Chapter 5
Title: The Cave
'Lark, that little genius!'
During my endless training, I had developed habits. without realizing— I made subtle sounds with each style of swing. A grunt here. A syllable there. Little bursts of air tied unconsciously to the rhythm of my movements. They were meaningless to me.
But not to Lark!
the so-called idiot, had mimicked my sounds and not at random either, but in patterns. I thought it was nonsense, gibberish. However, Lark had been repeating my combat rhythms back to me, repurposing them into a sequence.
A combo.
One more refined than I could ever design.
And the result…
⸻
The wall split in half, torn by my blade in a flash of red and violet light. For the first time in hundreds of years, the smell of fresh air filled my nostrils. A breeze brushed my skin and flew through my hair like wind hitting a sail.
I closed my eyes and took it all in.
"I did it…" I whispered. "I actually did it." Happiness washed over me like the moisture from the fresh air.
Before me, the wall was peeled open like the skin of an apple. A jagged tunnel stretched forward— about seven meters long, Beyond that… blackness. An unknown space.
Behind me, Tess, Rob, and Lark were pressed against the far wall.
I glanced back at them and smiled.
"I'm gonna take a look and come right back," I said, half to reassure them, half to convince myself. "This won't be goodbye."
The sword in my hand radiated heat. It was the best weapon I had ever forged—dense with mana, etched with years of forge knowledge from trial and error. And it was still intact. No cracks or nicks.
I gripped it tighter and stepped forward.
The one-way tunnel opened into a wide crossroad—dark, rocky, and hollow. The walls stretched high, dripping with moisture, and the air felt damp and ancient.
"It looks like I'm in some kind of ca—"
*CRACK*
A massive, blue hand slammed down just above the tunnel entrance. Four fingers, long and thick, dug into the stone with hooked, yellowed nails.
I froze.
A head followed.
a giant head. Pale blue flesh, one oversized eye in the center of its forehead, and rows of jagged teeth. As it looked down, it let out a shriek that shattered the silence and rattled my bones.
The creature roared and thrust its other hand forward in a blurring punch.
I barely had time to register the movement before the hit landed square in my chest, launching me backwards like a missile.
I smashed into the back wall of the cube with a crack, leaving a Basil-shaped dent in the metal.
"Owwww…" I groaned, peeling myself out of the wall, ribs throbbing, sword somehow still in my hand.
'No time to think.'
I bolted forward.
The creature had bent over, revealing something sharp and metallic protruding from the center of its forehead—like a jagged horn.
With a snarl, it charged me like a bull.
I tried to dodge but wasn't fast enough. The creature's horn drove straight into my lower right abdomen, lifting me from the ground.
I screamed in pain as it carried me backward—back through the tunnel, back into the cube—before slamming me into the far wall, the horn puncturing straight through, mangling my insides.
I coughed up blood and tried to collect myself.
As the beast struggled to back out, its horn still embedded in the wall, I seized the chance.
drove my sword into its neck.
Again. And again.
I stabbed the same spot until blue blood fountained from the wound and the beast's struggling completely stopped .
Its body slumped down to the ground.
Still impaled on the wall, I cut away what remained of the head around the horn, pushing myself off of it. The movement tore what little was left of my abdomen.
"Argggh!"
I staggered forward.
"That sucked…" I muttered.
My legs were starting to give.
"Whoa… I feel kinda dizzy…"
I collapsed face-first onto the floor.
*DING*
## ## You have been poisoned ##
- • Venom from the blood of the Paralyzing Blue Dragon has entered your body.
- • You will die in: 00:30
I blinked in utter annoyance as the words appeared in my retina.
My mouth wouldn't move anymore either. My limbs were going numb, a side effect of the venom probably. I could only think:
'I can't believe I'm on this stupid floor again, about to die.
Well… at least this beats bleeding out for six hours.'
My vision faded and darkness swallowed me.
————
I gasped back to life, lying flat on the cold metal floor. Mana and health at its maximum capacity again—restored by death, as always.
"What is this weird feeling?"
A cold grip wrapped around my arm.
I turned my head.
"Ah great! Your still here!"
The corpse was still alive.
The beast—headless, twitching, gurgling blue blood—had its thick fingers wrapped around my arm, claw tips biting into my skin.
"Glad you're still alive, time for some payback."
I grabbed my sword and, with renewed strength, sliced clean through the monster's wrist.
The severed hand dropped to the ground with a wet slap.
The creature twitched. My brow furrowed.
"Alright. Let's make this permanent."
I stabbed it in the chest.
Then the stomach.
Then the back.
Over and over.
"Die—already—how do I kill you, huh?!"
I stabbed until the blade sunk smoothly through the spine and the twitching finally stopped.
*DING*
### Nice Kill!###
You killed an Abomination (S+)
(A man-made monster created through forcefully combining the DNA of demons and other creatures.)
You have been awarded: 8,000 XP
*DING*
### Level Up! ###
Level 66 achieved Rewards:
+5 Stat Points
+1 Skill Point
I took a shaky breath, letting my sword drop.
"Huh… looks like that worked."
I chuckled dryly.
"Well, guys… looks like this isn't going to be so easy after all, huh?"
*Silence*
I turned toward the back of the cube.
"…Guys?"
My voice faltered.
The wall was torn apart.
Not just cracked—shredded. Deep gouges ran across the surface, metal twisted and peeled like paper. Bits of scorched metal marked where Rob, Tess, and Lark had once been.
They were gone.
I hadn't noticed it before, but when I broke the wall during my escape, the intricate rune pathways woven into the cube's structure had shattered as well. The runes had powered everything—the bindings, the enchantments, the toughness of the wall.
And when the wall lost its power from the runes…
I guess during the fight, the Abomination's claws had ripped through the now-weakened metal, carving up the interior of the cube—and everything in it.
I stepped toward the wall, numb. A piece of Lark's face—just two dots for eyes and a half-shredded smile—laid at my feet.
I knelt down and gently picked up the piece of metal.
"Ah… I see," I said quietly.
A single tear slid down my cheek and landed on the metal.
I closed my eyes to stop the tears, and in that brief moment of darkness, I felt something stir. A familiar energy, warm and subtle, flowed through my chest. When I opened them, I saw my soul fragment, the one I'd given to Lark, slowly drifting back into me. It shimmered faintly as it returned to its source, like a lost piece finally finding home.
"Forgive me," I muttered. "Even you guys… I couldn't protect."
I rose to my feet and moved to what remained of the other two—Rob and Tess. Their fragments followed suit, drawn back into him with bittersweet ease. I stored a piece of each of them in my inventory.
My inventory had been sealed the entire time I'd been inside the cube. I figured it had been due to something the King of Hell did—some kind of restriction, preventing me from accessing it. But now, with the runes broken, it functioned again.
I found the hilt of my old, broken sword and summoned the soul fragment from within it too.
Then, gripping the hilt of my new sword, I continued forward. My eyes glowed with dangerous light, a deep purple, pulsing like embers in the dark.
Back in the crossroad at the end of the tunnel, I paused. Mana surged around me, the world humming faintly in my ears.
"Twenty-seven… huh. Good enough."
I extended my senses using the flow of mana in space around me. Three tunnels branched off from the chamber, excluding the one I'd come through. With focus, I could see—threads of mana moving in each of the life forms around me, thin and pulsing like veins. I could see the presence of enemies close by.
*DING*
## New Skill Created! ## (no name) © You can see the flow of mana in living beings within a 50-meter radius by focusing. Would you like to name this skill, or let the system decide? Cost: 1 Mp per second
"Woah… a new skill? Since when could I do that?"
I thought for a moment.
"Umm… let's name it…" the name box appeared with a blinking vertical line, I muttered, "Mana Vision, I guess."
*DING*
## ## Ohhh Yeaaa!! ##
Congratulations! Through your Authority, you have created a new skill: 'Mana Vision I Guess' (C)
My eye twitched.
"Huhhh?? No—wait, why'd you add the 'I guess' at the end?"
I rubbed the side of my head and sighed. "Let's try this one more time. I need to make sure this actually is what I think it is."
I stepped into a nearby shadow, letting my mana coat my body. A zip of energy surged through his limbs.
And then I vanished, reappearing in another shadow, three meters away.
*DING*
## ## New Skill Created! ##
(No name) (F) You can move between shadows up to a maximum distance of 3 meters. Would you like to name this skill, or let the system decide? Cost: 50 Mp
A smile slithered across my face
"Insane…"
"Just like Mana Vision… something I theorized while in the cube. Can be used and is a real skill registered by the system!"
"Let's call this one… Phantom Step."
*DING*
## ## Ohhh Yeaaa!! ##
Congratulations! Through your Authority, you have created a new skill: 'Phantom Step' (F)
"This… this is just too insane to comprehend," I said with a breathless laugh. "I can actually make skills now."
My expression darkened slightly. "I wonder if I can obtain other ones now as well?"
I coated my hand in mana, extending it like a blade, "like this I think?" and slashed toward the wall.
A thin arc of energy ripped through the air and carved up the stone with a sharp hiss.
*DING*
## Skill Acquired ## Mana Slash (D) Sends a forward slash of pure mana in the targeted direction. Mana Cost: 5 Base Damage: 10
I exhaled and lowered my arm.
"Hah… looks like I can copy the skills of others as long as I know how to do it."
I learned about that skill from my old party member who used it all the time. Watching him execute it all the time I studied his technique and form, in case I ever came across a skill scroll for it.
"The other thing I've noticed is that I have no cap on skills anymore. That would put me at three over the normal level limit yet when I pull up my skill window there right here."
A dry chuckle escaped my lips.
"Honestly… just what was that goddess thinking giving me an ability like this? Or is it because my mastery in mana has gone so far up."
My glowing purple eyes scanned the three tunnels branching off into the dark.
"With my inventory back and the runes no longer locking my skills I can get to work"
I tightened my grip on the sword, the blade was humming low and deadly.
"Lets go have a chat with my new roommates."
I stepped into the tunnel on the right, fading into a patch of shadow. Using Phantom Step, I moved silently—slipping from one shadow to another, my form blinking forward with ghost-like fluidity.
No sound followed me. Only the glow of my eyes, faint and violet, drifting like twin embers deeper into the dark.
"Look at this poor little lost lamb, sectioned off from the others are we?"
I said while walking up to an abomination that had wondered off by itself.
"Your going to make a perfect test subject."
I grabbed a rock and threw it at the abomination grabbing its attention. When it turned around I retreated into the shadows causing the monster to walk towards the spot he believed it came from.
I repeated this process until he was back in the tunnel by the cube.
"Tsk.."
"Tsk.."
"Tsk.."
"Are you lost little guy?"
The abomination turned around following the sound of my voice and could see nothing but an outline of a man with glowing purple eyes. Approaching him. Twirling what seemed to be a sword in his hand.
*swoosh*
I sent my sword flying towards the beast impaling his right shoulder into the wall.
"You see, a friend of yours did some unforgivable things to some friends of mine"
I inched closer to the beast making a small swirling motion with my hand creating 3 spikes that floated above me.
"And now, your going to pay for his mistakes"
*DING*
## Skill Acquired ##
Earth Spike (B) A Spell that Allows You To Create A Spike As Hard As The Crust of molten lava Using Mana As The Base. Cost: 25 Mp DMG: 50 Hp
The monster tried reaching for the sword in its shoulder but before it could grab it…
*Swosh*
*Thud* *Thud* *Thud*
I sent the spikes I created spiraling towards the abomination nailing his left hand and feet to the wall as well.
"Now… lets begin"
A smile that replicated the demons I encountered as a boy, grew on my face like a plague.
❧