Professor Vance was staring at the massive wall of holographic screens in the training room. There were fifteen screens showing different angles of the artificial E-Rank maze.
All of them were empty.
"Where are they?" Professor Vance yelled, slamming his clipboard on the control panel. "Arclight and the transfer new student got on the pad three minutes ago. Why are they not on the screens?"
The young technician was typing away on his keyboard, his face getting paler. "I don't know, sir. The monitoring drones inside the matrix didn't catch them entering. There is no video feed, no mana signature… nothing."
"What do you mean nothing?" Professor Vance grabbed the technician by the collar. "Did the teleportation go wrong?"
"No, the pad activated perfectly," the technician stuttered. "But the destination coordinates… they did not go to the training maze. The system logged a critical error. A spatial fracture."
"A spatial fracture?" Vance's eyes went wide. "You're telling me two F-Rank students were just thrown into a random, unmapped part of the Domain?!"
"Y-Yes, sir. We are trying to trace the spatial residue now, but it could take hours to find them."
Vance let go of the man and ran a hand down his face. "Lock down the facility! Nobody else steps on that pad! Call the Vanguard Emergency line! If they landed in an active zone above their ranks, they are already dead."
Up on the viewing balcony Kaelen Thorne was leaning against the railing, chuckling quietly. Everything was going exactly as planned. The trash that mocked him in the cafeteria were being taken out. And the academy just thought it was a random system error.
—
Inside the Unmapped Zone.
Zen stood completely still. The air in the dark, dusty cave was freezing,. A drop of sweat was rolling down the side of his face.
Ten feet away, the Blood-Horn Minotaur let out a roar that shook the ground. It was over eight feet tall, its dark fur matted with dried blood. Thick iron chains were wrapped around its arms and it held a rusted battle axe that looked heavy enough to split a tank in half.
[Target: Blood-Horn Minotaur. High E-Rank Boss.]
[Status: Very aggressive. Thick skin reduces damage by 60%.]
Zen reached to his side and drew his weapon. Since his cheap sword shattered in the sewers last night, he had grabbed a standard-issue, unsharpened Academy training blade from the weapon rack right before stepping on the teleportation pad.
It was basically a heavy metal stick.
"System," Zen thought. "What are the odds of this training sword piercing its hide?"
[Calculating... 0%. The blade is blunt. You must target unarmored vitals: the eyes, the inner mouth, or the base of the skull beneath the fur.]
Before Zen could plan his attack, a massive sound echoed through the cavern.
BOOM.
The entire cave vibrated. Dust and small rocks rained down from the ceiling. The sound came from the stone wall to the east.
Valeria.
She was punching her way through the dungeon to get to him.
"System, how long until she breaks through?" Zen asked, his heart beating faster.
[Based on the density of the rock and her mana output, she will breach your chamber in exactly fifty-five seconds.]
Zen gritted his teeth. If Valeria broke through that wall and saw him using ancient techniques to fight a High E-Rank boss, his cover as a weak student was completely gone. She would know he was the Emperor. She would never let him out of her sight again.
If he didn't fight, the Minotaur would crush him right now.
"Fifty-five seconds " Zen said. He gripped the training sword with both hands and pushed his newly expanded Mid F-Rank magic into his legs. "Let's make it quick."
The Minotaur snorted, blowing a cloud of steam from its nose. It charged.
Every step the beast took shook the dirt under Zen's feet. It raised the massive battleaxe and brought it down in a brutal, vertical chop.
Zen didn't run away. He waited until the blade was inches from his face.
First Step: The Emperors Stride.
Zen turned his foot and slid smoothly to the right, avoiding the monsters momentum entirely. The battleaxe slammed into the dirt where he had just been standing, burying itself into the ground.
The Minotaur roared in anger, trying to yank the axe out of the floor.
Zen didn't give it the chance. He dashed forward, stepping directly onto the side of the stuck axe blade. He used it as a springboard, launching himself up toward the beast's face.
The Minotaur opened its mouth to bite him, its sharp teeth coated in foul-smelling saliva.
Zen spun in mid-air. He didn't try to cut it. He used the handle at the bottom of his training sword and smashed it directly into the Minotaur's glowing yellow eye.
The beast shrieked in pain throwing its head back and blindly swinging its massive chained arm.
The iron chain clipped Zen in the ribs.
"Gah!" Zen grunted as the force threw him through the air. He hit the cavern wall hard, tumbling into the dirt.
[Warning: Minor rib break detected. Core stability remains intact.]
BOOM.
The eastern wall cracked. A spiderweb of fractures spread across the stone. Dust poured out. Valeria was getting closer.
[Estimated breach time: Twenty seconds.]
"Come on," Zen hissed, forcing himself up. He spat a mouthful of blood onto the floor.
The Minotaur was furious. With one eye completely ruined, it grabbed the iron chains wrapped around its arms and whipped them through the air like deadly flails. The heavy iron links smashed into the stone pillars around the room shattering them like glass.
Zen watched the chains swing. He couldn't get close enough to strike its neck without getting his head taken off.
"I have to use its own strength," Zen thought.
He ran forward, deliberately stepping into the Minotaur's line of sight.
The beast roared and whipped its heavy right chain directly at Zen's chest. Zen dropped to his knees, sliding across the dirt. The chain flew over his head.
Before the Minotaur could pull the chain back Zen jammed his training sword down into the dirt right through one of the heavy iron links, pinning the chain to the ground.
The Minotaur yanked its arm back, but the chain was stuck tight. The sudden massive resistance threw the beast off balance. It stumbled forward and dropped to one knee.
"Now," Zen said.
He jumped off the ground, over the monster's thick shoulder. As he passed over its back, he didn't pull from his own weak core. Instead, he forced his lungs to inhale the heavy, ancient mana of the unmapped dungeon.
Primordial Void Breathing.
It felt like inhaling liquid fire. For a fraction of a second, his mortal body acted like a god's, boosting his physical strength to an S-Rank level.
He didn't need a sword.
Zen drove his fist directly into the base of the Minotaur's skull. The ancient technique focused all of that stolen, explosive ambient energy into a needle-like point.
CRACK.
The sound of the monster's spine snapping echoed loudly through the quiet cavern.
The Minotaur froze. Its remaining yellow eye rolled back into its head. The massive beast collapsed forward, hitting the dirt with a lifeless thud.
[Target Eliminated.]
Zen fell to his knees next to the massive body, gasping for air. His hand was bruised and bleedimg and his ribs ached terribly, but he was alive.
BOOM!
The eastern wall completely exploded. Massive boulders flew across the room smashing into the dirt.
A thick cloud of dust filled the air.
From the center of the dust, a figure stepped out. Her golden Aegis mana was burning so intensely it lit up the entire cavern.
"Zen!" Valeria screamed. Her voice was pure, psychotic panic.
Zen quickly kicked the hilt of his training sword, knocking it out of the iron chain. He scrambled backward, pressing himself against the cavern wall and putting on his best scared face.
"Val! I'm here!" Zen yelled, waving his hand weakly.
Valeria's head snapped toward him. She dashed across the room, moving so fast that she was just like a blur of light. She dropped to her knees in front of him, her hands frantically grabbing his shoulders.
"You're bleeding," she gasped, seeing the blood on his mouth and his bruised knuckles. She looked past him, saw the dead Blood-Horn Minotaur lying on the floor.
Her red eyes went wide. The golden mana around her flared violently, cracking the stone floor beneath her knees.
"Who did this?" Valeria whispered. Her voice wasn't loud. It was deadly quiet. "Who killed it?"
"I... I don't know " Zen lied, making his voice shake. "It was chasing me. It swung its chain. The chain got caught on that rock over there. It then tripped and hit its head against the wall. I think it broke its own neck."
Valeria stared at the beast then looked back at Zens bruised hands.
She didn't look like she believed him.
"It tripped," Valeria repeated slowly. Her red eyes looked at him trying to see if he was telling the truth. "A High E-Rank boss just tripped and died."
Zen swallowed hard. "I got lucky."
Valeria moved in close to him. Her face was inches from his. He could feel the heat coming off of her skin.
"You are really lucky, Zen," Valeria said quietly. She used her thumb to wipe the blood from his lip. "But I think something else is going on," she said.
"What do you mean?" Zen asked her.
Valeria smiled a dark, obsessive smile that sent shovers down his spine.
"I think you are hiding something from me," she said softly. "And I am going to find out what it is."