CHAPTER:5 [ENERGY SPIKE]
Kai was still lying on the ground as Shino sat beside him. The setting sun painted the sky in fiery orange as Kai asked curiously,
"Shino, did you really have to go that far?"
Shino looked at him without turning his head, staring at Kai's massive body sprawled on the ground, and answered with a blank expression.
"I had to. Or your survival would've been close to zero."
Kai pushed himself up from the ground and sat beside Shino as the warm orange light of the setting sun washed over their faces. He asked randomly,
"Shino, what is your class and rank?"
Shino answered with a blank expression.
"Stellar Swordsman, S Rank."
Kai slowly tackled him and said,
"Bitch!"
Both friends sat quietly as the sun sank beyond the horizon and the moon rose above their heads before they finally left.
As Kai was walking away, he heard Shino's deep voice and glanced back.
"Be ready. Tomorrow is the day."
Kai nodded and went down the mountain, making his way toward his room on the first floor of the old building. He entered, cleaned up, ate the same bland bread, and went to sleep after checking his status.
Str: 60
Agi: 38
Dex: 35
Int: 92
Mana: 200
Status:
perm debuff: erasure existence
Temp debuff: body deformation
Chaos poisoning: 7.0
Class:
Guardian A
Skill:
Shapeless Shield: the user can shape the shield however he wants.
Authority:
Authority of defiance.
Authority of observation.
Authority of knowledge.
Warning: The host is connected to the god system
(My mana is growing pretty well.)
After that he slept like a log. The next morning he took a bath, ate his fair share of food, and wore his new armor.
It was made exactly as he had imagined — sleek, strong, and perfect for a tanker and swordsman. It had a dark hood and a blank white mask. He placed the sword-like rod in its scabbard and headed to the place where Shino was waiting.
After a while, a black car arrived to pick them up. The driver introduced himself as someone from the Awakened Association. He was a man with short black hair, eyes hidden behind dark glasses, and a black tuxedo that looked like it had been thrown on in a hurry. His face was serious as he asked with a deep but gentle voice,
"And this awakened?"
Shino looked at Kai and told the man in black,
"He's with me. A tanker."
The man studied Kai with a questionable look, then seemed impressed by the fierce appearance of Kai in the black ivory knight armor.
"Oh great. Let's go. The guild that sent their team is waiting."
After getting into the car, the driver sped off like a madman, clearly in a rush. Halfway through the journey, Shino asked,
"What rank dungeon are we going to?"
The driver answered while keeping his eyes glued to the road.
"It's a D-rank dungeon near the New City."
Kai didn't know much about dungeons — there wasn't much information in the library — so he asked Shino,
"Umm… Shino, what actually are dungeons?"
Shino looked at him with surprise.
"Don't you know it already?"
"I know it's a different dimension, but what is it actually?"
Shino thought for a moment before answering.
"When the Great Cataclysm happened, a world merged with ours. We call it the Dreamer World. It was later sealed by the Celestials, but the deeper part of that world — called the Abyss, where the demons live — sometimes opens pocket dimensions in our world. That is what we call Dungeons."
As they talked about dungeons and the horrors that came out of them, they arrived at their destination without even realizing it.
Kai and Shino left the car and started moving toward the blue tent set up a little farther from the dungeon entrance. As Kai moved closer, he felt an unusual frequency of mana pulsing from the dungeon, but he ignored it, thinking he was just nervous, and entered the tent to meet the team.
As they stepped inside, a man with a long face, a blank and serious expression, and a thick scar running from his left eye to his right cheek stood up and introduced himself.
"Nice to meet you. I am Reginald, a swordsman. That woman over there is Sia, an assassin. That bulky guy is Tetsu, a tanker. And that guy in the corner is Yumito, an archer."
Then Shino introduced them for better cooperation.
"I am Shino, a swordsman, and he is Kai, a tanker."
After the formal introductions, they started planning their moves and divided into three parts. Shino, Kai, and Reginald formed the main expedition team. Yumito and Tetsu were the long-range support, and Sia decided to act as scout.
After planning, Shino pulled Kai aside and whispered in his ear,
"Don't fight unless it's necessary. Save your mana as much as possible and only use your shield. Got it?"
Kai nodded. They were called to enter the dungeon. The dungeon was a thick, dark green forest inhabited by simple monsters like kobolds, but they didn't make their move yet — they were waiting for Sia.
Soon, Sia returned and disclosed the positions of the monsters. They went straight in. Since Kai only had to protect Reginald and Shino, he did it flawlessly. If his position was threatened, the archer helped from afar. They swept through the dungeon and soon reached the middle, where the boss should have been.
But there was no boss. Instead, they entered battle formation. Suddenly, the energy fluctuations in the dungeon went haywire. The middle area where they stood was separated from all sides by a massive crack that tore open the ground.
Sia, Tetsu, and Yumito were cut off by the crack. Then, werewolf-like creatures ascended from the fissure and surrounded the main force.
Shino's face paled. Reginald started sweating. Kai had no idea what to do — should he abandon the shield and go on the offensive?
Then he heard Reginald's urgent voice.
"Conjure your shield! Hell's coming to greet us!"
Kai conjured a small but compact shield around them. The ground began to shake violently as the creatures that had ascended from the crack flooded against his shield, forcing him right to the edge of the fissure.
Kai screamed in pain as the creatures hammered his shield, but he stayed firm and stiff to protect his friends.
It wasn't just him — both Reginald and Shino were also fighting desperately to fend off the invading creatures. After an hour of brutal defense, Shino was looking terrible. His face was even paler now that they were completely overwhelmed.
Desperate for escape, Kai came up with an idea and shouted at Reginald,
"Reginald, quickly grab Shino tightly!"
Reginald was confused about what he was planning in this situation, but he was desperate too. He grabbed Shino tightly. Suddenly they were wrapped in a ball of mana and shot out of the reach of the crack like a cannonball.
Kai blasted his shield, sending the creatures flying and disorienting them for a moment. Then he conjured it again — this time as a huge container to capture every single creature inside.
The creatures regained their senses extremely fast and charged toward him in a mad frenzy. But as soon as every single one of them entered the container, blinded by rage, Kai sealed it and started shrinking it at an alarming rate.
The creatures panicked and slammed against the walls with extreme force. Kai was crushing them, but the force they exerted was enough to throw him off the edge. As Kai fell toward the void, he crushed every single creature inside the container… but the crack suddenly closed right in front of his face and he fell through it.
Shino's face paled when the crack closed. He started cursing himself as he threw his sword in frustration and looked up at the fake sky of the dungeon.
"Fuck… damn it… why was I so overwhelmed?"
END OF CHAPTER:5