"No! Watch out!" One of the new entrants suddenly exclaimed as he started walking towards the screen displaying Atticus.
All the other operators in the control room turned their gazes toward him, their faces morphing into the same expression—confusion.
Is his brain working properly?
How the hell was Atticus supposed to hear him? They were all watching him through a screen!
If they all didn't know better, they would have said they were all currently watching a horror movie.
The man seemed to realize his stupidity as he suddenly cleared his throat, his face turning crimson in embarrassment. "Ahem, sorry about that," he said, retreating back a few steps.
The others didn't pay much attention to him and swiftly turned their gazes back toward the screen; they had no intention of missing a single thing.
The one person who hadn't taken away her gaze from the screen, even for a single moment, was Isabella. Her eyes were completely glued to the screen.
Isabella had a feeling. She had a feeling that this white-haired boy would still show them something mind-blowing.
….
Back in the caves.
Atticus kept on waking forward while releasing mana pulses from his core. He had no plans of letting down his guard for even a single second.
He had already circled around the boulder and had passed it for about 20 meters.
Just as Atticus took another step forward, his form abruptly froze.
'Something's off,' Atticus's thoughts raced.
Even before he was reincarnated in Eldoralth, Atticus had always been able to recall even the subtlest of details of something he had noted once.
And with each release of mana pulse from his core, Atticus was taking note of everything in a 50 meters radius away from him.
Atticus's intelligence was just far too high to miss a difference as glaring as what he just noticed.
When he had first felt it, the supposed boulder was only about 30 meters in height and half as wide.
But now, it had put on an extra 20 meters in height and not only that, Atticus had also moved 20 meters away from it, so why was it now only 10?
'A magical Beast,'
Atticus's realization was as swift as his movement, immediately stimulating his fire bloodline, his form instantly flickered to the side, narrowly avoiding three distinct attacks that cleaved through the space he had just occupied.
Instantaneously releasing a massive burst from his legs, Atticus's legs shot upwards, his head and torso descending, aligning with his legs in the air as the same attacks whizzed through the space where his legs and head had been.
The sudden burst of fire briefly illuminated the area allowing him to see the forms of the attacks—black tendrils.
Without even giving him a chance to breathe, as silent as a whisper, Atticus detected multiple tendrils darting through the air towards him.
Reacting with lightning speed, Atticus unleashed short, rapid bursts from his legs and arms with dangerous precision.
Each of his limbs moved in different directions in a burst of speed as he deftly evaded every attack targeting various parts of his form.
'I'm at a disadvantage, I have to distance myself,'
Even with how precarious this situation was, Atticus's heart rate didn't change for even a single second as he calmly assessed his situation.
Reacting immediately, Atticus pointed his hands downwards and released a colossal burst from his legs and arm, his form instantly shooting up into the skies.
Atticus knew very well that he was at a major disadvantage while he was in the air. His attacker clearly had a means to attack from a long distance.
But he had to create a distance between both of them because he had no idea what he was fighting, and remaining very close to it was dangerous.
'Let's fix the lighting first,' he decided.
Instantly focusing on his space ring, Atticus brought out multiple illumination runes, immediately imbuing each with mana and deftly tossing them each in different corners of the expansive space, this action done in less than a second.
Each of them simultaneously let out a blinding light, immediately illuminating the entire space.
And Atticus's heart couldn't help but clench at the horror he saw.
The cave was very expansive, being more than 500 meters wide. The ceiling was half as high, adorned with stalagmites whose pointed tips were deadly sharp.
But this obviously wasn't what made Atticus's heart clench.
It was two things.
The first being the incalculable number of dog-sized holes that were on every part of the space surrounding them, all looking as though anything could spill out at any given time.
And then the second was the terrifying magical beast he had assumed was a boulder earlier.
'Shadow Seraphon,' he instantly identified the beast.
Given all the information he had, Atticus had made a list of beasts that could be responsible.
And amongst these beasts, the Shadow Seraphon fits all the criteria.
The loud intense howl, the ability to control smaller weaker beasts, and the intense darkness of the cave he was in. It all pointed toward it.
Atticus's gaze scrutinized the creature's form, examining its features.
It possessed blood-red reptilian eyes that cut through the darkness, a massive round torso, and a smaller, equally round head exuding an intimidating presence.
An uncountable number of dark tendrils each with gleaming sharp ends extended from both its rear and head.
Its massive torso, which was what Atticus had termed a boulder, alone was 30 meters tall, but now using its tendrils from its rear to raise itself higher, it reached almost a staggering 70 meters.
But amongst these things, what made Atticus's eyes widened was one fact,
'Master rank!'
It was a master rank beast!
The beast was a higher rank than Atticus, and because it hadn't been actively releasing its aura earlier, Atticus hadn't been able to perceive its rank. But now? It became all too telling!
The Shadow Seraphon had dominion over the shadows, and Atticus had just stepped into its territory.
SCREEEEEHHHHHH!
The beast let out a deafening screech because of the sudden illumination, quickly using some of its tendrils to cover its eyes.
Suddenly, the darkness seemed to intensify in the cave and Atticus observed as each of the runes started flickering slightly, as though it could go off at any given moment.
'They won't last,' Atticus noted.
Normally, without any outside interference, each illumination rune should last for about 20 minutes. But Atticus could see that currently, they wouldn't even last for seconds.
'I have to end this fast,'