."

"They’re not ready."

Another pause.

"You trained them, Athena."

She stared at the gate.

And whispered, "I didn’t train them for this."

——

Inside, Class Zero regrouped around the cores.

Evelyn patched her shoulder with a quick healing talisman, still shaking slightly. "That... that wasn’t supposed to happen. That wasn’t a warm-up, that was a slaughter attempt."

Vyn checked her gauntlet. "We were bait."

Silas stood up, spitting blood to the side. "They’re smart. Those things weren’t wild—they moved like trained dogs."

Reia nodded. "They were waiting. The spike in mana? It wasn’t natural. The gate adapted the moment we stepped through. Almost like..."

She trailed off.

Lucian looked at her. "Like someone set us up to die."

She met his gaze.

"...Exactly."

Lucian exhaled.

This place wasn’t just hostile.

It was alive.

"Alright," he said quietly. "Listen up."

The others turned.

"This place is worse than expected. We treat it like we’re being hunted. No more side chatter, no more casual pacing. From this point on, assume every shadow is an enemy and every tree might bleed."

They nodded, grim now.

Lucian picked up one of the monster cores and tossed it in his palm.

Still warm.

"Let’s move."

And they did.

Deeper into the forest.

Deeper into hell.

Unaware that the worst hadn’t even started yet.