Inner Core West Side~

"Damn it"

Zhen can't help but curse at these abnormal beasts. Not only could the wolf deflect their magic like its thin paper but he was also extremely slick.

Although none of them sustained any injuries, Zhen can tell it's simply toying with them.

'This wolf, if I ever manage to kill you, I would feed all your bones and meat to Kuro.'

"Z-Zhen, my flame is not working on the wolf at all. He simply regenerated those tiny wounds that we managed to inflict after a long time." Aaron shouted as he felt powerless.

He was a prodigy in town but he felt like an ant ever since entering this new dungeon. Every magical beast in here is powerful and nothing like those normal beasts in the forest where he hunted a lot.

Meanwhile, Zhen cursed at the fool Aaron for shouting something obvious.

'I'm trying to think of a solution and all you do is blabber and interrupting my thought process.'

"How much mana do you guys have left?" Zhen asked as they had spent more than an hour fighting this Peak-Rank 5 wolf.

"I can still handle it for another 3-4 hours," Sara replied as her mana capacity has increased drastically unlike back then where she would run out of mana by now.

"I-I can only last around for 30 minutes max," Aaron replied while sighing inwardly as to how even Sara has more mana capacity than him.

Zhen didn't need to hear Kuro's response because he can feel his mana still last for 5 hours or more.

'Magical beasts are truly gifted in terms of holding mana and having an overwhelming prowess.'

However, Zhen is not jealous since he doesn't feel his mana depleting a bit. At this moment Zhen can only try to delay the wolf's attack by manipulating the ground using earth elements.

This is only a temporary solution to prevent the inevitable. It was at this moment, Zhen felt his stomach churning again.

He became unable to move as the pain in his stomach started to amplify causing his magic to stop which allowed the wolf to take this opportunity to launch onto me.

"ZHEN!"

Sara shouted loudly when she found the ground stopped delaying the wolf and noticed that Zhen stopped moving.

Unfortunately, she was too late as she saw the wolf latches onto Zhen and the wall suddenly shifted causing the both of them to pass through the wall.

*Whoosh*

After passing through the wall, Sara tried to rush to the wall but found out it is filled with concrete and unlike before where Zhen travels past it.

Sara's face was ashen as she could no longer sense his aura and became petrified as she tried to blast the wall with multiple spells.

*Boom*

Alas, the wall remained still like how someone throws an egg to a rock and has zero effect on it.

"No, this cannot be true, Kuro can you sense Zhen's aura." Sara tried hard to calm down and not think of his fate.

Kuro only shakes his head as he replied, "Master has always been connected to me ever since our contract. Now, I can no longer sense his aura but he's definitely safe otherwise, I would suffer unimaginable pain if Master's life is in danger."

Sara nodded as she knew the contract between them. Kuro would've not been fine if Zhen was to be in actual danger.

*Huff*

Taking a deep breath to compose herself, Sara slowly calms her emotion and starts to think about what to do next.

"Now that Zhen is not here who is the strongest, we'll have to be careful on our way before finding a way out."

Sara said as she started to lead while Aaron was completely ashamed of his behavior and conduct so far.

'No wonder Sara never looked at me like how she looked at Zhen.' Aaron sighed as he followed behind Sara while listening to her order.

As for Kuro, he was next to Sara and is prepared to save her from any danger since Zhen is not here.

================

In an unknown place~

"God damn my stomach hurt like hell. What the heck did I just experience?"

Zhen finally regained conscience after the unimaginable pain coming from the inside of his stomach.

The first thing he did was yelled in frustration as he couldn't comprehend what just happened and why his stomach started to churn again.

He thought it was because of natural instinct from Sara coming to punish him but thinking back, he recalled seeing some weird symbol in the wall and his stomach starts to churn.

'Could my stomach start to churn because of those weird symbols and now I'm being affected even more when we went deeper inside.'

Zhen can't help but feel a chill running through his body if that's true.

'Why would my stomach churn from those weird symbols that I have never seen or heard about it before?'

Right at this moment, Zhen can not control his body again as he starts moving forward, it was the same feeling back in that weapon shop when he purchased an odd-looking wand.

Having no way to prevent these mysterious events, Zhen just follows the flow as he will probably be killed already if they wanted him dead.

Suddenly, there was a huge door in front of Zhen and he regained control of my body again.

Without any explanation needed, Zhen guessed that they wanted him to open this door.

Although Zhen wanted to say 'you really think I'm gonna open something unknown' but the path behind Zhen has completely disappeared.

'This is simply ridiculous, you're telling me the path I literally just walked 3 seconds ago magically vanished in a puff. God, I'm so frustrated, being forced to do something that I don't want to.'

Trying to complain and vent his frustration but no way to do it since he was all alone here. Zhen gave up and decided to see what game the mastermind is trying to play.

Zhen looked around the details surrounding the door and sure enough, he saw that weird symbol there and an open hole in the middle.

'Pretty sure it must need some sort of key to open this door or the mechanism would not budge an inch.'

Zhen came to this conclusion before finding this the most cliche and unrealistic development.

"...."

'I'm pretty sure everyone is thinking about what I have in mind now. If you can't figure it out by now then it clearly shows that you haven't heard my explanation.'

Facepalming, Zhen wanted to know if he was truly a protagonist in those novels he read.

"THE ODD LOOKING WAND THAT SOME MYSTERIOUS FORCE MADE ME BUY IT"

Zhen screamed aloud for all of these mysteries starting back when he was in the town.

'Obviously, the wand is connected to this mechanism door but here's a confusion, why would it be in my hand if the wand is supposedly a "key" to this unknown door.'

Zhen hopes his conjecture from reading all those fantasy novels where the protagonist has a decent family and saving the world doesn't come true because it will only mean that he's a fated one to do some impossible stuff.

'Can I quit already? This plotline is simply getting more and more out of hand.'

If possible, Zhen wants to shut down and wake up, just to have everything as a dream. However, it isn't and now he's stuck in this whole scenario where he either advances or stays here forever.