Ch.5820. To the Ancient Dungeon (3)

“Watch out! The Pale Rider is moving!”

The surroundings had already darkened due to the solar eclipse. And through that darkness, a blue crescent sliced across.

Shaaaark-

The Pale Rider had swung its reaper’s scythe toward the party. The attack created by the Pale Rider tore through the surrounding atmosphere.

“That’s dangerous! Minsu…”

Yuri seemed to instinctively sense how dangerous the reaper’s attack was. A massive collection of magical energy. That magical attack was about to directly hit the party.

Yuri hurriedly stepped in front of me, as if trying to protect me.

‘That Pale Rider. It seems at least as strong as an S-rank dungeon boss.’

From S-rank dungeons onward, the strength of bosses was on a completely different level.

SS-rank hunters—the absolute top-tier hunters—might engage those bosses in solo combat, but even they couldn’t guarantee victory.

In my mind, I realized that neither Yuri nor I could block that attack. At that moment—

BOOM BOOM BOOM CRASH-

The surroundings lit up with a violent explosion. At the center of that explosion was Jerfield.

“Damn bastard. Attacking without even giving time for greetings. Your personality is as filthy as your ugly face, huh?”

Jerfield was holding a pickaxe in his hand. A pickaxe glowing with mana. No, beyond mana, an extremely refined radiance was shining from his pickaxe.

He had blocked the Pale Rider’s attack.

‘Aura… is it?’

It’s a special technique created by top-tier melee dealers. Just being able to create an aura speaks volumes about a person’s level.

It’s far more solid and has greater cutting power than a mana sword. Of course, I’ve never seen someone create an aura with a pickaxe rather than a sword before.

At that moment, Jerfield shouted:

“I’ll handle this corpse-smelling bastard! You two head to the obelisk right away! If this eclipse is some kind of ancient dungeon quest, the time limit is probably until the sun reappears! Hurry!”

Yuri and I reacted immediately to his words.

“Guild Master! Let’s hurry!”

I started running in the opposite direction from Jerfield with Yuri.

KYAAAARK-

The Pale Rider, noticing our movement, let out a scream mixed with magical energy.

“Do you have time to look away? Mr. Reaper.”

Soon after, Jerfield began pushing back the Pale Rider with a ferocious momentum.

“He’s like a monster, Mr. Jerfield.”

Even Yuri, who rarely shows emotion, whispered that. The shockwaves from their clashing weapons were violently shaking the dungeon’s atmosphere.

“I heard about Mr. Jerfield during my successor training. If he had been more interested in the benefits of the hunter world, they say he might have become one of the Six Great Stars or Four Horsemen.”

I agreed with that statement. The Pale Rider, being one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, is actually difficult to even look at directly.

But Jerfield was evenly matched with such a Pale Rider.

Of course, the monsters in ancient dungeons are different from those in regular dungeons—they aren’t real. They’re just part of the story that exists only within the dungeon.

In exchange, within the ancient dungeon, they’re much stronger than regular dungeon monsters.

‘It’s a blessing that no dungeon collapse is happening.’

If a Pale Rider like that appeared beyond Mount Seorak in reality, the upcoming S-rank dungeon raid would receive no attention because of it.

But ancient dungeons don’t have dungeon collapses like regular ones. So that story-bound Pale Rider won’t appear in reality.

‘So if the raid becomes impossible, we could just escape with return stones…’

But that shouldn’t happen. With a top-tier hunter like Jerfield with us, and him being cooperative, we absolutely had to clear this ancient dungeon.

‘We might find clues about approaching the Red Lake.’

Probably, the altered causality of the novel had directed Jerfield and Yuri here. So I intend to get my hands on the legacy that must be here.

‘Jerfield is buying us time. We need to move quickly.’

Yuri and I hurried toward the obelisk.

***

CRACK-ZZZZT-

Dozens of monsters froze solid with Yuri’s ice spell. The black mist that appeared with the eclipse also instantly solidified in place.

‘She really is amazing, Yuri.’

She didn’t become the youngest S-rank hunter for nothing. Befitting an ancient dungeon, there were various types of monsters. Among them were many sword-wielding close-combat monsters, the natural enemies of mages.

PAP-PAP-PAP-PANG-

But all of them were dealt with by Yuri’s freezing magic before they could even approach. And monsters attacking from a distance had their heads pierced by spears of ice, killing many.

While Yuri was using her power, I was able to quickly find the shortest route to the obelisk.

‘Damn ancient dungeon. The boss monster is already that tough, and there are so many nasty traps too.’

Not only were there plenty of already spawned monsters, but the black mist created by the eclipse was generating even more monsters.

On top of that, if you accidentally triggered a trap, unexpected attacks would fly at you or large numbers of monsters would respawn.

For an ordinary hunter, reaching the obelisk in time would be absolutely impossible.

However, the hunter accompanying me was the Snow Woman, Yuri Tarkovskaya. And Yuri was now giving it her all.

The light of mana that appears when casting spells never stopped shining around her body.

Yuri shouted:

“Thanks to Minsu, we haven’t triggered any traps! So I don’t have to worry about getting lost… I need to work even harder…”

She was already performing amazingly, but being with me seemed to make Yuri even more strict with herself.

She protected me so I wouldn’t take even the slightest attack. And I could feel Yuri’s determination to ensure I didn’t have to use even a bit of mana.

‘This makes me feel like I’m the one being protected.’

Well, that was actually the situation. Anyway, because of this, I could focus more on finding the shortest path.

‘We need to secure the legacy before the eclipse ends.’

The two of us, hurrying like this, finally reached just below the obelisk, that black spire. The eclipse had already reached its peak, making it as dark as night.

The only reason we could see was because a bright red brazier was installed below the spire, with fire blazing from it.

“Haa… haa…”

Yuri looked quite exhausted. In an ordinary dungeon it might be different, but this was an ancient dungeon.

The strength of each monster was incomparable to regular dungeons. She had dealt with hundreds of monsters while rushing here in a short time.

It had been less than 10 minutes.

‘Without doing that, we couldn’t have cleared a path.’

So even with Nivis’s help, temporary mana depletion was unavoidable.

In fact, clearing this path was such an achievement that even other hunters would find it hard to believe a single hunter accomplished it all.

But even in this state, Yuri worried about me first.

“Minsu… haa… are you okay? This eclipse… isn’t normal. The dungeon boss’s curse seems to… I’m worried about… you…”

As Yuri said, the current eclipse phenomenon was essentially a serious debuff. The cries of the dead could be heard from all directions.

The obelisk’s light barely illuminated anything. All around, pitch-black, slimy souls were melting down from the air in bizarre forms.

It was like a scene from hell. Monsters with shapes too strange to identify made people feel even more disgusted.

Everything was like an uncanny valley. As Yuri said, the dungeon boss’s high-level curse was recreating fear and confusion through the surrounding landscape.

But my mind was perfectly clear.

“I’m fine.”

I’m an anomaly with an MCI of 0. So I don’t receive mental contamination from dungeon magical energy or curses.

Perhaps my expression was too calm, as Yuri was momentarily surprised, but she soon seemed to recall my constitution.

“Still… haa… don’t push yourself too…”

Clearly, Yuri was the one pushing herself. I decided to calm her down first. I took her hand.

“I’m fine. Rather than me, Guild Master should recover her mana first…”

“…Yes… Minsu.”

Though I had only lightly taken her hand, Yuri quickly interlaced her fingers with mine. And I could feel her breathing and mana stabilizing a bit.

‘But at this rate, we can’t enter the obelisk.’

The base of the obelisk is like a small pyramid. And the stairs leading to the obelisk’s entrance, or rather the walls of that pyramid, are covered with monsters clinging to them like insects.

‘I need to clear them all at once to open a direct path to the entrance.’

Yuri’s Nivis is shining continuously. She must be reabsorbing the mana that was extremely depleted in a short time.

But soon Yuri also saw the situation ahead and said with urgency:

“We need to clear those monsters to enter… I’ll cast another spell…”

“No. Please continue recovering, Guild Master.”

And I let go of Yuri’s hand.

“I’ll clear the remaining path.”

At that moment, I heard Windcutter laughing. The Windcutter in my hand began to vibrate.

***

What I need now is high-powered area magic.

I need to blow away all those monsters covering the high stairs at once. At that moment, a spell came to mind.

‘Immortal Butterfly’s Flame Ring.’

An area magic spell I created during my first confrontation with Yuri.

A flame spell I created to resist Yuri, who had covered my surroundings with ice magic and barriers using the ice-attribute mana that was overflowing ridiculously, just like now.

‘Blue Flame.’

I quickly summoned the blue flame.

This is the first time I’m using Immortal Butterfly’s Flame Ring since my Ains days. Being an area spell, it consumes a large amount of mana.

So even during the intern business trip when I started using flame spells again, I didn’t dare use this spell.

‘But now it’s different.’

Thanks to Windcutter, I can use more mana.

And Windcutter’s flame magic amplification synergy will create maximum efficiency for the spell with the same mana consumption.

Whoosh-

The blue flame summoned above the dagger is rotating at a ferocious speed. According to my theoretical calculations, the normal RPM should be 1500. That means 1500 rotations per minute.

‘This isn’t enough.’

It’s comparable to a car engine’s rotation speed, but it’s not enough. I need to reach the spell’s critical point with acceleration beyond limits.

Only then will the spell’s collapse create explosive power that transcends ordinary flame spells.

Of course, even the current figure far exceeds the theoretical rotation speed. The minimum RPM to create blue flame is 1000, so ordinary flame mages can’t maintain that rotation speed and their spells get canceled.

‘But if I were satisfied with just this much, I wouldn’t have thought of joining Flame.’

And through that Flame mission, I gripped Windcutter tightly.

Windcutter’s wind adds more fuel to that rotation.

At the same time, Windcutter laughed like a madwoman. I could instinctively feel it. The flame spell that was intensely idling, that stagnant spell was accelerating once more.

‘2500 RPM…’

I sensed it was definitely around that rotation speed. And at this level, the blue flame should have reached its critical point.

Sure enough, at that moment, the spherical blue flame began to change shape.

A huge wing burning blue was created above Windcutter. The Immortal Butterfly took flight.

That flame butterfly flew toward the stairs. It was an elegant, almost leisurely gentle flapping of wings.

BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM CRASH-

But the result created by that butterfly’s flight was the opposite.

With each flap of its wings, blue flame scales fell. The bombardment toward the monsters covering the stairs began.