Chapter 334 Volume V - Chapter 52: Night of the Dungeon
The last green dot in the sky disappeared. The blue glow emitted by the strange and long river seemed to provide the light of the moon that did not exist in the sky. It was rising into the sky, like the auroras, creating a sight that would make anyone who looked at it feel mesmerized.
But it didn't matter. I didn't have time to care, to turn my head to the sky and appreciate the beauty of the dungeon again and again.
I just ran. I ran without stopping, without looking back. The howling of the wolves echoed incessantly throughout the dungeon, distracting me. It was as if they were trying to throw me off balance and make me fall, even for a moment.
But I didn't stop, I took each step as firmly as I could, the vibration in my ring increasing every second. Instead of running away from the danger... it was like I was running into it.
But I didn't have the luxury to stop, to run in the opposite direction, and test my theory.
I pushed myself, even if I was out of breath, I did my best to keep running.
In the middle of the desolate plain that had lost almost all its greenery as if it had never existed, not far from me... a pair of reds suddenly appeared. It was beyond the cave where Lucia and Sue were, on top of a small hill with a very slight rise.
Only a second later... dozens of them appeared around it. Their red-colored eyes were the only ones that were visible, but their silhouettes slowly emerged.
They resembled normal wolves. They weren't extremely tall, barely reaching my chest. Their fur was... black. It was as if they were made to be invisible in the middle of the night.
The moment I saw them, each one turned its head to the sky. The number of howls echoing through the dungeon suddenly increased exponentially.
My head started to spin. The voices started to blend together. The howling of wolves echoed in my ears, in my brain. Then... the number of red eyes suddenly grew to hundreds, thousands. They were all looking at me, each one locked on me.
The only thing I could see as the world fell apart was the red eyes glowing like death. Then... they all disappeared in an instant as if they had never existed.
The trembling in my ring suddenly multiplied. As my eyes widened, I quickly formed a Platform and leaped onto it, then another... and another.
I ascended into the sky as if I were climbing a staircase, never looking back. Finally, when I was sure I was at least thirty meters above the ground, I paused. Ignoring the sweat dripping down my forehead, ignoring my heart beating like crazy inside my chest, I looked down.
What I saw were... hundreds of pairs of red eyes. They were waiting just below me. Their bodies were lost in the darkness of the night, but their glowing eyes were focused on me. Each of them was at least C grade. There were even some that were C+.
I held my breath, not focusing on anything but them. I wanted to be alert if even one of them tried to leap toward me or throw anything. But the wolves did nothing. Instead, they just continued to stare at me, not moving a hair.
Even when a tiny bead of sweat dripped down my face and fell between them, nothing happened. Seconds passed, then minutes... The only thing I could hear again was the gentle howling of the wind.
But even this silence was broken after a while. I was at a loss for what to do when I saw a blue glow appear between me and the wolves, I almost forgot to restore the Platform under my feet intact. I thought the wolves had attacked me... But that was not the case.
The blue glow that appeared in front of me quickly expanded to form a window, a system window. It was telling me that there was a new message in the party chat.
But... I didn't even have time to get into the party chat. When the notification window came between me and the eyes of the wolves, that's when everything went haywire.
A sound loud enough to tear my eardrums echoed in my brain. My ears rang, my head spun. For a moment, I felt like I was going to fall off the Platform I was standing on.
The wolves below me had started howling in synchronization the moment I broke eye contact with them. It was so loud, so... intense that I couldn't stop my vision from going black. I lost my balance and staggered, bordering on unconsciousness. I tried to create a new Platform and hold myself up with it, but I couldn't form the Platform at a proper angle with my distorted senses.
My eyes widened when I realized that my feet were not touching anything. I found myself falling to the ground, the Platform I had just been standing on in front of me.
The wolves had stopped howling. My senses were slowly returning. But... a few of the wolves on the ground had already leaped toward me.
I gritted my teeth, let go of my spear, and returned it to my bracelet. With only a few meters between me and the nearest wolf, I closed my eyes... focusing on the only ascension skill I had.
But... at this very moment, something I never expected happened.
In the atmosphere, mana would normally be dormant. But right now, in the night of this dungeon... that was not the case. The mana around me, everywhere... was awake. And my ascension skill was a skill that was focused entirely on mana in the first place.
In short... the moment I activated Mana Ascension, all my senses suddenly became a jumbled mess. Everything was clear, too clear. The mana that I would normally have a hard time channeling was... completely different here. I could even feel the flow of mana kilometers away.
But the most important thing was... I could feel the mana itself.
It was like it had been waiting from the very beginning to be controlled, to be qualified. It had been forcibly brought out of its sleeping state, awakened. But it was still unqualified, still not controlled by anyone. It didn't want to stay in place.
And now... it had found a target. Someone appeared who could interact with it, me.
I fell to the ground. My whole body shook as if I had been slapped hard. Mana wanted to enter my body and it was succeeding.
For a moment, I wondered where the wolves had gone. I was sure I had seen a few of them darting toward me, that's why I had used my skill in the first place. But... even as I fell to the ground, there was still no one attacking me.
I quickly pushed it to the back of my mind. I had to be fast if I didn't want to be crushed by all the mana awakened in the atmosphere.
Before I could even stand up, I focused on my surroundings, said one word in my mind, and put everything into it.
Stop.
The mana flowing into my body suddenly paused. All that mana around me stopped with a single thought.
I forced myself to stand up. My hair fell in front of me because it had grown slightly, but I didn't care about it. I looked around with my eyes that I could barely open. What I saw... were hundreds of red eyes circling around me.
They were standing far away from me. As if they were... afraid of me.
I raised my hand, even with difficulty. The golden motifs along my arm shimmered as I did so. The wolves quickly dodged away from the direction I raised my hand. Hundreds of wolves, not a single one of which I could make out properly, moved out of my way to make way for me.
A sharp pain shot through my head. The amount of mana I could feel, everything... it was too much. On top of that, it was extremely difficult to maintain my skill.
Still, I gritted my teeth and walked slowly along the path the wolves had made. A few of them growled at me, a few even looked like they were ready to attack. But... they did nothing in the end. They didn't even follow me, as if... they couldn't.
So, slowly but surely, I moved away from them. Their red eyes were always on my back, I could feel their piercing gaze, but as long as Mana Ascension was active, they would not approach me.
With each step, I felt like I was going to fall over. My head was spinning even more, sometimes I felt like I was going to fall again. But I held myself together.
When I got close to the cave where Lucia and Sue were... there was nothing around. The red eyes of the wolves were gone. It was pitch black except for a little light from what looked like auroras in the sky.
But I knew. There were other creatures besides those wolves. They were hiding now, afraid of me, just like the wolves before. But... they were there. Because the mana coursing through each of their bodies was in my mind. And the moment I deactivated my ascension skill, they would prepare to attack.
I raised my hand, even though almost the whole world was blurred and my head was spinning non-stop. The mana was still around me, still listening to my command to 'stop'. But... this time, I didn't stop it. This time, I redirected it, as a warning, so that they wouldn't stop being afraid of me.
I piled all the mana around me in front of me, as much as I could, I manipulated it all. The ground began to shake slightly, a tiny earthquake shook the area I was in. I squinted, I looked at each of the hiding creatures even though I couldn't see them. I knew they were watching me. I knew they were looking at me. And I also knew we were making eye contact.
Each creature I looked in the direction of its hiding place trembled. A few were underground, some were simply... invisible. The methods they used to hide varied, but I could see each one.
I shook the ground one last time, this time much more violently. Then I curled my lips up slightly, narrowed my eyes even more, and stopped channeling the mana.
I turned around, and without doing anything else, I entered the cave where I had made a small gap in the entrance. I literally dragged myself inside, but... when I reached the entrance to the pit that I had closed, my knees gave out. As the world gave way to darkness, I felt the power that had enveloped my body disappear.
As I collapsed on the ground... I could only pray.
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