A small black sphere rose out of the snowy ground and slowly turned towards the trio, as 2 slightly smaller black spheres appeared above the first 1.

He barely heard the sound of all 12 corridors suddenly getting slammed shut as his body warmed up from sheer anger, as he realized what he was looking at. And although she had no idea what had pissed him off so much, Mora wordlessly joined in on hating the 3 small spheres.

[??? – White Shadow – 243]

[HP: 140,510 – 100%]

[MP: 0 – 0%]

[Stamina: ??? – 62%]

[Corpse – Greater]

[Soul – N/A]

Even if he couldn’t see the creature’s expression, Sylver had a feeling the monster was feeling smug. It moved unimpeded through the fluffy snow and very likely assumed that Sylver wasn’t moving due to confusion.

The reality of the situation was that Sylver knew exactly what was going on, as the biggest black sphere disappeared, and the other two quickly followed after.

Sylver grabbed Mora by her torso and threw her as hard as he could towards the ceiling, as the invisible creature lunged at him.

Sylver’s robe successfully blunted the clawed swipe from the left, as Sylver left the protective and sticky garment behind, and had his body thrown towards the source of the attack. He severely misjudged the location of the creature’s face and felt his [Necrotic Mutilation] covered torso collide with the back of the white creature’s paw.

There was an unmistakable bark, as the monster tried to fling Sylver away from its face and was instead surprised to find no resistance from the man who had collided with it. Sylver materialized directly above the bear’s head, and without making a sound, used both his hands to throw his summoned ax at it.

The sound of bone giving way to an extremely sharp, and magically enhanced, ax, was followed by an instantaneous fountain of blood, as the ax that had been plugging the hole it had made, promptly disappeared.

As Mora lifted Sylver up into the air, he spread his arms out and summoned a bit over 30 bombs. The bear below growled, as it decided to ignore the strange cloth wrapped around its left paw, and instead lifted its black nose and eyes up towards Mora and Sylver.

The blood leaking out of its head was freezing almost instantly, but enough had spread that Sylver wouldn’t have trouble tracking the beast.

As he reached the ceiling, Sylver braced his legs, as the shades hidden within the shadows of the thrown explosives ignited them.

Sylver was simultaneously blinded and deafened, as the bombs sent a painful shockwave that made his head ring, as he kicked away from the ceiling, and flew towards the monster.

Amidst the cloud of snow, fur, and crystallized blood, Sylver saw an enormous, clawed paw coming for him. Ria’s staff made a sound similar to a bell, as it flew towards the claws, and successfully managed to apply enough force to slide them away from Sylver.

The fur was sharp enough that it sliced the rubber sole of Sylver’s boots, as he landed on the snarling beast’s head, and with a single twist of the leg, snapped his right leg’s femur.

Before this point, the sphere had been almost pristinely white, but as the blob of [Necrotic Mutilation] spread out as far as it could and showered the surroundings in its green gore, Sylver was once again caught by Mora’s strings, and like a bungee jumper, was flung back towards the ceiling.

The monster was missing large chunks of fur, and amidst the blood, quickly solidifying [Necrotic Mutilation], and soot from the explosives, Sylver could very clearly see his opponent.

[??? – White Shadow – 243]

[HP: 71,192 – 51%]

[MP: 0 – 0%]

[Stamina: ??? – 53%]

[Corpse – Greater]

[Soul – N/A]

Sylver once again braced his legs the moment he reached the ceiling, but this time was aided by Mora’s strings, as he kicked off the ceiling, and like a crossbow bolt, was shot towards the monster. Sure the poison would get it, but Sylver didn’t want to just sit around waiting for it to die.

He now understood that it wasn’t a bear, and was either a fox or a wolf. It was hard to tell with all the blood and with how thick the coat of fur was. Frankly, Sylver was surprised the explosions did so much damage.

But even if it wasn’t the same species as the thing that welcomed him to that shithole of a realm, the fact that it was using the same “you can’t see me if I cover my nose and close my eyes” tactic, was enough of a similarity for Sylver to hate it with all his heart.

Sylver spun in the air to get as much force into his ax as possible, as he felt Mora’s strings frantically wrap around his legs and could hear the spider creature chirping at him inside his head. As Sylver threw the ax and let Mora pull him away, he watched as the furry creature below melted.

Or at least that was how it appeared from Sylver’s point of view. The melting was followed by a cleansing gust of snow, that buried Sylver’s [Necrotic Mutilation], the fox’s blood, and all the soot the explosions had left behind.

All that was left was pure white snow and an ever-increasing number of small black dots.

Ria flew past Sylver as she went down, and-

[??? (White Flake) Defeated!]

[??? (White Flake) Defeated!]

-tore two small foxes apart as she accidentally flew through them. The explosion of blood from the decapitated one splattered on the foxes nearby, and marked them bright red, amidst the white snow, and matching white foxes.

Sylver stretched his hand towards the robe Ria had hooked and was now flying towards him, as a grin spread along his face.

“You’re gonna regret that!” Sylver shouted, as he snapped his fingers towards the army of foxes and created a checker pattern as his shades materialized amidst the tiny furry creatures.

[??? – White Flake – 100]

[HP: 20,000 – 100%]

[MP: 0 – 0%]

[Stamina: ??? – 0%]

[Corpse – Petty]

[Soul – N/A]

Uri, the shade that was essentially a giant sea urchin, had the most immediate success. She simply extended her spikes as far as she could and skewered enough [White Flake]s that Sylver couldn’t see what was happening because of all the notifications flashing before his eyes.

As Ria arrived at the ceiling with Sylver’s robe, he continued hanging upside down by his legs, while he watched the carnage below.

It was a bloodbath.

Sylver didn’t even need to listen to the panicked cries of the split apart foxes below to know they regretted trying to overwhelm him with numbers.

Because Sylver had more shades than they had body mass to split into separate creatures.

And more importantly, Sylver’s shades were fearless, and had very little issue with friendly fire, amidst all the red, white, and black, chaos going on around them. Because of the size differences, the majority of them couldn’t even tell if they were stabbing blood-soaked snow or one of the foxes trying to bite at their legs.

They just stabbed, gouged, grabbed, pulled, tore, and everything they could to kill everything within their reach. Spring would later admit that he was just as pissed off as Sylver was, partially due to Sylver’s own anger, but mostly because seeing these things reminded him of helplessly watching that bear throw Sylver around.

But as Sylver’s anger gradually cooled down, he realized that these things had nothing to do with that bear or that realm, and although Sylver understood that on a rational level, he simultaneously felt his body gradually heat up.

With every notification informing him of another slain [White Flake] Sylver felt the temperature of the air increase. Not enough for the snow or ice to melt, even though the steaming hot fox blood had helped with that a fair amount already, but Sylver was using less and less mana to keep his body warm with every killed fox.

Mora even helped out a bit.

She threw her strings like a lasso at the foxes, lifted them in the air, and then allowed them to fall, and as a result, snapped their necks. A few had tougher necks than she expected, and for those she simply slammed them against the walls, until they died.

Once she realized there wasn’t any danger to them, on account of Sylver’s shades surrounding them on the ceiling, she pulled one dead fox all the way up, and quietly produced a proboscis and sucked the blood out of it.

Sylver continued sitting on the string swing Mora had made for him and finished connecting his robe to his body.

[??? (White Shadow) Defeated!]

[Due to defeating an enemy 80 levels above you, additional experience will be awarded!]

[Swamp Lord] has reached level 51!

+5AP

[Swamp Lord] has reached level 52!

+5AP

[Swamp Lord] has reached level 53!

+5AP

[Necrotic Mutilation (IV) Proficiency increased to 24%!]

[Arcane Insight (IV) Proficiency increased to 30%!]

Sylver watched as the various blood-soaked corpses melted into the ground, along with the snow and ice, and had to shield his eyes as the ceiling he was inches away from started to glow with bright light.

Sylver grabbed Mora and Ria and jumped down to the floor, while Spring gathered up the defeated shades and stashed them into Sylver’s shadow.

He used [Lesser Perception] to look at the light above without being blinded. As if it was liquid, a line of light appeared on the wall on Sylver’s right, and flowed down the wall, until it reached one of the closed-off corridor entrances.

There was only one entrance that had a blue arrow next to it, that pointed inside, and the one that opened just now was on the marked entrance’s left.

Sylver ignored the open passage for the time being and healed his shades as he walked over to the marked door and placed his palm flat against it.

He felt up the wall and gradually moved lower and lower until he found what he felt was the right spot. Trying to cut through the door would take hours, this was better.

Sylver pressed his pointer finger up against the metallic wall and very gently started making a hole in it using a beam of abyss magic. According to Ria, he stood perfectly still for over 12 minutes and 59 seconds, before he said a word.

“There should be something similar to a latch inside,” Sylver said, as he removed his finger from the barely visible hole.

It was about as big as a toothpick.

Sylver grabbed hold of the staff as he angled the “head” part towards the hole, and metaphorically speaking held his breath as Ria sent a tendril down the hole.

“I kind of expected a reward chest or something,” Spring commented, while he and Sylver waited for Ria.

“I genuinely don’t think this is a dungeon… Or if it is, it’s a very strange Ki dungeon… You also have to keep in mind we aren’t supposed to be in here,” Sylver said, as he pressed his ear up to the wall, and heard very faint clicking sounds.

Ria’s face formed on the liquid gold between the three ribs.

“I need a piece of that floating green thing you use,” Ria said, as Sylver produced a tiny drop of [Necrotic Mutilation] from the tip of his finger.

Ria very gently took it from him, and Sylver could feel it as she formed it into a string, and slowly pushed it through her tendril, and the hole.

She then molded the string onto the bottom of something.

“Move it upward, and just a bit away from you. Just a little. And… Stop. Hold it there please... Now push it up, as hard as you can,” Ria said, as Sylver manipulated the tiny droplet of dead matter and heard a very unpleasant sound of metal scratching on metal.

The metal doors opened with a painful whine, they were reluctant and didn’t want to open. Sylver felt like he was forcing a crying woman’s legs apart, as the door slowly lifted, and Sylver deemed the gap big enough for Mora to fit through.

Although she was afraid of getting separated from him, Mora walked underneath the gap and nervously waited inside the corridor. Sylver continued pushing against the mechanism inside, as Ria slid herself out of the hole, and nodded at him.

He wouldn’t have been able to do it if he didn’t have [Fog Form].

The perk was teleportation, with the main limitation being that Sylver needed to be able to physically access the location he wanted to teleport to.

He released the metaphorical breath he had been holding, as he lost his grip on the tiny piece of [Necrotic Mutilation] that had been holding the door open, and in the next instance appeared inside the corridor, with the Ria staff safely in his hand, a split second before the enormous slab of a door slammed shut.

Sylver stood up from the floor, as Mora just happily stared at Sylver, all while mentally complaining about what would have happened if he messed up the timing.

The air was breathable now, although there was a very strange smell that Sylver didn’t recognize and couldn’t find a good comparison for.

They walked in silence for a while, until Sylver felt something at the edge of his [Dead Dominion] perk. He pretended he didn’t and continued silently walking towards it. As he had guessed by the shape and feel, it was a human corpse.

The corpse was fresh, as in, it was still warm.

A quick pulse of mana revealed the cause of death.

Poison.

Specifically, poison that had been ingested.

Sylver lifted the man’s head and ran his finger over the small bump on his broken nose.

“One down, one to go,” Sylver said, as he concentrated on the boy’s body, and managed to force his mana into him, enough to make [Bound Bones] work on him, so he wouldn’t have to carry it around with him.

“Are you saying this is one of the heirs?” Ria asked, as Sylver reached into the man’s shirt, and pulled out a necklace with a blue symbol that was identical to the ones painted underneath the blue arrows they had followed to get here.

“I’m pretty sure it is. Anyway, we still need to find the other one. But we’ve been here, what? A couple of hours and we’re almost done?” Sylver asked.

“5 hours, 32 minutes, and 10 seconds,” Ria answered, and Sylver now regretted complaining about his poor time tracking skills to someone who, respectfully, was essentially a very fancy clock.

“Anyway, we’re halfway done. The rest of this quasi dungeon will be just as easy,” Sylver said, as he heard muted, but worrying, click in the distance.