Chapter 79: The Corrupted S-Rank [Part 1]

Chapter 79. The Corrupted S-Rank [Part 1]

I stood there breathing slightly harder, blood dripping from the ends of my fingers.

My clothes were already ruined anyway.

I stored the corpse.

Then I looked deeper into the passage.

This wasn’t normal.

Not because A-rank monsters existed here. Hollowgrave had always been dangerous. Rey had known that.

The problem was their behavior.

They weren’t merely stronger.

They were learning.

Planning.

Using skills with purpose.

The Gloomfang Stalker had attacked from concealment, retreated when injured, then tried to hide again.

The centipede had targeted my legs after recognizing my mobility.

The Ashhorn Brute had tracked my movements and used Stone Bulwark strategically instead of instinctively covering itself.

That was intelligence.

Not human intelligence, perhaps, but far beyond simple predatory instinct.

And monsters didn’t suddenly develop that kind of behavior for no reason.

Something was influencing them.

Mana concentration?

Environmental evolution?

Exposure to some artifact?

My gaze shifted downward.

The strange mana currents inside the walls were still flowing deeper.

Toward the same direction I was traveling.

Toward the place Rey had hidden his treasure.

My heartbeat accelerated.

Now that was interesting.

Maybe the treasure had something to do with this. Or something had changed after Rey left it here. And it had been affecting Hollowgrave for years.

My researcher instincts, already dangerously overfed today, immediately started screaming at me to go deeper.

Waiting suddenly seemed painfully inefficient.

If the stronger monsters were farther down, then that was where I needed to be.

More powerful enemies meant better cores.

Better materials.

More opportunities to use Eclipse Light Manipulation.

And possibly an explanation for why Hollowgrave’s monsters were developing actual combat skills.

Of course, I wasn’t so excited that I’d forgotten the most important rule of dungeon exploration.

Loot first.

Scientific curiosity second.

I swept my gaze across the blood-covered cavern.

Every corpse had disappeared into my Dimensional Ring.

Only after confirming I’d left behind nothing valuable did I turn toward the descending passage.

My six Eclipse wisps gathered around me again.

Their cold silver-black glow illuminated the blood smeared across my face, my torn shirt, and the path disappearing into darkness.

Then I started walking.

Before going much farther, I summoned a Health Potion from my Dimensional Ring.

The glass bottle appeared in my hand with a soft flash. I pulled out the stopper with my teeth and drank while continuing forward.

Warmth spread down my throat and through my chest.

The shallow cut across my abdomen tingled first. Torn flesh slowly pulled itself together, leaving only drying blood behind. The bruising around my ribs faded next, followed by the smaller scratches covering my arms and shoulders.

Much better.

I’d needed that.

The monsters were becoming noticeably more dangerous the deeper I went, and unlike the idiots who believed magi should preserve every potion until they were half-dead, I preferred using consumables before my organs started applying for resignation.

I checked my remaining Forbidden Energy.

[Forbidden Energy: 71%]

More than enough.

Especially since Eclipse Light Manipulation wasn’t particularly wasteful when I kept the constructs small.

I continued downward.

The tunnel widened gradually until the walls stood almost twenty meters apart. Massive stone pillars rose from the ground at irregular intervals, some natural and others suspiciously smooth. Broken ledges overlooked the path from above, creating dozens of blind spots.

Perfect ambush territory.

My steps slowed.

Then my Domain caught something.

I stopped.

There.

Farther ahead.

One mana signature.

My Abyssal Hunter’s Domain couldn’t give me every detail from this distance, but the pressure alone was enough to make the smaller hairs along my arms rise.

Dense. Controlled. Powerful.

My lips curved.

S-rank.

Nice.

I extinguished four Eclipse wisps immediately.

The remaining two dimmed until their glow became barely visible, and I moved toward the wall. My steps became quieter as I advanced, placing each boot where the stone was solid rather than over loose gravel.

A combat magus didn’t need to fight everything face-to-face.

That was romantic nonsense invented by people who enjoyed unnecessary injuries.

If something could be ambushed, I would ambush it.

If something could be stabbed through the skull while it was looking in another direction, then congratulations to me for efficient resource management.

I slipped behind one of the enormous pillars and leaned just enough to see the chamber beyond.

Something moved through the darkness.

At first, I thought it was a wolf.

Then it stepped beneath the faint glow of a mana crystal.

No.

Definitely not a wolf.

The creature stood nearly three meters at the shoulder, with a long feline body wrapped in overlapping black scales. Six legs supported its massive frame, each ending in curved claws that left faint scratches in the stone without effort. A mane of jagged bone spines surrounded its neck, while two backward-curving horns grew from its skull.

Its tail was worse.

The thing split halfway down into three separate whip-like appendages, each ending in a narrow bone blade.

Its eyes glowed dark crimson.

Black mist leaked continuously from between its scales.

I activated Abyssal Eye.

Information appeared.

[Dreadhorn Abyssal Lynx]

[Rank: S]

[Status: Corrupted]

[Attributes: Darkness / Wind / Earth]

[Skills Detected: Abyssal Claw, Stone Carapace, Gale Rend, Mana Sense, Predator’s Veil]

My smile disappeared.

Corrupted?

I stared harder.

That wasn’t supposed to be here.

Corrupted monsters absolutely existed during the Dark Lord’s era, but they didn’t normally appear through natural evolution. Most had been deliberately corrupted by the Dark Lord himself or transformed through the power of his subordinates.

Which created two possibilities.

Someone connected to the Dark Lord had entered Hollowgrave before.

Or...

My attention shifted toward the mana currents running through the cavern walls.

The treasure.

Could whatever Rey had hidden deeper inside be causing this?

That possibility was considerably more interesting.

And considerably more concerning.

Unfortunately, scientific curiosity would have to wait because the S-rank monster had something else I desperately wanted.

Its core.

I slowly raised one hand.

The two dim Eclipse wisps moved silently above me, flattening until they became narrow blades.

I waited.

The Dreadhorn turned.

Its neck became exposed.

Now.

Both blades shot forward.

The monster vanished.

My eyes widened slightly.

One moment it had been standing twenty meters away.

The next, my Domain screamed.

Behind me.

I dropped.

Three bone blades sliced through the space where my neck had been.

I rolled beneath the tails, planted one palm against the ground, and kicked upward as the creature turned. My boot struck its lower jaw.

It barely moved.

That was insulting.

I pushed off immediately.

A claw came down.

[Void Shift]

Space folded.

I reappeared atop the broken ledge several meters away as the monster’s paw smashed into the floor.

Stone erupted.

Fragments blasted across the chamber.

One struck my shoulder hard enough to spin me half around.

The Dreadhorn didn’t charge blindly after me.

It looked up.

Observed my position.

Then stepped sideways.

My eyes narrowed.

It was calculating the angle.

A gust of compressed wind suddenly formed beside its horn.

I moved before the skill fired.

At the same time, mana surged through my body.

[Abyssal Reinforcement]

I forced mana into my muscles, bones, and skin, wrapping my entire body in a thin layer of reinforcement.

Because getting hit by this thing without protection was a bad idea.

This wasn’t one of those attacks I could afford to underestimate just because I was confident in my movement. Even a grazing hit from an S-rank monster could tear flesh from bone, and considering the amount of wind mana gathering around that horn, taking it directly would probably turn me into several academically interesting pieces.

Three enormous wind blades tore through the ledge.

I jumped.

The first passed beneath my boots.

The second clipped my reinforced calf, and the impact still felt like someone had struck me with a steel bar. Mana rippled violently across my skin, absorbing most of the cutting force before the blade continued past me and carved a deep trench through the stone wall.

The third hit the ledge itself.

Stone beneath my feet split apart.

The entire platform collapsed.

I kicked off a falling chunk of rock and threw myself higher rather than letting gravity decide where I landed. Reinforced muscles answered instantly, giving the movement far more force than an ordinary jump.

My Eclipse wisps returned at once, six this time, forming around me as I fell.

The Dreadhorn watched my descent.

Its tails spread.

It was predicting where I would land.

That realization should have worried me.

Instead, excitement crawled pleasantly up my spine.

This thing wasn’t fighting like a monster.

It was fighting like an S-rank combatant.

It understood positioning. Timing. Feints.

It had detected my ambush, counterattacked immediately, destroyed my elevated position, and was already preparing to punish my landing.