The Wrong Body
Akira's aura surged, thickening like a storm given form. It crackled in the air—raw, untamed, and undeniably wrong. The demonic human narrowed his crimson eyes, trying to sense the weight behind the growing energy, but there was nothing. No pressure. No presence. Only the visible distortion in the air, the white streaks of power dancing like embers around Akira's motionless body.
"What the hell is this?" the demonic human scoffed, shooting a glare at the red-skinned monster beside him. "I can't feel a damn thing from him. It's like he's not even there. But I can see it—that white energy clinging to him. What is that?"
The monster didn't answer. Its yellow eyes remained locked onto Akira, studying him with unsettling intensity. Something flickered in its gaze—something like recognition.
Akira stood frozen, his dark hair lifting in the unseen currents of his power. His white eyes, blinding against the surrounding gloom, pulsed like dying stars.
Then—A memory struck him.
His father's voice, warm and reassuring. His mother's laughter, soft and fleeting. Sylara's final smile, frozen in time.
He was beyond shattered now.
The demonic human moved first. His blade materialized in his grip—a wicked thing of midnight and crimson. The Evoa Blade pulsed with hunger as he launched forward, a blur of death aimed straight for Akira's heart.
Akira's voice was barely a whisper, yet it cut through the air like a blade.
"Disaster Lightning. Activate."
A sharp chime answered him. Then—cold, mechanical words flared before his vision in relentless succession.
Ding!
[Warning: It is not recommended to activate this skill in the user's current condition. Probability of survival: 0%.]
[Warning: It is not recommended to activate this skill in the user's current condition. Probability of survival: 0%.]
[Warning: It is not recommended—]
"Activate the damn skill!" Akira snarled, his voice raw. "You want me to suffer more than this and die without killing them atleast?"
The system's response was immediate, final.
[Warning: Activating Disaster Lightning will result in irreversible bodily destruction.]
The alerts blared endlessly, screaming at him to stop. But Akira didn't waver.
He knew why he'd never used this skill before. When he was together with Sylara outside the dungeon, he'd hesitated—not out of weakness, but out of responsibility. If he'd unleashed Disaster Lightning then, the buildings would have been annihilated. Buildings, people, everything within a hundred-meter radius—gone.
Disaster Lightning. A name simple in words, terrifying in meaning.
[Disaster Lightning: Capable of annihilating everything it touches. Even gods are not exempt from its wrath. Effective radius: 100 meters. Obliterates all within its perimeter. Warning: User's level is insufficient to control this power. Activation carries a 50% risk of death.]
[Mana Cost: Everything the user possesses. The more mana expended, the greater the destruction.]
Akira knew all of this.
And he no longer cared.
Sylara had died because of him. His mother still lay in a coma, waiting for him to wake her. Even with Sylara's final hint—the existence of The Granter, a being who could undo it all—he had chosen vengeance over reason.
He should have thought this through.
He should have hesitated.
But he didn't.
Because nothing mattered now except killing the demonic human before him.
Pain, exhaustion, every promise he'd ever made—none of it meant anything. There was no future in his mind. No path beyond this moment.
Only vengeance.
Akira exhaled.
Then—his white aura vanished entirely.
The sky darkened, plunging into an endless void. Something was forming above them—something vast, something beyond comprehension. The air itself trembled under the weight of the gathering force.
The red-skinned monster let out a guttural roar. Its yellow eyes trembled with something it had never known before.
Fear.
"RUN!" it howled, its massive body lurching backward. "RUN NOW!" Its glowing gaze locked onto the demonic human, voice raw with desperation. "WHAT HAVE YOU DONE? WHAT HAVE YOU BROUGHT HERE?!"
The demonic human's crimson eyes widened. His grip on the Evoa Blade tightened, but for the first time, doubt flickered in his expression.
"No… this isn't possible…"
This was the same human he had crushed before. The same weakling who had struggled against him, whose power had been pitiful. Even now, Akira's body was broken, his wounds fatal, his stamina drained.
So why was the sky breaking?
Why did the dungeon world itself seem to recoil?
[Final Confirmation: Are you certain?]
Akira inhaled.
Deeply.
Slowly.
And then—"Do it."
The world shattered.
The red-skinned monster trembled as it tried to flee—not just from the scale of the attack, but from the boy standing motionless before them. Akira's dark hair lifted unnaturally, strands floating as if gravity had abandoned him entirely. The sky overhead, once vast and endless, had turned into a void of absolute darkness, where swirling white energy gathered like a celestial executioner, waiting to descend.
And then, he saw their faces—their pure, unfiltered terror.
A slow, twisted grin stretched across Akira's face, his white eyes gleaming with something close to insanity. It wasn't joy. It wasn't satisfaction. It was the cold, cruel understanding that they finally knew what it felt like. To run. To fear something beyond themselves.
"This is it," he whispered, voice shaking, before it rose into laughter—dark, unhinged, merciless. "Ahahahaha! Run! Run like the fuckers you are! That's what you do best, isn't it? Running—after ruining lives, after destroying what can never be fixed!"
The demonic human's feet moved on instinct. A rare, unnatural irritation marred his face as he turned, fleeing without a second thought. The giant trees around them groaned and twisted violently, caught in the sudden vortex of a monstrous wind. The dungeon itself was rejecting Akira's presence, the very fabric of reality struggling against what he was about to unleash.
The end had come.
Akira lifted his trembling hand, fingers splayed against the blackened heavens. His voice tore through the storm, a final declaration to the world itself.
"Let's die together!"
He swung his hand down—
And nothing happened.
A sickening silence followed.
Akira's body convulsed violently, his breath caught in his throat. Blood poured from his mouth in thick rivulets, staining his chin crimson. His once-flawless skin turned a sickly black, veins bulging with unnatural darkness. He coughed, but no air filled his lungs. His body trembled—then collapsed, his face hitting the dirt, motionless.
Ding!
[Disaster Lightning is on hold. Awaiting user command.]
[Warning: The user's vitals are decreasing at an alarming rate. Immediate intervention is required.]
[The user's body is incapable of housing the full force of Disaster Lightning. The user is temporarily paralyzed.]
Lying there, his body no longer responding, Akira felt everything slipping away. His vision blurred, his limbs cold and distant. His own heartbeat—slowing, fading.
"So this is it…?"
"This body of mine… worthless until the very end."
The demonic human skidded to a stop, panting. Confusion twisted his features as he turned back, seeing Akira sprawled on the ground, unmoving.
"The hell…?" he muttered, his crimson eyes narrowing. "Why didn't it activate?"
The red-skinned monster hesitated before slinking closer, its monstrous eyes fixed on Akira's motionless form. "Looks like his body and power couldn't handle that… whatever he was doing," it growled, its fear giving way to cruel amusement.
The demonic human exhaled, his tension melting into irritation. "Tch. Of course. A damn weakling like him trying to use a power at that scale? I was worried for nothing."
He strode forward, his blade vanishing into the ether. A slow smirk tugged at his lips as he loomed over Akira's broken body. Then—
A sharp kick slammed into Akira's head.
"Made me shit myself for a second there," the demonic human scoffed.
No response. Not even a twitch.
Akira had already fainted. Maybe even…
No.
Something was wrong.
Ding!
[External force is interfering. Unknown source of power detected.]
[The user's body is beginning to function again.]
[The user's wounds are recovering at an abnormal rate.]
[The user's heart has resumed beating.]
The B-rank dungeon boss stiffened. Its many eyes trembled with that feeling again. That unbearable, all-consuming fear. It turned sharply toward the demonic human, its deep voice rumbling.
"Back away."
The demonic human frowned. "What?"
But then he saw it.
Akira's body, still face-down in the dirt, began to glow. The white aura that had vanished before now crackled back to life, swirling around him like an unstoppable storm. His dark hair—now shifting, its blackness draining away into pure silver.
His body, broken beyond recognition just seconds ago, pulsed with something unfathomable.
Something beyond human.
And then, ever so slowly—Akira's body moved.
A pause.
"What is this...?" the demonic human breathed, his voice hollow with disbelief. His crimson eyes flickered with something he refused to acknowledge—fear. He slithered back, his body sliding away instinctively, retreating toward the red-skinned monster behind him.
"What... is happening?"
Then—Akira's body rose from the ground.
No, it wasn't Akira anymore.
His dark hair, once soaked in blood and dirt, now shimmered with an ethereal silver, flowing weightlessly as if the very laws of gravity didn't apply at him. His white eyes—two burning voids, empty and endless—reflected no light, only consuming everything that dared to look into them. The sky above remained shrouded in darkness, the massive trees of the dungeon groaning under the unseen force pressing down upon the world.
Every wound, every scar that had marred his broken body—gone.
Healed in an instant.
The entity had surfaced once more.
Just like before. Just like in the double dungeon.
The entity took over when the boy was at death's door. And now, it stood again, inhabiting the shell of the human who had pushed himself too far.
A raw, primal terror clawed its way into the boss monster's core. The very air burned with unnatural tension, suffocating, pressing, crushing. It tried to move. It tried to run. But its body refused to obey. Its very instincts screamed at it—this thing was not meant to exist in this world.
The demonic human, wide-eyed and shaking, turned toward the red-skinned beast beside him.
"You… you doomed both of us," the monster rasped, its deep, guttural voice quivering. It had never felt this before. This wasn't just fear. It was something worse. Something ancient and absolute.
The demonic human's breath came in ragged gasps. His body was trained for battle, his mind sharpened through endless bloodshed, yet nothing had ever gripped his soul like this. This was not the same weakling he had crushed before. This wasn't even the same human who had nearly burned himself out moments ago.
This… was something else entirely.
His hands clenched, shaking. "Who… what the hell is he?"
A slow shift.
Akira—no, the entity—turned its head toward them. A movement so simple, yet it sent an unbearable pressure crashing onto their shoulders. Like insects caught under an unseeable force, their very existence was being weighed down, judged, deemed insignificant.
Then, it spoke.
A voice, deep and unrecognizable, layered over Akira's own.
"Yo, puny toys."
A sudden boom resonated in the air, as if the very world had gasped in horror. The sound was not from an attack. It was the air itself reacting to his presence.
A wave of power exploded outward.
The dungeon quaked. The trees cracked, their trunks bending under an unseen force. The ground beneath them shuddered like a living thing, desperate to flee but bound in place.
The demonic human's knees nearly buckled as his body screamed for him to run. To survive. To get away before it was too late. But his pride, his arrogance, kept him rooted in place, even as his very being rebelled against him.
The entity tilted its head, observing them like an amused reaper before the slaughter. Then, with a voice drenched in merciless amusement, it spoke again:
"You miserable creations… you exist only to suffer for what you've done to my vessel."
[End of Volume 1]