The corridor was no longer a path; it was a throat, and the Dungeon was trying to swallow Raizer whole.
"Come at me!" Raizer roared, his voice straining against the cacophony of snarls and the heavy thrumming of the walls.
He didn't just run; he leaned forward at an impossible sixty-degree angle, his center of gravity manipulated by his skill to keep him from falling. A wall of Goblins surged forward, their rusted daggers gleaming. Raizer's mind mapped the trajectory of every blade. He didn't block—he wove. His body shifted in jagged, staccato bursts of speed, his joints clicking as they moved at the absolute limits of human anatomy.
Winged Blade
- Fshh! Fshh! Fshh!
Raizer's arms became a blur. He spammed Winged Blade with reckless abandon. Twin crescents of mana tore through the air every three seconds, bisecting the front line of the horde. But for every monster he deleted, two more clawed their way out of the ceiling.
A Kobold managed to sink its claws into Raizer's shoulder as he dived past. He didn't flinch. He used the momentum to spin, driving his elbow into the creature's skull with a sickening crack while his other hand unleashed a mana blade into the chest of a Lizardman.
"Haa... Haa..."
His breath was coming in ragged, bloody gasps. He was covered. The neon-purple blood of the Frog Shooters, the black ichor of the Goblins, and the deep, warm red of his own wounds painted him like a macabre mural. A jagged cut across his forehead leaked blood into his left eye, blurring his vision with a crimson haze.
[Host! Your SP is critical! Your Physique cannot sustain this output!]
"Shut up!" Raizer snarled, ducking under an Orc's massive club.
The shockwave of the club hitting the stone floor sent a tremor through his legs, nearly buckling his knees. He was exhausted. His muscles were screaming, the fibers tearing under the forced efficiency of his skill. As he reached the final stretch before the stairs to the surface, the Dungeon played its trump card.
The walls fused together, forming a massive, reinforced wall of flesh and stone, and from the floor emerged a War Shadow, a high-speed, blade-armed assassin monster from the lower floors. It moved faster than Raizer's tired eyes could track.
The War Shadow's blade arm whistled toward his neck. Raizer tried to command his legs to move, but they were unresponsive, heavy as lead. Time seemed to dilate. He could see the jagged edge of the monster's blade, the grit on the floor, the frantic pulsing of the blue System screen.
'Move. MOVE!' he screamed internally, 'I control this body! Not the fatigue, not the pain! So, fcking move!!'
[Ding! Evolution Requirements Met!]
[Skill: 'Absolute Control' has leveled up! Lvl 1 -> Lvl 2!]
In that instant, the "lag" between his soul and his cells didn't just vanish—it inverted. Raizer felt his consciousness expand into his very bone marrow. He could feel the calcium, the blood flow, the electrical impulses.
His body didn't move; it realigned.
Without shifting his feet, Raizer's torso snapped backward in a perfect bridge, the Shadow Step's blade passing a millimeter above his nose. While inverted, he didn't just kick; he commanded every muscle in his core to contract simultaneously.
- BOOM!
His boots slammed into the monster's chin with the force of a hydraulic press. As he flipped back onto his feet, the world felt slow. He could feel the mana in the air, the "energy" the System was gorging on. He crossed his arms, his knives glowing with an unstable, white light.
Under Absolute Control Lvl 2, Raizer's movement became terrifying. He didn't just dodge; he moved with "Zero-Latency." He stepped onto the vertical surface of the wall, running horizontally past the first Orc. As the second Orc swung its massive axe, Raizer pushed off the wall, twisted in mid-air, and used the Orc's own arm as a springboard.
Winged Blade!
He spammed a barrage of Winged Blades in a 360-degree radius. The mana blades were no longer simple crescents; they were sharper, thinner, and faster. They carved through the thick hides of the Orcs like hot wires through wax.
A War Shadow lunged from his blind spot, but Raizer didn't even turn his head. He flicked his knife behind his back, the blade catching the War Shadow's neck with microscopic accuracy. He then grabbed the dying monster's arm and swung its fading body into the final Orc, using the distraction to slide between the giant's legs and disembowel it in one clean motion.
Raizer stood amidst the carnage for a moment, his chest heaving. Every inch of him was soaked in a cocktail of fluids. He reached the foot of the final staircase, the path to the surface.
He paused.
His hand gripped the cold stone of the archway, his knuckles white. He looked back at the corridor he had just turned into a graveyard, but the Dungeon was inexhaustible. New forms were already coalescing from the shadows, their eyes glinting with renewed aggression. The black mist from the previous kills was still swirling around him, a ghostly halo being greedily siphoned into his skin by the System. He looked at his trembling, blood-slicked hands.
The monsters were already lining up again, their snarls echoing Raizer's own pounding heart. He raised his final blade, a cold, almost manic glint passing through his bloodshot eyes.
"Yo, system. Do you think I should get out now?"
[Yes, we can complete the quest now, host!]
Raizer smiled wider. It wasn't the answer he wanted. The slight tremble in his veins yearned to flee, the rational cry of his mind screamed for him to retreat, his feet were already planted as if to turn and run. But there was one thing that denied it all. The same obstacle that had caused countless great men to fall, and countless fools to stumble into glory. His heart beat with steady, insistent pulses, calling for his true goal.
Why had he traveled to another world? To enjoy a quiet, ordinary life? Nah. He was here to fight. To get stronger, to protect what was his.
Gripping his knife tighter, he parted his dry, bloodied lips. "King wouldn't escape, would he?"
[HELL YEAH! Let's go, Host! FUCKING BUTCHER THEM ALL! SEND THEM TO THE AFTERLIFE IN PIECES!]
'Dude, your personality takes a strange turn when King is involved. And didn't you just tell me to be more professional about my curses?'
With Orario's safety at his back, Raizer shook his head, a wild grin spreading across his face, and glared at the incoming monsters.
He plunged back into the Dungeon. The Guild's basement entrance was usually quiet, save for the occasional clerk on break. But the tremors from the Labyrinth's wrath had begun to attract attention.
"What's happening?!"
"A Prominence?!"
"The Dungeon is... roaring!"
A small crowd of nearby vendors and low-level adventurers began to gather, peering nervously into the dungeon entrance, expecting a flood of monsters to burst out. Instead, they saw Raizer.
He was a lone figure, a whirlwind of motion and bloody intent. His movements, honed by Absolute Control Lvl 2, were no longer just efficient. They were artistry. He danced between Orcs, sliding under their clumsy swings with the grace of a matador. His knives, propelled by Winged Blade, became extensions of his will, leaving trails of mana that shredded creatures faster than they could fully spawn.
- Slice! Twirl! Stab! Fshhh!
His body flowed like water, his injured limbs ignoring their pain. He didn't just dodge a Kobold's lunge; he spun, using the creature's own momentum to launch himself over a charging Lizardman, stabbing both in a single, fluid sequence. He was a dervish of steel and blood, a silent, deadly ballet choreographed by pure, instinctual precision.
"What's with that horde of monsters?"
The adventurers near the dungeon stepped back at the sight of the monster. Most of them already turned tail and fled. Surprisingly, a few remained back. The watched the back of the man fighting these monsters. How he swung his blade again and again, until it chipped and broke. After that, they watched him steal the sword of the monsters, beginning his hunt anew.
"He's... he's fighting them in the entrance!"
"He's stopping them from coming out! He's protecting us!"
"Look at his wounds! He's barely standing, but he won't let them pass!"
They had mistaken him. But in a way, they were correct. He stopped the monsters from flowing out into the streets of Orario. Any other adventurer would have run away. Even at a distance, they wished to escape but the man didn't. He kept fighting, and fighting, and then some.
"Wh-who is that man?"
"I think he's a newbie!"
"What, a Level-1 is protecting us?"
The adventurers and common people looked at him in awe. The nearby adventurers wanted to help but the horde was stuck in the narrow pathway to the dungeon. Just as the monsters couldn't escape, the adventurers couldn't rashly enter either. Hence, they could only watch him.
Raizer heard none of it. His world was a kaleidoscope of violence. He was vaguely aware of the onlookers, but their presence was just background noise, irrelevant to the blood-soaked rhythm of his fight. He was cutting, kicking, twisting, his body a perfect instrument of destruction.
More powerful monsters began to push their way forward, drawn by the scent of battle. A towering Minotaur let out a guttural roar, its charge shaking the very foundations of the Labyrinth. This was a monster meant for adventurers far beyond Raizer's current status.
Just as the Minotaur entered the entrance corridor, Finn Deimne, the revered "Braver" and captain of the Loki Familia, arrived. He was drawn by the unprecedented chaos. He saw the lone, blood-drenched figure holding the line, a seemingly ordinary human fighting with impossible ferocity against a tide of monsters that included Orcs and a rampaging Minotaur.
Finn's eyes narrowed, intrigued by the sheer willpower. This man was already at his absolute limit, his body barely able to sustain movement. Yet, he pushed.
It was in that moment, as the Minotaur lowered its horns and charged, as Finn watched with analytical intensity, that Raizer snapped. His body was a ruin, his mind a burning inferno, but his heart... his heart was a drum of pure, unyielding defiance.
- THUMP-THUMP! THUMP-THUMP! THUMP-THUMP-THUMP-THUMP!
The sound wasn't just in the Dungeon; it was in the air of the Orario. A deep, resonant tremor that shook the very foundation of the Babel Tower. To the gathered onlookers, it was an otherworldly, primal beat that seemed to emanate directly from Raizer's chest.
A profound, oppressive pressure descended upon the onlookers. The air grew thick and heavy, chilling onlookers to the bone. They saw an illusion. A fleeting, towering shadow of Death itself, vast and skeletal, hovering above Raizer. It was chained, held in check, unable to touch the ordinary people. But its aura of absolute, crushing finality was undeniable.
The Minotaur, midway through its charge, stumbled. Its eyes, previously burning with hate, dilated with pure, unadulterated terror. The Orcs behind it faltered, their snarls dying in their throats. The smaller monsters simply evaporated, turning into dust before Raizer even touched them, their will to exist extinguished by the sheer, unadulterated fear radiating from the depths of his "King Engine."
- THUMP-THUMP. THUMP-THUMP. THUMP-THUMP-THUMP-THUMP.
[Trait: King Engine (EX) — ACTIVATED!]
- Your 'Engine' is beating with ferocity!
- Your Stats have been increased by 1000%!
The air in the corridor crackled. The pressure was so immense that even the walls seemed to groan in agony. The monsters that were merely "weaker" than Raizer simply imploded, their forms collapsing into dust as their bodies gave out from pure psychological trauma. The larger, stronger ones, the Minotaur, the Orcs, didn't die, but they screamed. A primal, raw sound of utter despair. Their movements became sluggish, their eyes clouded with unimaginable dread.
Raizer stood there, his chest heaving, his heart now a booming cannon. The blood draining from the monsters was absorbed, fueling the relentless system. He raised his bloody knife, a single, terrifying figure silhouetted against the abyss of the Dungeon.
- FWOOOSSSHHH!
All the air was being drawn in, gathering at the curved edge of the sword. And he swung it once.
Winged Blade! (King Engine ver.)
- SLICE!
Splitting the horde in half. This time, the blade didn't stop. It struck the darkest walls of the dungeon, slicing through.
Raizer looked at the damage he caused, standing on shaky feet. His dark gaze dulled as he fell on his back.
The heartbeats finally paused. The nearby people looked at his fallen figure and gulped deeply.
Finn walked up to the fallen Raizer and wiped the cold sweat on his forehead. He calmly picked Raizer up and took him to the hospital.
'No matter who he is, we need to treat our 'hero' respectfully.'