I-I was dreaming. It was a park, and I saw myself swinging, filled with joy and laughter. I appeared to be a toddler, playing with other children my age. But everything was blurry, and I couldn't focus on faces, read any text or recognize anyone.
Then suddenly, I find myself being lifted by masked men. A woman cries out for help, chasing after me as they carry me away. She falls to the ground, and I am forcibly thrown into a van. I cry out, but no one seems to care... Soon, they cover my face with a bag, and everything turns dark and suffocating.
As I awaken, I hear commotion outside my confinement. It feels like I am in some sort of box, and darkness still surrounds me. Amidst the chaos, I can hear shouts and explosions. Curiosity takes over, and I try to move my limbs, but I realize strange tubes are attached to me, and they start to glow blue as I stir, pushing back the darkness and bringing clarity to my surroundings.
Through the cracks, I could see a golden light engulfing the surroundings, giving off a soothing aura that almost made me want to fall asleep again. As tempting as it was to retreat into slumber, I couldn't forget the disturbing dream. I didn't want to experience that suffering toddler's pain again, so I gasped for air into my lungs, only to get some salty liquid infiltrate my mouth. I closed my mouth immediately and determined myself to break free from the bindings that held me.
As I applied pressure to the glass tubes, they shattered like Prince Rupert Drops when their tails are hammered. The blue, glowy liquid spilled onto the ground, radiating with a brilliant intensity upon impact before gradually losing its luminosity and fading into darkness.
As I disconnected from the system, a sudden surge of weakness overcame me, and I felt like I might pass out. But I knew what needed to be done; my only goal was to free myself from this contraption. After I freed myself from the tubes, I regained my sense of touch. I then realised I was submerged under liquid.
There was another transparent cylindrical casing surrounding me with the liquid which kept me afloat. Still unable to breathe, I started punching the glass chamber. After few punches, the tampered glass shattered exactly like the tubes and he fell on ground with liquid gushing out.
I breathed a little air, but soon I coughed frantically, then I breathed a little more but I was still gasping for oxygen, it felt like I was on a life support for so long that my own body had forgotten how to breathe. Soon the body automated the breathing at a steady pattern.
Gravity suddenly started affecting me now that I was in air. Feeling my own weight for the first time in not sure how long, I struggled to get up. There was still a lid of a box that needed to be dealt with.
This time I had to exert more force to open it. I lifted my arm away from me, stretching it to the furthest end, pushing the lid of the box. Suddenly, a bright light shone upon my eyes, and instinctively, I closed them as if it were a flashbang.
As the intense light gradually dimmed, I cautiously opened my eyes, allowing them to adjust to the newfound brightness. I found myself in a spacious chamber, far different from the confining box I had been trapped in moments before.
The room was adorned with peculiar symbols and ancient runes etched into the walls, emanating a soft, ethereal glow.
In that moment, my eyes fell upon a chilling sight—an ominous scene unfolding before me. A powerfully built man, resembling an MMA fighter, loomed over a delicate, slender girl. His dagger was menacingly poised at her throat, while she fought desperately to keep it at bay.
Reacting instinctively, my body seemed to move on its own, fuelled by adrenaline and survival instincts. With little effort, I grabbed the man's wrist and twisted it, causing him to wince in pain and drop his dagger. However, before I could say a word, he swiftly caught the falling weapon in his other hand and swung it towards my face, aiming to inflict harm.
Reflexively, I closed my eyes in anticipation of the approaching blade, and it cut me. I felt pain, but it wasn't as intense as I had expected; still, it felt like someone had punched me in the nose bone. Grimacing, I asked, "Ouch! Why did you hit me?"
As I saw my hands twisting his wrist, I understood his reaction, but my intentions were good; I just wanted to avoid this mindless human sacrifice. Anyway, it seemed like he was unable to understand me, so I guess it didn't matter. I decided to let my actions speak for themselves.
I pushed the man away, and he crashed into a wall, writhing with pain. Then, I extended my hand, signalling to the girl to hold it and get up. However, she seemed scared and baffled by what had occurred, as if she was seeing a monster. Hesitant, she first slid away from me and stood on her own. Just as I dropped my hands down, the man attacked me again, this time slitting my throat.
To both of our surprise, I didn't lose consciousness, and my wounds were immediately undone. I then raised my hands and made a chopping motion, slashing towards him, and one of his arms fell with blood gushing out. Gritting his teeth, he threw a smoke bomb, creating a smoke screen that engulfed my view. Without hesitation, I blew the smoke away, and as soon as my vision returned, he was gone.
I turned towards the girl but she was backing away from me further and further. I smiled at her knowing that while I don’t know how to communicate in a way she can understand, I could at least smile and show her that I am harmless.
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Blackthorne was stunned, by the sudden change of events. Where did this new person come from, is he the sealed being the goddess mentioned or is he the true dungeon boss? Or is he both? And why is he butt naked? How is he not taking any damage? How did he chopped off my hand like it was made out of butter?
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As he struggled to suppress pain from losing a limb, Blackthorne quickly chewed on some herbs and rubbed against the open wound where his arm used to be, stopping the bleeding momentarily.
He through a smoke bomb to buy some time, a strategic retreat, he needed to prepare for this new threat. If the exit wasn’t sealed, he would have preferred to bail instead. He rushed back to the boss room and this time, despite the boss noticing him, it chose to ignore him.
Several hundreds of mechanical guards, several new beings resembling black knights started popping out from ground, they held a sword that would be glowing red and he could feel the heat emanating from them. Cold sweat dripped down the spine of Blackthorne, it would seem the dungeon was never taking him as seriously back then.
He then saw several guards are repairing the boss monster and all his limbs were now revived. Blackthorne felt like he wasted his life’s most cherished treasure over nothing, all damage done to the boss was undone.
Fearing that he would gain their attention the longer he stayed there, Blackthorne rushed to find Roland and comeback to deal with this mess together. He was after all, his last hope.
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Seraphina was struggling and all she could think of was if someone could save her. Anyone, if the devil himself ascended, he was welcome. She was not adept to battles and despite her high level as a royal mage, she was nowhere near the level where she could win against Blackthorne.
The dagger was descending towards her throat, losing her strength by the seconds. It almost felt like she was non-resistant and Blackthorne was just taking his time cherishing every second of it as he proceeded to kill her.
Just then this person held Blackthorne’s wrist. Her eyes widened after seeing the figure. H-handsome… before she could come back to her senses, his beautiful face was attacked by Blackthorne. To her surprise, he was unharmed, he casually chopped off Blackthorne’s arms as if his arms were blades.
After his retreat, the man, who happened to be naked, skinny built, non-muscular body, silver white hair and eyes so blue that it could swallow the sky in them. He was pale and fairer than any royal she had ever seen her entire life.
If she met him in a social gatherings of nobility, she would have thought he was a royal prince from a different Kingdom or Empire, let alone a noble.
Yet he stood in-front of her without a shred of shame that he was even wearing his clothes. He tried to say something but the language was simply incomprehensible. Then he started smiling like a creep. She instinctively kept backing away from him, her face red.
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Albert and Elara woke up with a headache, to their surprise, hundreds of mechanical guards were walking around them as if some greater emergency have occurred, completely ignoring the duo.
As they came to their senses, they immediately rushed to find the Princess. Remembering how they were tossed out of boss room as soon as they entered, they started looking in that direction first. As soon as they entered, their jaws dropped, hundreds of dangerous looking mechanical guards, this time all drawing their swords, some holding a cylindrical metallic rolled up scrolls were lined up. Noticing Boss unscathed, they deduced the previous explosion was wasted on it.
What bothered them most was that the entire crowd let them be, as if a greater enemy was spotted and they are waiting that enemy to enter this room.
Noticing a smaller door on the opposite side of the entrance, they marched towards the gate. As they approached towards the door, the guards started making noise. They started saying something but the language was unknown to them.
Quickly they dashed past the door and found the princess cornered against a naked person. Before the duo could take any action against the man, their princess shouted, “DON’T ATTACK!”
“He saved me from Blackthorne and he looks disoriented, we are unable to understand each other but I promise you, we don’t want to make him our enemy, yet” she added.
The person turned towards them, maintaining his smile, it appeared that he got the gist that they were the princess’s companions. As he turned towards them, Elara’s face flushed red, mouth wide open.
“Ahem, Lady Elara… if you can look past his little marble goolies, you would notice that he is trying to tell something” Albert teased Elara
“W-What? Ah no, that’s not” Flustered Elara responded immediately
Elara then exchanged glances with the princess who was already looking at her with a dead-pan expression.
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As new faces started entering the room and started communicating among themselves, I understood that they must be with this girl. I waved at them gesturing that I am not dangerous and I thought smiling would be the best gesture to do so.
Suddenly a prompt appeared in-front of my eyes, confusing me for a fraction of second but then I didn’t really react to it as strangely as I would have, but it’s like my brain registered this as if I am used to it.
Scanning unknown language, will initiate language package installation once
enough data is collected.
Recommendation: Please try to make them talk as much as possible.
I read this prompt and before I could ponder about it any further, another blocked my view
Alert: Based on the amount of words collected, we might be able to search the database and download the package. Would you like to connect to the Network?
Yes
No
I instantly select No
Why no? because if I am not sure about anything, my instincts tell me to say no.
Then again a new prompt appeared
Enemy signal detected, upon decrypting the signal, it’s found they are hostile
towards you.
Recommendation: eliminate the threat
Would you be eliminating the threat?
Yes
No
As if challenging my logic, this system asked the obvious and of course I pressed yes just to make the prompt disappear.
Why would I not eliminate a hostile enemy? Did the system have other ways to overcome the situation had I selected no?
Ignoring my own thoughts I moved towards the larger room and yes I could see some robots, not sure how I know about them but they looked familiar.
Some were big, some were medium sized and there was one that was a giant.
“Prisoner has awakened, target locked, eliminate the target”
Suddenly all bots started saying the above sentence. Prisoner? Hmmm was I a prisoner here? Pushing the thoughts behind I started dodging the barrage of attacks that came my way. There were hundreds of them but somehow I could see their attack patterns and their movements felt like they were in slow motion.
Suddenly a medium sized bot managed to land a hit on my back with a glowing sword, it created a wide scar, probably evaporating any flesh it touched but I didn’t feel a thing. Soon I could sense my wounds closing almost immediately.
I rolled forward dodging other attacks, mostly I would trick the mob into attacking each other by dodging at the right time. Soon I found a destroyed bot’s hot red sword. Picking it up, my battle senses came to me, I smiled with confidence.
“My turn”
I started slicing and dicing enemies left and right. Killing anyone in my closest proximity.
Then someone shot a laser at me. Creating a wide circular hole where my heart would have been. This time, I did feel something, I felt my metabolism slow down a little, I struggled to stay on my feet and collapsed on the ground. Darkness covered the corner of my vision. I was on a verge of collapse. However I didn’t lose my consciousness. I tried my best to stay awake. I somehow knew that I must avoid falling asleep.
Many robots surrounded me and some stabbed me using their swords, few held my limbs and tried to tear me apart and many started shooting more lasers on my body.
There were thousands of holes in my burned body now and I was just a lump of cooked flesh on the ground. I guess this was it, sucks to be me, I guess I should have been more careful. I was now prepared to pass away.
However again a system prompt appeared.
Your body have been destroyed, executing body restore.
Within a second I was back to being me again. The robots froze, as if they started calculating their next move.
Having understood a bit more about… myself, I deduced that I was likely an un-killable machine. With a maniacal wide grin I start laughing hysterically.
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