Chapter 50 - 5 Minutes

Eden’s eyes widened.

"What...?"

Another notification appeared.

[Phase Shift is undergoing forced evolution.]

[Rank changing: B "A.]

Eden’s breathing stopped.

"What?"

His body convulsed again.

[Immersion is undergoing forced evolution.]

[Rank changing: C "A.]

Eden stared at the words through tears of pain.

"Shit—"

Eden tried to make sense of it all, but the sheer amount of pain was mind numbing.

Devour wasn’t simply consuming Essence anymore.

It was consuming his own skills.

It was changing them.

But before Eden could even process the thought, another wave of agony ripped through him.

"Aaaghh!"

The scream echoed through the entire dungeon.

The remaining Essence Knights stopped.

Every single one of them turned toward Eden.

The crimson Essence surrounding him twisted violently.

For the first time, the creatures didn’t advance.

They stepped backward.

One.

Then another.

Then several more.

The monsters that had relentlessly attacked Eden for who knew how long were retreating.

Eden didn’t notice.

He was too busy trying not to die.

"Please..."

His fingers dug into the ground.

"Just..."

Blood dripped from his mouth.

"...make it stop."

The System appeared again.

[Devour is merging the following Skills:]

[Heir’s Pride — A-Rank.]

[Phase Shift — A-Rank.]

[Immersion — A-Rank.]

Eden’s eyes widened.

"No."

The pain intensified.

"No, no, no—!"

His back arched.

A massive wave of crimson Essence erupted from his body.

The dungeon shook.

Several already-damaged walls collapsed instantly.

Eden screamed.

He didn’t care about dignity.

He didn’t care about looking strong.

He didn’t care about anything at all in that moment.

His mind was collapsing beneath the pain.

’Kill me!’

The thought appeared suddenly.

’Please.’

His fingers trembled.

’Just kill me.’

He’d rather die.

Anything was better than this.

’Please, System.’

His body shook violently.

’Just make it stop—!’

Then another wave hit.

Eden vomited blood onto the ground.

His vision went black for several seconds.

After several seconds of excruciating pain, a strange silence settled in.

The pain stopped.

Eden remained on his knees.

He didn’t move.

For several seconds, he simply breathed.

Once.

Twice.

Three times.

His hands were still shaking.

The crimson Essence surrounding him slowly disappeared.

The dungeon became quiet again.

The Essence Knights remained frozen in place.

Eden slowly lifted his head.

One final System notification floated before him.

[Skill Creation Complete.]

[New Skill Acquired.]

[S-Rank Skill: Corrupted Surge.]

Eden stared.

He didn’t understand.

His breathing remained shaky as he opened his status to inspect his new skill.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[STATUS]

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Name: Eden

Level: 136 [C-Rank]

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Attributes

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Strength: 608

Agility: 510

Vitality: 241

Essence: 258

Perception: 121

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Skills & Authorities

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Devour [A]

Paralysis [C]

Stealth [C]

Warrior’s Spirit [C]

Corrupted Surge [S]

[Increases all attributes by 50%

Increases Essence output by 60%

Increases Essence regeneration rate by 60%.]

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Eden’s expression went blank.

He read it again.

Then again.

"...What?"

He slowly sat back on his heels.

Devour had consumed three skills.

Three entire skills.

Heir’s Pride.

Phase Shift.

Immersion.

Three abilities that had become increasingly important to his fighting style.

And in exchange...

It had created this.

An S-Rank skill.

Eden’s eyes widened.

"Fifty percent..."

He looked at the description again.

"All attributes."

"Sixty percent Essence output."

His mouth opened slightly.

"And regeneration..."

He swallowed.

"Sixty percent."

Eden laughed.

It was a weak laugh at first.

Then he started shaking his head.

"You’re insane."

He looked at the System.

"Devour..."

A smile slowly appeared.

"You sacrificed three skills..."

His eyes narrowed.

"...to make something this ridiculous?"

He didn’t know whether to be angry or impressed.

Maybe both.

Eden slowly stood.

His legs were still unsteady.

He looked at the remaining Essence Knights.

They were already moving.

Apparently, whatever fear they’d experienced had passed.

Eden sighed.

"Right."

He rolled his shoulders.

His body still felt like garbage.

He’d spent days fighting without proper rest.

He had just endured an unimaginable amount of pain.

He was bleeding.

His muscles were exhausted.

And yet...

There was something different now.

Something immense.

Eden activated Corrupted Surge.

[Corrupted Surge]

The change was immediate.

Red essence exploded from his body.

The air itself seemed to distort.

His muscles tightened.

His senses sharpened.

His Essence surged through every part of his body.

Eden’s eyes widened.

"...Holy shit."

He could feel it.

The difference was absurd.

’With a buff like this, I could take on most B-ranks!’

One of the Essence Knights charged.

Eden disappeared.

Boom!

His fist slammed into its chest.

The creature exploded backward.

Its entire upper body simply shattered.

Eden stared at his hand.

"...Oh."

Another five attacked simultaneously.

Eden stepped forward.

His fist moved once.

Boom!

All five were destroyed.

Eden blinked.

"Huh."

Another group.

He kicked.

Four flew through the air.

He grabbed another by the head.

One punch.

Gone.

Two more approached from his blind spot.

Eden didn’t even turn.

He ducked.

Their swords passed above him.

He spun.

Two kicks.

Two destroyed bodies.

The remaining Essence Knights couldn’t even follow his movements.

Eden was simply too fast.

Too strong.

Too overwhelming.

He laughed.

"I don’t even need Aura Blade at this point!"

He rushed forward.

Boom!

Another knight died.

Eden didn’t stop until the final Essence Knight collapsed.

He stood there.

Breathing heavily.

Behind him were hundreds of destroyed Essence Knights.

The battlefield was unrecognizable.

Eden looked at his hands.

"...So that’s what it’s like having an S-Rank Skill."

He smiled.

Then he turned toward the massive doors.

He walked over the rubble.

His steps were slower now.

He was tired.

The adrenaline was beginning to fade.

He reached the doors and placed one hand against them.

"..."

He exhaled.

"Small break."

He looked around.

No enemies remained.

He could afford a few minutes.

Maybe five.

Ten at most.

Just enough to breathe and recover some of his strength.

Then he’d enter.

Whatever was inside, he’d deal with it.

Eden leaned against the wall and closed his eyes.

"Five minutes."

He barely finished speaking when suddenly, the massive doors exploded outward.

’...!’

Eden’s eyes snapped open.

"What—?!"

A black figure burst through the doorway.

It was taller than the Essence Knights.

Its body was covered in black armor.

A dark, oppressive Energy radiated from it.

And in its hand was an enormous black sword.

Eden barely saw the attack.

The blade was already descending toward his head.

"Shit!"

He threw himself sideways.

Boom!

The sword struck the ground where his head had been.

The floor exploded.

Eden rolled across the rubble and immediately sprang to his feet.

His heart hammered.

He stared at the creature.

The Black Knight slowly pulled its sword from the ground.

Eden’s expression became serious.

"...fuck."

He opened his System.

The classification confirmed what he’d already suspected.

[B-Rank]

Eden’s grin disappeared.

He looked at his battered body.

Then at the Black Knight.

Then at the destroyed battlefield behind him.

He had expected a boss.

He had expected the boss to be powerful.

But the boss inside a gate leaving its chamber is unheard of.

Naturally, Eden hadn’t expected the boss to come looking for him.

"Bastard."

Eden cursed under his breath.

"Couldn’t even give me a break?"

The Black Knight raised its sword.

Eden activated Corrupted Surge again.

Red Essence erupted around him.

Then he activated Aura Blade.

A purple blade formed in his hand.

His eyes locked onto the boss.

He was still technically C-Rank.

He was exhausted.

He had almost nothing left in reserve.

And now he was standing in front of a B-Rank monster whose entire fighting style seemed to revolve around overwhelming, destructive offense.

Eden tightened his grip.

"Fine."

The Black Knight stepped forward.

The ground cracked.

Eden lowered his stance.

A smile slowly returned to his face.

"You wanna get ugly?"

His Aura Blade hummed.

"Then let’s see if you can actually kill me."

The Black Knight vanished.

Eden’s eyes widened.

Their weapons collided.

The shockwave ripped through the entire dungeon.

And the battle for the Hellforge’s potential key began.