I slipped away while the giant, Park Sang-Min, was busy leaning against his shield, his eyes probably closed. The dungeon's night was unnatural, thick with a silence that felt like it was waiting for something to die. My Intelligence was high enough now that the world felt... louder. I could feel the mana vibrating through the air above.
I looked at my palm and closed my eyes, recalling the way Han Ji-Hoo's blade had glowed—that arrogant, radiant blue.[SYSTEM NOTIFICATION]
Skill Copy Attempt: [Aura Blade]
Warning: Target skill rank exceeds current capacity. Optimizing...
[SKILL ACQUIRED: Aura Coat (Deteriorated)]A thin, shimmer aura of mana coated my dagger. It wasn't a god-killing weapon, but it was sharper than it had been a second ago. I focused harder, reaching for the memory of his finishing move. This time, the System didn't complain.
[SKILL ACQUIRED: Aura Slash (Full Copy)]
Then, they came. A swarm of Wyverns dropped from the cliffs, their eyes like burning coals in the dark. These were S-rank predators, armored in scales with a never breaking body. I used Aura Coat in my dagger now ready for a fight.I didn't wait for them to land. I used my other skill "Aura Slash."A crescent moon of violet energy tore through the air, screaming. The lead Wyvern didn't even have time to shriek before the blast caught it under the jaw, bisecting its neck as clean as a hot wire through wax. I was moving before the head hit the ground. My Dagger Proficiencywas no longer just a skill—it was an instinct. I danced through the storm of talons, my red-blue trail leaving lines of searing heat in the freezing air.
It wasn't a fight. It was a harvest.
[NOTIFICATION: 22 Wyverns Slain.]
[LEVEL UP: Lv. 5 -> Lv. 30]
[45 Stat Points Received]
[NEW SKILL ACQUIRED: Lightning Sword (Lv. 1)]Type: Ultimate / GrowthDuration: 1 Hour | Cooldown: 7 DaysEffect: Fuses the blade with high-voltage celestial energy. Increases base damage by 300%.Passive: 15% Paralyze chance. 5% chance of Heaven's Wrath (Lightning Strike).Executioner: Instant death for targets with lower Mana than the user.
I felt a new, heavy weight settle on my soul.
[TITLE ACQUIRED: Wyvern Slayer]
+2.5% Damage to Draconic-types.
I opened my status window to allocate the 45 points. My mind already knew the most efficient path.
[STAT ALLOCATION]Intelligence: 25 -> 50 (The mental fog vanished completely. My mana pathways felt like high-voltage cables, ready to burst.)
Strength: 10 -> 20 (My muscles tightened, becoming dense and efficient.)
Agility: 10 -> 20 (The world slowed down further. I could hear the wings of a fly in the distance.)
Endurance: 7 -> 17 (I needed a vessel strong enough to contain the Lightning Sword's recoil.)
As the points settled, the world didn't just sharpen—it transformed. But it wasn't just my stats. After using my stat points and looking around at the dead bodies, I felt something hot surging from my heart. I felt a feeling I had never felt before. The metallic smell of the wyverns and the raw sensation of the kill swirled together, and I could feel a sense of enjoyment with a deep heat inside my heart arise throughout my whole body.I don't know whether it was a feeling of accomplishment or happiness; it was something completely different, making me feel like something inside me had changed.Was it due to me being stronger? Maybe only God knows, if He exists.I stood there for a long moment, the heat in my chest slowly cooling into a hard, focused edge. The boy who was "abandoned" by the system wouldn't have smiled at a pile of corpses. But that boy was dead, buried under thirty levels of power and a title that labeled me a slayer. I wiped the blood from my face, my eyes cold and clear in the darkness. I wasn't just surviving anymore. I was starting to like this
I headed back to the tent, the heat in my chest slowly cooling into a hard, focused edge. I fell into a deep sleep and woke to a grey morning. As the group moved toward the center of the dungeon, we hit the graveyard I'd left behind.
"What happened here?" Han Ji-Hoo muttered, staring at the twenty-two mangled Wyverns. The mercenaries whispered about territorial wars, but Choi Jin-Woo knelt by a carcass. He didn't see claw marks; he saw the surgical punctures of a dagger. He looked around the area to look for clues and looked like knew that it was the work of one of us, but he kept his mouth shut.
"Scavenge the stones," Ji-Hoo ordered, his voice echoing against the jagged cliffs. "Solaris Core, move out."We reached the central plane, a massive stone amphitheater that felt like the heart of the nest. In the middle sat the Wyvern King, a Level 50 monstrosity with scales the color of tarnished silver. Surrounding it were forty guardians,ready to give their life for their king.Now the air around the tense full of horror everyone with a sacred and tense look on their face,frozen not able to move at all due to the aura excluded by the boss monster.