Without the support of his Echo, Orren would have already suffered severe injuries.
The only reason he could keep up at all was the quality of his weaponry.
His Memories cut through the weaker creatures with far less resistance than mundane steel ever could.
For a while, time stopped meaning much.
Minutes blurred together into a single continuous stretch of violence.
He no longer counted kills or measured progress.
His focus narrowed to one thing only—staying alive and keeping his body intact.
Even so, he was far from unscathed.
Bruises covered him, and shallow cuts were beginning to accumulate across his arms and torso.
He didn’t have time to recover.
As soon as the first wave ended, stronger creatures began stepping out of the rift.
These ones were different.
They were humanoid in shape, but their bodies were wrapped in layers of soaked burial cloth and swamp vegetation.
The wrappings clung tightly to them, dripping with stagnant moisture, as if they had just been pulled from a grave that had never fully sealed.
Orren didn’t hesitate.
He called Draco back to his side and immediately charged.
The Echo struck first, pinning one of the creatures down with a brutal bite.
Orren followed a heartbeat later, bringing his blade down in a clean execution.
[You have slain an awakened beast, Drowned Husk.] He frowned slightly at the result.
‘That was too clean…’ A thought surfaced immediately.
‘Are these things weak to physical damage?’ The answer came faster than expected.
One of the Drowned Husks extended its wrappings outward.
The cloth strips unfurled like living tendrils, snapping through the air and wrapping tightly around Orren’s left arm.
His body reacted instantly.
‘Ranged attacks?’ He twisted his sword and cut through the binding in a single motion, freeing himself before it could fully restrain him.
The moment the strips fell away, he saw the damage they had already left behind—his armor in that area had begun to corrode, the surface visibly weakened.
He narrowed his eyes.
‘So it does corrode on contact… another reason not to get caught.’ At closer range, the creatures’ true composition became clearer.
Their bodies only appeared solid at first glance.
Beneath the wrappings, there was nothing stable—only stagnant water, mud, and fragments of bone held together by something unnatural.
Every movement caused liquid to seep through the cracks in their forms.
Another strip lashed out.
Orren barely tilted his body in time, the attack passing so close it nearly scraped his shoulder.
He clicked his tongue.
If he had been even slightly slower, his armor would have been compromised completely.
The advantage, however, was clear.
They were vulnerable to direct physical strikes.
Draco exploited that immediately.
One bite was enough to tear through their structure, crushing what little cohesion they had left.
Even so, Orren could see the problem clearly—this was not a fight they could sustain for long.
Not against numbers like this.
Still, he joined the fray without hesitation.
His sword moved like a machine.
Precise, efficient, and increasingly desperate.
[You have slain an Awakened beast, Drowned Husk.] [You have slain an Awakened beast, Drowned Husk.] [You have slain an Awakened beast, Drowned Husk.] He ignored the notifications completely.
By now, multiple sections of his armor had already begun to deteriorate from repeated contact with the corrosive wrappings.
Every exchange carried risk, and every mistake would be fatal.
He stepped back slightly, allowing Draco to finish off the remaining Husks.
For a brief moment, there was space to breathe.
Then the Gate changed again.
Something larger moved within it.
The final presence emerged slowly, as if the world itself was reluctant to let it pass through.
A massive humanoid figure stepped out of the rift.
It stood over three meters tall, its body resembling a warped fusion of swamp creature and ancient war relic.
A thick shell of black, stone-like chitin covered its back and shoulders, cracked in multiple places and filled with moss, pale fungi, and writhing roots that seemed disturbingly alive.
Then Orren saw its heads.
Three of them.
The central one was ancient and scarred, its pale eyes emotionless and unreadable.
The left head constantly scanned the surroundings with cold precision, while the right head twisted violently, its expression locked in constant hostility.
Orren’s mind went blank for half a second.
‘…What the hell is that?’ Then, more clearly— ‘A three-headed humanoid turtle?!’ The moment the left head locked onto him, the right immediately followed, its hostility flaring instantly.
A heartbeat later, the central head turned as well, and something in its gaze shifted.
It stepped forward.
Slowly at first.
Then faster.
Then it charged.
The ground shook beneath its weight.
Cold sweat broke across Orren’s back.
‘There’s no way I can fight that without Draco.’ “FUUUUUCK!” He turned instantly and ran.
Without hesitation, without pride, without even pretending it was a tactical retreat.
“DRACO, HURRY!” His voice echoed as he sprinted toward the forest, the Tyrant already hot on his trail.
Behind him, the massive creature closed the distance with terrifying speed.
While running, Orren summoned Ironscale Fang and threw it back over his shoulder.
The dagger appeared mid-air, struck, vanished, and reappeared again in his hand as he kept moving.
Again.
And again.
Each throw targeted the left head specifically.
‘When it first emerged, I noticed something off…’ Even as he ran, his thoughts sharpened under pressure.
‘The left head is the observer.
The right reacts emotionally.
The body only moves fully when the central head decides.’ He didn’t get to finish the thought.
The Tyrant closed in.
A massive arm swept through the air in a wide arc, aimed directly at his head.
Orren dropped his body low, barely slipping beneath the strike.
The force behind it still caught the edge of his movement, throwing him off balance as he crashed hard into a tree trunk.
The impact knocked the air from his lungs.
The Tyrant’s attack missed.
But only barely.
“Huff… huff.” Orren panted heavily as he pushed himself back onto his feet.
He was only a few meters away from the Tyrant now.
The earlier dagger throw had done its job, the left head was injured, one eye completely destroyed and bleeding heavily, forcing it shut.
He didn’t give the beast time to recover.
With a burst of motion, he lunged forward again, longsword in his right hand and Ironscale Fang in his left.
The Tyrant reacted instantly.
Its left limb swung toward him, but Orren had already anticipated the motion.
His senses, sharpened to an unnatural degree by months of hunting and the Hunter’s Token, warned him just in time.
He adjusted his stance mid-charge, but the strike still carried too much force.
He couldn’t fully avoid it.
Instead, he used the momentum of his forward rush to partially deflect the blow, absorbing what he could while continuing his attack.
His goal didn’t change.
The dagger was already moving toward the remaining eye of the left head.
But before it could land, the Tyrant’s right claw struck him.
It hit him square in the ribs.
The impact sent him flying.
Orren hit the ground hard, rolling several times before coming to a stop.
The air was forced out of his lungs in a sharp cough, and blood followed immediately after.
‘I broke at least one rib… My armor absorbed most of it, but… Ugh.’ Pain radiated through his torso, but he forced himself to focus.
It took him a moment just to stabilize his breathing and regain control of his body.
When he looked up again, the Tyrant was already on him.
Its right claw was descending.
For a brief moment, everything slowed.
Orren felt something cold settle in his chest.
This was it.
Then, before the strike could land, Draco appeared.
The Venomhide Tyrant slammed into the creature’s side with brutal force, its jaws clamping down on the Tyrant’s right arm.
It dragged the limb away just enough to disrupt the attack, pulling the creature off balance.
‘I’ve never come this close to dying… I don’t even know how I died in my first life.’ If that strike had connected cleanly, his head would already be gone.
He forced himself upright and rejoined the fight.
The Tyrant reacted violently, throwing Draco aside with sheer strength.
Still, Draco had done its job, its bite had gone deep into the elbow joint, injecting corrosive venom into the wound.
The effect wouldn’t be immediate, but it was already beginning to weaken the structure of the arm.
Orren didn’t hesitate.
While the Tyrant was distracted by Draco, he moved behind it.
This time, he did not aim randomly.
He focused everything on a single point.
The left head.
The sword thrust forward with all his remaining strength.
He deliberately avoided the middle head.
The chitinous shell extending across the Tyrant’s back also protected it, making a direct strike nearly impossible.
The other heads, however, were less protected.
His blade drove into the skull.
Squelch.
The resistance gave way.
The sword pierced through bone.
The left head went limp almost instantly.
The right head let out a furious roar, while for the first time, something unfamiliar flickered in the central head’s gaze.
Not rage.
Not hostility.
Something closer to… relief.
But there was no time to interpret it.
The Tyrant thrashed violently in its death throes, its limbs flailing with uncontrolled force.
Both Orren and Draco were struck and sent flying in opposite directions.
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