Chapter 28- Unexpected

The next moment, Malice found himself in the dungeons again. The place was as dark and as claustrophobic as ever. However, surprisingly, Malice didn't feel as horrible being there as the first time.

In fact, somehow, this darkness was starting to slowly grow on him, as twisted as that may sound. 'What am I even thinking about? I could get killed here and now I'm starting to like it? Tsk, let's continue.'

With that, Malice started running. Since he was brought back to the start, he had a lot of distance to cross before he could reach the point where he stopped last time. With the new necklace around his neck, he noticed that his speed increased considerably. Even though the weight on his body wasn't light, it was still good enough to give him a boost from the necklace.

So, it only took him precisely 30 minutes to reach the same spot he left yesterday. The entire path was cleared yesterday so nothing stopped him on the way. When he reached the spot, he noticed that the corpses of the monsters he killed were still there.

With one single glance, he slowly moved past them. He felt rather uneasy from seeing the big one as it was the worst one he encountered so far. Its mangled corpse looked even more terrifying now after he killed it.

'Tsk, ugly bastard!' He thought to himself as he looked away and started moving ahead. He didn't want to remain there for even a second.

With that, the journey continued like before. It didn't take long for Malice to find his first targets for the day. Three roaming monsters of the weaker type. Seeing that, Malice was about to take the same sneaky approach as before.

But, at the last second, he stopped.

'No, I want to try the Bearer Of Omen. I can't do that if I'm sneaky. I need to face them head-on.' He thought to himself.

Not only was Malice considerably stronger than yesterday with the new necklace, he also had 14 Soul Essence in his core. Even though it was far from the needed 100 to ascend, it still boosted his strength a lot. So, in a nutshell, today's Malice was far different from yesterday's Malice. He felt a lot more confident facing them.

So, he stepped out of the darkness, and without hesitation, he hit the wall with the blade of his sword. The noise caught the attention of the monsters.

"Your meal has arrived, fools!" He yelled in a mocking tone. The monsters clearly didn't understand what he said, but they still attacked him with the same crazed bloodthirst he expected.

Malice brandished his sword and dashed forward, almost instantly, he realized something. 'I'm faster than them!'

He crossed the distance in a shorter time than before and slashed with his sword. The weapon felt considerably lighter in his hand. Before the monster could even react, its head rolled off its shoulders.

[You…]

[...]

[...]

Malice ignored the notification and quickly dodged the second one that attacked him from the side. That's when he noticed the second thing.

'I can feel its presence to my right without looking.' He thought to himself.

His senses had sharpened to a level where he could notice the difference. Now he can feel an attack coming from his peripheral vision even if he wasn't focused on it. Using that moment of advantage, he killed the next one with a swift slash.

That left one last monster that tried to move back a little, only to get decapitated in a moment.

"Fuuh…" Exhaling a long breath, Malice stared at the dead monsters with a satisfied look on his face. 'I really grew stronger!'

The difference between yesterday's fights and today was just mind-boggling. The boy never expected that he would improve this much in such a short period of time. What made him even more excited was that he still had a lot to learn, things that he didn't know how to use yet, and many more monsters he had to kill.

He was still far from strong enough to face the world, but he was taking steps towards that goal, one by one.

With that, he finally turned around and continued moving. For the next two hours, he faced numerous monsters, most of them were of the weaker type. But, he still ended up fighting three giant ones.

At first, he was scared as he barely survived last time, but he still was able to fight them and win with minimal injuries. Granted, the fights were tough and they took a toll on him, but he still felt like he was already better than these monsters.

"Hah, hah… I'm getting really tired…" Sitting down next to the wall, he rested for a while. Looking to the left, he saw one giant corpse laying there, motionless. It was the third Mining Guard he killed.

Squinting his eyes, he could only wonder. "Mining Guard… What does that name mean?"

He knows what a guard is, but he never heard of the word 'Mining' before. He was certain it had something to do with this place in some way, but there were no specifications. It could very much be anything. 

'The word 'Guard', though. That further proves my theory that these creatures were once sane.' Frowning subtly, his imagination wandered away. This place, as terrifying as it was, had probably housed these things at some point when they were still normal.

Yet, what happened after that had turned them into crazed monsters. Something had changed them and he knew that it was still here. After all, this place wouldn't be called 'The Dungeons Of Madness' for no reason.

The more he tried to understand what could lead to such a horrifying change, the more he felt the unease in his heart grow.

'I need to stop overthinking when I'm in a hellhole like this one. Let's hope for the best.' Shaking his head, he finally stood up to continue moving. He wanted to clear another two hours' worth of distance before calling it a day. 

*Fuuuh*

At that moment, he felt something weird. Stopping in his place, he stared ahead with a confused look. He almost thought he was mistaken. But, the next few seconds proved him wrong. Frozen in his place, the only thing that moved was a few strands of his hair that rustled from the sudden gush of wind that came from the other side.

The sound of its whistles reached his ears a moment later.

'Wind? Down here?' Malice raised an eyebrow. The fact that there was cold wind when he was supposedly underground was really off. Even he knew that it made no sense.

"... I need to go check this… right? Of course I do, who would if I don't?" Gulping down a mouthful of saliva, he started moving ahead with a rather hesitant look on his face. Even though there was nothing that could strike fear in his heart yet, this sudden change was never good news in a place that advertised itself as a place of madness.

Step by step, he got closer to the source of the wind, and consequentially, those gushes of air grew far more prominent. They weren't violent or extremely cold by any means, but the place was hot and suffocating enough for Malice to feel them. Especially with all the sweat on his skin, the air cooled him down considerably.

Eventually, he noticed something. A dozen meters away from him, the tunnel seemed to narrow down into a normal-sized door shape with an arc. Beyond that was complete emptiness.

'That's…' Squinting his eyes, Malice continued walking till he reached the entrance, only to be met with an unexpected sight.

The door had led him straight toward a massive, dark chamber. It was so massive that he couldn't see the end of it. The ceiling of the chamber was at least 40 meters high with no pillars to hold it. 

*Fuuuuuh*

The wind moved through this chamber, hitting its walls before deflecting and moving somewhere else, cooling it down.

"What is this place?" Malice muttered as he took a careful step inside. There were no torches hanging on the wall so he couldn't see anything. So, Malice was walking in completely blind.

Step by step, he moved deeper into the chamber. For some reason, he didn't feel as outright terrified as he would've liked to be in such a situation. Perhaps he already got accustomed to this horrid place so the darkness was nothing to him anymore.

At some point, Malice's eyes caught a few things in the distance so he stopped. Taking a closer look, his eyes widened. Barely 6 meters away from him, some silhouettes were sitting down, on their knees.

These silhouettes belonged to the monsters he has been killing for the past two days. They had their hands clasped together above their tilted heads as if they were… praying.

Then, the second shock came in, there weren't one or two of them, or even three, or even ten for that matter. There were dozens and dozens of these monsters, all around him.

None of them were moving.