Chapter 158 - High-Stakes Plan
Skarathor, the tier 8 monster.
This gigantic, overpowered creature was never meant to be here. This was supposed to be a tier 4 rift, the kind of mission that should’ve been relatively simple to handle, especially with a lineup of Gaia Masters, including several forest elves, who on average are far stronger than humans.
But everything changed when the demons slipped into this rift and twisted its core with their manipulations. Their interference turned the entire domain into what’s now classified as an Emergency Rift. And from that chaos, something utterly abnormal emerged.
A tier 8 monster. Skarathor.
But what exactly is Skarathor?
In the original tale, this beast was a timeless entity, a relic of the old world. It once ruled the skies of the North Continent, nesting above the high grounds and feeding on swirling currents of Gaia Force. Up there, where the air thinned and the anomalies thickened, it grew, too powerful, too sentient. Until its presence became a threat into the land. Eventually, it was pulled into a pocket world of its own making, sealed away.
Yet fate did not let it rest. That creature was hurled from one pocket world to another, eventually becoming something like a guardian of rift explorations. A harbinger. A witness. It became the living symbol of extreme anomalies within rifts. Its presence a rare but unmistakable marker that an Emergency Rift had reached critical levels of instability.
To put it simply, this creature was a sentinel, an omen and a judge when awakeners come face-to-face with the unrelenting force of Gaia, powerless to resist their fate.
Normally, Skarathor only wanders. It patrols the rift skies silently, watching, offering no meaningful aid, no direct interference.
Until... the moment it must.
Until the exact moment it’s called to act, to restore the rift’s balance with a strike so massive, it rewrites the course of everything.