Chapter 99 - Tom's Mere Moment

*At the same time*

"What the fuck just happened?" Claudia asked, watching how Cleo's lifeless avatar fell into Tom's arms. 

"I killed her avatar," Tom said blankly, still having trouble processing what happened. Because what others could see was nowhere as complicated as what he went through. 

In a single instant, when this strange, different kind of magical power overflowed his senses, Tom experienced a lot of stuff at once. 

For a mere fraction of a second, he could sense the magic flowing inside Cleo's body. 

It only happened because he both reached a higher level and touched Cleo's avatar at the same time. Tom couldn't stop his mana from leaking out. But now that he could use it, there was nothing stopping him from attempting to absorb it. 

All at once, he pushed his inner energy to its limits. Using the sense that he just discovered by instinct alone, he furiously sucked the mana inside. 

Not a single drop of energy managed to get outside. 

Tom survived this moment only thanks to his already mana-accustomed flesh. For anyone else, this process would be akin to happily sitting down on an electric chair. 

'Ultimately, all kinds of energy are all about force,' Tom thought, recalling the few lessons of physics he could still remember. 

In the world outside the dungeon, energy meant an ability to cause change. 'Now that I think about it,' Tom thought, twitching in place. 'The dungeon nor the magic breaks that rule.' With that conclusion in mind, Tom didn't stop. 

Rather, the opposite. He sucked on the energy even faster. 

'With everything that's happening to me, I can hardly call myself human anymore,' Tom suddenly realized. His twitching stopped as his body relaxed. His strenght... It grew beyond anything he could imagine previously. Not just from the current situation but all the stones he consumed already. 

Tom no longer had problems with lacking strenght. He now had to learn how to properly utilize it. 

'And for someone in my position,' Tom thought, steeling his determination as he continued to suffer through the endless expanse of this single instant. 

He could feel his very muscles ripping apart under the pressure as more and more energy continued to overflow them. His bodes went through something that can only be called growth pain... But intensified to an unbearable scale. 

His body went through a tremendous change once again. 

'Done,' Tom thought, as soon as the last bit of energy safely returned to his body. 

'Just like expected,' Tom thought, still hung up in the single instant. All this energy that exploded outwards came from him. And since he was once capable of holding it inside him, he obviously had to be able to rein it back in. 

And then was when Tom made a mistake. Overjoyed with the prospect of solving another crisis, he suddenly noticed something in the magic of Cleo's avatar. 

Just like before, it seemed as if his brain jumped on a whole different level of ability. Despite not knowing how and why he could feel the struggle between the finest IT technicians of the Online Hub and a single young adult from Tom's family. 

And he could see the hunter closing in on the prey. 

He didn't even see the numbers. He didn't know what the hunt was all about. But he could see that the defenses put up by one of his cousins were quickly crumbling against the manpower the online hub threw at him. 

This realization made him lose his focus. Still, in the same frozen frame, Tom allowed a small detail to slip away from his attention. 

That as he continued to suck more and more energy, the pulling force over his own mana grew stronger as well. And now that he reined all his mana back in, the balance of the momentum would be broken. 

Tom's still perception crashed apart when a powerful rebound shook his body, the true perpetrator behind Cleo's avatar's sudden demise. 

'That was close,' Tom thought, allowing the lifeless doll to fall into his hands. Even though he allowed himself a momentary lapse of attention, Tom made use of it as soon as the rebound appeared. 'With that, we should be safe,' he thought, slowly calming down. 

In a moment of desperation, Tom managed to grasp the power of the rebound. While he couldn't fully control it, by some fluke of fortune, he managed to direct this energy to burn a patch between the hunter and the prey inside Cleo's avatar. 

Killing her wasn't Tom's intention. He just didn't even bother to take it as a part of the equation when destroying everything that could lead the enemy on the right trail. 

"Why did you do that for?" Claudia asked. Sparks of hostility appeared in her eyes for the first time since the two knew each other. Not the kind of hostility an angry person would showcase. 

The kind that reached deep to the human's core, to the lowest level of disgust that a moral person can feel towards an immoral act. 

"They almost managed to track us," Tom replied, keeping his face as straight as he could. "I know how it looks and sounds, but it was necessary. Don't forget," Tom pointed his finger up, "that it's only her avatar, not her real self," Tom said. 

'Thank God I had him explain to me how the connection works,' Tom thought, recalling the few moments he spent with that informatical genius of his cousin. 

If not for his explanations, Tom would be too scared to attack Cleo's connection so directly. 

If he were sure that this was the only option to avoid discovery while just as sure as someone was actually looking for them, Tom wouldn't hesitate. 

But the current situation wasn't about certainties. It was all about just a feeling that Tom had. 

And even after everything he went through in the dungeon, he still couldn't fully trust something so random. 

"Either way," Tom said, gently placing Cleo's avatar on the ground.. "Are we good to go?" he asked, looking towards the boss room gate already visible at the end of the corridor. "Once we beat the boss, we will finally get our hands on grade five stones!"