Chapter 680: The Tricky Tunnel [Part 2]
Northern stood motionless, his glowing eyes fixed on the ripple in the tunnel.
His breathing steadied, and his frustration melted into calculated calm.
That reaction of the tunnel just now... how could he bring it again?
The only solution so far was his terrifying speed, but that caused his body to munch on his stamina like a starved glutton.
He might not even make it before the tunnel submits to the threats of his overwhelming speed. And even if it does, it is not just going to reveal the same weakness again.
The ripple.
That somehow absorbed and adapted to his Void tendrils. Northern thought of using Black Lance or Black Flames but shook his head immediately.
An attack on the level of Black Lance would no doubt destroy the fortifications of the illusion, but it could affect the dungeon on a much more terrifying scale and even go ahead to resonate in the academy itself.
Northern wanted no mishaps at all with his plan to use the dungeon. The only time where an attack like that can be considered is in a wide area where he was sure what would happen and its scale.
Or when he truly has no use for the dungeon anymore. So he had to turn to something else.
At the very least, he now knew that the illusion was not unbreakable but adaptive.
If so, the only reasonable thing to do to it was...
"Push its adaptation until it cracked," Northern mumbled.
Chaos Eyes gleamed with a chilling evilness, like the cold look of primal Darkness itself.
Void tendrils plunged out of his back but this time, immediately and seamlessly blending into perfect lustrous feathers.
Northern flapped them widely, creating a massive shudder in the air.
He took a slow, deliberate step back, his Void wings spreading wide before he vanished in a flicker of motion.
This time, his speed was precise-not a relentless sprint, but controlled bursts of acceleration. Each movement sent ripples cascading through the illusion, forcing it to twist and shift in response.
He stopped suddenly, his Void feathers anchoring him mid-stride.
His eyes darted to a faint shimmer in the wall ahead as a crude blackish staff with twin blades manifested into his hands.
Without hesitation, he hurled Grengar toward the ripple. The impact sent a shockwave through the tunnel, and for a moment, the illusion faltered.
The walls flickered, revealing a glimpse of something darker and more alien beneath.
Northern's smirk widened. "Gotcha."
But the illusion retaliated. Shadows bled from the walls, oozing toward him like living ink. Northern sidestepped with a flicker of speed, leaving afterimages in his wake.
He struck the twin-bladed staff again, aimed at a weak point further down the tunnel. The shadows recoiled, but the walls began to close in, tightening like a vice.
Northern slowed, letting the Void Aura around him grow heavier.
The air chilled as he focused his essence inward. His movements became sharper, more efficient.
He no longer wasted energy trying to break free through sheer force. Instead, he targeted the illusion's weaknesses methodically, testing its limits with each strike.
He alternated his techniques-bursting forward with speed to force the illusion to react, then retreating to a safe distance to analyze its response.
Chaos Eyes scanned for vulnerabilities, tracing the patterns of how the illusion adapted.
Each time the illusion reshaped itself, Northern took note. It couldn't react instantly; there was always a delay, however slight. He exploited that delay, striking weak points faster than the illusion could heal.
As the battle continued, the tunnel began to falter. Cracks spread across its surface, and the oppressive darkness wavered.
Northern could feel the strain in the illusion's fabric, its adaptive nature struggling to keep up with his unrelenting assault.
Northern focused and continued to bash crude attacks each time he used the sudden burst of that heightened speed to stress the fabric of the illusion.
It was a precise, methodical, and meticulous approach that he dared not mess up, not once. This way, he would not lavish his stamina because he also had to consider that there was most likely an abomination outside this illusion.
The reason for the illusion itself, and Northern was guessing a Leviathan... hopefully not. Northern vanished through the air, blurring out his entire form as he slung his hand back and threw Grengar with tremendous force.
The twin-bladed staff screamed eerily through the air as it took a terrifying dive towards the moving shadows on the wall.
The shadows quivered as if in response. A low, resonant hum filled the air, like the growl of a cornered beast.
The tunnel seemed to shrink around him, its walls pulsing with unnatural energy. But Northern didn't falter.
Northern shifted gears, moving with unpredictable patterns. One moment he was a blur of motion, the next he stood perfectly still, his Void wings coiled and ready.
As the feathers of the wing expanded, razor-sharp edges gleamed in the darkness. He launched strikes from every angle, pushing the illusion to stretch itself thin.
Finally, the weak points began to unravel.
The shimmering threads that held the illusion together started to fray, exposing glimpses of
the true reality beneath.
Northern's Chaos Eyes burned brighter, locking onto the source of the distortion.
As Northern prepared for his final strike, the illusion lashed out in desperation.
Shadows surged toward him, forming tendrils of their own, writhing and snapping like
serpents.
Northern's Void wings met them head-on, piercing through the shadows like blades of light cutting through darkness with clean precision.
Within the brutal showdown of both tendrils clawing and cutting down each other, Northern's Chaos Eyes pierced through the turmoil, revealing the heart of the illusion.
It was a pulsating mass of darkness embedded in the tunnel wall, its surface alive with
rippling shadows. The entity emanated a bone-chilling aura, its presence oppressive and
suffocating.
Northern did not think he had ever come across something so terrifying; there was something strange about the mass of darkness.
He could not make it out, nor could Chaos Eyes discern what it was. But deep in his soul, a primal awareness of something incomprehensibly dangerous registered.
The pulsating mass of darkness trembled as Northern's presence bore down on it, his Void wings flaring and casting ominous shadows across the collapsing tunnel.
The oppressive aura around him tightened, suffocating the air as the illusion's heart writhed, struggling to maintain its control. Northern's Chaos Eyes shone with icy brilliance, tearing through the layers of distortion.
Northern raised his hand, Void tendrils coiling and twisting into a spiraling lance. It hummed with a thick and intimidating resonance, threads of the Void tendrils twisting to give
perfection to the lance.
"This ends here," Northern said with a cold voice.
With a burst of speed, he hurled the lance toward the heart of the illusion.
It struck true, piercing the pulsating mass and releasing a deafening, guttural roar that
echoed through the collapsing tunnel.
The walls quaked violently, cracks racing along their surface as the very fabric of the illusion
unraveled.
The heart of the illusion disintegrated, its threads fraying into nothingness.
The oppressive darkness dissolved into faint wisps, revealing the true environment around Northern. He stood amidst a vast cavern, its walls jagged and uneven, glowing faintly with an
unnatural light.
But the battle was far from over.
From the remnants of the illusion's heart, a grotesque figure began to emerge.
Its form was amorphous, shifting and twisting erratically, as though it couldn't decide on a shape. Limbs extended and retracted in unnatural jerks, its flesh shimmering like liquid
obsidian.
Faces-multiple, grotesque faces-formed and melted across its surface, each expression locked in a scream of agony or a sinister grin.
The creature was a living nightmare, a manifestation of distortion and deception. Its body pulsed with an unnatural kind of essence, and as it moved, it left faint echoes of itself in the air, as though reality struggled to keep up with its presence.
It was both there and not, seemingly existing in fragments across dimensions. Northern instinctively stepped back, his Void Aura intensifying as the creature fixed its shifting eyes-or what could pass as eyes-on him.
The cavern shuddered as its presence grew, filling the space with an almost unbearable
weight.
'...Holy crap, crap, crap. What the fuck is this?' Northern cursed, gritting his teeth painfully. The most annoying thing was, the monster was a Belial rank. A Calamitous Belial.
'Since when were Belials so powerful?'
Northern vividly remembered what it felt like to fight the Apex Belial. It was no doubt strong,
but the odds were tipped to his favor thanks to the kind of skills he happened to copy.
In as much as he would almost call it easy, he didn't think the monster was something
Lieutenant Dante would have been able to defeat on his own.
It was an Apex Belial after all.
And yet, here he stood, with a Calamitous Belial, that was no doubt, ten times more powerful
than the one he had fought before.
'What in the world is wrong with this monster ranking system?'