CHAPTER 77: "I’LL HOLD THEM OFF."

They moved fast. Through tangled roots, fog-drenched trees, and whispering shadows that sometimes had eyes.

The deeper they went, the more the forest warped. Some trees breathed. Some bled. The sky never changed—it stayed that same bruised-red twilight, like time had stopped just to watch them suffer.

They didn’t talk much anymore. The first wave had stripped away the nerves, the jokes, even the panic.

This was survival now.

Lucian halted after the fifth engagement.

The monsters were getting smarter.

More coordinated.

The last batch had tried to flank them with an overhead ambush—winged serpents that moved like scythes through the trees, while two burrowers attacked from below. Reia had barely dodged a spine to the throat. Silas was bleeding again. Evelyn’s barrier spells were burning twice as much mana as before just to hold.

Lucian scanned the area.

They weren’t going anywhere.

This place wasn’t a normal gate.

He could feel it in the walls of the world. The way it kept bending, the horizon shifting with every mile like they were running in a loop.

"...Shit," he muttered.

"What?" Reia asked, panting.

Lucian didn’t answer at first. Then he looked up, closed his eyes, and reached into the pulse of the air.

It was alive.

A dungeon.

No, not just any dungeon—an endless dungeon.

A sealed realm feeding on their mana, their struggle. A biome created to break intruders piece by piece.

It wouldn’t let them leave.

Not until they killed the core.

Lucian opened his eyes. "This place has no end."

The others stared.

"We’re stuck in a dungeon cycle. It won’t stop spawning monsters until we’re dead or we break the system."

"So where’s the core?" Silas asked, voice hoarse.

Lucian exhaled. "I don’t know. Yet."

Reia looked down at her hands. "We can’t keep this pace. Evelyn’s spent, Vyn’s out of cooldowns, and Silas might be running on fumes."

Lucian didn’t argue.

He looked at the monster cores in his pouch. Then he opened his system and pulled out another cache—his reward from Zenith Week. Cores from named monsters, elite creatures, and a few high S-tier beasts he’d stored without even thinking about it.

He dropped the pouch to the ground.

The cores clattered—pulsing, glowing, alive with mana.

"Take them," he said.

Everyone froze.

Evelyn shook her head. "Lucian—"

"No," he said sharply. "I’m not asking. Take them."

Silas opened his mouth, but Reia cut him off with a hand.

Lucian went on. "You level up now. You break through. S-Rank, or close. That’s the only shot we’ve got."

"And you?" Vyn asked quietly.

Lucian turned.

His eyes didn’t glow. His aura didn’t spike. But something heavy rolled off his body. A quiet storm rising.

"I’ll hold them off."

Reia whispered, "...Alone?"

He nodded.

"Lucian," Evelyn started.

But he was already pulling the blade from his system.

It didn’t appear—it unfolded.

A ripple in the air.

Like the concept of a weapon took form.

It started as a shimmer, then solidified into a black-forged longsword with crimson traces along the edge. The metal didn’t shine—it drank light. And it shifted in shape slightly with every heartbeat, almost like it was waiting for a command.

Lucian stepped forward.

The earth behind him cracked slightly.

"Form a circle," he said, not looking back. "Absorb the cores. Don’t stop until I say."

The monsters were coming again.

He could hear them.

The screeches, the snorts, the pounding of limbs against rotting soil.

Reia nodded first.

She pulled the cores in.

Vyn sat cross-legged and began the mana sync process, eyes closed, breathing steady.

Silas groaned but joined. Evelyn clutched a core in both hands, trying not to shake.

Lucian stepped out to meet the wave.

The trees parted.

They came in droves.

Horrors. Winged. Crawling. Armored. Each one at least A-Rank, but some far worse.

Lucian didn’t wait.

He vanished.

Fold Step.

He blinked to the first creature and split it in half mid-leap. His blade adjusted with the momentum, bending like a whip before solidifying again. The strike left no blood—just a severed shadow that didn’t know it was dead.

Another monster lunged.

Lucian ducked under a blade-tail, spun, and let the weapon turn into a chain whip. It lashed the monster’s throat, then ripped upward in a clean arc that decapitated two more.

He moved like smoke.

Where he went, monsters fell.

Ten.

Twenty.

Thirty.

The field started to turn into a graveyard of cores.

Back at the circle, the others were glowing.

Reia’s body sparked as her mana system expanded. She clenched her fists, cracking the dirt beneath her. Vyn’s eyes opened—sharp, glassy black with violet rings forming. Silas gritted his teeth as light burst from his chest, bones rattling as his physique evolved. Evelyn began floating slightly, the air around her dancing with silver threads.

They were changing.

Breaking through.

And Lucian kept fighting.

A beast with crystal armor roared and slammed down its claws. Lucian parried, let his blade morph into a massive axe mid-swing, shattered the armor, then turned the axe into a spear to pierce the core.

Another came. This one with wings and flame breath. It opened its jaws—Lucian blinked above it, drove a hammer-shaped weapon down onto its skull, and caved it in.

Blood. Dust. Mana light.

The system pinged in the back of his mind, but he ignored it.

No time.

No pause.

The monsters just kept coming.

And still—he didn’t fall back.

Behind him, his team glowed brighter and brighter, until the very ground beneath them began to tremble from the overload of rising cores.

Lucian breathed out once.

The monsters paused for a second, confused.

He didn’t look human anymore.

His eyes were faintly red. The coat trailing him flowed like shadowcloth. And the blade in his hand had stopped changing form.

It had found its shape now.

A longsword with a wide core and shifting runes, pulsing with spatial energy.

Lucian planted one foot forward, raised the blade—and faced the next wave.

Alone.

But not weak.

And behind him, the ones he trusted most...

...were finally catching up.

A/N

The character illustration is out, you can check it out in the novel page and vote for your favorite character. Thank you.