The sun had already begun to set by the time Albedo had arrived near Delmoor.

Stretched in front of him was a totally broken wasteland. Even the very ground he walked on was extremely jagged. There were charred trees around him and he could see volcanic peaks looming in the distance.

Some of them were dormant, but Albedo could tell some were shimmering, as if waiting for the right moment to explode with an intense eruption of pure magma.

The ruins of the city itself was filled with buildings that have been overrun with fire infused plants and flowers. Some builders were fused together by the heat and there were constant fires running everywhere.

As soon as Albedo stepped into the ruins, he felt the temperature surging around him. It was like there was an invisible line separating the even more extreme heat from the exterior.

The air around him wasn’t just hot, it seemed to be actively resisting his mana.

Albedo took a single step forward — and the temperature surged. The oxygen carried motes of combustive particles, glowing faintly in the sunlight. Even breathing wrong could ignite the lungs of an unprepared mage.

And yet…Albedo didn’t flinch at all. The Crimson Moon Physique thrummed silently beneath the surface of his flesh devouring the heat like a thirsty beast.

His physique had made him immune to this kind of environment. His mana was pulsing as a tide of crimson ran across his skin, channeling through his lungs and weaving into a buffer.

The fiery atmosphere couldn’t affect him. Instead, it was absorbed and transformed into pure mana that ran through Albedo’s body, buffing him for any potential battle.

As he walked through the outer edges of the ruins, everything was mostly silent, but he listened carefully and maximized his mana senses, always ready to summon Havoc and Ruin at a moment’s notice.

Then he heard it. A scuttle, low and fast echoing across the stone. He remained extremely aware, and then immediately heard a heat shimmer forming to his left, and a beast emerged.

It was a panther made out of pure magma. Its joints were molten rock and its eyes were glowing an ember-orange. Every single step it took left behind small scorch marks and it growled a gurgling sound, as if its lungs were filled with boiling lava.

Albedo immediately appraised the beast.

[ Lava Stalker – Mid Silver Rank]

Albedo immediately leapt backwards, making sure to stay a decent range away from the beast. There would be no reason to enter close range against it.

A warp of magenta and black appeared in his hands as he summoned Havoc and Ruin, snapping them both to Graviton Mode.

~BANG~BANG!~

Albedo immediately unleashed two shots, but the Lava Stalker lunged, dodging them. The gravitation warp occurred, knocking down the ruins of a building behind them, all the while the monster lunged at Albedo.

He sidestepped easily and jumped back, keeping his range and pivoting on his heel, firing off once more.

~BOOM!~

The shot impacted just below the beast’s chest, and an implosion detonated, crushing its body inward with a sudden gravitational surge. The Stalker let out a distorted roar, twisting midair from the force, but landed hard.

Before it could recover, Albedo was already on it.

~BANG~BANG~BANG!~

Three more shots, each pulling its body inward with forceful compression. The beast convulsed once, then collapsed into a twitching heap of molten fragments.

Once he confirmed the beast was fully dead, he continued through the ruins. He had met the occasional beast and had easily defeated them as they were simple.

A couple Flame Rats and another Lava Stalker. For the Flame Rats, he had used the Flame Dominion from his physique to turn the fire against them, burning them to a crisp.

Whereas for the Lava Stalker, he defeated it in a similar manner as the first, creating space between down and peppering it down with Graviton Slugs before going in for the kill shots.

He didn’t know exactly where the Sulfire Crystals would be located, so he was just walking around the city, killing monsters and looking around.

He had also picked up some of the dead bodies of the monsters. They could also be traded for Merit at the Academy or used himself, so he loaded them all into his system inventory.

During all of that, Albedo had also realized something.

Delmoor Ruins were one of the best spots for his training. Due to the intense amount of fire elemental mana in the environment, his physique was thriving here, which would speed up his training.

He decided after collecting all the Sulfire crystals he could, he’d take some time to try and breakthrough to the Mid-Silver rank.

“Hmm, more incoming.” Albedo said as he entered a wide courtyard, feeling his instincts prickled, meaning he was no longer alone.

The courtyard was wide, but the center of it was ruptured by what must’ve been a battle or perhaps volcanic impact. The floor was cracked and warped, with veins of glowing magma bleeding through the crevices.

He stopped in the middle of the courtyard.

And then, he heard them.

Low growls. Multiple. Deep and guttural, echoing from all sides. A slow, synchronized crunch of stone beneath padded feet.

One.

Two.

Four.

Eight.

Twelve…?

His eyes narrowed as they began to emerge from the shadows.

They moved like wraiths of flame, elongated, lupine figures, with jagged bones piercing through molten flesh.

Their eyes were slits of glowing sulfur, and each one dripped magma from its fanged maw. Their paws left behind small trails of fire, and wherever they exhaled, the air sizzled.

[Magma Wolves – Low to Mid Silver Rank ]

Albedo immediate raised Havoc and Ruin, swapping the former to Mana-Drain Mode and keeping Ruin in Graviton Mode.

Albedo and the wolves had a stare down as all 12 of them surrounded him in a loose ring. They hadn’t attacked yet, they were waiting, testing to see if he’d flinch, but Albedo didn’t.

Each second was like an eternity until finally, the Alpha growled and the group struck.

Two wolves lunged first, one from the left, the other from the right. Their fiery jaws ready to chomp down on Albedo for an evening snack.

Albedo reacted instantly, spinning on his heel and firing both guns in opposite directions.

~BANG~CRACK!~

Havoc’s Mana-Drain round pierced the first wolf’s shoulder, and immediately tendrils of glowing energy coiled back into Albedo’s weapon, refreshing his mana pool.

Simultaneously, Ruin’s shot slammed into the other, imploding its right leg mid-air and sending it spiraling into a scorched wall.

Two more wolves pounced from the rear.

Albedo ducked low, rolled forward, and twisted mid-movement and firing upwards.

~BOOM~BANG!~

The shots connected. One wolf was pulled downward mid-leap by Graviton compression, slamming into the broken pavement with bone-snapping force while the other had its neck punctured by a siphoning round.

The rest of them quickly continued their lunge towards Albedo, and he swiftly maintained his balance and dashed backwards.

He made sure to maintain a solid distance between himself as the beasts while firing off, noticing three more Magma Wolves flanking from the side.

He pivoted to the left, running through a building and shooting a Graviton Slug to the hinges, dropping an entire building down on one of the Magma Wolves, burying it literally.

Then, he moved back into a more open space, pivoting and firing in a rhythm

~BANG~CRACK~BOOM!~

Each shot was precise and each step of his was deliberate. He danced around the wolves, dodging their attacks and maintaining his range advantage.

Another wolf lunged, jaws wide, flame spilling forth from its throat like dragon breath. Albedo leapt upward, twisted in mid-air and double tapped both pistols.

~BANG~BANG!~

The mana-drain shot bored into the creature’s chest, sucking it dry in an instant, while the graviton round hit moments later, collapsing the weakened structure and sending its body crumbling inward like a deflating star.

Albedo landed in a low crouch and exhaled once. Thanks to the training he had done, even in a high pressure exhausting situation, his breathing remained calm, allowing him to maintain maximum focus.

Two wolves tried to flank again, this time from underground. They’d burrowed through the softened magma crevices beneath the courtyard. Clever. Their heat signatures had blended with the environment.

But he sensed them just in time.

Albedo turned, slammed Ruin to the ground, and fired a gravity round directly into the earth.

~BOOOOM!~

The implosion beneath the surface caused a mini-quake. Two yelps followed as the wolves were forcibly ejected from the ruptured floor, spinning through the air like broken comets.

He shot both before they landed.

Now the pack was in disarray.

Seven down and Five to go.

The wolves hesitated. Even the alpha.

Albedo didn’t give them time to think.

He advanced, calmly, deliberately, firing continuously. His arms moved like clockwork, rotating between targets, adjusting for distance and speed.

All of his shots were precise and he quickly picked off another Magma Wolf, leaving only 4 of them left, who tried to adapt.

The last four began working together. One flanked high using the broken statues, leaping across scorched ledges to strike from above. Another circled behind pillars. Two stayed in front, baiting.

Albedo didn’t rise to the trap.

Instead, he surged mana into his legs and vaulted to higher ground himself, perching on the fractured remains of a balcony.

From this angle, he had vision of the whole battlefield.

Perfect.

He focused on the leaping wolf first.

~BANG~BANG!~

A siphon shot clipped its winglike obsidian spikes, weakening its core while a Graviton round detonated a moment later mid-air, exploding the beast in a shower of molten shards.

Another wolf leapt from below, trying to grab his ankle, but Albedo quickly spun and kneed the beast in it’s snout mid jump, then fired a point-blank shot into it’s open mouth.

~BANG!~

The shot tore the creature apart from the insane, leaving only two of them remaining who were trembling slightly.

They knew. They were outmatched.

Albedo didn’t blink. His voice was calm.

“Run.”

One bolted immediately.

The other snarled defiantly, and lunged.

Albedo shot two bullets. First the siphon, and then the Graviton, causing the wolf to collapse in on itself.

Albedo turned to the last fleeing one, now scrambling through the crumbled archway.

He raised Ruin, and fired a single shot.

~BOOM!~

The graviton round detonated under its feet. The creature flipped in the air once, twice, then landed hard, limp, and Albedo shot the final slug to put it down.

He quickly looked around, and felt that the heat was more intense than usual, and he looked around, knowing the Sulfire crystals had to be nearby,

So it was time to claim them.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep