The air was thick and heavy, a suffocating weight that pressed down on Vorn with the force of a tectonic plate. The C-Rank Troll-King, a towering behemoth of scarred stone and muscle, filled his entire field of vision. It was not a monster from a game, but a thing of myth, of raw, primal power.
[Warning: Active Entity Detected - Troll-King (Rank C-)]
The message in his glasses felt like a joke. A C-minus rank? This creature felt like a calamity. Its presence was a physical force, a crushing aura that made the very air difficult to breathe. Then a new message, more chilling than the last.
[Imminent Death Probability: 99%]
His heart hammered against his ribs, not with fear, but with a cold, desperate clarity. A direct fight was suicide. He was an ant facing a boot. The Troll-King didn't move yet, it just watched him, its red eyes glowing with a malicious intelligence that was far more terrifying than a mindless beast's fury. It was waiting, toying with him, savoring the fear.
The Troll-King's first move wasn't a charge. It was a casual step while dragging the club on the floor like he was playing a death song, but the ground shook with its weight. It lifted its club, a massive, gnarled tree trunk, and swung it in a lazy, backhand arc.
Vorn tried to use the phantom-enhanced speed he'd been training with, but it was nothing against the troll's deceptively quick motion. He dodged, but not fully, The wind from the blow was like a physical wall, sending him flying sideways, his body smashing into the cave wall with a sickening thud. Pain flared across his ribs, a blinding white-hot agony.
This was not a fight. This was a brutal, one-sided demonstration. A single, glancing blow had done more damage than a dozen Gutterspawn. He couldn't win with strength. He couldn't win with speed. He had to think
His mind went into overdrive, his glasses' analyzer working faster than ever. He scanned the troll, looking for a weakness. The hide was too thick, the muscle density too great. He could try to hit it with matter manipulation, but his power was still too weak, too unrefined to make a difference against a creature of this scale. The Troll-King was an equalizer, a physical force that nullified all his progress. He needed an equalizer of his own.
A low, scraping sound from a side tunnel caught his attention. His glasses flickered, a new target appearing on his HUD.
[Target Identified: Cave-Spider Queen (Rank D+)]
A D-plus rank. Weaker, but still a formidable monster in its own right. A predator that lurked in the darker corners of the dungeon. Vorn's mind began to spin, his thoughts racing at a fever pitch. The Troll-King was a direct, overwhelming force. The Spider Queen was a hunter, A trap-setter. He wasn't a pawn in this game, a victim to be hunted. He was a piece on the board, and he was about to make a very dangerous move.
The Troll-King grunted, its red eyes fixed on him, its massive club held loosely in its hand. Vorn didn't wait. He sprinted, not away from the troll, but toward the side tunnel where the spider lurked. He used his matter manipulation to throw a small pile of sharp debris at the troll's feet, just enough to get its attention, to infuriate it. The Troll-King roared and charged, a thunderous rumble of a thousand tons of stone and malice.
Vorn moved fast, his surrouning blurred, he could be seen as an agile little stone leading a mountain of pure rage into a spider's lair. He made it to the mouth of the tunnel and, with a final, panicked glance back at the charging monster, he threw himself to the side.
The Cave-Spider Queen was not happy to see them. It was a grotesque thing of segmented black chitin and razor-sharp legs, with two glowing red eyes that pulsed with a territorial fury. It had been waiting in its nest, a sticky web of organic silk, and the sudden intrusion of the Troll-King was an act of war. A low, hissing shriek echoed through the tunnel, a sound of pure rage.
The Troll-King, still focused on Vorn, didn't even notice the new threat until a razor-sharp leg slashed across its arm, drawing a thin line of black, viscous fluid. The Troll-King Roared clearly angered, its attention now fully on the spider. The two titans, each a king in its own domain, were locked in a tense standoff.
Vorn didn't hesitate. This was his chance. He dodged an attack from the Spider Queen, allowing its venomous leg to whip past him. In the same motion, he dodged a sweeping blow from the Troll-King's club, letting it smash into the Spider Queen's chitinous shell. The queen shrieked, its rage now a focused, singular force directed at the troll. Vorn was in the middle of a two-sided war, a deadly, frantic dance between two monsters. He was a ghost, a puppeteer, using the chaos to his advantage.
The fight was brutal, a symphony of crushing blows and slashes, of stone and chitin tearing and smashing. Vorn watched from a safe distance, his glasses providing him a front-row seat to the carnage. The Troll-King's raw power was met with the Spider Queen's speed and potent venom, each strike a testament to their monstrous strength.
He was battered and exhausted, his body aching from the first blow, but he was alive. He took a moment, a moment of pure, raw instinct, to absorb any [Blood Drop Power] from the fallen monsters he'd killed earlier. A warm, revitalizing wave of energy coursed through his body, his wounds healing at an accelerated rate.
Finally, the battle came to a close. The Troll-King, its body a mess of wounds and black blood, managed to land a final, crushing blow, shattering the Cave-Spider Queen's skull. It let out a triumphant roar, its body battered but its eyes filled with a new, furious resolve.
It turned its gaze back to Vorn.
Vorn, a single, battered human against a C-Rank monster, a monster he had just enraged, knew he had no chance. He had to run. He had to escape. He used his last bit of energy to cause a cave-in, a matter manipulation spell that collapsed the tunnel entrance, trapping the Troll-King. He didn't wait to see if it worked. He ran.
He stumbled out of the dungeon and used his stealth to sneak back into the hospital, avoiding the Bureau agents who might be monitoring the entrance. He slipped back into his room, his body aching, his mind reeling. He fell into bed, pretending to be asleep.
Bereau office
"Squad Leader, I'm telling you, the kid's weird," Agent Finn said, his voice quick and nervous. "He came out of a D-Rank gate without a scratch, with no aura. His sister, Seren, had some kind of mana surge and is still in a coma. And now he's gone missing from the hospital and just showed up back in his room with no one noticing. It's not adding up.
The Squad Leader, a tall, imposing man with a cold, cynical face, listened intently. "Unawakened? Or hiding his true power? A mana surge? Or an external force? Escaped and returned? Or was he never gone at all?" His voice was sharp, a chilling melody of logic and suspicion.
Finn, out of his depth, looked at his superior for guidance. The Squad Leader paused, a cold, calculating look in his eyes. "Alright, Finn. Here's what we're going to do." His voice was low and menacing.
"We watch, We wait, get closer to him, become his friend and dig out whatever it is he's hiding. Because something is definitely not right."