He wiped it clean—and smiled.

"Still stubborn, huh?"

Far from discouraged, his aura only grew heavier. Wilder. Deadlier.

The Sentinel charged again.

The ground shook violently beneath every step it took. Air burst in shockwaves as it plowed toward Xavier like a catastrophic avalanche.

He ran toward it—head-on.

Their clash sent ripples across the entire dungeon—not just soundwaves, but energy distortions visible to the naked eye.

He slid under its legs. The titan stomped—DOOM—and shattered stone pillars fell like meteors.

He ran up its own body—using stone armor plates as footholds—dodging spikes of poisonous crystals shooting from its back.

The Sentinel twisted—trying to crush him mid-body with both arms—but Xavier dove straight into the gaping, still-bleeding wound he had opened.

He entered the Beast.

The air inside was thick—hot—putrid. The Behemoth's inner flesh pulsed with corrupted mana. Its body was a labyrinth of quivering tissue, veins carrying poison instead of blood. The smell of rotten metal and acidic venom filled his lungs.

But Xavier wasn't disgusted.

He was thrilled.

He carved through pumping flesh and hardened stone membranes, forcing himself deeper with relentless precision. Every step inside triggered violent reactions—poison sprayed, tendrils lashed, muscle walls tried to crush him—but he kept moving.

"Where is it… where's your heart?"

He reached a reinforced inner chamber—its walls armored by thick fur. Something beat beyond it. Something massive.

The Core Heart.

His eyes sharpened.

"Found you."

He raised his dagger—but a massive wave of muscle pressure surged inward, trying to crush him where he stood. He jammed his legs and one arm against the closing passage, muscles screaming.

"Tch—trying to trap me?

The pressure increased—his ribs cracked—but he didn't scream. Instead, he opened his mouth and laughed.

"You think pain can stop me?"

His body healing as fast as he got injured. Silver light crawled up his dagger. Not just moonlight—this was moon essence, sharpened to killing form.

"Moon—Rend."

He slashed.

The world split open.

SHHHHAAAAAA!!!

The blade ignited with pure cutting force—tearing apart stone, membrane, and enchanted muscle in a single massive arc. A path opened. He stepped forward.

The Core Heart pulsed before him—an enormous crystal of condensed dungeon energy fused to living organ flesh. Poison-rich veins pumped around it like black roots.

The Behemoth sensed its death—its entire body spasmed in blind agony. A final defense activated—the inner chamber began collapsing.

Too late.

Xavier took one step.

Then another.

Slow. Unshakable. Like death.

He lifted his dagger—

"Die."

He slashed.

BOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMM!!!!

A tidal wave of moon energy detonated inside the Sentinel—a nuclear explosion of silver power. Cracks split across its body. Poison vents burst. Then—

Its entire mountain-sized frame collapsed with a roar that shook the dungeon all the way to its core.

Silence.

Dust slowly cleared.

The dungeon battlefield was ruined—carved open and destroyed by the titan's death throes. Black, poisoned sludge coated the shattered terrain. Nothing else moved—not a shard beetle, not a wolf. Everything had fled… or died.

At the heart of the crater—Xavier stood alone.

He walked out from beneath a fallen slab of stone, dragging his blood-covered dagger along the ground. His clothes were ripped. His arms were cut. His aura flickered—unstable.

And still, he was calm.

The glowing system text appeared before him.

[You have slain: Sentinel Behemoth – Dungeon Guardian]

[Warning: System Detected Extraordinary Kill]

[Your existence has been strengthened.]

[Congratulations—Rank Up Achieved.]

[Current Rank: A-Rank (True)]

[Body Reinforcement: +50% Mana Conduction | +85% Physical Threshold]

[Affinity Synchronization Stable]

---

Xavier exhaled slowly.

"A-Rank, huh… took long enough."

He had already gotten to B-rank before, but in the heat of that moment, he was having too much fun to care...

He sheathed his dagger—

THUD.

The ground shook again.

He froze.

Something else… had just awakened.

Something massive. The battlefield had finally fallen silent.

No more stampeding buffalo.

No more shard beetles raining death.

No more wolves in the dark.

No more mountain-sized titan shaking the dungeon to its core.

Only Xavier remained—standing alone amidst a wasteland of ruin carved by his hands.

But just when he thought the dungeon had finally stilled—

something stirred.

A surge of mana pulsed across the air—unnatural, refined, metallic. It did not shriek like beasts or howl like wild energy. It resonated, sharp and structured… like a battle hymn forged from discipline and order.

He turned.

His gaze fixed on the Silver Spire—the colossal tower in the distance, glittering faintly through waves of dust and poison fog. Now that the chaos had settled, it was more visible than ever—beautiful, silent, terrifying. And ancient.

Then he felt it again.

BOOM…

A pulse.

Deep. Controlled. Unmistakably powerful.

He narrowed his eyes.

"That isn't beast mana…" he muttered. "It feels… forged."

There was no wildness in it—no savagery. This aura carried precision. Weight. Authority.

But the strange part wasn't the energy—it was the distance.

He began walking.

The Silver Spire looked close. With his speed, he should've reached it in minutes. But after a few hundred steps, he frowned.

He was still just as far as before.

He sped up—crossed ten times the distance a normal man could run in a minute—yet still…

Nothing changed.

The tower did not grow closer.

The land did not shift.

No matter how he moved—forward seemed to not exist.

He stopped. Eyes narrowing.

"Tch… an illusion?"

He grabbed a stone and threw it forward.

As it flew toward the Spire, it stopped mid-air, flickered—then vanished.

Xavier's eyes sharpened.

"…A spatial lock."

He scanned the distant tower again. Its surface shimmered faintly. This entire area was twisted—not by illusion—but compacted space. A space barrier.

Which meant—

He looked to the ground.

"There must be a gate."

He clenched his fists.

"I have to find the portal—whatever connects this zone to the Spire. Without it, I'm trapped here."

He didn't hesitate. He lowered into a run and moved faster than ever, searching—scanning the terrain with sharp calculation. He inspected shattered cliffs, ran through broken valleys of stone, searched every collapsed ridge and poisoned trench.

Hours passed.

No portal.

He climbed atop a quarter-fallen boulder, scanning the horizon, face blank, mind razor-sharp.

The dungeon layout was intentional. Everything was symmetrical—the terrain destruction, the spawn zones of beasts, even the direction of poisonous rivers. This dungeon had order beneath its chaos.

He traced invisible lines in the dust with his blade.

Triangles.

Everything formed triangles pointing—

He looked up.

"Toward the Sentinel's corpse."

He turned back toward where he had slain the Behemoth. Now little more than an enormous crater and pieces of poisoned stone.

If the dungeon was structured, then—

"The portal is near the Guardian's domain…"

He returned to the crater. But before he could descend—

SsssSSSSSKKKKKKKK!!!

A poisonous snake lunged at his face from underground.

He caught it by the throat without even looking—and crushed it with one hand.

Another came. And another. Then dozens.

Venom dripped from their fangs as they launched themselves in a frenzy, leaping from sludge pools, crawling over poisoned rocks, bursting from cracked earth like arrows.

"Tch."

He didn't even draw his dagger.

CRACK. He crushed skulls underfoot.

WHAM. He kicked one so hard its body bursted to mess mid-air.

SLLLKT. He tore one in half with his bare hand and threw the pieces aside.

They were nothing. Weak. Fodder. Barely F-rank at best.

He moved through them like a ghost of death—calm, efficient, without wasting motion. There was no thrill here. No challenge. Just irritation.

"Trash should stay in the trash heap."

He descended deeper into the Behemoth's crater—slaying snakes as he walked. Their corpses piled behind him in a trail of dark green slime.

Then—at the very center of the crater—he saw it.

A strange circle etched into the ground—revealed only now that the Sentinel was dead. Ancient runes pulsed faintly around it. The snakes didn't step near it.

Xavier approached slowly.

The air above it shimmered—space warping faintly.

A portal.

He stood at its edge. Folded his bloody arms. Stared.

Then smirked.

"Found you."

He stepped onto the circle.

The air around him began to twist—pulling him in. Old mana awakened. The ground glowed.

The world blurred...

The portal expanded like a spiraling wound in the air—silver energy twisting into a vortex that pulled everything toward it. Xavier stepped forward without hesitation.

The moment his foot crossed the threshold—

—reality vanished.

There was no wind. No ground. No sound.

Just pressure—a crushing force that pressed against his skin, bones, and blood as though space itself was squeezing him. His vision distorted, spirals of silver and darkness twisting around him. It felt like being dragged across dimensions, passing through invisible walls of resistance that clawed at his existence.

For a brief moment, he felt something else—something eerie.

Almost like eyes watching him from between space.

Then—

WHOOMMM—!!

He emerged.

His boots hit solid ground.

His surroundings stabilized.

He straightened slowly and looked around—and what he saw was unlike anything he'd encountered so far in this dungeon.

***

A/N:

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