The battlefield still burned.
Cinders drifted lazily through the air like dying fireflies, weaving between coils of lingering smoke that curled across the cracked wasteland. The scorched earth pulsed faintly beneath their feet, as if the ground itself still remembered the chaos unleashed moments ago.
Shattered rocks were strewn across the ruined plain, their jagged edges glowing faintly with Belle's residual lightning. A deep silence had fallen—unnatural and tense—echoing with the absence of the monstrous howls that had once shaken the dungeon.
Belle stood at the center of the devastation. Steam hissed softly from her arms where the remains of the minotaurs' black flames had kissed her skin. The soft crackle of fading electricity still danced along her fingertips, flickering like stars before vanishing into the ether.
She exhaled slowly, a long breath escaping her lips as she finally allowed herself to relax. Her body protested the motion—every muscle felt heavy, worn from the intensity of the battle. The adrenaline had long since faded, leaving behind a dull ache that settled into her bones.
Her silver eyes surveyed the battlefield one last time.
No movement. No miasmic resonance. No life.
It was over.
Behind her, Kai let out a low whistle, the sound oddly loud in the quiet aftermath. He stood with one hand on his hip, the other casually wiping soot and sweat from his brow. The crimson glow of his katana had dimmed, the once-raging inferno now a few smoldering embers trailing lazily from the blade's edge.
With a quick flourish, he sheathed it in one fluid motion, the steel sliding home with a quiet SHHNK that echoed like the final punctuation of their battle.
"You know," Kai began, his voice relaxed but laced with curiosity, "you could've ended that fight a whole lot sooner if you just used Aura Amplification."
Belle didn't answer right away.
She was still shaking the residual numbness from her arms, small twitches of static trailing down to her palms. Finally, she rolled her shoulders and stretched her fingers, glancing at Kai with a faint smirk.
"And?"
Kai blinked. "What do you mean 'and'?" He gestured toward the battlefield with both hands. "We nearly got pulverized by those meatheads. I'm still pretty sure that first one cracked a rib when it roared."
Belle turned away, beginning to walk toward the far end of the wasteland. Her boots crunched against scorched gravel and fractured obsidian, the silence broken only by the sound of her steps.
"I wanted to test something," she said simply.
Kai arched a brow, falling into stride beside her. "Test something? Against those things?" He tilted his head, eyes narrowing. "Because I was getting some real 'training arc from hell' vibes back there. And you're telling me that was on purpose?"
Belle nodded once, her expression unreadable.
Kai scoffed in disbelief, rubbing the back of his neck. "Okay, now I'm really not following."
They came upon the remnants of a collapsed wall—once a towering obsidian spire, now reduced to molten slag.
Belle paused, her eyes drifting to her right hand. Thin arcs of electricity still curled between her fingers like restless snakes. She held it up, watching the faint glow flicker out.
"It's true that Aura Amplification would've ended things faster," she admitted. "But that's the problem. It makes things too easy."
Kai frowned. "...Too easy?" he repeated, like he was trying to make sure he heard her right.
Belle nodded again, slower this time. "When I rely on Aura Amplification, I don't refine the rest of my techniques. I don't learn to adapt. And worse—" she closed her hand into a tight fist "—it puts a massive strain on my body. Right now, I can't keep it active for more than a few minutes without consequences."
She turned to face him, her silver eyes calm, but intense. "If I burn out too soon before the real fight even begins… then I'm useless."
Kai went quiet, his usual cocky expression shifting into something more thoughtful. The silence between them grew heavy—not uncomfortable, but grounded and real.
He looked back toward the battlefield, the smoldering corpses of their enemies already fading into the haze.
Belle continued walking. "I need to improve everything else first," she said. "My speed. My precision. My endurance. If I can't push myself without leaning on Aura Amplification, then I'll never reach the next level. The minotaurs… they were the perfect test."
Kai gave a low, incredulous whistle. "So let me get this straight. While I was busy trying not to get flattened, you were casually running battle drills mid-fight?"
"Pretty much," Belle replied.
Kai stared at her for a second, then shook his head and laughed. "You're terrifying, you know."
Belle smiled faintly. "And you're just realizing that now?"
He grinned. "Fair point."
The mood lightened for a moment as they walked, the sound of their banter slowly fading into the distance behind them. But the silence that followed was different this time—more focused and heavier.
Kai's tone shifted. "Still… you should be careful. If you push too far and run out of energy when it really counts…"
Belle nodded solemnly. "I know. That's why I need to do it now. While I still have the luxury of recovering."
Kai's smirk returned, though it was softer this time. "Well, if you're upping your game, then I guess I better keep up. Can't let you hog all the glory."
"Good," Belle said, glancing at him with a small smile. "Wouldn't want you falling behind."
They shared a brief look—silent understanding between two warriors who'd just survived the storm together.
Then they continued forward.
The corridor ahead was no longer lined with scorched stone, but twisted obsidian and glowing red veins that pulsed faintly beneath the walls, as if the dungeon itself was alive and breathing.
The miasma began to return. It rolled in like a silent tide, curling along the ground and rising slowly around their ankles. The air thickened. The warmth of their flames and lightning faded, replaced by a creeping chill that gnawed at the edges of their senses.
The silence deepened, becoming oppressive—almost watchful.
Kai stopped walking, glancing warily down the corridor. "...Do you feel that?"
Belle nodded slowly. "Yeah."
Something ahead was wrong.
The walls whispered. The floor trembled with something faint—like the heartbeat of a sleeping giant buried far beneath the earth.
But neither of them spoke the fear aloud. They just walked—step by step—toward the dark. Toward whatever waited at the bottom of this corrupted dungeon.
Outside of the dungeon, the sky bled softly from the deep black of night to the gentle gold of dawn, like a canvas being washed with light. The first rays of morning filtered through the jagged peaks of the mountains, illuminating the frost-bitten valley below in fleeting warmth.
There, nestled at the foot of the mountain, the Dungeon Suppression Encampment stood still—frozen in tension. Rows of tents and barricades lined the perimeter like silent sentinels, while over a hundred knights and adventurers stood poised in perfect formation, weapons drawn, breaths held.
It was too quiet.
Captain Roderic Lorne, clad in heavy yet expertly crafted silver and navy-blue armor, stood alone at the front of the formation.
His cape stirred in the mountain breeze, and his steely gaze never left the yawning black maw of the dungeon's entrance—a gaping wound in the earth, pulsing faintly with ominous miasma. He had felt it all night. Something inside was stirring. Watching and waiting.
His gauntleted hand tightened around the hilt of his greatsword. Behind him, seasoned warriors muttered prayers. Mages whispered incantations under their breath, their hands glowing faintly. Archers tested bowstrings.
Every breath of wind that rustled the banners above felt like it could be the signal.
Then—the earth moved.
A low, unnatural tremor vibrated through the ground, like the heartbeat of some slumbering titan awakening beneath their feet. The birds scattered. The horses neighed and kicked at the air in panic.
The trembling grew—subtle at first, then violent.
BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.
The dungeon mouth pulsed, and from its depths, an infernal roar tore through the air—a sound not of this world, layered and bestial, shaking the bones of every man and woman present.
Roderic raised his greatsword high. "Positions! Formation Delta!" His voice thundered across the valley.
The knights slammed their shields into the soil, locking them into place. Spears lowered in unison like a thousand silver fangs. Mages moved behind the lines, forming circles of casting. Adventurers spread out to higher ground, archers nocking arrows with practiced precision.
From the darkness, a swarm of wyverns exploded into the sky—dozens of them, wings stretching wide, talons gleaming like obsidian blades. The dawn sky was shredded by their screeches as they spiraled upward, their scaled forms catching the sunlight, turning them into falling stars of death.
Roderic's eyes narrowed. "Archers—loose!"
A storm of arrows arced upward, darkening the sky, meeting the wyverns mid-flight. Some found their marks—piercing wings, necks, underbellies. One wyvern let out a screeching death cry before plummeting to the valley floor in a bone-crushing crash.
But then came the tide.
Goblins. Direfang wolves. Kobolds. Fell rats. Lesser drakes.
Monsters surged from the dungeon's throat like a living avalanche, a black mass of snarling hunger and glowing red eyes.
The ground quaked beneath their charge, and the very air grew heavy with the scent of blood and sulfur.
"Brace!" Roderic roared.
The front lines collided with the tide in an instant.
A goblin leapt high into the air with an unnatural shriek—its cleaver raised overhead—but was met mid-leap by a knight's spear, skewered clean through the gut. The goblin screamed, twisting, then exploded in a burst of sickly green blood.
Direfangs rammed into the shield wall with terrifying speed, their claws scraping against steel, their fangs snapping at throats. One knight was pulled down, screaming, dragged beneath the bodies and shredded in a flurry of fur and blood.
Roderic moved like a storm. His greatsword sang through the air, carving through three kobolds in a single swing. He twisted, driving his armored shoulder into a charging drake, knocking it off balance before impaling it through the throat.
Then, above—a wyvern dove. Fast and deadly. A blur of flame and shadow. Its maw opened wide, fire swelling in its throat.
Roderic turned, slamming his blade into the ground. A shimmering wall of energy erupted upward—a barrier of radiant light that caught the wyvern's fire breath mid-blast. Flames spilled over the shield like liquid hell, but the line held.
"Ice mages! Ground that beast!"
With a chorus of chants, half a dozen mages unleashed their spells. Icy spears erupted from the ground, impaling the wyvern's wings mid-flight. It shrieked and spun out of control, crashing into the cliffside with an echoing screech that shook the mountains. Debris rained down as the massive creature struggled in vain, trapped under rubble.
But the monsters kept coming. Wave after wave, relentless.
Kobolds surged over the corpses of their kin, trampling fallen allies to reach the lines. Goblins wielding blood-rusted axes screamed curses in broken common.
A squad of adventurers fell to a pack of fell rats that swarmed them like a plague.
Still, the defenders stood.
One adventurer—a female lightning mage in red robes—stood her ground on the ridge. She slammed her staff into the earth, summoning a bolt of lightning that ripped across the battlefield, vaporizing a cluster of charging goblins. Her face was pale, her mana nearly spent, but she didn't stop. Healers began to recover mages with fresh mana immediately.
A knight beside her shouted, "We need reinforcements! They just keep coming!"
The knights had formed a defensive bulwark against the horde, their shields interlocked, their spears lashing out like the fangs of a massive beast. The ground trembled as the direfang wolves continued to ram into them, attempting to break the line.
One knight let out a pained scream as a wolf's claws raked across his shoulder, tearing through metal and flesh alike. He staggered, but before the beast could finish him, another knight drove his spear through its skull, pinning it into the earth.
Roderic sprinted forward, cutting through the battlefield like a force of nature. A kobold lunged from his blind spot, jagged dagger aimed for his ribs. Without breaking stride, he spun on his heel and brought his armored elbow down, shattering the creature's skull against the ground.
A shadow loomed overhead—a wyvern diving straight for him. With inhuman speed, Roderic raised his greatsword, channeling mana into the blade. A crescent-shaped shockwave of energy blasted forward, cleaving the wyvern's wing mid-flight.
The beast screeched, spiraling out of control before crashing into the ranks of goblins below, crushing them under its massive frame.
The moment it landed, Roderic was already upon it.
The wyvern roared, its serpentine neck lashing forward, fangs dripping with venom. Roderic dodged to the side and drove his greatsword into its throat, piercing through its spine. He twisted the blade and ripped it free, a gout of black blood spraying into the air as the wyvern collapsed in a heap.
The knights rallied around their Captain, pushing back against the encroaching horde.
"Push forward! We hold this ground!" Roderic bellowed.
The adventurers, positioned on the higher cliffs, unleashed a deadly rain of arrows, fireballs, and lightning strikes.
A group of mages, their robes fluttering in the wind, raised their staffs and conjured massive spears of ice, launching them into the sky. The glacial projectiles impaled several wyverns mid-flight, sending their lifeless bodies crashing down upon the battlefield.
One adventurer, a dual-wielding rogue, dashed between the monsters with inhuman agility, slicing through goblins and kobolds with precise strikes. He leapt off a direfang wolf's back, using it as a springboard to drive both of his daggers into a wyvern's exposed eye socket, killing it instantly before rolling back onto the ground.
A berserker, clad in crimson-stained armor, let out a thunderous battle cry as he cleaved through multiple monsters at once with his colossal battle axe. His muscles strained as he swung with enough force to send kobold bodies flying through the air.
The battle was reaching its boiling point. Then, the earth rumbled again.
Roderic gritted his teeth. He looked back toward the dungeon's entrance. The miasma that spilled out from its maw had changed. It had deepened—thickened—become almost alive, as though something was pushing from within.
Something was forcing the monsters out. Driving them. Hunting them.
His voice dropped to a grim murmur. "…Something's coming."
From within the dungeon's depths, a new force emerged. A hulking figure, standing at least four meters tall, stepped into the light.
A Minotaur Warlord.
Its massive battle axe, easily twice the size of a human, dripped with fresh blood, its horns adorned with chains of severed skulls.
The beast's glowing red eyes locked onto the battlefield, and with a monstrous bellow, it charged.
"Brace for impact!" Roderic roared.
The monster slammed into the knight's shield wall like a living battering ram, sending bodies flying like ragdolls.
The squad reeled, struggling to recover as the Minotaur Warlord raised its axe, ready to carve through them.
But Roderic was faster. He surged forward, his greatsword clashing against the Warlord's axe in a thunderous impact that shook the ground.
The two titans stared at each other for a fleeting moment.
End of Chapter 57