Lyden had nowhere to run. From all directions, more and more Blood Nosehounds were swarming him.

They were like the sea dyed in blood, and Lyden was a boat waiting to get sunk.

Hundreds of them leaped into the crater where Lyden stood.

Lyden quickly jumped several meters into the air to avoid getting piled on top by them.

From above, he saw the hole flooded with Blood Nosehounds.

The monsters below him were not able to jump that high, so they all waited for him to land. The roared at him impatiently to get down.

'There is nowhere I can land. How can there be so many of them here in this underground cavern?' He thought as he tried to find a place to land. But eventually, he landed on top of one of them.

The Blood Nosehound tried to swipe at him when he touched its head.

But with a swift movement, he jumped backward to avoid it. His shoe got burn however when he stepped on its fur and was now on fire.

Once his feet touched the ground, he found himself encircled by Blood Nosehounds. A large one stood on its two legs swiped at Lyden with its muscular arm. But with Lyden's strength, he quickly deflected its arm and kicked it with great force that he made a hole in its chest.

Also, more blood got on Lyden that it seemed from a distance that he was wearing a dark red tight suit from head to toes.

However, since Lyden touched the Bood Nosehond's fur, the Blood Nosehound's blood on Lyden caught on fire. It made him look like a vengeful fire spirit.

Its blood was flammable like oil, and it kept burning without showing sign on lessening.

WIth Lyden's cloned body, he had high resistance to fire and did his best to ignore the growing discomfort. Along with the intense heat from the cavern, and being on fire, he still was fighting back against the hordes of monsters coming at him.

He slammed his foot onto the ground to kick up the dust to cover him. However, it did very little as the smell of fire and blood continued to cover his body. The Blood Nosehound quickly tracked him.

Another Blood Nosehound swiped at him with its tail from behind. Catching him off guard, Lyden blocked it with his arm and flung him to another one.

He was pinballed around as he had no choice but to keep blocking their attacks one after another. When he tried to counter-attack, another Blood Nosehound would swiftly dart its tail at him when he was not guarding.

"I can't keep this up." His internal injury was getting worse, and blood was dripping out of his mouth.

The next time was sent flying, he made it so that he would be flung into the air.

It was only then he was finally able to catch his breath, even if it was for a short period of time.

There were so many of them, that where ever he landed, he would be smacked around.

He killed one, two, tens, and hundreds while the flames engulfed him. Their blood only fueled the flames on Lyden's body that it made bigger and harder for him to see. Also, he felt his bones and skin were becoming fragile as time goes on, and they will eventually devour him.

However, he felt that he did not make a dent in reducing the number of Blood Nosehounds. And his Random Monster Transmutation aretisite was squeezing his heart tighter and tighter telling him that it was becoming impossible to survive and he will die when he failed.

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Lyden ignored it as he fights for his survival. With the heat and the fire was raging, he was losing stamina quickly. His lungs were burning, and so was his inside. But his body kept pushing through. His body was made from a 6-star aretisite and was stronger than anything, but sometimes quality does not overcome quantity. This was one of those moments.

Even with his strength and durability, it was not enough. He had no other power to get himself out of the situation. It was the weakness of purely relying on raw strength. It was unbeatable when facing a small amount of enemy, but when facing against many, it showed its flaws quickly.

He can easily kill one, but for each one he killed, dozens of Blood Nosehound injured him at the same time.

After going on for hours and hours, thousands of monsters piled up like mountains.

Lyden stood on top on a mountain of corpses as he fought for his life. His skin was burnt black, but the flames around him never ceased.

But time and time again, he would be thrown off the pile and would repeat the process once again. Eventually, more mountains of dead monsters formed as they kept trying to kill Lyden.

They would not retreat since Lyden had killed so many of its kind. They wanted him died. Blood Nosehounds were vengeful creatures. When Lyden confronted the first one, it was planning on taking revenge against the hunters who killed its children. But it was trapped in the cave by Ku Sang and the others before it had the chance. In the end, it lost itself in hunger for a short time and died without exacting its vengeance.

Lyden was panting hard, and his vision was getting blurry. It was taking him longer to fend off one of them now.

"I'm going to die if this keeps going… and I find an exit... There has to be one." The cavern was too big. He was trying to look for an exit, but it was just an endless amount of Blood Nosehounds roaming all around. To him, it felt like an inescapable hell.

He felt like he had not slept in days and was about to collapse from exhaustion. All he could do was swing his fiery fists to keep them at bay.

From all that had happened to him, there was something that never left his mind. It was the Random Monster Transmutation aretisite that was squeezing his heart. The sensation of it squeezing it became stronger, and he could feel it moving around.

It was like it was calling for him to assist him.

'No, not now. I can find my way out. I can't lose yet. I do not want to become a monster,' Lyden wanted to meet his friends again. He remembered Joey, Tiff, and everybody else in the orphanage.

He even recalled his brother, Ron Willwalker. Ron was one of the first hunters who awakened as soon as the first tower appeared. Those who awakened during that time were one of the most powerful hunters. They called them the Golden Generation.

He awakened as a 4-star hunter and left the orphanage one night without telling anybody. Ron Willwalker and Lyden Willwalker were actually blood brothers. They grew up together in that orphanage.

But for him to leave without saying anything, Lyden felt sadness and regret. He did not know what happen to him. He might have died for all he knew, but he wanted to find out himself.

Then a miracle happened one day. He awakened as a 2-star hunter and signed up for a hunter permit right away in the hope to find his brother someday. But that plan did not work since he lost his aretisite and fell into depression for almost two years until he could not take it anymore.

Before his permit expired, he decided to enter a tower to find an aretisite. Many things happened, which led him here.

More time had passed, and Lyden's body was covered in deep scratches, and he even lost an arm when one of them took a bite of out it. His body weakened from the fire on his body and thus, weakening his defense. It made it easier for him to get injured.

Because of his cloned body, he can still move even with his organs heavily damage. His energy came from an unknown source within his cloned body, but all it could do was to keep him barely moving.

"After everything that was given to me, I cannot fail now. I feel like I only took two steps out of a thousand. I cannot die here and now..." He fought and fought until they took a bit out of his other arm. He sent out flurries of kick instead to kill them.

At rare times, he would get a minute break when things slow down. And when he does, he goes into a daze when he thought about his situation.

He blamed himself for getting into this situation. It was all because of Ku Sang. He, himself, was too ignorant since he did not have enough experience as a hunter. He was easily tricked and could not see what Ku Sang was plotting. He felt a rage inside burning hotter than his entire body.

With dozens of piles of dead Blood Nosehounds and thousands of more coming, Lyden was at the ends of his wits. He could not keep fighting them.

"I will have to use Random Monster Transmutation…" He tried to prolong it in happening a miracle would come, but it did not. Even now, he was hesitant about using it. Honestly, for Lyden do not use it before, it showed how deep his determination.

"I have no choice now. I will become a monster! Random Monster Transmutation, come ou--"

But before he could activate it, he was attacked from behind from the largest Blood Nosehound yet. Its tail was bigger than Lyden, and when it made contact with him with great force, it cannonballed Lyden through the piles of corpses and straight through the ground.