As I had said, ‘Haze’ possessed physical force.
If it possessed physical force, that meant it could be touched.
‘And if it can be touched, it can also be stepped on.’
Therefore, I decided to use ‘Haze’ as a foothold to leap across the canyon.
After jumping over the canyon, I gritted my teeth and controlled ‘Haze.’
Flow from my arm and gather beneath my feet.
Then condense firmly enough to keep me from falling.
After barely managing to step on ‘Haze’ and leap again, I repeated the same commands.
“Urgh....”
Something warm trickled from beneath my nose.
My overloaded brain screamed that it could not process any more commands.
However, I had no choice.
If it failed to obey, I would fall to my death.
I bit down hard on the inside of my mouth to keep myself conscious and issued the commands once more.
Again.
And again.
After several leaps, I finally reached the other side of the canyon and collapsed helplessly onto the ground.
“Huff, huff.”
My mouth tasted of blood.
My face felt sticky, and my brain ached as though it were burning.
Breathing heavily, I covered my face with one hand.
“...I made it across.”
The slightest mistake would truly have killed me.
I had done it, but I did not even understand how I had managed it.
After lying spread-eagled and gasping for quite some time, I slowly sat up.
“Still, something is strange.”
“Squeak?”
“Think about it. If that was the only exit, how did the Bloody Mantises and Earth Bears get in there?”
I had naturally assumed that the monsters had walked into that area.
However, it had been an enclosed space with no exit whatsoever.
How had they gotten inside?
“Did whoever created the tower simply put them there?”
I smacked my lips softly, shook my head, and struggled to my feet.
I had caught my breath to some extent, so it was time to continue.
“Let us go, Cheori. We need to get out of here.”
“Squeak.”
I had not even been inside the cave for very long, yet I already missed the forests of the Verdant Tower.
I trudged onward along the passage.
***
Concealing myself behind a boulder, I peeked around it.
A single Bloody Mantis stood in the passage ahead, completely blocking the way.
I could simply charge forward and punch it.
Bloody Mantises were no longer worthy opponents for me.
I knew that, yet for some reason, I could not bring myself to move.
‘It is different from the Bloody Mantises I have seen until now.’
The Bloody Mantis ahead of me was surrounded by an unknown purple haze.
Perhaps because of that, the color of its exoskeleton looked less blood-red and more like a reddish violet.
Its appearance was the same.
Yet it was different.
It contained an unmistakably dangerous presence.
My instincts were screaming that I must not approach it.
That was why I could only watch the creature from a distance.
‘It does not look as though it intends to move.’
However, I could not wait forever.
There was only one path.
Unless that creature moved aside, I could not continue.
Yet even after a considerable amount of time had passed, the purple Bloody Mantis showed no sign of leaving.
‘Do I have no choice but to fight it?’
Damn it.
I did not know why, but I truly did not want to fight that creature.
The only fortunate thing was that my condition had improved while walking here.
I released a calm breath and slowly emerged from behind the boulder.
At that moment—
“What?”
It disappeared.
The enormous creature vanished as though it had evaporated.
The moment I realized that—
“Squeak!”
Cheori cried out urgently toward my back.
Clenching my teeth, I immediately ducked according to my instincts.
A razor-sharp blade narrowly swept over my head.
This was insane.
When had it reached me?
My eyes trembled as I stared at the purple Bloody Mantis that had somehow appeared behind me.
It tilted its triangular head sideways and brought its foreleg down toward me.
‘I cannot dodge it...!’
My posture had already collapsed, making it impossible to evade.
In that case, there was only one answer.
I thrust my fist toward the descending foreleg.
At that moment—
“Urgh...!”
Pain engulfed my body as though every part of my skin except my right arm were melting.
My right arm faltered for a brief instant.
That slight hesitation twisted the trajectory of my punch, and I was sent flying in an unnatural direction.
THUD, THUD, THUD, CRASH!
I bounced across the ground several times before slamming violently into the wall.
It hurt.
Not only my back, but my entire body.
The pain in my right shoulder, the part that had not transformed with ‘Black Dragon,’ was especially excruciating.
Breathing heavily, I carefully touched my right shoulder with my left hand.
“...Damn it.”
My flesh had melted.
That was not an exaggeration. The flesh had literally melted away.
Upon closer inspection, it was not only my right shoulder.
Every part of my body that had faced the creature had melted slightly.
“Skree.”
Step. Step.
The creature approached me as I remained embedded in the wall.
Every surface touched by the violet energy flowing from its body began to melt.
I let out a hollow laugh at the sight.
“What is that supposed to be?”
Now that I could see it up close, I was certain.
That creature was a Bloody Mantis.
It was simply covered in that mysterious purple energy.
And because of that energy, it had become several times stronger than an ordinary Bloody Mantis.
Keeping my eyes fixed on the Bloody Mantis, I slowly forced myself to stand.
It had not remained still earlier because it was too lazy to move.
It had noticed me long ago and had merely been waiting for me to reveal myself.
“....”
It was coming.
The moment I stood, I saw its body tremble faintly.
I had to react.
I had to react and throw a punch.
However—
‘What happens after that?’
When my fist collided with its foreleg earlier, I had felt it.
The hardness of its exoskeleton had also increased several times over.
If it was that durable, I could not kill it in one blow as I had the ordinary Bloody Mantises.
That meant I would have to strike it at least twice.
‘Will my body endure until then?’
I could tolerate the pain.
Compared to being burned to death hundreds of times, this was nothing.
My concern was that I could not revive inside the Verdant Tower.
I would undoubtedly collapse before I managed to land more than two blows.
And if that happened, I would not be the only one to die.
Cheori, who was coiled around my neck, would die as well.
“Squeak!”
It was coming.
At Cheori’s brief warning, I immediately threw myself to the right.
“Urgh...!”
BOOM!
The Bloody Mantis slammed into the ground, shaking the earth.
The instant my right foot touched the faint purple energy flowing from its body, horrifying pain surged through my foot, melting through my shoe.
Clenching my teeth, I formed a fist in midair.
If close-range combat was impossible, I would attack from a distance.
[Haze - Martial Shadow]
RUMBLE!
A spiraling fist strike shot forward.
Because the Bloody Mantis’s foreleg was embedded in the solid stone floor, the vortex of black mist struck it directly.
However—
“That damned energy...!”
The purple energy blocked the vortex of mist before it could reach the Bloody Mantis.
In the end, the creature did not suffer so much as a scratch.
Grinding my teeth, I had no choice but to throw myself aside again.
The Bloody Mantis once more struck the place where I had been standing.
Fortunately, none of my body was exposed to its energy this time.
However, because I had moved so suddenly, agony surged from my right foot with enough intensity to make my vision flicker.
“Huff, huff.”
SCRAAAAAPE.
It hurt.
It felt as though every hair on my body were standing on end.
Breathing heavily, I dragged Black Dragon’s claws across the cave wall.
They left marks as easily as though the stone were made of clay.
Close-range combat was obviously impossible.
Yet a long-range attack did not appear likely to work either.
What was I supposed to do?
My thoughts raced chaotically.
I considered every possible method of overcoming the situation, then discarded each one.
It would not work.
That would not work either.
Nothing would work.
No matter how many possibilities I considered, every path pointed toward the same conclusion.
‘Death.’
My mind had already determined that I would die here.
That was why I—
“What utter nonsense.”
I slammed my left hand against my melted right shoulder.
Blood sprayed in every direction.
The moment a streak of it splattered across my face, my thoughts became perfectly clear.
I was going to die?
Why would I?
I had not even achieved my dream yet.
I still had far more years left to live than I had already lived.
And if I truly had to die—
“I would rather surrender my body to Black Dragon.”
Rather than dying in a place like this, I would give my body to Black Dragon.
I absolutely could not die.
Even if I eventually did, this place would not become my grave.
[The Master of the Twisted Netherworld is pleased with your resolve.]
I could do this.
Nothing in my life had ever been easy.
Therefore, I could overcome this as well.
I calmly watched the Bloody Mantis charge toward me.
Once again, it rushed directly ahead.
Apparently, that was the only thing it knew how to do.
I stepped backward and evaded its attack, then stared at the wavering purple energy.
That energy was blocking everything I possessed.
Without it, killing the creature would be easy.
In that case—
“I only have to tear it apart.”
Why had I not thought of that sooner?
I immediately spread the fingers of my right hand wide.
Then I extinguished the ‘Haze’ rising from my hand in an instant.
“Skree.”
The Bloody Mantis charged as though it had recognized an opportunity.
I did not look at it.
I merely stared intensely at my right hand with my eyes wide open.
‘Compress it.’
‘Haze’ possessed physical force.
The denser the mist became, the stronger that physical force grew, until it could even support my weight.
In that case—
‘Limit the points from which Haze is released to my claws.’
What if I reduced the area from which ‘Haze’ emerged from the beginning?
And what if I released the usual amount of ‘Haze’ through that restricted space?
Would that not make its force stronger?
[Synchronization Rate 1.8%]
My head throbbed as though it were about to split apart.
Every nerve in my body focused on this one task, leaving no room for anything else.
One second felt like a minute.
One minute felt like an hour.
Within that brief yet endless moment, the mantis’s foreleg descended.
Then a faint stream of black mist emerged from the tips of my five extended claws.
[The Haze application technique ‘Haze Blade’ has been created.]
[Haze Blade]
[Creates an extremely compressed, sharp, and precise blade of mist.]
Ink-black lines began forming over my sharp claws.
[Haze - Haze Blade]
Clenching my teeth, I swung my right hand violently.
My hand swept through empty air.
Five black lines that no longer resembled mist rapidly followed the path of my swing.
“Skree?”
The five black lines followed after a fraction of a second.
The Bloody Mantis ignored them and continued charging toward me.
The prey’s attack could not harm it.
Believing that, the Bloody Mantis did not stop its foreleg as it brought it down upon the unmoving prey.
However, there was one thing the Bloody Mantis had overlooked.
Those deceptively ordinary black lines would continue forward regardless of what stood before them.
Even if that obstacle was the purple energy that had blocked every previous attack.
“...!”
SLASH!
A hollow cutting sound rang out.
The five blades that had formed over my claws shot fiercely along the path of my swing.
The blades pierced through the purple energy.
They tore through the Bloody Mantis’s exoskeleton.
Only after carving deep gashes into the cave wall did they finally disappear.
Breathing heavily, I stared at the Bloody Mantis that had stopped directly in front of me.
It had ceased moving.
The purple energy that had constantly poured from its body suddenly began to diminish.
A moment later, five diagonal lines appeared across its torso.
“...I won.”
The creature’s body collapsed completely.
The strength left my legs, and I sank to the ground.
My mind felt numb.
Even remaining conscious was difficult.
As my vision blurred, I focused solely on breathing deeply and looked upward.
At that moment—
“Who is there?”
A strangely familiar voice reached my ears.
“Y-You are the human who suddenly disappeared a week ago?!”
I heard the owner of the voice rushing toward me.
That was the last thing I heard before—
“Wait, human! Stay aw—”
—I lost consciousness.