Chapter 174: Crystal Forest

Chapter 174: Chapter 174: Crystal Forest

The two Razortail Lizards attacked simultaneously.

They were far faster than their size suggested. The male came from the front, jaws splitting into four mandibles that dripped with venom. The female flanked right, her blade-tail swinging low, aiming for Lucian’s legs.

They reached his position in an instant.

Lucian activated Light Acceleration.

His entire body coated in a thin layer of light mana. Air resistance dropped to zero. The world blurred — stalactites, waterfalls, pale light, charging beasts — all of it smearing into streaks of color as Lucian accelerated to a speed that exceeded anything achievable with individual Light Steps.

He vanished from his position.

The two lizards slammed into empty stone. Their jaws snapped shut on air. Their tails carved trenches through the rock where Lucian had been standing. They froze — confused, scanning the chamber with rapid head movements.

Lucian reappeared across the chamber, standing on the wall itself — his feet coated in light mana making gravity irrelevant.

Light Acceleration. Instead of short bursts, Lucian entered a state of sustained light-speed movement. His entire body became coated in a thin layer of light mana that reduced air resistance to zero and accelerated him continuously. During Light Acceleration, he could change direction freely, run on walls, run across water, and even run through the air for brief periods.

But the spell drained mana continuously. And he couldn’t cast any spells during Acceleration — all mana was committed to movement.

Five seconds. That was his comfortable window. Ten was his limit at a stretch.

He dropped from the wall and drew Aethon. The S-Rank longsword hummed in his grip, its runic inscriptions glowing faintly. His Sword Intent coated the blade immediately, the dark shimmer bending air around the edge.

The male lizard recovered first. It spotted Lucian and charged again.

Lucian stepped forward. "Eclipse Sword Art. First Form — Crescent Moon Slash."

He swung. The crescent wave of sword intent screamed across the distance and struck the female lizard across her flank. The impact created a burst of sparks and a grinding screech — SCHREEECH — as the energy blade scraped across her scales.

The result: a shallow scratch. A thin line of red against grey-green scales that sealed immediately.

Tough. Lucian’s eyes narrowed. C-Rank beast hide was on a completely different level from D-Rank. The scales weren’t just physical armor — they were infused with mana, creating a natural defense that resisted cutting energy.

The male opened its mouth. A sphere of compressed water formed between its jaws. It fired.

The water blast screamed toward Lucian with the force of a cannon. He sidestepped easily — the blast struck the cavern wall behind him and detonated, blowing a crater into the stone. BOOM. Rock fragments sprayed.

It seems the male lizard’s ability is water.

He raised his hand. "Blood Needle Rain."

Hundreds of crimson needles materialized around him and launched simultaneously. The swarm hit both lizards like red rain — but the needles barely penetrated. They struck the scales and deflected, skittering off like arrows off plate armor. A few found gaps between scales — the softer tissue at the joints, the undersides — but the damage was negligible.

The female lunged from behind. Lucian sensed her through Blood Sense. The male charged from the front simultaneously creating a pincer.

Lucian raised both hands. Light bolts fired from each palm.

FWEEESH. FWEEESH.

The concentrated beams of light struck each lizard in the face, the impact forcing them back.

But the female recovered instantly. She slammed her front claws into the ground. The stone cracked. Earth spikes erupted from the floor — jagged, fast, racing toward Lucian in a line.

CRACK-CRACK-CRACK-CRACK.

Lucian coated Aethon in light mana and fired rapid slashes. Three quick strikes — SHK, SHK, SHK — each one cleaving through an earth spike before it reached him. Stone fragments exploded around him.

The female has an earth ability.

He needed to pierce their defense. Conventional attacks weren’t enough. The scales resisted cutting, piercing, and blunt force. He needed precision. He needed to find the gap.

Lucian activated Primordial Sight at maximum.

The world slowed. His perception expanded. He scanned the male as it recovered from the light bolt. He scanned the female as she readied another earth spike attack.

He then found that the male’s jaw joint — where the mandibles connected to the skull. The scales there were thinner creating a natural weak point designed for mobility. The same junction existed on the female — the point where the tail blade met the tail itself.

And both had one more weak point. The eyes.

Lucian disappeared.

Light Acceleration. He became a streak of light — coating his body, eliminating air resistance, crossing the chamber in a fraction of a second. He appeared behind the male, Aethon already thrusting toward the beast’s eye.

The male’s instincts screamed. It shifted its head at the last possible moment — not fast enough to dodge entirely. Aethon’s tip scored across the beast’s eye, blinding it on the left side. Yellow fluid sprayed.

The male roared — a deafening sound that shook the cavern — and snapped its jaws backward toward Lucian’s position. Those four mandibles closed around empty air.

Lucian was already gone. Light Acceleration carried him to the ceiling. He ran three steps across the stalactites, changed direction, and dropped.

"Light Pulse."

A concentrated flash of light detonated from his palm — directed straight into the male’s remaining eye. The beast screamed. SCHREEE.

It scrambled backward, blinded, thrashing, its tail swinging wildly and carving chunks from the cavern walls. CRAAAASH. CRAAAASH.

The female lunged from behind with its blade-tail aimed at Lucian’s spine.

Lucian closed his fist.

Blood Chains erupted from the ground beneath the female. Crimson links wrapped around her legs, her tail, her torso. She thrashed. The chains held as they strained. Her strength was immense.

The female roared. Earth spikes erupted around her — but the chains prevented her from aiming well. The spikes shot in random directions, one of them impaling the blinded male in the flank. The male shrieked.

Lucian didn’t waste the opening.

He accelerated again — Light Acceleration carrying him across the chamber in a silver streak. He appeared above the male. Aethon raised in both hands. Sword Intent blazed along the blade, distorting the air around it.

He drove the sword downward through the junction of the male’s jaw — the weak point Primordial Sight had revealed. The blade punched through the thinner scales, through the soft tissue, and into the skull.

SCHLIKT.

The male’s body convulsed before it went still as it died.

The female screamed — a sound that was less roar and more keen. Rage. Grief.

She tore free of the blood chains with explosive force, her mana surging. Earth spikes erupted everywhere — the entire chamber shaking. Two spikes caught Lucian in the side. He tanked them through Light Armor and Crimson Vessel — the dual defense absorbing the impact only causing minor bruising.

He landed on the ground, facing the female. Her amber eyes were wild. Her blade-tail whipped behind her, cutting the air.

She charged forward with pure rage.

Lucian met her head-on.

Light Acceleration. He closed the distance in a heartbeat, appearing at her flank. She swung her tail blade, aimed at his torso. He ducked under it. The blade passed over his head.

He thrust Aethon upward — into the junction where her tail met her body. The weak point. The blade sank through the thinner scales and into the connecting tissue. The female shrieked. Her tail went limp, the blade-end dragging on the ground.

She twisted with her mandibles reaching for his arm.

Lucian pulled Aethon free and drove it into her open mouth — through the jaw joint and into the brain. SCHLIKT.

The female’s body locked. Her amber eyes went wide before dimming.

She collapsed beside her mate.

Lucian stood over the two corpses. His breathing was slightly elevated — Light Acceleration had drained a visible chunk of his mana.

He used Blood Manipulation to extract both C-Rank cores from the beasts’ skulls. Each core was fist-sized, pulsing with mana. He stored them in his Shadow Storage.

Then he continued deeper.

The tunnels below the main chamber were darker. Tighter. The mana density increased as Lucian descended. D-Rank beasts appeared at intervals.

Lucian killed them all with ease.

He didn’t slow down.

Twenty minutes later, the tunnel opened into a small, rough-walled chamber. At the far end, carved into the stone itself, was an archway. The edges of the archway glowed faintly blue. Beyond it, Lucian could sense a different mana signature.

[SYSTEM NOTIFICATION]

[Layer 1 Cleared.]

[Kills: 89 D-Rank beasts, 2 C-Rank beasts.]

[Layer 2 difficulty increased accordingly.]

Lucian stepped through the archway.

The environment changed instantly.

The underground cavern vanished replaced by something else entirely.

A forest.

Trees stood in rows that stretched in every direction — but they weren’t trees. They were made of crystal. The ground beneath Lucian’s feet was covered in a layer of what looked like sand but crunched differently — finely ground crystal, each particle catching the light and scattering it.

The sky above wasn’t a sky. It was a dome — a curved ceiling of soft white light that stretched from horizon to horizon.

The smell of blood permeated the air in the forest.

Lucian’s hand moved to Aethon’s hilt.

His Blood Sense activated. The forest extended far — his range covered two hundred meters in every direction, and within that range, he detected multiple signatures.

From between the crystal trees, shapes emerged. Insect-like beasts. Their bodies were the size of large dogs, covered in chitinous crystal armor that matched the trees. Their legs were long, spindly, tipped with sharp points. Their mouths were circular — ringed with rows of rotating teeth.