His [Mana Sense] immediately picked up on the shift in the current, the energy not just swirling but surging violently, like a storm barely contained within the boundaries of this dimension.

Around him, the others reacted with instinctive unease. Merlin stiffened, eyes darting around, his expression tight. Reva, battle-hardened as she was, clenched her fists, shifting her stance as if ready to fight. Even Seraphine, who had remained composed thus far, took a wary step back.

The red glow from the rift behind them pulsed ominously, sending arcs of red lightning flickering through the air.

"What shout we do?" Merlin muttered, his voice quieter than usual.

Yun Jin didn’t answer. Instead of drawing his sword or bracing for combat like the others, he did something unexpected—he sat down.

Cross-legged, eyes half-lidded, he lowered his breathing, letting his awareness spread through the chaotic energy around him.

Reva blinked. "What the hell are you doing? This isn’t the time to—"

A sharp thunk cut her off.

Merlin had smacked the end of his staff against the ground. "Shhh. Let him focus."

Reva looked between the two, baffled, but Merlin’s tone had an unusual edge to it—so she reluctantly held her tongue.

Yun Jin exhaled deeply.

Instead of resisting the volatile mana, he welcomed it.

The dimension was in flux. This chaos—this instability—it was an opportunity.

A natural disaster to most. A perfect cultivation field for him.

He let the dense, unstable mana flow into his body, guiding it with practiced ease into his spirit core. The energy burned, sharp like jagged lightning, but it also honed him, forcing his core to refine itself under the pressure. He pushed past the turbulence, bending it to his will.

The entire rift shuddered.

For a brief moment, everything seemed to shift—not physically, but in a way, Yun Jin could feel down to his very bones.

Then—

[Unauthorized access to server structure detected.]

A flicker of something foreign brushed against his mind. Something vast. Something watching.

[Access denied.]

Yun Jin’s eyes snapped open. A sharp laugh escaped him.

"So, this is how you want to play?"

Reva’s eyes darted to him; confusion evident. "What—what the hell did you just do?"

"I just tried to take a little extra from the rift," Yun Jin said, rising to his feet and dusting off his robes. He flexed his fingers experimentally. His body felt sharper—his spirit core denser than before.

Reva stared at him, frowning. "…You were absorbing the mana?"

She had seen the faint traces of energy drawn toward him before it suddenly cut off.

Before the dimension seemed to reject him outright.

Merlin’s gaze was distant, calculating. "That means…"

Yun Jin turned toward the rift they had entered through. The crimson glow had darkened, shifting from red to a deep, midnight black. Yet, despite that change, the energy surging from it hadn’t faded.

He reached a hand toward it—

A violent arc of red lightning lashed out.

He withdrew his hand just in time to avoid the strike.

[Server disconnected.]

Yun Jin narrowed his eyes. The instant his fingers had brushed against the barrier, he had felt… nothing.

A vast emptiness.

Like reaching for something that should have been there, only to find a void in its place.

He slowly pulled his sword from his waist.

[Aura Blade] surged to life. [Aura Surge] flooded his muscles with energy.

Then, in one smooth motion, he executed Vector to Heaven.

The moment the blade slashed forward—

A surge of red lightning exploded outward, meeting his strike with a force so overwhelming that his sword was ripped from his grip and sent flying several meters away.

Yun Jin’s eyes widened slightly.

Everyone else—frozen.

Merlin, Reva, and Seraphine had just witnessed Yun Jin get disarmed.

It had happened so fast that even Reva, trained in speed combat, barely registered it before it was over.

The only ones who had ever disarmed Yun Jin before were—

Baek Tianjun.

And no one since.

Merlin swallowed hard.

Then—

[Warning: Until the anomaly is fixed, rejoining the server is impossible.]

Yun Jin let out a slow exhale. "So, we need to finish this rift first."

Merlin nodded grimly. "Yeah. And that’s a problem."

Reva still looked tense. "How bad are we talking?"

Merlin hesitated. Then: "Red Rifts are extremely rare. Only about one in a hundred thousand rifts turns into one."

A heavy silence fell over the group.

"And?" Yun Jin prompted.

"And no one can leave until the dungeon is cleared."

Reva clenched her fists, inhaling sharply. "No way out. Great."

Yun Jin scanned their surroundings, assessing their options. "Anything else I need to know?"

Merlin shook his head. "Not much. Red Rifts aren’t well-documented."

But then—

"I know some details."

The voice belonged to Seraphine.

They all turned to her.

She cleared her throat, recalling the lessons from her adventurer orientation. "When a dimension rift turns red, it means the monsters inside become supercharged. Their strength, aggression, and overall power increase by roughly 1.5 times. More importantly, unusual enemies can appear—ones that normally wouldn’t exist within the rank of the rift."

Yun Jin’s expression shifted into a grin. "So, harder challenge, better rewards. Got it."

Reva blew out air, rubbing her temples. "This isn’t funny. Not only are you and I injured, but we’ve got an underranked priestess and a child on our team!"

The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

"For the record," Yun Jin said, raising a hand, "Merlin is the same age as me."

Before Reva could react to that, Yun Jin’s head tilted slightly. His senses sharpened.

"The real problem," he murmured, "is that we have company."

Reva turned, following his gaze—

And froze.

A dozen humanoid figures stood in the distance, spears in hand. Their heads were elongated, egg-shaped, with glowing red eyes that pulsed with an unnatural charge. They blinked sideways, a thin, almost membranous layer sliding over their gaze before vanishing beneath their translucent skin.

The flesh of their bodies was slick, faintly scaled, as if caught somewhere between fish and lizard. Though humanoid in shape, their limbs were too long, their fingers ending in webbed, claw-tipped appendages. Their movements jittery and unnatural.

Then, above their heads—

[Abyssal Mermaid Lv.16]

Reva stiffened, instinctively shifting her stance. "…What are those?"

The creatures didn’t move immediately. They simply watched, alien eyes locked onto them, studying, assessing.

Then, Yun Jin moved.

He walked forward, grabbed his sword from where it had landed, and dusted it off with an easy flick of his wrist.

Rolling his shoulders, he sighed. "The name’s clearly above their heads." He adjusted his grip, fingers tightening around the hilt. "But it doesn’t matter."

He exhaled, his aura sharpening.

"They’re in our way."

As soon as Yun Jin moved, the Abyssal Mermaids reacted unnaturally fast, their twitching bodies snapping into coordinated action as if driven by a shared consciousness. Without hesitation, their arms tensed, and jagged spears of bone and sinew grew from their flesh. The first one let loose its weapon, then another, and another—their spears slicing through the air in quick succession.

Yun Jin shifted his stance, his sword flashing as he deflected the first projectile with ease. The second and third followed instantly, forcing him to twist his body mid-motion to knock them aside. The moment their weapons left their grip, their arms twitched and distorted, fresh spears pushing through their flesh like grotesque extensions of their bodies. Without pause, they hurled another volley, the cycle repeating with unnatural efficiency.

He narrowed his eyes, testing their movements. They weren't just attacking randomly. Their spears weren’t meant to kill outright—they were pushing him, measuring his reactions, herding him into a predictable rhythm. Each attack forced him to respond, and if he wasn’t careful, they would eventually overwhelm him.

But Yun Jin had no interest in letting this drag on.

The next wave of spears shot toward him, but this time, instead of deflecting, he shifted forward. His body slipped between the incoming projectiles, boots skimming lightly across the ground as he advanced. The creatures reacted immediately, the spears in their arms vanishing as they closed the distance, their bodies bending into eerily uniform stances.

The moment they stepped into melee range, their weapons twisted, reshaping into serrated polearms, pulsating like living things. They struck together, perfectly synchronized, their jagged blades whistling toward him from multiple angles. Yun Jin ducked under the first, sidestepped the second, and caught the third along the edge of his blade, redirecting the force as he moved between them.

[Mana Eyes] flared to life, revealing the flow of energy in their bodies, the precise movements beneath their erratic twitching. Every attack followed a pattern, their strikes forming a deadly sequence that forced him into positions where the next blow was already waiting.

They adjusted unnaturally fast.

So, they were adapting.

Yun Jin exhaled sharply. If they wanted efficiency, he would show them real efficiency.

His grip tightened, qi surging beneath his feet. A blur of motion—too fast for the creatures to react.

Light Blade Sovereign Style: Arc Lightning!

A single strike. Two Abyssal Mermaids froze, their heads sliding from their shoulders before black ichor sprayed from the severed flesh. Their bodies collapsed a second later, twitching as the last remnants of unnatural life left them.

The final one flinched, its movement breaking its otherwise perfect coordination.

Before Yun Jin followed, Reva moved.

She dashed forward, body twisting with the full force of her momentum, and drove a crushing kick into its torso. The impact tore through flesh and bone, its entire midsection rupturing as the force sent it flying back in two separate halves.

The battlefield fell silent. Only the sound of their bodies hitting the ground remained.

Yun Jin flicked the black ichor from his blade, his expression shifting into mild disappointment as he took a step forward. The fight had ended too quickly, the opponents falling apart with barely any resistance.

"Is this supposed to be the fearsome challenge of a red rift?" he asked, voice carrying an unimpressed edge.

But the moment those words left his lips, something in the air shifted.

A sickening squelch echoed through the battlefield as the scattered flesh and blackened ichor from the fallen Abyssal Mermaids pulsed unnaturally. Their severed limbs and torn torsos twitched, convulsing as if something beneath their ruined bodies was still alive.

The remnants of their flesh quivered; each broken piece drawn toward a central point by an unseen force. The red glow in their eyes did not fade. One by one, the orbs collapsed into each other, merging into a grotesque fusion of writhing tissue and pulsating veins.

Yun Jin’s instincts flared—bad.

A primal warning screamed through his body.

Kill it now!

He moved instantly. His qi surged as his body flickered, launching forward with Light Blade Sovereign Style: First Form—Arc Lightning. His blade became a streak of silver lightning, cutting toward the forming monstrosity before it could stabilize—

Only for his sword to stop mid-swing.

A wet, slurping noise filled the air.

His blade had been caught—not by a solid block of flesh, but by a shapeless, writhing glob of meat. It was liquid and alive, gripping the steel as if it were sinking into tar.

Then it moved.

Fast.

An amorphous limb lashed toward Yun Jin with explosive force, a grotesque, half-formed appendage that moved like a whip, its mass folding over itself unnaturally.

Yun Jin barely had time to react. His instincts roared at him to evade, but the strike came too fast.

"God’s Protect!"

A flash of golden light erupted in front of him as Seraphine’s bracelet flared to life, conjuring a radiant shield between him and the attack.

At the same time—

Yun Jin, acting purely on instinct, reinforced the barrier further by conjuring his own ice shield. The barriers layered instantly, forming a triple-layered protection.

"Glacial Wall!"

Merlin’s mana surged, a thick block of ice forming as a second layer of defense.

The abomination’s strike shattered the golden shield instantly, dispelling Seraphine’s magic in a violent ripple. Yun Jin’s own ice barrier followed next, exploding into shards, unable to withstand the sheer force.

Only Merlin’s ice block remained standing, its reinforced density absorbing the final shockwave.

But the sheer pressure sent cracks sprawling across its surface.

Yun Jin clicked his tongue.

He barely had time to brace before the lingering force sent him flying. His body skidded across the dirt, momentum rolling through his frame as he twisted midair, adjusting his weight before landing in a crouch. Even so, his boots dug into the ground from the impact.

A system notification flickered in his vision.

[Mutated Abyssal Mermaid Lv.20]

He had already known. This thing was different.

Then, before Yun Jin could fully regain his stance, the monster opened its mouth.

Or at least—what should have been a mouth.

A jagged, gaping hole stretched unnaturally wide, flesh splitting apart into an abyss of shifting tissue.

A soundless force rippled outward.

Yun Jin felt it—pressure in the air. But nothing beyond that.

Then—

"AGH! IT'S TOO LOUD! MAKE IT STOP!!"

Merlin screamed.

His body convulsed violently as he clutched his head, his knees buckling under an invisible weight. His face twisted in pain; his normally sharp blue eyes clouded, as if something was drilling into his skull.

Reva had already launched herself forward, her expression taut with focus, her body moving with explosive momentum, trying to save Merlin.

Yun Jin surged alongside her, his aura igniting in a crackling surge as his arm flickered with [Aura Blade].

The two warriors struck as one.

But before their attacks could land—

Schlk—!

A grotesque, squelching sound tore through the air as two massive arms erupted from the abomination’s sides, forming in the span of a breath.

Not ordinary flesh.

The hardened remains of the Abyssal Mermaids had condensed into reinforced sinew, forming monstrous, impenetrable limbs that moved with unnatural precision—each motion flawless, adaptive, calculated.

The many red eyes embedded within its shifting mass flicked between Yun Jin and Reva, tracking their movements with eerie intelligence.

But neither of them faltered.

Reva’s smirk sharpened, flames surging to life across her body, the fire roaring to existence.

"Ready?" she asked, heat radiating from her form in waves as she threw her fist forward, her flames consuming the mutated limb, burning it down to cinders in an instant.

Yun Jin didn’t hesitate.

"Yeah."

He slashed, his hand cutting through the air in a blinding arc—

[Sword Wave]

A crescent of pure energy tore through the second arm, cleaving through the thick, pulsing sinew in a single, precise strike.

The abomination let out a hollow, unnatural scream, a noise that echoed without sound—reverberating through the air like a silent quake.

Yun Jin wasted no time.

His sword, now freed, snapped back into his grasp.

The moment his fingers closed around the hilt, his aura surged anew, the blade thrumming with power as he activated [Aura Blade] once more.