CHAPTER 41: DUNGEON ANOMALY

Isolde’s golden-orange eyes dilated. She had always overlooked things like this, but the ability to kill a sandworm proved that he was indeed growing at a tremendously fast pace.

Sandworms were the type of mini-boss constantly on the move, so anyone could encounter them anywhere. They were dangerous and to be avoided, yet Godfrey went ahead and killed two when no one else dared face even one.

Such courage!

It had just been two months since he enrolled in Manhattan, and he was already catching up to the elites of the sophomores despite awakening with the freshmen as a low tier.

Snow’s face darkened while Lucian from House Polaris, who was also gathered outside, quivered. "H—He killed another one."

Nathaniel looked at Rosalind, Seraphina, and Lucian with raised eyebrows, while Alistair’s eyes barely narrowed, though he was more shocked at the sandworm than their faces.

"You knew about this?" Nathaniel asked with a slight frown.

"At least I know whatever he awakens isn’t a golem like you said, Alistair," Seraphina replied sharply, while Rosalind secretly trembled. One move, just one move, and she would have revealed herself before Godfrey faced the raptor horde.

Letting those below her know their place was something she enjoyed, as when they stepped across, it made her feel sick. However, the sight of Ballista’s Trail Blazer traumatized her.

On the other hand, Edwin exploded, veins bulging across his neck. "You went against another one? How can you recklessly throw yourself into danger! You were out of mana the last time because of the same beast!"

"I had the opportunity to get stronger without the threat of death. I simply took it." Godfrey’s reply made a good number of his classmates embarrassed.

Most of them had forgotten they wouldn’t truly die. Some were still afraid despite knowing.

Edwin simply sighed while Godfrey approached the crowd, his lips curling into an uncontrollable smile when he saw Isolde staring at him. He tried to maintain a straight face but failed miserably. The blame was on his face for not listening to his mind.

Isolde rolled her eyes, tilting her head in the other direction as a charming smile blossomed on her face, only for her to see Godfrey peeking from the corner of her eyes. Her cheeks grew hot as embarrassment washed over her.

She let out a feeble laugh and punched his stomach, and Godfrey held his abdomen, staggering backward before Edwin’s loud throat-clearing snapped them back to the reality of where they stood.

Godfrey lowered his head at Edwin’s glare, while the students behind didn’t know what to think anymore.

"Fourth place..." The moment Edwin said that, tension returned to the crowd. Everyone, including Godfrey, perked their ears to hear who would be the fourth.

Because the trucks had been attending to the corpses for days, no one knew their exact rank anymore. They couldn’t access through the heap of corpses, but that was already gone. The only remaining source was Edwin.

"At fourth place is Cecil with 510 points." Edwin’s announcement sent an uproar throughout the throng of students. Isolde glanced at Godfrey from the corner of her right eye.

"I thought Godfrey would come fourth since they haven’t announced his name. He stopped hunting for four days, spent eighty points out of his hundred points, and still beat Cecil?!" A student held her mouth in shock.

"So he came third. He beat me." Cecil frowned, clenching her fist, but when she saw Edwin’s expression change to shock, her conviction faltered.

"Snow comes second with 862 points..." Before anyone could speak, he continued. "And so does Godfrey with 862 points."

Snow froze. In that moment, the shock and gasps of the crowd were distant as he felt something within him crack. Godfrey... was now a threat to his position!

The same boy who couldn’t withstand his illusive powers.

"Hey, Godfrey might be higher than Snow if he didn’t use those first hundred points."

Hearing that made Snow seethe.

"Isolde comes first with a staggering amount of 2110 points."

Whatever Isolde scored didn’t matter to him. She was a Pendragon anyway, ranked amongst the top ten families which had produced several king tiers. She pushed him down to second place in class, but Godfrey could not make him take any step lower.

He would never!

Snow began to chuckle. His chuckle caused a sudden silence to befall the crowd as fear seeped into the students.

Isolde might be powerful, and Godfrey might have terrifying knights, but one move from Snow and a good number of them could be trapped in terrifying illusions or become petrified.

Those closest to him wanted to shift, but fear kept them in place. Snow might snap and descend on the first person to move. Their eyes locked on Edwin and Julia, pleading for help.

Godfrey turned, his ocean-blue eyes clashing with Snow’s. He doubted Snow would make a move now or suffer being penalised and losing quite a chunk of his points.

Right now, they could share second place, but if he made one stupid move, he would kiss third place, and Snow was smart enough to know that.

He wasn’t Dale, but the more Godfrey thought about it, the more he saw resemblance in both. Snow had always been nonchalant and lazy because he was at the top.

He was respected and feared. That cushioned his previous attitude. But now, that arrogance, uncontrollable anger, and thick sense of superiority, just like Dale, was on display.

With a slight tilt of his eyes, Snow saw Isolde’s glare and instinctively flinched. This wasn’t the school grounds; she wasn’t restricted here. They had tests once they returned to school. Should Isolde make a move here, the school nurse might not be able to heal him on time, and his score would drop even lower.

He scowled and turned away.

"Uhm... I don’t think that’s supposed to be there," Julia said, and everyone turned to what she was pointing at. Terror filled their eyes.

At the far horizon, the clouds had turned pitch black and rumbled heavily with green thunder and lightning, along with a fierce gale that picked up the sand.

Edwin’s eyes glowed like headlights as he gained Omni-perception, allowing him to see what was going on. His face paled at the sight of three adult sandworms, hundreds of meters long, with rotting bodies and thousands of undead soldiers led by an undead atop a rotting white wolf.

"Everyone get into the bus!"

....

A/N: Second Chap is coming soon!

I feel like we’re going to cross 200 powerstones this week so let’s do it! Also 25 golden tickets on the first day of the month!!

Cheers!