CHAPTER 105: HER

"You are on the wrong way from the very beginning. There’s a simple route to reach the edge of the dungeon." Lukas scoffed with a mocking face. His words made everyone widen their eyes to the limit.

’But shouldn’t this be...’ Johan clearly remembered the basic directions of the dungeon from the game, and the fact there was only one way down.

Lukas narrowed his eyes, judging Johan’s thoughts from his emotions. ’How does he know anything at all about here? Maybe some special ability, or contract with a spirit...’ He quickly shook his head. He wasn’t his enemy anymore, so no point in caring about the specifics.

"Yes, there is only one way down, but while exploring this dungeon with other manabeasts, we located over fifty thousand advanced teleportation circles. Even if those two destroyed some, there’s no way all should be. We can try if you want?" Lukas explained seriously, not leaving out any detail.

For a dungeon that expanded almost to an infinite distance, he had to rely on them to search for good prey with a lot of negative emotions.

Johan nodded. Obviously, nothing like this was mentioned in the game. Maybe in one choice where Leor managed to make a contract with a manabeast, but Johan didn’t remember it properly.

"Sure. We need to reach there as soon as possible."

With that, all four of them got behind Lukas, the [Gravitational Bubble] still activated on all five of them, quickly crossing into a vast plain area.

[Gravitational Bubble], even though it made them theoretically invisible, could still be seen by people with strong senses—who could see wavelengths of light and gravity through their Aetheric senses.

They quickly broke into a sprint that looked like flying, traveling over ten kilometers in seconds.

A shiny door, made of pure silver, immediately stood out among the darkness of the entire cave. It seemed like a door to a closed cavern-like space, giving off an ominous vibe.

If Johan wasn’t sure of the contract’s ability, he would never agree to follow a stranger and let them teleport him anywhere they wanted.

Teleportation circles worked like wormholes in space, connected through Aether with space-time properties—so one needed to know the exact Aether signature of their destination (coordinates).

Lukas grabbed the silver handle with his right hand, and with one light tuck sound—it opened smoothly, like a modern house door. Surprising, for a dungeon potentially millions of years old.

Johan and the group quickly entered the dimly lit room right behind Lukas. It was illuminated by a candle that didn’t seem to be melting—just enough to reveal a triangle drawn with white lines, filled with thousands of small symbols and shapes that seemed incomprehensible to everyone except Johan, who could barely understand it.

’Someone must have hand-drawn this—each symbol. Even one mistake could lead to being transported to a strange space anywhere in the vast universe...’ Johan’s eyes turned admiring at the beauty of the hundred-meter-wide triangle.

As someone who understood Aether and magic, this was the greatest art piece that could ever exist. And then the creator of this dungeon did the same perfection of work thousands of times. Truly a madlad.

Johan felt nothing but respect for them.

Sebastian’s pupils dilated at the complexities. He instantly tried to memorize everything. He had personally been trying to learn wormhole-based long-distance teleportation for over three decades, barely making any progress.

Now, experiencing it firsthand might give him some grasp of the mechanics.

He hastily got over the spell’s area, intending to search for every symbol later using Velmire’s notes and understand their purpose. He currently looked like a mad scientist who just found an alien corpse lying around.

Others promptly followed. Lukas crouched on the ground, placing both his hands at the center of the circle as his expression hardened.

The white chalk vibrated. It slowly shifted from chalky white to pure silver, glowing blindingly.

Lukas tried to imagine the closest edge he had ever gone, but of course, he hadn’t gone too far—as the dungeon boss was something even he didn’t want to anger. (Though it probably was already dead at the hands of Leor and Radhaan.)

The light spread, brightening every part of the small room—and then, everyone’s mind went blank.

Johan’s pupils dilated as the light consumed him whole.

At first, there was nothing—no sound, no light, not even a sense of his own body.

Then pressure. Crushing, stretching—like his skin was being peeled off and snapped back on, over and over again.

His stomach turned inside out. His vision—if it could be called that—twisted in spirals of black and colorless light, as if space itself had lost its rules. He couldn’t scream.

There was no air, no sound—only the feeling of being dragged through something that didn’t want him there.

Time had no meaning. Seconds felt like hours, or maybe the other way around.

His body buzzed like it was full of electricity. Not painful—but wrong. Like every atom was humming out of sync, too fast, too loose.

Then, suddenly—impact.

Not a crash, not even a landing. More like a drop.

Gravity caught him mid-fall and yanked him back into existence. His chest convulsed.

He gasped, lungs clawing for air that felt thin and sharp. His fingers dug into something soft—dirt? Grass? It was hard to tell. Everything was too bright. Shapes bled into each other. His ears rang. His head throbbed.

For a moment, all he could do was lie there, with everyone in the similar condition, trembling, his heart pounding like it had to restart his whole body.

Sweat chilled on his skin. His mouth was dry. His eyes refused to focus.

And then he knew—he was somewhere else. Somewhere real. The world had changed.

He never imagined teleporting was this brutal. In all fictional shows he had seen, it was always a quick blink, and they were at their destination-perfectly fine.

But, a soft feminine voice suddenly rang in his ears, "You’re finally here..."

His breath paused in his throat. His entire body froze as if time had stopped. He could never not recognise this voice no matter in what condition.

’Selene!?’