NOVEL NEXT Chap 228: Strange pills.
Just before taking the first step, I come to a sudden stop. They've taken something that looks like a pill from somewhere and are holding it between their teeth. What is that? What does that strange pill do? Their confidence has skyrocketed—whatever that pill is, it must be related to this sudden shift in attitude from this band of criminals.
"Kid, you've driven us to this point. You should feel proud in the afterlife." The two melee fighters swallow the pills. The mana around them becomes more violent and concentrated. Their danger level spikes in an instant—these two now feel like grade-4 monsters, and strong ones.
"It's a shame to waste two pills on you." The moment their leader finishes speaking, I feel a tingling on my back. A spear appears just centimeters from my neck, and my body is already shifting to evade.
The man with the axe swings horizontally. My body reacts with a vertical slash using all my strength. The force of the impact lifts me slightly off the ground. Several follow-up thrusts from the spear try to pierce me, and I manage to block them with my swords. When I land, I have to move back to dodge the mages' spells and the spear's pressure again.
The axe-user's strength has risen dramatically. Even his weak points—which should have been more obvious under my gravity—are now much harder to exploit. The same goes for the spearman. His arm wound isn't fully healed, yet with just one arm he's been able to pressure me with that speed and penetrating power.
I increase my mana output to press them further with gravity, repair my ice armor since it cracked from the previous block, and accept the axe blow again.
This time I'm only pushed a single step back, and my speed overtakes theirs again. I can now follow the spear's trajectory and find the best routes to deflect and counterattack. Before, I could only defend and try to adapt to their attack patterns.
The mages keep moving behind their frontline, not giving me a chance to isolate them. Gravity is affecting them too—their movements slow, and they're burning much more mana to reinforce their bodies.
I close in on the axe-user. The spearman keeps a safe distance behind him, supporting whenever I gain the upper hand. The force of his blows means nothing if they don't land, and I can redirect that power with my swords when needed.
My speed increases explosively as I trigger Gravity Burst more often. My cuts grow sharper and faster. After several exchanges, I finally manage to land a small cut on his leg, then another on his arm, another on his abdomen, again on his arm—small wounds spread all over his body.
My death mana is almost cleansed instantly, but that doesn't mean there are no consequences. Bit by bit, I drain all his resistances. Nearly a minute later, I manage to land a deep slash on his stomach. He doesn't falter—not even for a moment—and I'm forced to block with my other sword.
The impact throws me off balance, and the spearman takes the chance to stab me near the abdomen. The big guy with the axe collapses to his knees, and I retreat to the side while covering the wound where that enhanced spear struck me.
"This is the beginning of your end, brat. That wound is the start of your suffering." The leader begins laughing like a lunatic. He doesn't care about his subordinates at all—he has no concern for his tank, who is in agony with death mana eating away at his stomach.
I drop to one knee and try to look as pitiful as possible. The leader laughs even harder and they all slowly move to regroup.
Joaki's POV:
"We have to help him. We have to help Maki!" I shout desperately to my teammates. Everyone nods, and we rush forward as fast as we can.
Yuly healed us as much as possible. She's out of mana, and we left her behind with Murill to protect her. The rest of us are exhausted and nearly out of mana, but full of the will to help our benefactor.
At first, we didn't intervene because we'd only get in Maki's way. But now that we're at least partially healed, we can try to help. If Maki dies, we die too. Better to give everything we have—if we win, at least some of us might survive.
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The young man is holding his stomach where the spear coated in dark mana pierced him. Before I can run to shield him with my own body, Maki disappears from his spot in the blink of an eye.
What? Where did he go? Did he vanish? Wait—was that space magic? I sense a faint presence nearby. I look toward the spot where the mana feels distorted and see Maki standing between the spearman and the tank, both of his swords buried in their chests.
My mouth drops open, my brain struggling to process what I'm seeing. Maki vanished with some kind of spatial movement ability and impaled each of them through the chest. The attack was instantaneous, nearly impossible to dodge—but those two had taken that strange pill. They should have had enough time to react.
No—they grew careless for a split second when they saw Maki wounded and stumbling. He used that single opening to strike them lethally. The spearman tries to stab him downward, and the tank desperately attempts to grab him.
Maki disappears again, reappearing at their side with an ice sword. He drives it into the tank's forehead and detonates it as it goes through. The spearman doesn't have time to react due to his own injuries, and his entire body is filled with ice fragments that freeze anything they touch.
The two melee fighters are dead. Their lifeless bodies hit the ground. Maki approaches slowly, creates two more swords, and drives them into their throats with smooth, precise motions.
"Don't panic. Spatial magic costs a lot of mana, and he's seriously wounded. We just need to hold on a little longer." The leader of the Withered Tree group shouts.
He's right—Maki is injured and shouldn't be able to last much longer. Using superior affinities consumes absurd amounts of mana, and being wounded by someone boosted by drugs only makes it worse.
"What?" Maki says as he removes his hand from where the wound should be. "What injury are you talking about?" From my angle, I see only torn clothing in the back—no wound remains.
He can use life mana too? My assessment of him changes again. I thought he was just an overconfident spoiled kid for coming alone. My opinion shifted after he saved us and I realized the rumors underestimated him. He was clearly a limit-breaker far beyond our expectations.
Now, I can only see him as someone extraordinary—someone who doesn't just break limits but the very concept of what's possible. Not only has he mastered Imra to the point where I can't read anything from him, he controls his mana so precisely he doesn't explode from overcharging his body.
And that's not all—he wields two supreme affinities with fluid mastery. I'm glad I never angered him before entering this dungeon. Otherwise we'd be lying on the ground like the Withered Tree group.
"How? How is this possible?!" Their leader screams in despair. Without a tank or melee fighters, they're easy prey for a fighter as skilled as Maki.
Spells don't land on him—he dodges without any wasted movement, every step calculated, always anticipating what comes next.
The mages last less than a minute before dying, leaving the leader alone. When we try to help, we're halted instantly by his Imra, and an ice wall forms in front of us. He even noticed the smallest movement on the battlefield.
"There's no one left to protect you now." Maki slices off one leg and one arm with a simple, fluid motion.
The Withered Tree leader screams in pain, rage in his eyes, no fear of death. He tries to cast one last spell—his magic collapses, and his movements freeze.
"Any last words?" Maki waits a few seconds, but there is no response. "I hope you suffer for all the people you made suffer—if there's any punishment after death."
Our savior ends him with a single slash to the neck. The head freezes mid-air before falling.
All gravitational pressure fades, and his other abilities dissipate. The oppressive atmosphere vanishes, leaving only a young man standing among corpses and pools of blood.
One of my teammates nudges me. I understand their intention, so I slowly approach Maki, not wanting to cause any misunderstanding.
"Thank you for saving us. If you hadn't appeared, my whole group would have died." The young man turns. His violet eyes are serious, and his half-smile shines.
"I was just in the right place at the right time. Let's rest inside—we can talk there." I nod. My entire group listens and enters in an orderly manner. I wait for Maki as he gathers the important items from the Withered Tree corpses.
Once we're all seated together in a single group in front of him, we can finally relax. My team is eating and drinking water to recover from the fatigue. Yuly is finally able to sleep a little, though she refused to rest until she could hear Maki speak.
The young prodigy is also eating and drinking. Up close, he looks even younger; it's incredible how someone his age has become this strong.
"Take half of those bastards' supplies." Maki offers them to us, and although we tried to refuse, he convinced us by saying that he's just one person—he doesn't need so much food and water. We accepted his generosity; it's always better to have extra than not enough.
"Let me thank you again, Maki. Without your help, all of us would have died miserably because of the Withered Tree group." Maki just looks at me steadily without showing much reaction. "My team owes you our lives. We hope we can repay you somehow in the future. I don't mind signing a mana contract to fulfill any request you might have."
We survived by a miracle, and we owe our lives to this kid. If there's anything we can do, we will. We all talked about it while we were getting healed in the middle of his fight.
"I have something in mind. I'll let you know later." Hearing that makes me feel relieved; my team and I will never go back on our word. "Now, I want to know a bit more about this dungeon. I want to exchange information with all of you. Have you discovered anything about the boss of this place?"