The Regressed Heir of Ravencrest

"Take me to the Guild Master," Ethan said, his voice low and flat.

The clerk on duty— a young woman who had processed his previous missions looked up expecting a normal day only her face to drain of color. Her jaw dropped as her eyes swept over his blood-soaked frame and the villagers, dirt-streaked and trembling under the sudden weight of dozens of staring eyes.

"Hey...kid." she stammered, her voice shaking as she leaned over the counter. "What... what happened to you?"

"Now." Ethan added, his calm blue eyes fixing onto hers.

The clerk swallowed hard. Seeing the state he was in and remembering how much weight his previous visits carried—she didn’t argue or ask for paperwork. She immediately stepped out from behind the counter.

"R-Right away. Follow me," she said, ushering Ethan and the trembling villagers toward the staircase. She quickly led them up the steps.

She knocked hastily on the heavy doors at the end of the hall and pushed them open.

"Guild Master!" the clerk said breathlessly. "The kid is back... and he needs to see you right now."

Evelyn was seated behind her desk, immersed in a pile of reports. She looked up with a sharp frown at the sudden intrusion, but the moment her gaze landed on Ethan—drenched in dried monster blood and battered from head to toe—the irritation vanished from her face.

She stood up instantly. "What in the world...before the words fully escaped her mouth Ethan quietly interputted her.

"I’m fine." He said in a calm tone.

Seeing him still maintaining his composure she calmed down.

"Sit down...All of you!" She turned to the clerk. "Close the door and fetch some water."

Ethan sank into a chair, Rune settling beside his boots. The Village Elder and Chiefs hovered nervously behind him, terrified and exhausted.

"Hey... tell me what happened?" Evelyn asked in a serious tone.

"I’ll explain everything." He met her eyes. "But first, I need you to call Commander Marcus."

Evelyn’s brows drew together "Kid... I know you’re connected to him but I can’t just summon him, you know."

Ethan reached into his inventory and brought out the folded Eclipse robe on her desk, followed by two pieces of scorched parchment covered in cramped, unfamiliar script.

"I think this is enough to call him."

Her gaze qucikly landed on the robes bearing the Eclipse symbol and went still.

Hmm...

She didn’t ask another question. She turned, called for a runner and gave the order herself.

Marcus arrived before an hour had fully passed, as soon as he received word that Ethan was injured in a confrontation involving one of the Four Great Evils, he rushed to the guild within minutes and immediately barged into the Guild Master office.

His eyes instinctively searched the room before settling on Ethan’s blood-soaked figure. Relief flashed across his face for the briefest of moments, quickly replaced by concern.

"Hey, brat... what did you even get yourself into—"

The words died in his throat as his gaze swept across the room. The exhausted village chiefs. The trembling elder. Evelyn’s unusually grave expression. The black robes and scorched parchments spread neatly across the desk.

Whatever questions he had vanished.

The concern of an uncle quietly disappeared behind the composure of the Commander of Northwatch.

Without another word, he walked over to Evelyn and took the seat beside her.

"You can start now." Evelyn looked at Ethan and said while noticing the concern in Marcus.

Ethan told them everything in order about the mission. The disappearances near the villages surrounding the Maple River. The pattern he’d pieced together from the chiefs’ accounts — the false claw marks meant to point investigators toward beasts that were never actually responsible, and the footprints he found with the help of Rune. Following the trail east and finding similar marks, the fate of Greenwich Village, and finally finding the culprits and the decision he’d made once he understood the ritual could not wait for reinforcements to arrive.

Marcus gave an almost imperceptible nod. Waiting would have doomed every captive inside the cavern. Even he couldn’t fault that judgement.

He didn’t explain how he’d gotten past the cultists watching the entrance. He said only that he’d found a way in without being seen.

He told them about the cave-the skull, the blood collection, the captives arranged with delibetate precision around a Magical formation. He told them about Vael and trying to take him by suprise but failed and finally after a brutal battle he won with the help of Rune.

He explained about his own dedutcion’s of feeling the high density of mana and fluctuations in the cave and how they were going to offer the villagers as sacrifices to awaken something and he couldn’t leave the villager’s to die.

Neither Marcus nor Evelyn interrupted him even once.

Ethan’s report was concise, each event flowing naturally into the next. There were no exaggerated claims, no unnecessary explanations—only the observations that had led him from one conclusion to another.

Marcus silently replayed the entire sequence in his mind. Ethan hadn’t stumbled upon the cult by chance. Every clue had led naturally to the next—the fabricated beast attacks, the carefully concealed trail, the destruction of Greenwich Village and finally the hidden ritual site itself. The more he thought about it, the harder it became to believe that all of it had been pieced together by a ten-year-old.

One after another, the rescued villagers stepped forward and recounted what had happened inside the cavern. Their voices still trembled from fear as they described the kidnappings, the ritual altar, and the young boy who had appeared without warning to save them.

Not a single testimony contradicted Ethan’s report.

If anything, every frightened voice only made the unbelievable account sound even more real.

Silence settled over the office.

Neither Marcus nor Evelyn spoke immediately.

Ethan’s report was already difficult enough to believe, yet every frightened testimony from the villagers had only reinforced it.

Marcus’s fingers tightened against the armrest. Evelyn remained motionless, quietly rereading every piece of information in her mind.

Ethan looked at Marcus and gave a small signal.

Marcus told everyone to leave apart from Evelyn.

’What happened after that?" Marcus asked noticing there was more to the story.

Ethan gave a slight nod before continuing. His tone remained as calm as ever, but both Marcus and Evelyn could tell the next part of the report was entirely different from everything before it.

Ethan told them how he got caught in the spatial fluctation after rescuing the villagers and arriving in the dungeon and the beast tide followed by the Forest Troll. He didn’t explain about the scale of the tide and deliberately mixed in some lies while reporting as to not arouse suspicion.

Yet, even then everything he mentioned made them more surprised by the minute.

Ethan waved his hand.

A body crashed heavily onto the office floor.

The room instantly fell silent.

Marcus and Evelyn rose almost simultaneously.

Neither of them looked at Ethan.

Their attention was completely drawn toward the corpse lying before them.

Marcus slowly crouched beside it.

His gaze first settled on the long sword wound stretching diagonally across the shoulder and chest. Through the torn flesh, dark crimson muscle intertwined with coarse beast tissue, fused together so completely that there was no visible boundary between man and beast.

His expression gradually hardened.

Evelyn stepped closer from the opposite side, carefully examining the exposed wounds. Thick scales extended beneath the skin itself rather than being attached externally, while the exposed organs bore little resemblance to those of an ordinary human.

"...Impossible," she murmured.

Marcus didn’t answer.

His aura quietly spread through the corpse.

A moment later...

His eyes narrowed.

"Mage Core... Warrior Core along with Beast Core."

Evelyn immediately understood.

"...Three cores?"

Marcus slowly nodded.

Neither of them spoke for several long seconds.

Marcus’s gaze remained fixed on the corpse. Even after decades on the frontier, this was the first time he had witnessed a body that had completely defied the natural laws governing mana, aura and Primal Force.

"...That crazy bastard."

Before either of them had fully recovered, Ethan placed another object onto the floor.

Thud.

A massive severed head rolled slightly across the wooden boards before coming to a stop.

Marcus’s eyes widened for perhaps the first time that day.

"...Forest Troll."

Evelyn’s breathing paused.

"...An Apex Beast..."

Neither of them needed another explanation.

They had both fought enough monsters to recognise the lingering pressure still clinging to the severed head.

Both of them couldn’t believe their eyes... they know Ethan and Rune was able to fight above their realm and they even defeated Elite Beasts and Dire Beasts before. But to fight someone in the highest tier of the Realm which are two major realms above, where a fundamental shift happens for both the humans and beasts and enters the territory of disasters is something unprecented.

This kid... how did he even fight something like this with those injuries?

Marcus’s gaze lingered on Ethan’s battered figure before drifting back toward the Forest Troll’s severed head. The wounds covering Ethan’s body matched the brutality of the battle he had just described. Nothing about them suggested an easy victory.

Even if I account for Rune’s assistance... it still doesn’t explain everything.

He already knew the cub was extraordinary. Reports from Ice Valley had confirmed Rune possessed the strength to kill Dire Beasts despite still being a cub. Ethan himself had repeatedly displayed swordsmanship, judgement and composure far beyond his age. His investigation of the disappearances, his ability to uncover the Chimera’s weakness, and the calm way he had reported everything only reinforced that impression.

But this...

Marcus couldn’t reconcile the final result before him.

Even considering the Ravencrest bloodline and Ethan’s monstrous talent, he still couldn’t understand how a ten-year-old had managed to stand against an Apex Beast.

[Note : Apex Beast is the peak of the Dire Beast where a major qualitative transformation occurs for Beasts and they can use Primal Force and their strength multiplies by atleast a dozen times.]

A physique...?

The thought surfaced almost instinctively.

It had been generations since anyone in House Ravencrest had awakened a high-grade physique. The highest ever recorded apart from the First Patriarch within the family had only possessed S-Rank, and that was more than three generations ago.

Marcus had heard stories—of the legends—of individuals born with physiques that defied common sense, talents so monstrous that they could overturn what should have been impossible.

If... if Ethan had awakened something beyond even that...

Marcus slowly exhaled.

It was the only explanation that even came close to making sense.

Or perhaps...

There were still things about the boy sitting before him that even he had yet to discover.

Evelyn looked from the Chimera... to the Forest Troll... and finally back to Ethan.

Her lips parted slightly.

For several seconds, no words came out.

"What the hell...Commander...Where did you even find this kid?" Evelyn said without any regard, which is highly unlikely of her as she slammed the desk which threw both Marcus and Ethan off guard.

"Ahem..." Evelyn finally recognised her mistake and qucikly tried to cover it up. She coughed lightly into her fist, her ears faintly red.

"...Forget I said that."

Neither Ethan nor Marcus commented.

The office gradually fell silent once more as everyone’s attention returned to the evidence spread across the room.

Marcus looked toward Ethan.

"Did you recover anything else from the hideout."

Ethan nodded.

"I stored everything that hadn’t been destroyed during the battle."

With a wave of his hand, stacks of worn journals, ritual records, storage rings and bundles of loose parchments appeared one after another across the desk. Several pages were stained with dried blood, while others were covered in unfamiliar symbols and densely packed notes.

Marcus and Evelyn immediately began sorting through them.

The office remained silent except for the soft rustle of parchment.

Minutes passed.

Marcus unfolded a large ritual diagram while Evelyn compared it against several pages filled with calculations and mana flow patterns. The deeper they read, the graver their expressions became.

Evelyn carefully placed the final document down.

"...So that’s it."

Marcus gave a slow nod.

"The evidence confirms Ethan’s report."

"Everything points to the same conclusion."

"They were attempting to accelerate the awakening of a dormant dungeon through forbidden rituals."

Marcus slowly rose to his feet, his expression returning to that of the Commander of Northwatch.

"Evelyn."

"Yes?"

"Seal this report. No one outside this room is to learn about the dungeon or the Chimera."

He looked toward Ethan.

"I’ll personally investigate the site tomorrow and also secure the dungeon."

His gaze shifted toward Ethan.

"You’ve done well. From here onward, leave the rest to us."

---

In a dimension detached from reality a huge city rose stretching for hundreds of kilometers with Ancient Runes flowing all over the boundaries. At the center of the place a huge black tower rose as if challenging the heavens.

In the highest floor of the tower a person sat upon a throne carved from the bones of the Ancient Beasts, his face was covered with a mask with two horns protruding from it.

"Did he succeed?"

The question settled into the silence of the tower. Nothing moved. Nothing answered. Far below, through walls of ancient stone, the city continued its endless, indifferent existence.