CHAPTER 152: SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST [I]

Lucius sighed.

’Fucking portal spells,’ he thought, shaking his head slowly.

His body still trembled from the strain of using that specific spell.

That last jump had drained the final drops of mana left in his veins, leaving him light-headed and weak.

He had poured everything into the spell... not just mana but his mental focus too.

He could feel it; the thin string of spatial energy still connecting him to the point where he’d thrown his team out of the dungeon.

He needed to hold it stable for a few more seconds to make sure it stayed open long enough for them to pass through safely before they got stuck in space.

And because of that, he couldn’t pull himself along.

’I hate you,’ he told the thread of space that was in his hand.

He slumped against the icy wall beside the cave entrance and let out another long, tired breath.

The frost on the stone hissed from the heat coming off his body.

Now it was silent.

He was alone.

’Great. Fucking great.’

He tilted his head back and tried to think.

Sure, there was an S-Rank who could break into a dungeon... but that guy was halfway across the world right now.

In the novels, Lucius remembered he didn’t show up again until the Eastern Raid Arc.

Meaning... there would be no backup neither any miracle rescue... It was just him.

’And not only that,’ Lucius thought with another sigh, ’I’m also blind and barely have any mana left.’

He flexed his fingers and felt nothing other than the exhaustion under his skin.

The space around him felt sluggish, like thick oil.

It was there... he could sense it but it refused to obey.

He couldn’t access the Higher space that was "roaming" in his body probably because he didn’t understand this level of space and couldn’t harness it.

The shift had brought him into a dungeon that existed at a higher dimensional threshold than his current power.

In short: he was screwed.

’I’m cooked,’ he thought bitterly.

He dragged a hand down his face and groaned.

"But then..." he muttered aloud, "I prepared for something like this."

He reached into his inventory and pulled out a small crystalline sphere.

It pulsed with violet light... the mana core from the lab, he had taken about 15 of them just in case.

He smirked. "Never say I don’t plan ahead."

He crushed the core in his palm.

It shattered like glass, and raw mana spilled into him, flowing through his veins like hot liquid fire.

He exhaled, feeling the warmth spreading.

Then he reached into his inventory again, pulling out another, and another, until the floor around him was littered with empty husks.

Ten in total.

By the time he was done, he felt human again... or as human as someone half-blind and freezing could feel.

Lucius rolled his shoulders, cracking his neck.

"Who knew my mana reserves were that high," he muttered.

The truth was, he had no idea what his actual mana limit was.

He had never needed to regulate before.

He always overflowed naturally.

But now, regulation meant survival.

He stood up, brushing the frost off his coat, and stared toward the entrance.

The giant boulder Raven had used to block the cave was still there.

Lucius walked up to it and pressed his palm against its surface.

It crumbled like sand.

The outside world rushed in at once... a biting gust of wind carrying ice and snow that whipped against his coat.

The world was pure white, blinding in its brightness.

Lucius inhaled deeply.

The air tasted was cold enough to bite his lungs.

"I guess it’s time to go hunting."

He muttered the words to himself and spread his hands.

A shimmer of light surrounded his body as Infinity reactivated.

The air rippled around him like heat distortion, creating a translucent shell that repelled the falling snow.

He stepped out of the cave and onto the open tundra.

The horizon stretched endlessly before him... white mountains in the distance, and the ground was a frozen wasteland.

The snowstorm blurred the line between sky and earth.

"Ice dungeons don’t become this special later," he muttered, scanning the landscape through his spatial sense. "Guess I got the prototype version."

By the time people raided these in the future, they’d have maps, guides, and tutorials explaining the monster types and weaknesses.

Back now, though? There was nothing.

There was not even any wilki for it.

And thanks to his reincarnation, this memory was useless.

’Fucking hell...’

He trudged forward, the crunch of his boots muted by the storm.

His spatial awareness vibrated outward like sonar, a wave that let him "see" in shades of emptiness.

Then he felt it...’movement.

Something was stirring in the snow ahead of him.

At first, he thought it was the wind, but then the patterns shifted... however the rhythm was wrong.

The flakes weren’t drifting but they were swarming.

Lucius frowned.

He could see it clearly through space: a dozen distinct distortions moving together, fast and low.

A pack.

He smiled. "Finally."

He spread his hand, readying a strike.

Spatial energy gathered around his palm, compressing tightly into a shimmering sphere.

"Well... time to hunt."

He flicked his wrist.

A shockwave erupted outward, warping the air and shredding the snow in a wide arc.

The blast carved a trench into the ice and slammed straight into the first distortion.

The impact sent up a spray of white mist then nothing.

The distortion didn’t move.

Lucius froze.

He tilted his head. ’Wait. What the fuck?’

The creature stood there completely unharmed.

Through space, he could see its outline... a hulking wolf-like beast with its fur crystallized into jagged shards of ice.

Steam came out from it’s mouth as it glared at Lucius

’It just ate that hit?’

He didn’t have time to think further.

His vision flashed red....

The lead wolf lunged.

Lucius barely had time to lift his arm.

The monster’s claws slashed through the barrier but still was unable to touch Lucius and the man grinned.

"Wait a second... I’m white.’