CHAPTER 158: THE WORLD IS WATCHING [III]

Elena adjusted her hair as she stood on the snowy shore of Tideshear cove, she was wearing an oversized coat and it only made her look more beautiful.

The dungeon gate in front of her glowed with unstable mana, distorting the air around it.

The readings coming from the instruments were far higher than before. Though they guessed it was because of Lucius... by this time, everyone in this country perhaps the world was watching him.

She didn’t even want to know what kind of fame he would have once he survived this.

’He’s so much stronger,’ she thought as she looked at the stream on her phone.

She could feel it.

Lucius had changed. ’Has he ranked up?’

She sighed, glancing down at her boots. Blood stained the snow beneath her. At her feet lay the corpse of a worker with his eyes wide open and a mouth frozen mid-scream.

He had looked at her too long.

Elena was a Mage General.

No one said a word.

The other workers stood frozen in place, afraid to even breathe. Even the Saintess, Rita looked away.

Elena crossed her legs and brushed her hair behind her ear.

’Show me more,’ she thought as she stared at the gate. ’If you can show me more, Lucius... maybe I’ll take back my plan to lock you away in my underground mansion.’

Although she doubted she would... She really wanted him to stay locked up and give her babies for the rest of their lives.

...

Lucius hovered above the fallen ice giant and let out a breath, the air leaving his mouth became mist.

It was one of the things he loved about being in the cold... That misty breath.

The giant’s broken body began to move.

Shattered ice slid across the ground and gathered again into shape.

Its leg reformed, spikes growing out of the frozen joints as its glare rose back toward him.

"Hm," Lucius muttered.

He was tired of this already... Bullying could only go on for so long.

"This is really getting tiring. How should I destroy you?"

He raised his hand. A sphere of compressed space appeared above the monster’s skull, swirling like distorted air.

He was about to release it when... a whistle cut through the air.

Lucius’s instincts kicked in. He turned to the right and saw an arrow heading right for him and he was about to ignore it until it whizzed past Infinity and grazed his hand.

A large flower of blue ice bloomed where it landed, spreading cracks in every direction.

Lucius looked at his hand.

Ice had formed over his skin.

’Infinity... was pierced?’ he thought.

The attack had gone through his strongest barrier.

He turned slowly toward the horizon.

His pupils shone faint purple as he poured mana into his eyes.

Through the storm, he saw it... it was a statue holding a long bow. Its body was blue crystal, but its eyes glowed crimson.

He could guess this was the Boss or something... He really hoped so, he needed to be in a heater.

"Fucking hell," he muttered, lowering his arm. "I could really die here."

His fingers flexed, breaking the ice apart.

Then his eyes brightened again and gained a more purple glow... the Eyes of Space reacting to his will.

Blood rolled down his cheeks as his eyes became pure purple crystals.

He ignored it.

He waved his hand at the giant below him.

Space around the creature folded inward.

There was no sound... no explosion. There was only silence as the giant’s body collapsed on itself and disappeared, crushed into nothing.

Lucius exhaled slowly. "Now to do this..."

He turned toward the direction the arrow had come from. Dozens more streaked across the sky toward him.

They glowed blue as they moved, cutting through the wind at impossible speed.

Lucius’s vision lit up with information... glowing symbols and numbers floating around each arrow.

His Eyes of Space displayed everything: their composition, speed, direction, and weak points. But he could also see something stranger.

The arrows bent around the world.

They ignored the rules of distance... in short, they defied space itself.

’So that’s why Infinity couldn’t stop them,’ he thought, narrowing his eyes.

The first arrow reached him. He moved slightly to the right, letting it pass his cheek, then turned his wrist and grabbed it by the weakest point.

His hand crushed it instantly, the fragments falling into the snow like dust.

But then pain rushed up his arm. His palm turned white and froze solid.

"What the fuck," Lucius hissed.

His skin cracked under the ice. "It shows me the weak spot but not the effect."

He raised his other hand. Roots of wood burst from the snow, twisting upward to meet the rest of the incoming arrows.

The impact created a thunderous wave, scattering the shards across the clearing.

He looked down at his arm. The frost was fading now... his regeneration was completely burning it away.

Lucius frowned. "Where the fuck did you go?"

He looked around. The red-eyed statue was gone.

He spread his senses wider. His spatial awareness filled the area, stretching outward through the entire clearing.

That was when he saw them... glowing shapes, hundreds of strange equations floating all around the air.

They were far more than before.

"What the hell is this..."

A single red weak point appeared ahead of him but it wasn’t on any creature. It was floating in empty space.

Lucius blinked. "Why would there be—"

The air above him darkened.

He raised both arms in a cross block just as a massive shadow dropped from above.

A gigantic foot slammed into him.

The force crushed the air from his lungs. He flew backward like a cannonball, smashing through pillars of ice.

The ground shattered beneath him before his body finally skidded to a stop, carving a long trail through the snow.

Shortly after, Lucius pulled himself up from the snow.

He was breathing heavily and he looked down at his arms

They hung limp for a second before he rolled his shoulders and groaned.

He felt like a ragdoll tossed across the battlefield.

But honestly, it wasn’t that bad. He had managed to block the attack that would’ve crushed his face.

He had sacrificed both arms for it, but that was a good bet in his book... Looks and power meant everything in this accursed world.

"It moves really fast..." he muttered, looking up.

The massive statue that had stomped him shrank rapidly, its huge frame compressing into something human-sized.

It stood there, glaring at him with crimson eyes, muttering something unintelligible through a mouth that didn’t even open.

A line of text flickered across his vision.

[Ereon Formation, Dungeon Boss]

’Ereon formation...?’ Lucius frowned. He felt like he knew it and could remember what it was... However he couldn’t.

’What kind of monster was named formation?’ He rubbed his temple.

"I still don’t remember what this is," he said, then shrugged. "Well, I don’t really care either."

His hands finished healing, glowing as the broken bones realigned. He cracked his shoulder with a wince.

The statue’s head tilted before it reached behind its back.

Lucius narrowed his eyes. "Don’t even think about it."

The statue ignored him and began to draw a bowstring.

Lucius rolled his eyes.

With a flick of his wrist, he manipulated space and the bow in the monster’s hand vanished. It appeared high above them, embedded somewhere in the icy ceiling... If this dungeon had a ceiling.

"Come on," Lucius called out, grinning. "You look like a man. How about we fight like men?"

A blade of wood formed in his grip.

He spun it lightly in one hand, the motion elegant despite his inexperience with the blade.

The statue turned its gaze down to the snow, scooping up a handful.

The flakes solidified instantly into an icy-blue blade, jagged and shimmering like glass.

Lucius blinked. "Fucking overpowered."

The statue didn’t wait. It lunged, its sword slashing downward with terrifying speed. Lucius twisted to the side, the ice blade cutting through the air where his head had been.

He wasn’t a sword user, but who needed experience when he had the ability to control the flow of space itself?

Every motion, every strike, every parry... he could just read it and adjust before it happened.

Equations floated around the monster, glowing like constellations. The reason he had picked a sword fight was because it would be easier to read your opponent like this...

"Let’s get that hit in," Lucius muttered.

He stepped forward, a sonic boom trailing behind him.

His sword drove straight into the right side of the statue’s chest. He poured spatial pressure into the point of impact.

The ice cracked, splintering up the neck and shoulder before the monster was thrown backward, its body skidding across the frozen floor and slamming into a wall of snow.

Lucius exhaled. "I guess I’m sword master level."

He tilted his head, admiring his work for a moment.

The statue’s chest was caved in with cracks along its icy frame.

’There’s absolutely nothing that could ruin this advantage,’ he thought confidently, twirling his blade.

A second later, the statue’s body glowed.

The cracks froze over.

It stood again, slower this time, but with no sign of pain or damage. It began to change it’s stance...

Unlike before, It held the sword with both hands now with the point angled downward.

Lucius stopped smiling. "You’re kidding me..."

The equations around it multiplied and spun faster, forming patterns he couldn’t track.

He squinted... there were no longer visible weak points. The bright dots that usually marked flaws in the enemy’s defense had vanished.

’Impossible,’ he thought. ’It erased its weaknesses?’

This dungeon was teaching him just how unreliable space was sometimes...