Soul of the Warrior

“Hero! Your companions’ ritual to bypass your Class Skill cooldown is almost complete, but that Dragon could appear at any time. Just stay here where you’ll be protected until the ritual is activated.”

Reivyn stood in place as the battlefield seemed to come to life. As soon as everyone was in their proper position, the scenario kicked off as if they hadn’t just been standing around like statues. The man Reivyn pegged as the commander was the one to address him.

Reivyn didn’t know if he was expected to actually interact with these shadow-people or not, so he just nodded his head and stayed silent. The shadow-people didn’t try to talk to him any further, though, so he just waited and watched.

The mention of a ritual to bypass a Class Skill cooldown intrigued Reivyn. What kind of a Class Skill would have such a long cooldown to require such a ritual, and what kind of ritual would affect someone else’s cooldown. There was some circular reasoning afoot, but it apparently was a thing.

He looked over to where he had seen the supposed Hero’s Companions. They were standing close together, and they all appeared to be concentrating on something. They were outside of Reivyn’s Divine Sense range, so he had to use his mundane Perception to observe them. He activated his Eagle Eye to zoom his focus in on them.

Are they… praying? He thought

The Companions were huddled up together, and they were standing with their hands clasped and heads bowed. There was a particular sort of energy glowing about them that was hard to see. It was like trying to catch something out of the corner of his eye. If he focused on it directly, it disappeared.

It wasn’t Mana. Or if it was, it wasn’t any kind he had seen before. It wasn’t made up of motes or even woven together in weaves. It was an ethereal, golden glow that he could barely perceive when he watched out of the corner of his eye.

What is that? It’s not Mana, Stamina, or Qi…

It was a bit familiar to him, but he couldn’t place how or why. He shook his head and dispelled the thoughts. Now wasn’t the time to delve into the mystery. He just saved the information for dissection later. Maybe his parents and Kefira could help him figure it out once they got out of here.

Reivyn returned his attention to his friends and the rest of the army milling about. The shadow-army appeared to be made up of highly professional soldiers. They were well armed and disciplined, and they reminded him of his own ideal military.

The units were larger than he would have preferred, personally, but he was also a proponent of small-unit-tactics. Everything should be able to be broken down into smaller and smaller groups. He wasn’t sure how effective that would be with a base unit being so large, but it should be doable. There would just be more responsibility on the platoon-size leadership.

After making his observations, nothing seemed to happen for a little while. Eventually, though, there was a disturbance in the ambient Mana. It was like they were a struck tuning fork. The motes in the air started to vibrate, and the intensity increased with every passing second.

A sense of dread washed over him, and he could see that he wasn’t the only one. His Party members started to fidget, and he could tell that even the shadow-soldiers were affected by the phenomenon.

Something’s coming, he realized. And with context clues, I’m pretty sure it’s that Dragon everyone’s been talking about.

It wasn’t much longer before Reivyn spotted the dot in the distance. At first it was just a little black speck on the horizon, but it slowly grew in size as he watched it. It got larger and larger at a slow pace until some sort of threshold was reached, and then it got larger fast.

One moment, it was just a distant object in the sky, then suddenly it was a giant flying lizard. The size and scale of the Dragon was… intimidating, to say the least. Even without anything to reference it’s size next to, Reivyn could tell that the Dragon was immense.

The vibration in the air continued to agitate at an increased pace. Another, more subtle, vibration joined in, though. It was opposite to the phenomenon caused by the Dragon. Not just in that it was coming from a different direction, but it seemed to simultaneously soothe the ambient Mana while causing its own agitation.

He traced the origin of the new vibrations and his gaze landed on the Hero Companions. The subtle glow surrounding them had intensified to almost blinding proportions. He still couldn’t see it when looking directly at it, but everything in his side-view was like looking straight at the sun. He couldn’t even see the Companions that he wasn’t focused directly on.

The Dragon was suddenly almost directly over top the shadow-army, and it unleashed the fiery death he had been warned about. The shadow-people caught in the conflagration burst into flames before the actual fire even reached them, and they and their equipment melted into molten puddles.

Ok… I can see why Kefira said nobody’s survived that before, Reivyn thought, his eyes wide.

“Protect the Hero!” A shout emerged from the ranks. It was echoed by the defiant roars of the rest of the soldiers.

Group Shield Skills sprung up all around. Reivyn could tell at a glance that they were much more intricate and more powerful than any of the Group Shield Skills he had seen anyone use out in the real world. Even the soldiers from the Tier 5 invaders was nothing compared to these shields.

It still wasn’t enough to save the soldiers from the Dragon, but he could tell even from so far away that it reduced the burden on the closest soldiers to the fiery inferno that was still blazing from where the Dragon had Breathed.

A chime echoed inside Reivyn’s mind. It was quiet and pleasant, but at the same time, it drowned out all other sound like a gong had been struck right next to his ear. It was familiar, yet unfamiliar, and he shook his head to try and rid himself of the echoes. He didn’t want to be distracted from the battle.

Reivyn’s vision turned white. Everything was gone, and he couldn’t see anything. Not just his vision, but his Divine Sense as well. It was like he had been thrust into the void, but opposite. The void was mostly black because it was empty. This whiteout gave him the same emptiness feeling, but only because he could literally perceive nothing, not even his own self.

It had been a long time since he had been so blind. Not even sleeping or being unconscious prevented his brain from seeing the world around him.

Before he could panic or think about what was happening, a tidal wave of power consumed him. His body was on fire. His blood was boiling. His thoughts scattered and he was unable to think at all, much less clearly.

The power coursing through his body was more than anything he had ever encountered before. If he wasn’t experiencing it personally, he wouldn’t believe it was possible for a human body to contain such power, but he could tell in the deepest recesses of his mind that his body was containing the power.

His vision returned, but everything was overlaid with a golden sheen. He could see the waves of golden power emanating off of his body like steam. It distorted his view.

His Divine Sense returned as well, but this time, it was different.

The sudden inflow of information from his Divine Sense put his initial flailing at learning to adapt when he first gained the Skill to shame. That was baby steps compared to now. His Divine Sense covered the entire Plateau.

And not just the Plateau. It stretched out for miles below. It expanded to the very edge of what was contained within the sealed space of the Dungeon. His Divine Sense also wasn’t a two-dimensional plane. It delved deep into the ground.

It wasn’t just the sudden increase in distance that flooded his brain, either. The detail of his Divine Sense expanded to the microscopic scale, as well. The information he perceived was detailed to a level he hadn’t thought possible. He could sense every grain of dirt around him. He could see the ants in the ground and all the other little insects and life-forms permeating the area.

He still couldn’t see down to the cellular level, but he could perceive a sort of glow representing the bacteria and other life-forms too small to see with the naked eye. Across the entirety of his Divine Sense.

And that still wasn’t the end of it.

His Divine Sense butted up against the edge of reality of the sealed space, and then it pierced through it. He could see the closest edge of the Void, and his Divine Sense found and wormed its way through the portal connecting their space to the real world.

The people standing outside the Dungeon came into focus. He could even see the edge of the city below the cliff, as well as all the people walking about.

And that still wasn’t the end of it.

His Divine Sense continued to worm its way through the Void and the portals. All of the Dungeon instances currently being run by people opened up to him. Dozens of plateaus, in various states of combat with the Dragon and the Dragonlings, overlapped with his vision.

And the level of detail down to the granules of dirt and small life forms was consistent throughout the entirety of his perception.

All of that information flooded his brain instantaneously. Less than a fraction of a second had passed.

Pain like nothing he could comprehend became his existence. The soul-wracking pain of the little “gift” the Masked Man had once left him was nothing. It was a pinprick beside the ocean of agony consuming him.

His body contorted as his muscles spasmed. His flesh began to melt and slough off of his body. His bones snapped and flaked away. Blood oozed out of his eyes, ears, and mouth. His hair fell out. Without even willing himself to do so, his head was thrown back and he screamed.

Then darkness…

—

Kefira couldn’t stop fidgeting. Her weight shifted from foot to foot over and over again. She had a pit in her stomach that wouldn’t go away. She just knew that something terrible was going to happen.

She had complete faith in her fiance. A brief flash of delight flooded her being at that thought, but it was immediately squashed by the impending doom she felt.

Everyone knew that Hard Mode was suicide.

And Reivyn had been forced into an even more difficult level.

There was nothing that could be said to assuage her feelings, and the others were feeling the same way. Nobody spoke a word of comfort, and they all just grit their teeth and waited for the beginning of the scenario.

It started like any other time. The air began to vibrate. The ambient Mana was agitated. The speck in the distance appeared, and not long after a giant Dragon came into view. It Breathed death upon the vanguard of the army.

All of that was the same. All of that Kefira had prepared for.

Things took a sudden shift in the unexpected though.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh…”

A blood curdling scream the likes she had never heard pierced through existence itself. Kefira could almost feel the agony imbued within the sound.

The Dragon had begun to roar, but even its devastating acoustic attack was unable to even manifest in the face of that scream. It came out as a silent puff of air.

There was no other sound other than the scream. Even after it suddenly cut off, there was complete silence on the field.

Fear gripped her and she turned her head, knowing instinctively the source of the sound.

Where Reivyn had been standing, a pillar of golden light drowned all other sight away. The shadow-commanders stood frozen in place next to the pillar. The world seemed to have come to a complete standstill for just a moment, but a breeze once more picked up after a half second.

The shadow-commanders’ bodies disintegrated and drifted away on the breeze. The pillar of light next to them had destroyed them completely.

And Reivyn was standing in the center of the pillar.

Kefira couldn’t see him through the blinding light, but she knew exactly where he was. There hadn’t been a second where she hadn’t been perfectly aware of where he was at all times since they had entered the Dungeon.

The pillar of golden light contracted in on itself. The blinding light disappeared as it entered Reivyn’s body. He stood with his body contorted in agony, bald head thrown back, mouth wide-open.

Kefira watched in wide-eyed terror as his skin melted off his body. His muscles and bones came into view. His muscles also melted away, and she could see thousands of cracks throughout his bones as they began to flake away.

His body hadn’t been able to contain whatever energy had been infused into him, and was now destroyed. She could sense his life, though, and could tell he wasn’t dead.

His body straightened up even as it was being destroyed. His head snapped back down, and Kefira could tell, even though his eyes were gone, that he was looking at the threat in the Dungeon: The Dragon.

Reivyn disappeared.

A tremendous force shoved Kefira and everyone else, including the entire shadow-army, onto the ground. They were pinned in place. A sonic boom echoed over the battlefield immediately followed by another loud explosion.

Kefira struggled to turn her head so she could look toward the source of the sound.

Kefira didn’t witness the impact, but Reivyn was floating in the air where the Dragon had just been. Kefira’s eyes continued to pan until she found the enemy.

The dragon was splayed, wings and arms spread, across the invisible barrier of the Dungeon that had sprung up a distance away in the direction the Dragon had appeared. She could tell that it was being driven into the wall.

Cracks appeared on the invisible barrier, and snippets of the Void could be seen on the other side. A vacuum began to suck things towards the cracks in reality, but the force holding everyone down was more powerful. Some of the trees and parts of the plateau closest to the barrier, though, weren’t being held down, and they were uprooted and began flying through the air toward the Dragon and the damage in the barrier.

The cracks quickly healed, though, and the dirt, trees, and wildlife suspended in midair before falling back to the ground.

The Dragon shook its head as it huffed. It came away from the barrier as it looked upon Reivyn with a murderous gaze.

Kefira shifted her sight once more to her fiance. His body was completely gone, now. A being of golden light floated in the air where a human had once stood. The being of light watched the Dragon impassively.

The Dragon attempted to roar in defiance, but it was still unable to muster its powerful lungs. Kefira could feel the agitation and fury rolling off of the humongous creature.

The Dragon tucked its wings around its body and rocketed toward Reivyn. It sliced through the air with zero resistance and was instantly upon Reivyn.

Reivyn simply lifted his hand of light, and the Dragon slammed into another invisible barrier. Its momentum was immediately halted, and Kefira could see its wings and bones shatter at the force with which it had struck.

Reivyn was perfectly still.

The Dragon’s body was like a spring. It had compressed against the wall it had slammed into, and then it suddenly bounced away, its body once more elongating into its proper shape. Hundreds of broken Dragonlings fell away from its shattered scales to land as heaps of meat on the ground.

Reivyn lifted his palm further above his head. Energy began to coalesce above his palm. Kefira expected to see a gradual increase like she had seen him do multiple times with his orb of fire and plasma.

That wasn’t the case.

A speck of energy appeared above Reivyn’s hand, and in less than a second, it expanded to a size more than double that of the Dragon. A miniature sun was born above Reivyn’s hand.

He lowered his hand and pointed at the Dragon. Nothing happened for a split second. Then, the energy contained in the mini sun compressed into the size of a marble before expelling all the compressed energy as a beam into the Dragon.

The beam sliced through the Dragon before exploding in a conflagration that put its Dragon Breath to shame. It was like comparing a candle to a bonfire.

The fire continued for several moments. The light was blinding, and nothing could be seen aside from the powerful attack.

Slowly, vision returned to Kefira.

The Dragon was no more. It had been completely, utterly annihilated. A hole in reality once more opened up on the barrier of the Dungeon’s edge. Another vacuum began sucking bits and pieces of the Dungeon out into the Void, but it quickly healed itself once more.

The battlefield was completely still and silent. Everyone’s gaze was upon the creature of light that was Reivyn.

Kefira didn’t know what to do. She didn’t know what to expect. All thoughts had left her mind at the start of the encounter, and she was still unable to pull herself together. She wasn’t able to comprehend what she was seeing, and her mind had simply shut down as it took everything in.

The outline of Reivyn’s body began to compress. The light gathered into his core until there was just a floating ball of golden light. Lines began to expand out of the ball and began forming complicated patterns.

The lines of light were relatively small, but there were thousands of them. They triggered something in Kefira’s brain, but she still wasn’t fully cognizant after the harrowing experience. The lines looked alien, yet familiar.

After several heartbeats, it finally became clear what the lines were.

They look like veins, was the first thought that popped into Kefira’s head. It was the first thought she had since the pillar of light had appeared.

No, not veins, she corrected herself. Meridians.

The world around her began to tremble. Shadow-soldiers were lifted off the ground and began floating toward the light meridians. The ground, flora, and fauna were all caught up just like they had been with the vacuum from the void, though at a much slower pace.

None of the shadow-soldiers resisted. It was almost like they weren’t even aware of what was happening.

Kefira watched as the bits of reality composing the Dungeon disintegrated into pure energy. The matter of the Dungeon floated up toward the lights, then it broke down into nothing and was replaced by pure energy.

Kefira termed it as energy because it wasn’t exactly Mana. It had Mana in it. A large amount, actually. But that paled in comparison to what the energy actually was. The energy itself was the matter. It was an amalgamation of matter, Mana, energy, and something else she couldn’t recognize.

Eventually, no more bits of the Dungeon were pulled up to the floating light, but what had been pulled up continued its journey. It moved toward the light as it was broken down and turned into energy, and the energy continued to move toward the light.

All the energy eventually converged and turned into a sort of cocoon. The light meridians were shielded from view, and the cocoon floated in space for several moments. It pulsed and writhed before contracting.

It got smaller and smaller, contorting into a different shape as it did so. Neither Kefira nor any of the other Party members were able to say anything as they witnessed the spectacle.

Eventually, the shape of the contorting cocoon came into view. It was very clearly human-shaped, and after several more long moments, Reivyn appeared once more.

A very naked Reivyn.

Kefira felt a blush creep across her face as she subconsciously reached a hand out to cover Serilla’s eyes. Serilla didn’t react and let her vision be obstructed.

His body had been completely remolded. Born from the very essence and energy of reality itself. It slowly descended from where it had been floating in the air, and it appeared as if he was gently placed on the ground.

His body laid splayed out, his features and hair all restored. There wasn’t a single blemish remaining on his skin. Kefira did a thorough check to make sure.

Heat filled her face as Teilon appeared and covered Reivyn’s body with a cloak. She placed both of her hands on her cheeks in embarrassment.

What was I doing?! She thought. She had been completely entranced by the sight. Teilon shot her a glance, but instead of the reproving look she was expecting, he just winked at her with a sly grin. Oh no! Reivyn’s best friend thinks I’m a pervert!

She wanted to bury her head in the pockmarked ground.

Suddenly a System Notification interrupted her thoughts.

Congratulations!

Epic Mode has been Cleared

Teleporting in

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