Chapter 413

Chapter 413

A large white portal of spatial magic opens up below me about 15 meters down. It's halfway between me and the ground.

Without waiting any longer, I let the Cursed Windstone fall from my storage and plummet toward the sandy floor.

The moment it emerges, the wind picks up and the mana manifested sand from the dungeon floor begins to float up into the air to meet the falling stone. In mere fractions of a second, a twisting sand tornado is created, and I turn to Bri and grab her wrist.

"To be safe, we'll need to put even more distance between us and this test."

The craftswoman's eyes are locked on the items below us as I Dungeon walk us over 200 meters away in the direction we just came from. Before blipping to safety, I could feel the mana seeping out of me already.

Once we re-materialize, a loud metallic twang like two mana shieldings colliding hits my ears. It's followed by thuds, cracks, and a massive explosion of sand.

The violent Windstone hits the dungeon's sandy surface and in turn, a rippling shockwave follows but weakens into a light breeze as it nears us over two sports fields in distance away. The impact makes a dome of swirling sand that expands outwards, then gets sucked back into the impact point like a dense center of gravity is pulling it in.

I let out a small sigh of relief seeing that the damage isn't instant, but also keep the thought at the back of my mind that this item's description said its mana plundering speed was exponential. Meaning, it's only going to get more powerful from here.

Bri speaks up as we both air step higher into the sky with a half frightened, half excited tone.

"What kind of item is that...? A special kind of wind element stone? Or-"

She thinks to herself, staring out at the item ripping through the dungeon floor like it's paper, wondering what exactly she's looking at. My eyes tighten on the dome of swirling sand in the distance as it slowly expands.

A deep-toned buzzing sound begins to fill the air.

My all-seeing eye picks up on the intricacies of what's actually happening.

Through the expanding dome of sand, a large hole in the dungeon floor is being created as the element stone sinks deeper into the desert.

Sand, which is really just pure mana manifesting as dungeon mass, twists around it like a whirlpool and disappears into a dense center point once it gets close enough to the stone. It expands quickly, and I respond to Bri's question as we both watch in awe.

"Yes, it's an element stone. Well- it used to be. Have you ever heard of cursed items?"

She nods and her eyes widen, focusing even more on the violently spinning rapidly expanding dome of sand.

"Yes, I've made some myself, but nothing of this magnitude... Where did you get it? Or- don't tell me you killed a craftsman and made this thing yourself...?"

She turns her head to look at me as she pieces everything together.

Bri is one of the only people that has ever seen my true status. It was a requirement for me to show it when I first got my blood bonded sword and entered the underground fight arena. Her memory is very good, I guess that's why she didn't question any of my other skills like stealth, wind magic, or dungeon walker when I used them in front of her.

She's aware I'm no normal hunter.

So, I respond in a sarcastic tone with a relaxed shrug.

"Yes, I killed a craftsman to get the skill. You're lucky I didn't set my sights on you earlier when I was spending time in Vice City."

She rolls her eyes and snaps back with her own joking remark.

"Yeah right, I doubt you could have laid a finger on me even if you found me sleeping back then."

We both chuckle, but stare back at the growing dust cloud as I explain how it was really triggered.

"I managed to get a crafting skill of my own in the Dark Continent and mixed two of the wrong ingredients together to create this... Or depending how you look at it, maybe two of the right ones. It's a long story, one I can tell you after we witness this creations full power and get out of here."

Their eyes roll into the back of their heads and they both fall to the forest floor knocked out from the burst of intense focused mana attacking their psyche.

"Body double."

Next, I create a body double and use it to run forward and plunge deep into the red portal to watch what is about to unfold inside with no risk to my real body.

It disappears into the crimson swirling mass of mana, and in my real body, I turn back to Bri.

"Help me carry these guys to a safe distance away. I have a feeling once this dungeon fully breaks and collapses, it isn't going to be pretty."

Bri deactivates her light magic while holding her head and shaking off the effects of getting caught in the crossfire of my intimidation skill.

"You weren't kidding. That's a pretty strong mental attack. I'm glad I'm not on the wrong side of it."

We take one guard each and sling them over our shoulders while air stepping away from the mountain off the cliffside. The sun has almost fully set over the horizon, but with my enhanced sense and eyesight specifically, it's basically as light as day even at night.

We make it to the ground in the valley just below the mountain and the memories from my double come flowing back into my mind.

"I already died..."

Inside the dungeon, the moment my double entered, the light swirling winds had already reached the exit point.

Considering my double is fully made of mana, it began getting sucked in toward the center of the swirling mass. Using plunderer and my other stat-boosting buffs, my double was able to resist the pull for about 30 seconds as Bri and I made our way down the mountain, but ultimately the dome expanded too far out to resist any further.

All of the sandy hills and rock formations have collapsed and been sucked into the windy mass, and dozens of sand golems have faced their demise all around the dungeon.

The hole in the dungeon floor reached a depth of over 400m and the diameter of the swirling dome hit over 1km as my body double got sucked in and broken down into pure mana to add to the central mass.

Once these images show up in my mind I imagine the possibilities of what will happen once it has no more energy to pull from.

My all-seeing eye can sense the red portal swirling more and more violently now, starting to spew larger amounts of wind magic and mana into the real world.

However, suddenly it stops.

The twisting wind and violently glowing crimson portal stops expanding with power and contracts on itself quickly and instantly.

Everything is calm and peaceful.

Bri and I don't stop moving forward toward the city, and the sun fully sets, leaving us in the dead of night for a full 20 seconds of silence.

Then, a glimmer of transport magic brings all foreign material out of the collapsed dungeon.

The foreign material being a highly concentrated, extremely volatile, unpredictable, cursed element stone imbued with a mythic grade skill holding billions of MP from a high C Grade Dungeon.

Once it spawns in, my All Seeing Eye picks up on it like a bright candle burning through paper on the radar in my mind's eye.

It gets hotter and hotter, reaching out for mana to drain, but out here in the plain old real world, there isn't much of that to go around.

It sucks up the trace amounts of mana in the atmosphere, but soon begins to crack and splinter as its needs are not satisfied.

The item description warning about it's structural integrity collapsing repeats in my head as I watch the outer crystal walls of the stone break down in my mind's eye.

A few seconds later, and the eruption of power that is released is far greater than anything my imagination had in mind.

The dark night sky is lit up like its daytime as the element stone explodes.