Belle's breaths came in shallow, ragged pulls—her chest heaving with every second. Her frame trembled, not from fear, but the sheer strain of maintaining her form. Blood trickled from a cut above her brow, trailing along her cheek and dripping onto the cracked obsidian floor.
Electricity crackled at her feet, forming arcs of white-blue lightning that danced in erratic spirals. Her silver eyes locked onto her target—unblinking, blazing.
"…One chance," she whispered, more to herself than to anyone else.
She closed her eyes.
Exhale.
The world seemed to pause.
BOOM.
With a thunderclap that ruptured the silence, Belle vanished.
A jagged shockwave split the ground beneath her as she launched like a human lightning bolt—trailing streaks of incandescent energy that tore through the air in her wake. The chamber howled with roaring winds as stone debris was flung backward from the pressure of her takeoff.
On the far side, Malraketh stood still—monolithic and calm, its black-and-crimson armor gleaming in the dim dungeon light. Its single red core pulsed slowly, like the heartbeat of a dormant god.
The construct's head turned—an infinitesimal tilt with recognition and calculation.
It raised its halberd and bent its knees ever so slightly. The surrounding glyphs spiraled faster.
It saw her. It understood. And it waited.
Belle closed the gap in a flash, right arm pulled back, magic and aura coalescing into a fiery spiral around her fist. The heat distorted the air. Her scream echoed through the dungeon, primal and sharp.
"RRRRAAAAAAHHH!!"
Flames exploded around her fist, swirling like a hurricane of fire and fury. Her punch screamed forward, aimed dead center for Malraketh's core.
A feint.
Mid-dash—just milliseconds before impact—Belle shifted.
She discharged lightning from her left boot, twisting her trajectory.
Time seemed to slow.
Her form pirouetted in the air, twisting through a hair's breadth gap between the halberd's slash and its bracing stance.
To normal people's naked eyes—it looked like a flash of silver weaving through a web of death.
She spun, angling to the left, her body parallel to the floor—eyes sharp, calculating. Fire and lightning coiled together as her momentum snapped forward.
Her fist drove toward Malraketh's left flank.
"NOW—!"
The strike landed like a divine meteor. Fire erupted.
The sound—a thunderous, high-pitched explosion, followed by a blastwave that tore up the floor in a massive arc behind them.
Malraketh staggered, caught unprepared.
Cracks spiderwebbed across its shield plating.
For a second—a single second—it reeled.
But that was all.
The dormant rear arm, hidden beneath its cloak-like miasma wing, snapped forward like a machine possessed.
A barrier burst into existence, absorbing the brunt of the blow—but barely.
It groaned. Sparks flew as the barrier cracked.
Then came the counter.
WHAM.
A piston-like fist exploded into Belle's abdomen.
Everything stopped.
The air left her lungs in a choked gasp. Her body arched around the impact, bones groaning under the pressure. The floor beneath her cracked again from the shockwave alone as her body was launched backward across the dungeon like a comet set loose.
She didn't skid. She just flew backward.
But before her momentum even stopped—before she could crash into the far wall, Malraketh blinked.
A flash of glyphs. Space bent.
It was beneath her again.
This time it crouched low—core glowing, knee pulled back.
An uppercut.
CRAAAACK!
The knee slammed into her midsection with inhuman force.
The sound—like stone shattering beneath a landslide. Her body launched skyward at breakneck speed.
She burst through the dungeon ceiling like a cannonball.
One floor. Two. Three.
Each level crumbled as she passed like a falling star in reverse, debris spiraling in her wake like volcanic ash from an erupting mountain.
Everything blurred.
Pain exploded in her ribs. Her vision trembled, black spots dancing across her field of view. Her ears rang. Her mind screamed.
"Focus—damn it—focus!"
She channeled her aura around her chest and arms, barely managing to regain control mid-ascent. Her breath was erratic. Blood dripped from the side of her mouth.
But before she could orient—Malraketh was already below her.
Its core pulsed once.
Then the glyphs aligned—dozens spinning into formation, forming an array of rotating circles beneath its feet.
Spell Matrix: Void Ray Ignition
A singular, piercing beam of compressed energy burst forth from the glyph array—spiraling red and black, laced with fractal patterns of corrupted light.
Belle instinctively threw up an Aura Shield, funneling all her remaining aura into it. A prismatic sphere of silver and blue encased her, vibrating violently from the strain.
BOOOOOOOOOOM!
The beam hit.
The stone wall around the dungeon evaporated as it was hit by the immense energy of the beam.
Her shield cracked immediately.
The force of the blast overwhelmed her defenses and launched her even higher, through the very first floor of the dungeon, through a collapsing ceiling, and finally—into the open air.
The open sky greeted her with no warmth—just cold wind, gray clouds, and distant thunder.
Blood smeared her lips. She tried to breathe.
Pain. Searing. Unrelenting.
"Move… MOVE!" she screamed in her mind.
Her aura flared wildly, struggling to re-stabilize, forming a turbulent shell of silver energy around her as she hovered mid-air—barely conscious, reeling.
But then—the sky dimmed.
Malraketh's shadow loomed above her.
It hadn't simply followed her. It had predicted her launch arc.
And now—it descended. Like a god of destruction.
A fist the size of her torso, wreathed in glyph-light and kinetic force, came down in an unstoppable vertical strike.
KA-THOOOOOM!
It struck.
Belle's body cratered downward.
She plummeted, faster than freefall—driven by the force of that blow—descending like a fallen star.
Below, the earth screamed.
BOOOOOOOM.
A colossal explosion rocked the battlefield as she slammed into the surface.
Dust, stone, and energy erupted into the air. The shockwave rippled out in concentric waves, knocking adventurers, knights and the dungeon beasts alike off their feet.
A massive crater formed at ground zero—jagged, scorched, still crackling with static and residual magic.
For a moment, there was only silence.
Then the wind blew.
Ash and smoke drifted upward, casting long shadows across the battlefield.
A knight dropped his weapon. His mouth hung open in mute horror.
"Wh… What was that…?"
"Something… something just fell."
Adventurers near the rim of the crater stared, dumbfounded, trying to process what they had just witnessed.
Some staggered to their feet. Others didn't move.
Standing not far away from the crater was Roderic. His greatsword was held firmly in his hand, swinging towards the nearby monsters. He saw the impact.
"Belle?!"
The smoke still lingered—thick, molten, and oppressive. It clung to the earth like a shroud of death, a haunting aftermath of Belle's violent impact.
Everything near the crater was scorched, shattered, or warped by the sheer magnitude of energy she had unleashed. The air crackled with residual static, shimmering with displaced mana, like the battlefield itself refused to settle.
The crater she had carved into the ground yawned wide, jagged like a god's claw had raked through the land. Its center was lost to the veil of swirling ash and glowing embers, the eye of a storm that had yet to pass.
And then—a sound. Not a roar. Not a scream.
A hum.
Low. Deep. Ancient. Mechanical. Like the earth itself had drawn breath and whispered of war.
The skies above darkened for a heartbeat.
Malraketh descended.
A corrupted being born from the dungeon's will and miasma, cloaked in silence more terrifying than thunder. His warform dropped from the heavens like judgment incarnate, limbs relaxed, posture loose—yet there was no mistaking the kill-switch precision in the way he carried himself. His eyes—those six crimson lights—cut through the smog like dying suns, emotionless, unblinking.
The moment his feet touched the battlefield—
BOOOOOM.
The impact was apocalyptic.
A second crater bloomed next to the first, deeper, more violent. The shockwave screamed outward like a living thing—warping the terrain, splitting stone and earth into molten fragments. Chunks of the battlefield launched into the sky like missiles. The trees beyond were ripped from their roots.
The ruins shook. The air screamed.
Nearby adventurers and knights were flung like ragdolls—some tumbling through the dirt, others struck by flying debris. Shields buckled. Magic barriers shattered like glass. An entire squadron was reduced to crawling, shielding themselves from the pulse that should never have existed on this plane.
"W-What the hell is that thing…!?"
"My legs… I can't… I can't feel my legs—!"
"That's not a monster… that's not alive—!"
No one knew what it was.
But every soul felt it. The presence. The weight.
A gravitational pull of death that turned instincts to ice.
They had all felt fear before. But this…this was dread.
From the molten heart of the first crater, something stirred.
A flicker of orange. Then two. Then a dozen.
Tiny fire orbs—like embers with purpose—appeared slowly through the smoke. Each glowed with a soft hum, pulsing like hearts ready to strike.
Then—they moved.
Homing fire bullets.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
The fire bullets burst from the smoke like hornets, spinning, spiraling, hunting. Their trajectories curved like guided missiles, aimed directly at Malraketh's skull, chest, and limbs—critical zones.
Malraketh reacted instantly.
Crimson lights in its eyes narrowed. Its halberd-arm twitched.
And then—it vanished.
A blur—inhumanly fast. Its silhouette flickered several meters to the side, just as the bullets passed where it had stood.
It didn't dodge—it dissected. The halberd split the air in impossibly tight arcs, cutting down bullets mid-flight, redirecting the rest with microscopic foot pivots and razor-thin dodges.
But the fire bullets weren't random.
They curved back. They adjusted. They followed.
Because they were being guided.
From within the smoke—a voice.
"That… really hurt… damn it."
A sharp exhale. Grit. Fury.
The fog erupted—not cleared, not dispersed—but shattered like a pane of glass under a hammer.
Belle emerged. And she was different.
Her aura didn't just glow—it roared.
Waves of blue and silver lightning spiraled around her in wild arcs, tearing through the dust with serpentine grace. Her body radiated with compressed energy, her skin marked by faint glowing circuit patterns.
Energy circuits pulsed faintly under her arms, down her legs—her entire being a living battery of wrath.
Her silver hair whipped violently in all directions.
Aura Amplification: Overdrive.
Her eyes—normally cold and calculating—now burned. Not with rage. But with purpose.
She vanished.
The moment Malraketh slashed down the final bullet, she reappeared in front of it.
Her aura warped the air. Her fist was drawn back, wrapped in spirals of silver flame and lightning. Space bent around her arm as she thrust forward.
"RRRAAAAAH—!!"
Malraketh reacted.
Its arm shot forward—instantaneous glyph burst at its elbow, the magic circles flaring in crimson lines. A killing strike to meet hers.
Fist met fist.
CRAAAAAAAAAAAAAACK—!!
A blinding shockwave exploded.
A ring of light expanded in every direction, flattening terrain and launching broken earth into the air like geysers.
For a full second, nothing existed but white. Sound disappeared. Air collapsed. Vision blurred.
Then—they moved again.
Strike. Counter. Dodge. Block. Slash. Slam.
They blurred.
To the untrained eye, it was like watching ghosts—flickering between frames of reality. Red and blue streaks traced their paths. Halberd met fist strike. Flame met glyph. Lightning wrapped around steel.
Every hit cracked the earth. Every clash lit up the sky.
And still, Belle fought harder.
Overdrive pushed her body to the brink—every breath a firestorm, every step a sonic boom. She danced around Malraketh with unpredictable speed, her aura exploding with each attack. She used not just strength, but instinct—reading, reacting, outmaneuvering.
And still—Malraketh adapted. A warform of perfect combat construct.
Each of its movements became faster. Smoother. More brutal.
Every dodge tightened. Every attack became more refined.
It was learning from her. It was evolving.
Still—she didn't stop.
"Keep pushing—"
"More pressure—"
"Don't give it time to reset—!"
She screamed inside her mind as her limbs numbed, skin blistering from aura overload.
Because this wasn't just a fight. This was defiance.
And below, far behind the battle—the soldiers watched, mouths agape.
"That's Belle…?"
"What is happening here? Isn't she supposed to be in the dungeon?"
"What is that thing she is fighting?"
"Look—look at her body—she's burning up—!"
Indeed, cracks of aura-laced energy began to rupture along Belle's arms and legs—like lightning was trying to tear through her skin. Blood mixed with silver light.
She was still hanging onto her power, fighting on par with Malraketh's monstrosity strength for now.
But Overdrive couldn't last forever.
End of Chapter 71