Chapter 33

Chapter 33

The Sand Soldier’s attacks were simple.

From Deioden’s level, they were so dull they would make him yawn. But Zeon felt as if he were going to die.

‘Sand control doesn’t work.’

Whether it was because they were both sand, or because some special power was at work, attacks like Sand Blaster or Sand Blender did not work on the Sand Soldier.

Rather, the more sand he used, the more it absorbed, and the stronger its size and power became.

‘What the hell is this......?’

Zeon wore an utterly dumbfounded expression.

It was clear that the Sand Soldier, like Zeon, used sand as its power source.

‘Then what about Exion?’

Zeon hurriedly operated Exion and attacked the Sand Soldier.

THUD!

When he struck with Exion loaded into his fist, one of the Sand Soldier’s shoulders shattered.

Until just a moment ago, it had absorbed sand and quickly repaired its injuries, but now it was not regenerating.

‘As expected, it can’t absorb Exion.’

Unlike ordinary sand, Exion had practically become one with him. That was clearly why the Sand Soldier could not absorb it.

Zeon condensed Exion around the gauntlet.

CRASH—!

With one punch from him, the Sand Soldier shattered into pieces and scattered. But he was not even given time to celebrate.

Sssshhh!

That was because new Sand Soldiers appeared.

This time, there were two.

“Good! Let’s do this.”

Zeon used Sand Walk and approached the Sand Soldiers. Then he attacked by applying Exion.

CRASH—! CRASH—!

With successive explosive roars, the Sand Soldiers broke apart.

A look of disbelief rose on Zeon’s face.

This time, four Sand Soldiers had appeared.

“What the hell? Every time I knock them down, they double?”

If his hypothesis was correct, then once he brought down these Sand Soldiers, eight would appear next.

His prediction soon became reality.

Eight Sand Soldiers really appeared.

The problem was that unlike the first Sand Soldier that had appeared, the newly formed Sand Soldiers moved more smoothly and lethally.

“Oh! So they learn?”

Deioden let out an exclamation of admiration.

The newly appeared Sand Soldiers moved while compensating for the weaknesses of the previous ones.

It was as if they were learning their problems from being defeated by Zeon.

Deioden watched Zeon’s fight with an intrigued expression.

Of course, he had not the slightest intention of helping him.

If this was a dungeon meant for Zeon, then he had to break through it on his own. Just as he always had.

THUD! THUD!

Behind the Sand Soldiers breaking apart, more Sand Soldiers were rising.

They attacked Zeon with an even stronger presence.

Zeon bit his lip.

“Fine! Let’s see who wins.”

At this point, his stubbornness surged as well.

He fought the Sand Soldiers with all his strength.

A Sand Soldier broke apart and became sand, then clumped together again and became a Sand Soldier.

It was a fight that seemed as if it would never end.

The Sand Soldiers were not the only ones learning and improving.

Zeon was learning too.

Through the fight with the Sand Soldiers, he increased the usefulness of Exion and refined his techniques in detail.

In that way, Zeon and the Sand Soldiers studied each other and grew stronger at frightening speed.

There was one difference between Zeon and the Sand Soldiers.

The presence or absence of Exion.

While Zeon could use Exion to attack in various ways, the Sand Soldiers had no choice but to fight mainly in close combat.

“Haaah!”

CRASH—!

With an explosive roar, more than ten Sand Soldiers broke apart.

Zeon dashed toward the cave behind the Sand Soldiers.

Even as he ran along the cave, Sand Soldiers appeared endlessly and attacked Zeon.

Zeon kept running while knocking down all of those Sand Soldiers.

After running endlessly like that, before he knew it, he arrived in a vast underground cavity.

In the center of the underground cavity stood a large altar.

Above the altar floated a cluster of light of unknown identity.

It was clearly the item that served as the dungeon’s core.

“Phew!”

Zeon instinctively realized that inside that cluster of light was an item connected to him.

Vmmmm!

Then the cluster of light shone even more brightly and caused a powerful vibration. At that, before he knew it, the underground cavity was filled with Sand Soldiers.

Even at a rough count, there seemed to be over a thousand.

“Shit!”

Zeon’s face twisted.

He had finally reached his destination, only to find even more Soldiers than all the Sand Soldiers he had faced until now.

A curse slipped out on its own.

Then Deioden’s voice came from behind him.

“Cripple, are you going to give up?”

“Who said I’m giving up?”

Zeon snapped.

If he was going to give up, he would not have gone through so much trouble following him all the way here. He would have returned to Neo Seoul long ago.

Zeon took a deep breath.

‘I can do it. I can do it.’

At that moment, the Sand Soldiers attacked Zeon.

The sight of them charging forward, dyeing the gigantic underground cavity black, was like a tidal wave.

As Zeon looked at them, fine particles swirled all around his body.

It was a phenomenon that occurred as he wrapped Exion around himself in a hemispherical shape and rotated it.

It was a method that consumed an extreme amount of mana.

With Zeon’s current mana, he could not maintain it for long. Even so, he used this method because he trusted Elura’s Tear.

A fraudulent item that restored all his mana once, and only once, per day.

In that state, Zeon launched himself into the middle of the Sand Soldiers.

GRRRAAASH!

The Sand Soldiers were ground apart by Exion swirling like a storm.

The Sand Soldiers that were ground apart broke down as they were and became sand.

Even though countless Sand Soldiers were destroyed, the remaining Sand Soldiers did not hesitate to rush at Zeon.

CRASH—! CRASH—!

The Sand Soldiers beat their bare fists against the rotating Exion.

Exion rippled as if it might break at any moment.

Each time, Zeon also took no small amount of damage.

Before he knew it, blood was showing at the corner of his mouth. Even so, Zeon did not stop operating Exion.

When he had destroyed around three hundred Sand Soldiers, all of Zeon’s mana was depleted.

At that instant, Elura’s Tear created a miracle.

It restored all of Zeon’s mana in an instant.

Exion, which had been in danger of cutting off for a moment, began rotating fiercely again.

RUMBLECRASH!

Zeon ran in a straight line.

His goal was the altar.

The Sand Soldiers threw themselves forward to stop Zeon.

There were far more Sand Soldiers rushing in than Sand Soldiers being ground apart. Because of that, Zeon was soon buried beneath the Sand Soldiers and could no longer be seen.

Because they were made of sand, the Sand Soldiers felt none of the fear humans did.

Even if their arms were blown away and their legs were broken, they charged at their target.

It was only because Zeon was heavily armed with the fraudulent item called Exion that he could endure.

If it had been an ordinary Awakened, they would already have vanished without a trace, as if swept away by a wave.

Zeon fought like a madman.

Later, his mana ran low, and he could no longer use the Skill that rotated Exion like a storm.

By then, a considerable number of Sand Soldiers had already been dealt with.

From that point on, he switched to close combat.

He fought with martial arts while operating Exion as minimally as possible.

Fortunately, he had the martial arts he had learned while fighting Golems in the nameless dungeon.

It was not an official Skill, and it had no proper system, only crude and improvised martial arts. Even so, because Zeon had personally learned it with his body, it unfolded naturally.

THUD!

A Sand Soldier’s head shattered.

Without even a chance to catch his breath, Zeon struck another Sand Soldier’s body with his knee.

Like that, he fought madly against the soldiers made of sand, like a beast.

Watching the sight, Deioden murmured,

“What a mess! Still, not bad.”

He needed to have that kind of spirit.

If one had no teeth, one had to bite with one’s gums.

Doing nothing or retreating just because one had no mana, or because one could not use Skills, was no different from boasting of one’s own incompetence.

To survive, one had to do something.

Refusing to put up even the smallest struggle or resistance was dereliction of duty toward life.

Deioden had survived this brutal world with that mindset.

Neo Seoul at least had high walls and the protection of Awakened, so a minimum of rules existed there, but there was no such thing in this wilderness.

One had to survive on one’s own.

Before long, the fight was coming to an end.

THUD!

The final Sand Soldier returned to sand.

“Haa! Haa!”

Zeon breathed so hard it seemed as if he might stop breathing at any moment.

His body was already a complete wreck.

It was almost strange that he was still standing on two legs.

Even as he staggered as if he might collapse at any moment, Zeon walked toward the altar.

The cluster of light above the altar rippled even more, as if welcoming Zeon.

Zeon reached out toward the cluster of light.

At that instant, as if it had been waiting, the cluster of light was absorbed into Zeon’s hand.

Zeon accepted the light without surprise. Then his body, which had been reduced to a wreck, was healed before he knew it, and his depleted mana was filled.

Only then did Zeon’s breathing stabilize.

Zeon kept his eyes closed for a long while.

Deioden quietly waited for him to wake.

“Phew!”

At last, Zeon let out a breath and opened his eyes.

Deioden asked him,

“So, did you get anything useful?”

“Would you like to see?”

Zeon operated his mana.

Then two Sand Soldiers appeared on either side of him.

“You can command sand soldiers now?”

“I’ve only barely grasped the principle. For now, I don’t have enough mana, so I can only summon two, but once my skill improves, I’ll be able to summon more.”

“Soldiers made of sand, hm? They will be useful when carrying out human-wave tactics.”

It was probably impossible to summon a thousand Sand Soldiers at once, as had happened here.

That was because this dungeon itself had the optimal structure for summoning Sand Soldiers.

Outside, Zeon had to summon Sand Soldiers purely with his own mana, so for now, two was his limit.

On Zeon’s left arm was a tattoo that had not existed until now.

It was a tattoo shaped like two spears crossing and rising like coiled snakes.

The cluster of light Zeon had absorbed had transformed into the tattoo.

Deioden asked,

“Any other information?”

“None.”

Zeon shook his head.

There was no information about who had made such a dungeon, or for what purpose.

That was when it happened.

RUMBLE!

Suddenly, the entire underground cavity began to shake.

It was a sign that the dungeon was collapsing.

Because Zeon had absorbed the item that served as the dungeon’s core, it was collapsing.

CRACKLE!

Like cracks spreading through glass, fissures appeared in the space where the two stood. Then the two of them vanished as if erased with an eraser.

A moment later, the place where the two appeared was right where the dungeon entrance had been. They had been transferred outside.

The dungeon entrance they had entered had vanished without a trace. Even so, the two were not surprised.

The end of a conquered dungeon was usually like this.

Deioden looked around and was startled.

“The sand-laden wind has stopped. The barrier is gone.”

The dense sand-laden wind that had been blocking Deioden’s path until now had completely stopped. The barrier had broken.

Only now could they move forward beyond this point.

“Let’s go!”

Deioden began walking.

Zeon looked at him with a slightly dumbfounded expression.

After going through such miserable suffering in the dungeon, he thought they might at least rest for a day, yet Deioden was leaving right away. He could not help feeling bewildered.

“Well, I’m the only one who went through the miserable suffering. You didn’t lift a finger, so I’m sure you’ve got strength to spare. Seriously......”

Swallowing the words “dogshit old man,” Zeon followed Deioden.