The aura of darkness and blood the Black Cloaked Manipulator emitted proved mana isn't the only thing that makes someone's presence overwhelming.
Bloodlust.
Sheer, pure bloodlust.
That was all he emitted, but even then his presence overwhelmed the both of us.
We couldn't move, not at all.
The room was silent, silence that spoke more than anything I've come across.
The Black Cloaked Manipulator was a true monstrosity.
"Is this what it means to be a monarch?" I wondered more and more as the room got even more silent.
But deep inside, even after all this, I still have the hope to win.
The hope to go back home alive.
The hope to chase my goal of righteousness.
Just as we stood still, the Black Cloaked Manipulator extended his arms and threw a dead spider, just a few inches big. The spider turned into something much bigger and had MUCH more mana than even the centipedes. It seemed more powerful overall.
We couldn't even move, we weren't on guard. But the spider didn't head our way. Instead, it went into the cave inside.
There wasn't a way to hide from him. Even with Daiki's teleportation, he couldn't bypass the one-way portal unless you beat the boss of the dungeon.
After a while, we were just standing still in despair.
"I must seem pathetic calling the kid a depressed child while in front of true terror I'm the same," I murmured to myself.
Logic said it was a bad idea to come into this dungeon.
But this Kuroto inside me says otherwise. He doesn't regret, nor does he give up.
While everything, even including me, refuses to move... he still doesn't give up.
The spider returned, dragging two corpses with only a few strands of its incredibly strong web.
One was a one-headed, hellhound, dog-sized monster. And the other was a small monkey-like monster with brown hair. That said, they were both corpses.
The spider shot its web above the ceiling right in front of the Black Cloaked Manipulator, climbing up slowly with the two corpses side by side below it.
After a few seconds, it climbed its way up to him.
The Black Cloaked Manipulator extended both his arms forward, touching both the corpses as they flashed—
And in the next instant, they were alive and massive monsters.
The hellhound had turned into a two-legged, two-headed monster with four red eyes begging to kill, saliva drooling from its mouth, with EXTREMELY sharp-looking claws on both its feet and hands, wearing torn-apart, commoner-like clothes. Emitting presence of dread, he stood before his master, the Black Cloaked Manipulator. His mana radiated power beyond anything I'd ever encountered. His skin looked like nothing could tear through it.
Whilst the monkey turned into a big yeti monster with emitting white aura of both dread and serenity, he seemed like a killer without any strategy but brute force so immense it seemed like he didn't need any thinking but only orders. His mana even more intense than the hellhound overall.
The two monsters landed and bowed to the Black Cloaked Manipulator.
After so long, the Black Cloaked Manipulator spoke.
"Let me think..." he said, looking at both of us, while our heads were down on the floor, having already lost the hope to win.
"This one will work," he said devilishly, and pointed towards the kid.
"And when that boy's heart stops beating" he pointed towards me, "You will be the one that'll die, not by my other pawns, but your very own friend who'll end you once he becomes my pawn," he said it not as a warning, not as a threat—but as an inevitable fate.
While the yeti headed toward me slowly, as if not intending to kill me at the moment, the hellhound sprinted fast. He was too fast. So fast that, even though meters away from the kid, in the blink of an eye, he was in front of the kid, his hands aimed at the kid's face.
Third Person POV:
In front of Daiki's very eyes, just a few inches away, the hellhound was about to rip his head off. Daiki reacted instantly. Even if scared, his instinct took over.
Daiki teleported up the cave, right in front of the gate, laying behind the steep walls, in despair, unable to think of anything.
The hellhound instantly sensed the kid up the cave.
The hellhound was too fast. He instantly rushed from the room to the cave, and then toward the portal. There, he found Daiki. Still affected by his numbness, he grabbed Daiki with his three claws side by side embedded into Daiki's arms, stabbing till the claws hit his bones and putting a grave injury.
The hellhound used an ability of his—Mana Draining. This ability allowed him to suck mana from any entity as long as his claws were embedded into them. Since he was slowly sucking Daiki's mana, that made Daiki unable to use his teleportation, rendering his only way of defense utterly useless.
The hellhound slowly headed back to the room, Daiki, already low on mana, had now fallen unconscious as the drain continued. Drops of blood poured down on the ground and he was living on his last breaths as he was being presented by the hellhound to the Black Cloaked Manipulator like a trophy.
Kuroto felt helpless as the pain of seeing Daiki like that surged through him, he just stood there like an audience that's just there to enjoy the show, except it's not him enjoying but suffering.
The Black Cloaked Manipulator slowly landed down and laughed in a devilish way.
Suddenly everyone in the room felt some anonymous presence that entered the gate.
Two powerful looking people entered the dungeon.
The Black Cloaked Manipulator did not panic, he still stayed calm and collected even if the two people that entered the dungeon were on a whole other level than Kuroto and Daiki.
He instructed his Yeti to go ahead and place a barrier on the opening of the room, until they're able to break through the barrier the Black Cloaked Manipulator would've already made both Kuroto and Daiki his pawns, these two pawns would easily get rid of even the strong people that entered.
The Yeti ran ahead toward the entrance of the room and slowly hovered his giant hands over the entrance and to a couple of meters to the sides and upwards to generally make it a bigger barrier since the powerful two that came wouldn't break through the side of the walls, if they broke through too much the place would collapse which would lead to a bigger loss.
Just as the Yeti hovered his hands he backed down a step and clapped his hands three times.
And then slowly there was a white fog-like barrier in front of the entrance. The Yeti headed back right in front of Kuroto just in case he tries to do anything.
There were two people, a woman and a man about the same age as Kuroto.
The girl had blonde medium-sized hair with a standard hairclip, brown-almond eyes that made her look both dangerous and harmless, white skin and an almost pale complexion that gave her a pretty look. With the height of 5'7, she emitted a yellow aura of serenity and the mana of an experienced mage with well-developed abilities. She was wearing casual clothes.
While the guy to her right was on another level. He had black hair, brown prey-like eyes that instead of making him look weak made him look even stronger. A slightly less white skin with a good-looking face and tall at 6'1. He emitted a brown aura of serenity and the mana of an extremely strong and capable fighter. Although wearing casual clothes, he had a black sheath to his right with an extremely well-designed brown-handled sword that looked a bit like a katana.
"Be careful, I sense two enemies that are extremely dangerous," he said while extending his arm to his right to stop the girl.
"I sense them too, but I also sense two mana sources. One is extremely faint and almost on the verge of death, while the other is powerful but seems to be scared," she said confidently.
The girl was named Haruka Murakami. She was a new cadet of the Crimson Order and on a mission with her senior and the leader of the Crimson Order itself, Toshiro Fukumoto, with a nickname of 'Manipulator of Death'.
The leader of the Crimson Order himself had arrived on the scene upon being informed about a 7-year-old child and a seemingly ordinary civilian entering a dungeon gate that seemed incredibly dangerous.
They both realized that the two were in danger.
Toshiro and Haruka nodded at each other and instantly ran down the cave.
Coincidentally, they both had Night Vision—the same ability as Daiki's that let them see in the dark.
Just as they reached the opening of the room, they sensed the barrier. Although they could faintly see through the foggy barrier, it would still take a moment to break it.
While Haruka's reaction was urgency like any other would have, Toshiro's reaction was completely different.
"Is that the... Black Cloaked Manipulator?" he murmured to himself in panic, and even more so when he saw Kuroto and Daiki had completely lost the battle.
By the looks of it, Toshiro knew what and who the Black Cloaked Manipulator was. He instantly took out his sword, enhanced it with his mana, making it as strong as he possibly could.
He instantly hit the barrier as everyone in the room saw, and so did Kuroto.
But Kuroto knew that by the time they broke through, it would be too late.
When Toshiro hit the barrier, it cracked just a tiny bit. The barrier was simply too strong.
"Damn it," he said, hitting the ground with his feet, annoyed, knowing full well it'd be too long before he'd be able to break through the barrier.
Kuroto's POV:
I was in absolute despair.
"Now... stab his heart," he said devilishly like always.
I suddenly started to feel a little different inside me. Suddenly, I heard a voice in my head in slow motion.
Notification: Two abilities gained — VoidMind and Fear.
Everything turned into slow motion. I couldn't speak to myself, but I knew what was going on.
VoidMind: "Enabled Thought Acceleration. Analyzing the situation... Result: No time can be wasted. I must act immediately."
A robotic voice in my head spoke.
VoidMind: "Two curses detected... There's enough time to take care of the curses. Processing... The two curses are unable to be taken care of.
The two curses that were not working up till now have been activated.
Curse one: Unable to fall in despair is now functioning. Unable to remove it.
Curse two: Unable to go into insanity is now functioning. Unable to remove it as well.
Unable to assess why these two are labeled as curses."
The despair I felt from before was gone as I heard the voice continue forward.
VoidMind: "The situation is urgent. There's no time for explanation even during Thought Acceleration."
VoidMind: "Using Instinct Takeover. The body will go through severe damages for forceful use of intense power, but the situation seems to be too risky to take that into consideration. The user's body will now do its best to win this battle, even if it sustains severe damages. Disabling Thought Acceleration."
The voice spoke again, and the time that seemed to have slowed down in my head returned to normal. And then suddenly, I instinctively knew what to do.
I rose my right hand to the side. Everyone noticed.
My eyes turned normal, and I was back to myself as I was before entering this dungeon.
I was able to rationally think and process better than ever. Even my injuries didn't affect me at all — the ones I had sustained before.
Suddenly, something formed in my hand — a dark black sword emitting black particles of darkness, death, fear, and dread.
The sword that formed in my hand was almost sudden but terrifying, even to me.
I didn't know what was happening, but I was instantly being diverted back to focus on the current situation.
Suddenly, a memory flashed before my eyes, glitchy like what happened back in the park.
The memory was glitchy. In it, I was on my knees as someone whose face I couldn't see spoke.
"Death... You're the only one who could do it. Only you're able to follow the path of true righteousness. For that, doing this is important. You must do it, Death. You must follow the path of righteousness no matter what happens to you," the voice said in a glitchy way. I was almost unable to understand it.
Suddenly, tears from my eyes started to stream, unknowingly to me — I didn't know why I was crying. And then I, for an unknown reason, said something.
"I will, dear old friend."
The reason was completely unbeknownst to me, but I was unable to think about it, when I did my focus instantly turned back to the situation.
Just as the Black Cloaked Manipulator was about to command the yeti and the hellhound to kill me, I suddenly moved my hands forward, gripping the sword in my hand. I knew the sword was on a completely different level than any I had ever come across. It was several times better and stronger than even the sword Daiki made.
I instantly jumped at the yeti in front of me as I sliced through his head very easily, and then instantly ran and jumped straight to slice through the hellhound and caught Daiki in my arms. Cutting was so buttery smooth I was confused, but again, my wondering shifted to the current situation.
I didn't have time to put Daiki down. I dropped him just enough to not get him hurt.
Tears still streaming down my face, I instantly headed toward the Black Cloaked Manipulator. I sensed it — I sensed his fear for the first time.
The tables had suddenly turned, and I didn't know why or how. My mind was unable to think about that, and when I did, it suddenly turned back to the situation at hand.
The Black Cloaked Manipulator panicked and threw all the bugs he had — hundreds of ants and flies, several spiders and cockroaches like before.
The entire place filled up with the monsters, from the air to the ground almost.
The entire room had been filled, except for the space the Black Cloaked Manipulator stood. And I was too, unable to see, as I was completely surrounded by monsters.
I went in and sliced through everything by spinning the sword as more monsters came in front of me.
As I sliced through, I finally saw the Black Cloaked Manipulator in front of my very eyes vulnerable and in my attack range.
I sliced through the head of the coat.
The coat was so much stronger than the monsters I had cut through.
When I did cut through him, every monster he'd summoned disappeared and were replaced by what they originally were.
I landed and looked behind — Daiki was completely safe since I had already cut through the Black Cloaked Manipulator before they crushed him.
The Black Cloaked Manipulator fell — his head and the coat apart.
"Damn... you... human," he said before completely dying out.
The coat slowly vanished into thin air like particles, but instead, the particles were black — not red.
I couldn't feel any emotion at the moment, and I suddenly heard the robotic voice again.
VoidMind: "Disabling Instinct Takeover. Body has sustained extreme injuries and is on the verge of death if no help arrives."
Just like that, the energy I felt was completely gone in an instant, and I fell down to the ground, passing out.