Monster Canyon. A region near Baikal Pichol lake.
Evening 5 PM. The sun was beginning to set.
"Aaaargh!"
An Ogre Lord's shrill was heard in the surrounding area. He was being attacked by a black-haired man who had serious expressions on his face.
"Human… I killed fewer adventurers than Bigua. Why are you attacking me first?"
Ogre Lord Hiram kept running away from the human who was on his tail. He was trying to talk to him in an attempt to divert his attention. Alas, the black-haired man didn't listen to any of the monster's pleas. He just branded his sword in front of him before casting his weapon spell.
Shadow Slicer!
A black-as-ink flying slash was released from his slightly curved sword. It traveled swiftly across the land and hit the back of the Ogre Lord Hiram.
"Baaaah!"
The Ogre Lord cried once again after the attack landed on him. By now, he had multiple black wounds on his body. These wounds didn't reek of blood. The skin around his wounds just turned black, as if there was no life in the tissues surrounding the wound.
The black-haired, black-eyed young man had special elemental attainment. The element of shadow. And his elemental affinity had allowed him to wield his element in such a way that it would terrify any of his opponents.
This black-haired young man was on a mission to purge some monsters in the region around Baikal Pichol Lake. A short time ago, he became a D-Rank. And yet, he was capable of dispatching someone of Hiram's level, who was an up-and-coming Ogre of his tribe, just a few steps away from challenging his chieftain for his position.
The power struggle within monsters' tribes was no joke. It would make each monster fight for their survival no matter who they were. There was only one way to achieve the position of power within all monster communities. It was through strength and strength alone.
The Ogre Lord Hiram had been a well-established member of his tribe. He had even dared to kill adventurers and loot them for resources when the chieftain of his tribe had specifically warned all his members against it.
His bold actions had granted him fame and prestige within the monster community. However, it also attracted Edinbugh's kingdom's attention. As a result, a mission was assigned and ran through multiple guilds before it ended up being taken by the black-haired man's guild.
The black-haired man saw that the Ogre Lord was surprisingly agile for someone who had been injured to this extent by him. He had to admit that monster bodies were superior in terms of almost all body stats.
The human ranker didn't show it. But he was a bit out of breath. That's because his mission had gotten a bit haywire and he had been battling for quite some time. It was only due to the miraculous ranking breakthrough that he had come this far.
His team was to attack Hiram's entire tribe with some Adept rankers dispatched by the kingdom of Edinburgh. They were supposed to meet the kingdom-affiliated rankers not too far away from the monster tribe they were supposed to target. On their way, however, they were attacked by some unknown rankers wearing masks.
As a result, their team was separated. They had to separate otherwise the enemy was keen on using an isolation array on them to make all of them stay in the same place.
The black-haired man was the de facto leader of his team. He immediately decided to split his team into multiple groups. He made sure that each of his team members had someone they could rely on.
He stayed alone. That's because he could tell that the enemy was especially focused on taking his head. He didn't want to put someone in the crosshairs because of him.
Besides, his spells worked best when he was alone.
The man had taken care of three D-Rank members who were targeting him. He didn't even bother asking them about their origins or their motives. Their guild master had already told them about these things. He had provided a few simple instructions to all of them.
"Kill without asking questions if you find yourself in trouble. The aftermath can be dealt with later on when the dust settles."
This blatant statement from the guild master prompted all members of the team to take appropriate action. The black-haired young man had become the incarnation of death and destruction thanks to it. He didn't care about clearing up the supposed misunderstanding with his enemies. He activated his strategic retreat plan as soon as things started heading south.
Having just finished killing his masked pursuers, he came across Hiram's squad, which was out hunting. Hiram was in the tribe's hunting squads, and the black-haired young man had stepped into the tribe's hunting zone unwittingly.
This was especially bizarre for the black-haired young man because he had thought that he was heading in the opposite direction from Hiram's tribe. Only now did he understand why the Monster Canyon was called the rankers' graveyard. The place itself was used to create chaos for its residents.
When he came face to face with Hiram's hunting squad, both he and the squad didn't know what to do. At first, both sides were locked in a stalemate. It was only broken by the Ogre Lord Hiram himself when he decided to launch an attack on the unknown and uninvited human.
Normally, the black-haired man would have chosen to run away from the situation because he wasn't ready to take on Hiram. But he didn't want to complicate his team's circumstances further by adding Hiram into the equation. Besides, there was no way he could outrun a Monster lord while being in the Ace rank at the time.
So he fought Hiram's team valiantly, using all his trump cards and even forbidden techniques. With them, he had managed to kill all of Hiram's subordinates who were Monster Leaders and Monster Soldiers.
Hiram watched all his subordinates get killed by this exceptional human ranker and decided to kill the black-haired man slowly and painfully. He torched him and played with him and made him experience a hell of a pain in a short time.
Hiram also insulted the black-haired man in various ways while he was close to death. All of the pain and insults he endured along with his life-threatening situation allowed him to tap into his dormant potential.
The shadow-element ranker stepped into D-Rank just when he was close to death. The state of Epiphany he was in allowed him to upgrade all his spells, making them compatible with his D-Rank.
