Chapter 239

The moment that message announced their entry into Rift Space, the air around them changed. They could still breathe, and gravity still held, but it felt like standing in open space. Scanning the surroundings, Do-Jin noticed patches of the cavern wall that had turned black.

It’s already at this stage?

His brow furrowed. He narrowed his eyes and looked more closely.

Yeah. It’s definitely breaking off.

The blackened areas marked where the walls had fractured, and the fine particles created by the break were not just falling inward. They were drifting away into the blackened space beyond. If a Rift Dungeon altering the environment of this world was the first stage, then this was something players only saw near the final phase.

The Rift-corroded space itself was being torn away. Pieces of Lostania were being ripped off and dragged into the void beyond. The only saving grace was that the damage was still subtle enough to go unnoticed unless someone looked very closely.

It’s not critical yet, but we can’t just leave the Rift like this.

If the tearing continued, a massive hole would eventually open where the Rift existed. That would mean the barrier protecting this world from outside dimensions would be gone. The corruption would worsen, Rifts would appear more often and grow more violent, and the surrounding area would destabilize.

Naturally, Lostania would be damaged even further, the destruction would accelerate, and eventually, the Star of Ruin Laves would grow stronger.

It’s a good thing Tanto found this place.

“Found it” might not be the right way to put it, since he had been trapped here. Still, thanks to that, there was now a chance to deal with it before a full breach occurred. At this rate of erosion, simply reducing the number of monsters inside the Rift should be enough to keep it under control.

“Do-Jin, I think they’re coming,” Theresa said.

They were Dimensional Fragments that seemed to be sizing up the unfamiliar presence. Some rolled toward him, some walked on two legs, and some scuttled forward on five sharp, pointed limbs. Even the way they moved was a complete mess, with no consistency at all, and the moment they realized a human was standing there, they hesitated.

“Let’s find Tanto first,” he replied.

“There are a ton of them. Are we just pushing straight through?”

“What choice do we have?”

Theresa nodded and raised her weapon and shield. Soso began drawing up mana for her buffs, while Do-Jin fed mana into his Magic Circuits. In response, the Dimensional Fragments all moved at once.

“Theresa, wait.” Do-Jin grabbed her shoulder to stop her as she tried to charge forward, then stepped in front of her.

After considering the terrain, monsters, and mana efficiency, he decided to cast Flame Wave. The fire expanded just enough to completely fill the narrow passage, swallowing every approaching Dimensional Fragment.

The sharp clicking of their movement overlapped with the roar of the flames, and the sound of burning glass and shattering fragments echoed through the Rift Space.

They’re way tougher than I expected.

With his Magic Eye, Do-Jin checked the condition of the Dimensional Fragments inside the flames. They’d staggered under the pressure and heat, but not a single one had stopped moving.

They were still forcing their way forward. At this rate, the wall of fire would be breached, and it would turn into a messy close-quarters brawl. That was what happened to mages with insufficient firepower.

Then this should do it, I guess.

Do-Jin cranked the output of the flames even higher. Having effectively turned himself into a human flamethrower, he started walking forward step by step. With every step he took, he raised the spell’s power just a little more.

At a certain point, a sharp bang rang out from within the raging inferno as a mana explosion went off. One of the Dimensional Fragments had detonated, and a split second later, the sound of shattering glass resounded again.

Once the first fragment reached its limit, the others began exploding one after another. The deafening chain of explosions sent violent shockwaves through the raging flame zone Do-Jin had created, making it churn even harder.

“Yeah, this feels about right.” Do-Jin committed the sensation of the spell he had just used to memory.

When dealing with Dimensional Fragments that regenerated endlessly at absurdly short intervals, this kind of optimization wasn’t optional. If he failed to find the minimum consumption threshold without overdoing the firepower, he could easily end up drained first.

Although honestly, if I have to crank it up this much, I am not sure this even counts as optimization.

After experiencing the toughness of the Dimensional Fragments firsthand, Do-Jin understood why Tanto had gotten trapped here. At this level, there was no way a class focused on single-target attacks could ever clear this alone.

That didn’t mean it was easier for mages, however. The average mage could put out high firepower for a short burst, but they would burn out at a ridiculous speed. This only worked because it was Do-Jin.

“Wow... these things are stubborn as hell. The fact that they are holding out this long against your magic is insane. And it felt way hotter than usual too.”

Theresa had stepped back a few paces from the heat but now rushed forward in excitement and disbelief.

“Tanto didn’t suffer for nothing. Let’s find him first,” Do-Jin said, moving deeper inside.

Not only was communication with the outside completely cut off, but contact between people inside the dungeon was blocked as well. That meant there was only one way to find Tanto. He had to move and search on foot.

Leaning on overwhelming firepower, Do-Jin advanced while incinerating the Dimensional Fragments in massive numbers.

“They’re closing in from the back!” Theresa called out.

Just as they thought, the Rift Dungeon infested with Dimensional Fragments wasn’t going to play nice.

If his advance slowed even a little, freshly regenerated fragments would swarm in from behind, screeching with that grating sound of theirs even after he had already finished burning the previous wave to ash.

It wasn’t that his pace was slow. Even when he pushed forward at the absolute fastest speed he could manage, it was still hard as hell to fully keep up with their regeneration rate.

“Block it off. I’ll clear the front, then turn back and wipe the rear!” he said.

The sheer volume of Dimensional Fragments was enough to catch even Do-Jin off guard. The experience points were flooding in at a terrifying rate, but he didn’t even have the breathing room to check. Everything that could be automatically collected was left to accumulate, and anything that had to be picked up manually was only grabbed in passing if it looked genuinely valuable.

He blasted away the tightly packed swarm ahead with Flame Wave, spun around immediately to deal with the pile that had already regenerated behind him, and then forced his way forward again before monsters could respawn in front. To make it through in time, he had to charge straight through flame zones that hadn’t even finished dying down yet.

Sometimes, new Dimensional Fragments would rise straight out of the flames. It was probably just unlucky timing, but from the perspective of anyone watching, it was the kind of sight that could drain the will to fight in an instant.

After pushing forward like that for who knew how long, he reached a massive open space. Of course, it was absolutely crawling with Dimensional Fragments.

This is basically a fucking bug swarm.

The passage he had come through wasn’t especially narrow, but the space ahead was enormous, and the number of monsters matched it. The bottleneck created by that imbalance made the entrance look like a hole clogged solid with insects.

The moment Do-Jin saw it, his heart started pounding. He was exhausted to the point of wanting to drop dead. Even so, seeing monsters packed together that neatly made his chest buzz with excitement.

The heat explosion from his spell blasted apart the creatures blocking the hole all at once. They kept pouring in to fill the gap, but at this point, he was done trying to finesse it. Do-Jin slammed down Flame Pillar and Flame Wall right on that spot.

“Phooo—”

Just as he let out half of a ragged breath after setting that up, a sharp sound rang out from the opposite side. It wasn’t the sound of his magic, and it certainly wasn’t the screech of Dimensional Fragments either.

It was Tanto. He had been hiding in a relatively safe spot, and the moment he heard the chaos Do-Jin’s group was making, he came out.

“Over here!”

Unfortunately, Do-Jin, Theresa, and Soso were stuck at one end of the massive chamber, while Tanto was hiding at the other. Do-Jin tried to push forward, aiming to clear what was blocking the way between them.

“Fuck, there are way too many!”

The monsters had been piling up for as long as Tanto had been holed up, and now there were simply too many to wipe out in one go. Even when he tried to clear them steadily, the monsters kept stacking, the mana density kept stacking with them, and that buildup caused a bottleneck that made the regeneration speed completely insane.

Every time one died, another was born at the exact same moment. It was such a hopeless situation that Do-Jin felt like he was going to lose his mind right along with them.

“Aren’t they supposed to go down in numbers?!” Do-Jin cried out.

To that, Soso immediately snapped, “If you have time to bitch, throw one more spell! I am actually about to die here!”

“Both of you shut up and do your jobs. I have the worst of it here!” Theresa screamed.

If anything, Do-Jin still had it easy. Theresa, who had taken on the role of blocking the monsters flooding in from behind, was literally acting as a living lid with her own body. And Soso, who had to keep Theresa’s health bar alive, felt like a blood transfusion pump hooked up to someone in the middle of open-heart surgery.

At this rate, getting to him is going to be damn near impossible.

Expecting Tanto to break through from his side was just wishful thinking. Trying to cross a space packed full of rampaging Dimensional Fragments while relying on stealth alone would get him torn to shreds in seconds.

This position is so shit. If we keep dragging it out here, we are the ones who are going to collapse first.

Holding out in a spot this bad was no different from arm-wrestling the entire Rift Dungeon itself. Rather than burn himself out in a war of attrition, Do-Jin decided to break the situation open in a single move.

Do-Jin activated Transcendence using the power sealed within his necklace, and that force kicked his body into motion. Golden mana blazed brilliantly as wing-like shapes wrapped themselves around him.

The moment she saw it, Soso hurriedly refreshed his buffs. At the same time, Do-Jin erased everything blocking his path and charged forward.

“Keep your distance and follow me!”

They broke into a wide-open area, the perfect place for enemies to swarm in from all sides. The space that had blown open in an instant was immediately packed full again. In Do-Jin’s eyes, however, the Dimensional Fragments rushing toward him looked painfully slow.

Light flared from the Magic Eye he had received from the Grand Duke. The abilities of all enemies within range were transferred to Do-Jin, and his limits expanded explosively.

Using that momentary boost in power, Do-Jin unleashed Awakened Curse and released flames far stronger than anything he had used so far.

“Stick close behind me and move together!” he shouted while blasting them forward.

As Do-Jin spun in a full circle, the Dimensional Fragments closing in detonated simultaneously.

And he didn’t stop there. Borrowing the power of Psychokinetic Artistry, Do-Jin moved at blistering speed while keeping up the barrage of flames. With firepower strong enough to make anything explode the moment it touched him, Do-Jin had gone beyond a flamethrower and turned into a literal eraser.

He was burning through an absurd amount of mana to sustain this output, and, as a result, the duration of Transcendence was plummeting. At this rate, he would be lucky to hold it for a single minute since the efficiency was absolute garbage. Even so, sometimes one violent minute was worth far more than thirty lukewarm ones.

“Holy shit. That is insane.”

Even Theresa, who had been through plenty of Do-Jin’s nonsense, couldn’t hide her shock at how brutally brainless this tactic was. Because he was erasing them so quickly, the kill speed finally overtook the regeneration rate. They could finally carve out a path.

“Do-Jin!” Tanto, who had been barely holding out while fighting tooth and nail, looked at his teammates with an apologetic expression.

“Back up. Back up!” Do-Jin shouted back.

At the urgency in his voice, Tanto retreated toward the space he had been holed up in. The moment Do-Jin finally escaped the chamber, he immediately rewound his own time.

Seeing that, Theresa spoke. “Do-Jin already burned his hidden card, so let’s clear the dungeon fast and get out. This place feels way too dangerous.”

Do-Jin replied without hesitation. “It feels like a waste to leave now. The experience here is insane.”

“No, Do-Jin, wait. You are not thinking right...” Theresa’s eyes filled with unease.

“Relax. I only pushed that hard to link up with Tanto. If we are just farming EXP, this honestly doesn’t seem that hard.”

Surprisingly, he hadn’t been exaggerating. Based on the rough calculations he had made while fighting inside, if they were properly positioned, this place could be abused almost as hard as an auto-hunting location.