Max gritted his teeth and aimed his sword at Nevin's heart, pushing forward, but he stopped at the last possible moment.
"I can't do it," he said, sitting down. "I wouldn't hesitate if it was some assassin I didn't know or someone who wanted to kill me. But you, Nevin, I can't kill you."
Max stared at the heavily injured Nevin, who was bleeding from his hands and mouth.
"Why can't you just listen to me?" he shouted at Nevin.
"It doesn't matter," Nevin muttered, his voice low.
Max frowned, a look of hesitation flashing across his face, but he still asked, "Who sent you to kill me?"
"Is this the reason you hesitated to kill me just now?" Nevin sneered.
Max remained silent. He knew that wanting to know the mastermind behind the attack played a major role in keeping Nevin alive, but that didn't mean he would cruelly kill his only best friend if there hadn't been such a reason—or so he thought.
Seeing Max's silence, Nevin chuckled wryly. "Damn, you really are a two-faced bastard."
"Just tell me who is behind it, Nevin," Max asked again.
"Seeing you so desperate, I'll tell you, as the good friend I am," Nevin mocked, his expression turning serious. "I don't know the reason, nor do I know if it's related to your big sister, but the one who wants you dead is the overlord of the East Region."
"Overlord of the East Region?" Max's eyes went wide with shock. "You mean the Top Five Guilds and Four Super Families?"
"Hehe, correct." Nevin smiled, his eyes narrowing. "I was sent by the Blades to kill you."
"Blade Family?" Max frowned and etched this name on his heart. He didn't know if the Blade Family had a hand in the disappearance of his sister or not, but he was glad he finally found something he could pursue.
Though he already had one target he had decided to investigate since the day he lost contact with his sister.
"So, now that you've gotten what you wanted to know... how are you going to deal with me?" Nevin asked after some silence between the two.
"I don't know," Max replied, feeling very conflicted.
"Then die!" Nevin unexpectedly attacked Max at that moment with his lightning sword aimed at Max's heart.
Max's eyes went wide as the lightning sword came toward him, but he had already seen the attack coming with his Three Dimensional Body skill, so he wasn't caught off guard. He put his sword in front to block the lightning sword. However, what happened next shocked him to his core.
The lightning sword that Nevin had aimed at Max's heart dissipated abruptly, vanishing into thin air before it could strike. At the same moment, Max's sword, which he had intended to use defensively, pierced straight into Nevin's heart.
"NO!" Max cried out loud, but it was already too late. His sword had pierced deep into Nevin's heart as he stood over Max.
Drip! Drip! Drip!
Drops of blood fell on Max's face from Nevin's body as he stared up at him in shock and horror.
"You're probably wondering why..." Nevin's voice was barely above a whisper, yet to Max, it rang with piercing clarity.
"The truth is, Max... I never intended to kill you—not after I got to know you. Not after we became best friends... brothers..." His words broke off as he coughed violently, blood spilling from his lips. Yet he pressed on, his voice trembling with emotion. "You see, Max, I was... one of the death soldiers of the Blade Family. I didn't have a family, nor had I ever experienced the warmth of a family. But being with you... it made me understand what it truly meant to have a family."
Nevin's breaths grew shallower, but his resolve to speak did not waver. "These two years... they weren't just time to me. They changed me. You changed me. You became the one person I could care about, the one person I could call family. And because of that..." He paused, his chest heaving as he fought for air, his voice heavy with pain and regret. "You became the one person I couldn't betray. That's why... I decided long ago... if the Blade Family ever ordered your execution..."
He coughed again, his body convulsing weakly. "It would have to end like this." Tears welled in his eyes, reflecting a lifetime of sorrow, guilt, and love.
Just like that, the light in his eyes faded away, and he died.
"Nevin..." With trembling hands, Max pushed Nevin's body aside and stood up.
Standing before Nevin's lifeless body, Max's thoughts spiraled, replaying Nevin's final words like a haunting melody that refused to fade.
"Blade Family..." he muttered, his voice laced with venom. The name burned on his tongue, igniting a deep, unrelenting hatred that surged through his entire being.
It was a feeling unlike anything he had ever experienced—raw, consuming, and primal. Bloodlust swirled within him, dark and unyielding, paired with an insatiable urge to annihilate everything connected to the Blade Family.
Max clenched his fists hard and took a deep breath. He understood that rage wouldn't lead to anything but his downfall, and calmness was the only solution to everything.
"But I still need to become strong," he muttered to himself as he came to his senses. He knew that only by having enough strength would he be able to knock on the doors of the Blade Family.
"If the disappearance of my sister is indeed related to the Blade Family, then I'll definitely knock on their doors one day. There's no need to hurry about it," he said to himself resolutely before putting Nevin's corpse in his storage space.
"Let's kill the dungeon boss and be done with this dungeon," he muttered before heading back to the others.
***
Arriving before the other students, Max noticed that almost everyone had sat down a little way from the long structure, aside from those going for the boss monster.
"What took you so long?" William immediately asked as soon as he spotted Max.
"Hehe, I forgot to check the time while training," Max smiled embarrassedly and turned to look at Zixi and Henry, causing his expression to become a little strange. "Didn't you guys level up after absorbing the level 3 cores?" he asked, noticing that all three still appeared to be at level 2.
"We didn't level up after absorbing all those level 2 cores and some level 3 cores," Zixi said, contemplating. "I think one would need a lot of the same level of cores, if not higher, to level up, but I'm not sure."
"You mean if I want to increase to level 3, then I would need lots of level 3 cores for that," Max said, pondering. "Doesn't that mean level 2 cores are useless for us?"
"It's not useless; it's just that we'd need an even larger amount of level 2 cores if we want to level up with only level 2 cores," William chimed in.
Max nodded, finding it strange that the academy books mentioned many things about dungeons and their workings but had no records of anything about leveling up.
"Well, it doesn't matter anyway," Max said to them with a smirk. "I'll handle the boss monster myself while you guys keep busy with the its minions inside."