James' vision blurred.
Arms trembling. Ribs cracked. Mana draining fast.
Drelhuth stood flawless in the cratered courtyard, crimson aura pulsing like a second heartbeat.
"You are tiring," the king observed pleasantly. "Good. Despair seasons the blood."
James spat blood onto the stone.
He couldn't win head-on.
Not like this.
Not against immunity. Not against 700-average stats.
So he stopped trying to win.
Instead
He stomped the ground and triggered Rift Rend straight into the courtyard fountain behind Drelhuth.
Space fractured violently.
Water exploded upward in a blinding geyser of debris and mist.
At the same time
James activated Rift Field, overloading it beyond its normal radius. The air warped chaotically, distorting vision and spatial perception for a split second.
That split second was all he needed.
Rift Step.
He vanished.
Reappeared at the far gate.
Crushed a mana potion mid-stride.
Mana surged back into his core.
Rift Step.
Halfway down the castle path.
Another potion.
He didn't look back.
Behind him, the mist settled.
Drelhuth stood unmoving for a breath.
Then he smiled.
"Oh?"
He inhaled deeply.
Wind shifted.
He could still smell the human.
Fear-sweat.
Blood.
Desperation.
The king stepped forward
And vanished in a streak of crimson.
The Cliffside Sprint
James pushed Agility to its absolute limit.
Rift Step.
Sprint.
Potion.
Rift Step again.
His mana pool drained as fast as he refilled it.
The cliffs came into view.
One kilometer straight down to the violent shoreline below.
Behind him
A calm voice echoed through the night air.
"You cannot outrun the night."
James felt it.
The pressure.
Drelhuth was catching up.
Not sprinting.
Not straining.
Just… closing the distance effortlessly.
James reached the cliff's edge
Boots skidding against loose stone.
He turned
Drelhuth was already there.
Right behind him.
Unruffled.
Crimson aura flickering softly.
"You chose the edge?" the king asked lightly. "How poetic."
James didn't answer.
He lunged.
Too late.
Drelhuth tackled him.
And together
They went over.
Wind roared past them.
The castle shrank above as they plummeted toward the black shoreline far below.
Drelhuth pinned James midair, claws digging into his shoulders.
"You thought gravity would save you?" he whispered, amused.
James couldn't breathe.
Couldn't think.
Only instinct remained.
The ground rushed up fast.
Too fast.
If they hit like this
Even he might die.
And Drelhuth would regenerate.
James stopped trying to pry him off.
Instead
He grabbed him.
Pulled him closer.
Drelhuth smirked.
"Ah. Acceptance."
James' eyes sharpened.
"No."
He poured everything into one final move.
Rift Pull... Full Output.
Not a targeted organ.
Not precision.
He aimed for space itself
Right at Drelhuth's shoulder joint.
The air warped violently.
A spatial shear formed along the vampire king's right arm.
Drelhuth's smirk vanished.
For the first time
Alarm flashed across his face.
"... What?"
The rift snapped shut.
Clean.
Brutal.
Drelhuth's arm separated at the shoulder.
Crimson blood exploded into the air, scattering like dark rain.
The king screamed.
A sound of genuine pain.
His grip loosened.
James twisted mid-fall, kicking off Drelhuth's torso to create distance.
Below...
The ocean surged violently against jagged rocks.
No more time.
They hit.
Impact
The crash was catastrophic.
Water detonated upward in a tower of white foam.
Shockwaves rippled outward across the shoreline.
James smashed into the surf, bones rattling violently, air blasted from his lungs. He skipped once across the surface before plunging deep beneath.
Drelhuth crashed moments later, carving a trench through rock before slamming into the tidal waters.
The sea churned red.
Underwater
James' vision flickered.
Everything hurt.
But he was alive.
Above him, moonlight shimmered through turbulent waves.
Across the shattered shoreline
Drelhuth rose slowly from the surf.
One arm missing.
Black-crimson blood pouring from the stump.
His aura flickered erratically.
Rage distorted his elegant features.
The severed shoulder sizzled violently, regeneration struggling against the spatial damage.
He stared into the water where James had submerged.
The storm above intensified.
"You… dared…"
His voice trembled not from weakness.
From fury.
For the first time in centuries
The Vampire King had been maimed.
And down in the dark waters below
James forced his body to move.
The fight wasn't over.
But it had finally become real for both of them.
Outside the the dungeon..
While monsters ravaged lost continents and frontline fighters bled in low-tier dungeons, governments across the surviving nations reached a hard conclusion:
Brute force alone would not win.
They needed minds.
Government Intelligence Recruitment
In fortified research cities across:
The United States
China
Germany
Japan
India
Special divisions were formed specifically to identify high-Intellect Awakened.
These weren't frontline berserkers.
They were analysts. Strategists. Mana theorists.
People whose Intelligence stat exceeded 300 by Level 15 were immediately flagged for recruitment.
Those above 400?
Classified priority assets.
The next step was simple..
Intelligence-Based Awakened Classes
Governments began categorizing them into structured archetypes.
Below are the most valuable intelligence-based ability types discovered so far:
ARCANE ANALYSTS
Primary Focus: Mana structure understanding and spell modeling
Combat Role: Tactical support / battlefield disruption
Core Skills:
MANA BLUEPRINT – Visually maps enemy mana flow, identifying weak points.
ARCANE CALCULATION – Predicts spell trajectories and probability outcomes within 3 seconds.
DISPEL MATRIX – Weakens or destabilizes enemy mana constructs.
SPELL ECHO SIMULATION – Replicates low-tier spells after observing them once.
High demand in controlled dungeon raids.
2. TACTICAL FORECASTERS
Primary Focus: Predictive cognition and combat modeling
Combat Role: Strategic command
Core Skills:
COMBAT PROBABILITY ENGINE – Calculates enemy next movement with 60–75% accuracy.
MICROSECONDS DILATION – Subjective time perception increase.
PATTERN ASSIMILATION – Learns enemy habits rapidly during combat.
THREAT HIERARCHY SCAN – Instantly ranks battlefield dangers by lethality.
Often stationed in command bunkers guiding raid teams remotely.
MANA ENGINEERS
Primary Focus: Artificial mana structuring
Combat Role: Infrastructure and weapon development
Core Skills:
MANA CIRCUIT FORGE – Creates artificial mana channels in objects.
CRYSTAL AMPLIFICATION – Increases output of enhancement crystals.
BARRIER ARCHITECTURE – Constructs semi-permanent defensive domes.
DUNGEON RESONANCE STUDY – Analyzes dungeon structural weaknesses.
These individuals made government-controlled dungeon farming possible.
3.COGNITIVE DOMINATORS
Rare. Dangerous.
Primary Focus: Mental interference and perception manipulation
Combat Role: Psychological warfare
Core Skills:
NEURAL STATIC PULSE – Disrupts enemy concentration briefly.
MIND ANCHOR – Prevents fear-based debuffs on allies.
ILLUSION OVERWRITE – Alters perceived battlefield layout.
WILL SUPPRESSION (Low Tier) – Temporarily weakens weaker-willed enemies.
Highly restricted classification. Closely monitored.
4.SYSTEM INTERPRETERS
The rarest intelligence variant.
These awakened individuals displayed abnormal interactions with the System interface itself.
Core Skills:
STAT EFFICIENCY OPTIMIZATION – Suggests optimal stat allocation.
EXPERIENCE FLOW MAPPING – Predicts leveling rate acceleration paths.
DUNGEON BEHAVIOR INDEXING – Identifies hidden dungeon mechanics.
REWARD PATTERN ANALYSIS – Estimates drop probability variations.
Governments guarded them like nuclear assets.
Global Research Conclusion
Across multiple classified reports:
"High-Intelligence Awakened individuals increase survival rates by 37–52% when embedded within strike units."
Pure Strength classes cleared floors.
Intelligence classes ensured they returned alive.
However
No Intelligence-class had ever entered the Six-Fold Descent.
Its single-entry restriction made team strategy impossible.
And the mana interference inside prevented remote observation.
From the outside world's perspective
James did not exist.
He was alone in a dungeon beyond their modeling capacity.
And while governments refined predictive algorithms and mana theory
On a shattered shoreline beneath a storm-wracked cliff
A maimed Vampire King searched the dark waters for the human who had wounded him.
And somewhere beneath the waves
That human was still alive.