[MISSION : DEFEAT THE DUNGEON BOSS]
[REWARD : S TIER DROP GUARANTEED]
[STATUS : IN PROGRESS]
Aaron read it. Kept walking.
The dungeon was wrong in every direction.
Mana soaked into the walls. Glowing faint blue through the stone like something had been pumping it in for years and the walls had stopped caring. The air tasted electric. Heavy. The kind of heavy that sat in the lungs and stayed there.
Monster bodies on the path. Fresh. The team had come through here fighting hard.
*An S tier team*, he thought. *Full deployment. Best people available. Not coming out.*
Side passages. Movement. Low wet sounds. Things waiting.
*What in here does that to an S tier team.*
He kept walking.
*Let's find out.*
The mark on his arm glowed once. Dark. Faint purple at the edges. Gone in a second.
The shadow under his feet spread outward and the Mountain King rose from it and the floor cracked under its weight and every sound in every passage stopped at exactly the same time.
Complete silence.
"Clear it," Aaron said.
BOOOOOOM.
CRACK. CRACK. SLAM. CRACK.
Something in a passage made a sound that stopped fast.
Then nothing.
Aaron kept walking.
He found the team two sections in.
Six down. Breathing. The healer still conscious. Barely. Both hands pressed to someone's chest. Face grey. Hands shaking so bad Aaron could see it from across the room.
"Who are you," the healer said. Rough. Wet underneath.
"Aaron. How many."
"Six down. Two can walk." He coughed. Hard. Pressed his hand to his own ribs then forced it back. "Zxara is still in there."
Aaron opened his screen. Invisible to everyone. Went to inventory. Selected the Venom Core.
It appeared in his hand from nothing.
The healer stared at it. At the empty air. At Aaron.
"What is that."
"Healing properties. From something I killed."
The healer looked at the Core. At the teammate dying under his hands. At the grey spreading across their face. Back at the Core.
"I don't know what this is," he said quietly.
"Your teammate has about two minutes," Aaron said.
The healer looked at his teammate one more time.
Took it.
Because he had no other choice and they both knew it.
Aaron kept moving.
He heard it before he saw it.
BOOM. CRACK. BOOM.
Underneath it a low constant roar that sat in the chest and didn't move. The sound of something that had been here so long it had stopped thinking of this place as anything other than its own.
Aaron came through and stopped.
[S TIER ENTITY : MANA BEAST]
[Classification : DUNGEON RULER]
[Skills : MANA BLAST : MANA FIELD : MANA SURGE]
[Status : ENRAGED]
[Warning : Mana output exceeds measurable threshold]
Enormous. Mana running through every part of it the way blood ran through a person. Hide glowing blue-white along every edge. Eyes pure mana. Cold light burning in two hollow sockets. Mana dripping from its hands and where it hit the floor the stone dissolved and got absorbed straight back into its skin.
It fed on its own destruction.
And in front of it.
Zxara.
Her right leg the only thing holding her up. The left one cut deep. Blood running down from it pooling dark around her boot. One hand pressed against the wall just to stay upright. The other still throwing everything she had.
S rank. Full force.
Not enough.
The blood on the floor told Aaron everything about how long she'd been standing there alone.
The Mana Beast pulled its arm back. Pointing directly at her.
She saw it coming. Couldn't move fast enough.
The mark glowed dark purple. Barely visible.
The shadow moved.
BOOOOM.
The Mountain King rose from it between Zxara and the blast and took it full in the chest and the chamber shook and dust dropped from the ceiling in sheets and it held.
Zxara stared at it.
Then found Aaron at the entrance.
Aaron looked at her. At the blood on the floor. At the wall she was holding onto. At everything written all over her face she refused to say out loud.
"Long time no see," he said.
"You," she said.
"Yeah."
"How are you even."
Aaron cutted her in middle and said,"Later. Can you move."
"Not well."
"Wall. Stay there."
"I'm not."
Crack!
"Zxara." He looked at her properly. "Please."
Something moved across her face. She pressed back against the wall without another word.
Aaron looked at the Mana Beast.
The Mana Beast looked at Aaron.
MANA FIELD activated.
BOOM.
The whole chamber filled instantly. Blue-white light everywhere. Every surface humming. The air turned into something that pushed against everything at once.
UGH.
His knees almost buckled. The barrier flared and pushed back and Aaron planted his feet and forced himself straight.
*Okay. Here we go.*
"Mountain King," he said.
BOOOOOOM.
The Mountain King hit it and CRACK the floor split in every direction and the Mana Beast hit back hard and Aaron moved in behind and drove the Void Scythe acid-dark into its side.
The mana hide resisted.
The acid ate through it anyway.
SCREEEEE.
The Mana Beast spun toward Aaron and MANA SURGE activated from its whole body. Every direction at once.
Aaron went sideways.
The surge caught the edge of him and the force of it spun him but his feet found the floor and he planted them and stayed up.
Breathing hard. Hand against the stone for one second.
*Okay*, he thought. *That's MANA SURGE. Full body. Now I know.*
"KEEP GOING. DON'T STOP."
CRACK. BOOM. CRACK.
The Mana Beast hit the Mountain King twice in exactly the same spot.
*Same spot twice*, Aaron thought. *It's adapting. Found the weak point already.*
"LEFT. GO LEFT NOW."
The Mountain King went left. The strike hit empty space and Aaron moved in and drove the scythe into its back and the acid went deep.
*The back. Thinner there.*
"MOUNTAIN KING. HOLD IT."
The Mountain King grabbed it from the front and held and Aaron drove the scythe into the back of its neck and the acid ran in and the creature threw the Mountain King off and spun toward Aaron and MANA BLAST came at point blank range.
Aaron twisted sideways.
The blast caught his shoulder and the barrier took most of it and Aaron skidded back across the floor and dug his boots in and stopped.
Still standing.
Chest heaving. Shoulder burning. Healing factor already working on it.
*Still standing*, he thought. *Okay. Good.*
Against the wall Zxara watched him skid back and stay on his feet and felt something she didn't have time for move through her chest.
*How*, she thought. *How is he even here. How is that shadow creature his. How is he...*
COUGH. COUGH. COUGH.
Hard. Back against the wall. Hand pressed over her mouth. She pulled it away and looked at it.
Red.
She looked at Aaron still on his feet across the chamber.
She activated her skill. The one that read anyone's status. Anyone's rank. Anyone's class. She had used it a thousand times. On a thousand awakeners. It had never once been wrong.
She pointed it at Aaron.
The result came back immediately.
[Name : Aaron]
[Status : AWAKENED]
[Rank : UNCLASSIFIABLE]
[Class : UNKNOWN]
She stared at it.
*Awakened*, she thought. *He's awakened. But the system can't tell what he is.*
She looked at the shadow beast that was his.
At the acid scythe cutting through an S tier dungeon ruler.
At the mark on his arm glowing faint purple.
At Aaron himself still standing after everything the Mana Beast had thrown at him.
*Unclassifiable*, she thought. *The system has never shown me that before. Not once.*
*What are you*, she thought. *What are you Aaron.*
The Mana Beast raised both arms.
Not one.
Both.
Both charging simultaneously and the light coming off them was blinding and the sound was the sound of something that was going to end everything in this room and Aaron was across the chamber and his barrier was running and the healing factor was still working and KABOOM!
Aaron looked at it.
Looked at both arms fully charged and the chamber turning white from the light of it.
*Back of the neck*, he thought. *One more time. Everything.*
He moved.
The Mana Beast fired.
BOOOOOOM.
KABOOM.
The chamber went white.