CHAPTER 157: THE WORLD IS WATCHING [II]

Lucius shot through the air, the snow whirling around him like silver dust.

He covered the mini-drone with a thin layer of space, letting it tag along without breaking its stealth though he made it look as if he didn’t even know it was there.

He soared higher, the wind slashing across his face as he moved deeper into the dungeon.

There were frozen ridges, jagged cliffs of ice, and endless plains of snow stretched beneath him.

Packs of white wolves howled below, and his stomach growled.

He frowned.

Even though he was hungry, eating those things wasn’t an option.

The first reason was simple... HE COULDN’T EAT THEM RAW!!!

There was no fire here, and blasting meat with plasma didn’t exactly sound like a good meal plan.

Who wanted food cooked by radiation?

The second reason was... maintenance. He didn’t feel like wasting effort cutting through monsters when that mana could be used for flight.

And the final reason... he was approaching the second boss.

Lucius slowed down, scanning the horizon with his senses.

It could be underground or somewhere within the icy ridges... this dungeon had far too many types of monsters to assume anything.

Just then, something whistled through the air.

The mini-drone’s view shook. A flash cut across the screen and then froze.

Lucius was holding an arrow. It had pierced through the storm faster than the drone could even track.

The shaft of the arrow was made entirely of ice.

"Hm..." Lucius hummed. He crushed the arrow between his fingers, the shards dissolving into frost.

Then, without hesitation, he shot forward again.

The drone kept a safe distance, gliding behind him as he descended toward a flat sheet of frozen ground.

There, standing opposite him, was a small figure.

It resembled the same ice statues that had started this entire problem except this one was shorter, very Luna-sized.

Lucius tilted his head and chuckled.

"You’re as short as Luna."

The statue didn’t react.

"How about this," Lucius said, resting his hands behind his back. "You tell me where the boss is, and I’ll let you live, huh?"

Though small, the drone’s sensors picked up the aura surrounding it... it had concentrated mana that filled the whole area.

The readings blinked red and then shut off.

From the outside view, it looked insane. Lucius was casually trash-talking a monster that was clearly far above D-Rank power levels.

Anyone else would’ve called it suicide.

The ice statue pulled out a crystalline bow.

Its faceless head tilted slightly as it muttered something unintelligible, like the creak of glaciers grinding together.

"I guess that’s a no," Lucius said with a sigh, raising two fingers.

A sharp whistle sliced through the air... dozens of arrows rained down at once.

The drone turned, and through its view, hundreds of ice statues appeared from every direction.

Each one fired a single arrow, and all of them converged on Lucius.

But before they could strike, the arrows shattered mid-flight, ricocheting backward at impossible speed.

The shockwave was deafening.

Infinity.

The same spatial barrier that could block any attack had reflected every arrow, sending them flying back to their senders.

The returning arrows hit true... piercing through the icy bodies and blowing them apart in a chain of blue explosions.

Only one statue remained, the one in front of Lucius.

He lowered his hand, bored.

"You can show your true form now instead of trying to deceive me."

He had already studied this monster enough to know that this wasn’t even close to it’s true form... and just as he thought, the snow on the ground began to vibrate.

The shattered remains of the other statues glowed, turning to dust that rushed back toward the lone survivor.

The fragments fused together, merging into its body.

The figure’s shape grew and twisted.

The small archer transformed into a towering giant... the second of the twin ice statues Lucius had seen meditating before the Dungeon Shift.

Its body was full of mana, and a bow nearly twice its size materialized in its hand.

Lucius smirked. "That’s more like it."

The ice giant let out a roar that echoed through the dungeon, the ground trembling beneath its feet.

It pulled back its colossal bowstring, condensing mana into a single glowing arrow the size of a car.

The string snapped forward with a sonic crack... the projectile zipped across the clearing faster than a bullet.

Lucius tilted his body to the side and dodged it, even though he didn’t need to. The arrow slammed into the ice behind him and detonated, sending shards flying in every direction.

The explosion echoed like thunder across the frozen plains.

The giant stepped backward, and its form began to shift.

From its body leaked dozens of smaller copies... ice clones, each holding blades, axes, or smaller bows.

They charged across the ice toward Lucius.

With each clone that formed, the original’s size shrank.

Lucius sighed. "You really should have shot some more."

He lifted his hand.

His hair fluttered in the icy wind and his breath completely visible in the freezing air.

He clenched his fist, and the air around him warped.

"Boom."

The ground erupted.

A wave of compressed space blasted outward in every direction... a shockwave so powerful that the air itself distorted.

Every clone that approached was crushed into powder, their bodies splintering into millions of tiny shards of frost.

The shockwave continued outward, carving deep scars into the icy ground until it struck the giant’s legs.

The concentrated force shattered its joints instantly.

The creature roared, collapsing to one knee, its massive hand slamming into the ground.

Lucius dusted off his pirate coat with a calm face. "Don’t tell me you’re afraid now...?"

The camera zoomed out, showing the aftermath... the ice shattered across the clearing and mist was swirling from the impact zone.

The giant was struggling to move, its body creaking under its own massive weight although it had already started to regenerate.

Its bow arm trembled. Another arrow began to form, light gathering once more in the frozen storm.

"We can’t have more of that, can we?" He muttered as he clapped his hands and the arrow vanished.

It was really nice bullying someone when you had a lot of power.