In a different room of the dangerous dungeon, Misora looked behind to see another monster like the others.
But before she could've turned, she already felt something behind her that was staring through her soul.
She gasped before she turned, already knowing something extremely bad was about to happen to her.
What she saw was not only terrifying but triggered a tiny curiosity behind the terror from the monster.
It was an ordinary alligator. A very ordinary alligator—yes, those alligators who are Earth animals without having much of any mana inside them. It was only a few meters in front of her instead of the standard fifty meters for the others.
But Misora wasn't a fool. She knew the alligator was anything but normal.
The alligator didn't radiate much of anything. It was just a normal Earth animal that couldn't pose any threat against someone such as Misora, who could use magic at an extreme level compared to ordinary humans.
The mana, the looks, the pressure, and the terror it gave off was nothing at all... What was truly terrifying from the alligator was when her eyes landed on the animal—it was biting off its tail as blood splattered onto the ground. The alligator was biting through its tail's back half, as if it were feasting on prey. Every time it embedded its teeth into the skin, its bloodlust seemed to skyrocket. It bit itself in the most brutal way imaginable, but Misora couldn't help but not close her eyes or look away.
Because she knew if she did, she would definitely be caught off guard, or it was something else…
Her expression shifted to disgust and fear from how brutally it bit itself.
She couldn't even step forward to attack, because every time it bit itself, its eyes gave off bloodlust and terror beyond imagination to her... but there was something behind this other than just being disgusted herself.
"No..., do- don't do it..." she backed down a step in terror. She couldn't move forward.
It was the alligator being attacked, but she was facing greater harm than the alligator.
And then... it fell off.
The tail was bitten to the point of being completely cut off.
That's when she snapped.
She flinched without opening her eyes.
Suddenly, she heard her own heartbeat pounding in her mind, as if telling her it's going to explode. The brain's mental pain was beyond what she could take.
Unable to open her eyes, she fell to her knees... and vomited on the ground.
She vomited straight for a disgusting amount of a full, cruel, and the worst minute of her entire life. It felt like she threw up even more than she ate today.
She breathed heavily, coughed, her hands shook in the most desperate way imaginable.
The pressure she felt on her entire body was so astronomically intense, she started to literally rethink her life in the worst possible way... But she couldn't for some reason.
It was then that Misora had finally figured out why it was all happening in the first place... At least she anticipated why—and she was correct.
The alligator, a semi-aquatic reptile, was mostly famous for their strength as animals who can't use magic, and their natural regeneration—which didn't even use magic in the first place to regenerate a part of their body, which was the tail.
This alligator wasn't any normal alligator.
Misora was a history student, and she knew about history's animals that had lived throughout time.
This wasn't this day's animal. It was an extinct animal.
This wasn't even an alligator but a reptile that had gone extinct several decades ago.
This reptile's name was Terrorrapter. It was one of the few animals that had been known to mankind that could use magic... but not in a way you'd expect, their power wasn't tied to mana, in fact it is unknown to this day on how they used magic without mana.
The Terrorrapter only had one power... it was titled Mental Destruction. The Terrorrapter had the ability to transfer their physical pain to anyone as mental pain. Simply by hurting themselves in the tail, their physical pain transferred to their enemy as mental pain—by twice as much in conversion. And they themselves didn't feel the physical pain.
They had the power to regenerate their tails at an exponentially faster rate than normal reptiles. Their power had three phases of Mental Destruction in total, all of them consisting of tearing apart their own tail.
Phase 1: Mental Breakdown. This was when they first tore off their tail until it fell. This phase led the enemy to fall down in the mental pain. It caused their enemy to fall into despair and the start of insanity. This led to the enemy and their magic flow becoming completely immobile—even if sane. If this phase was completed, their enemy might as well say farewell to their loved ones in their mind, because then, their death was inevitable.
Phase 2: Mental Insanity. This was when they tore apart their tail the second time. This phase did as the name suggested. It caused guaranteed insanity + full mental breakdown. This phase made the enemy fall deep into despair. It led them to think of the doubts they once had in their life, guilt they couldn't have helped at the time. If they didn't, it would force in things that never even began to happen—in simple words: fake regret.
Phase 3: Mental Destruction. The final blow. This phase was simple—when they tore their tail apart the third time, both phase one and two were combined, mixed up, tried its best, and always succeeded in complete destruction of both mind, and through that, the body itself. It was simple, but one of the most cruel ways of death in all of human history.
The amount of time all three phases lasted was too cruel at almost an hour, and phase one being the shortest. Even the worst of the worst people never deserved this much pain in their life if they were executed by the Terrorrapter. But the innocent Misora, who never did anything wrong in her life, had already gone through phase one. Even if she'd somehow free herself, she had still suffered extreme pain already.
"Phase one completed," the monster yelled in a voice so heavy and evil it was too much for even a monster. It licked its tongue through its entire mouth.
He then said, "You'll make a feast I so desired for such a long time... you should be honored, human."
The Terrorrapter's tale regenerated in a few seconds… ready for phase two. But Misora was still on the ground, coughing in pain, and obviously, still in despair.
In the same dungeon in which Misora was suffering and struggling against the Terrorrapter, there was Ryota that also looked back like the others.
Unlike what Misora had seen when she turned around, it was different for Ryota—at least he didn't feel the terror that Misora did.
Instead of what anyone else would feel in his position, all he felt was mere amusement, nothing else.
"Interesting..."
What he saw was a pitch-black monster. A tall, pitch-black figure—its body was completely flat like a floor. It had extremely thin arms and legs, standing completely straight with its arms hanging down, motionless. Nothing was visible except its deep, glowing purple eyes that gave off literal light, but weren't visible due to how bright the room was. It looked completely harmless in appearance, but radiated a dark aura of eerie. And then, the creature gained consciousness.
Ryota wasn't a talkative person, as everyone knew him to be, but on the inside, he always thought too deeply in every situation.
Ryota had already thought of numerous powers the figure could have in only a few seconds—and they weren't dumb like Kuroto always anticipated. They were realistically close, but unfortunately, even with good guesses, all his theories were incorrect.
Because the figure instantly teleported in front of Ryota by a few meters. Or so he thought it was teleportation.
Ryota remained unfazed and motionless even after a figure such as that appeared in front of him.
Why was it?
Because of one of the abilities Ryota possessed.
The ability's name was simply Intent. This ability allowed Ryota to detect any intent from any living creature towards him—be it malice or friendliness—before even the other knows what intent they'll have toward Ryota, Ryota gets to know it before them.
"You're intriguing, human... I'll entertain both you and I before one of us loses, to make our win memorable at least," the voice said. It wasn't heavy, but there was an unusual weight in its tone, which prevented it from sounding human.
Unlike a real monster would, the figure didn't feel arrogant. It thought of Ryota as an equal... even if their power had a gap, either to one or the other.
Ryota, for some reason, smiled.
The figure turned back to being fifty meters away.
It spread its arms to the sides, finally moving its body aside from talking.
Suddenly, out of its body, hand-sized beetles crawled out from the inside.There were dozens of them. They slowly, disgustingly came out, but Ryota still remained unfazed.
There was a horde of at least a hundred beetles, and then they gathered in a group, essentially forming a large, single swarm.
And then they started rushing at Ryota at sonic speed.
They were so fast, in under a second, they were only a few meters away from Ryota.
Suddenly, Ryota instantly extended his hand toward the beetles.
"Incinerate."
From Ryota's hand, a large beam of white flames erupted, extending its field from just his hand to a wide area to cover the beetles. The beetles had been incinerated.
Ryota's power was fire, the same as Haruka's, but he might have had different abilities.
The beam was so extremely powerful that the beetles were gone in the instant the flames made contact.
In the same direction stood the figure, but it teleported right next to where the flames would extend—flexing intuition by positioning itself beside the fire.
When the fire ended—forget turning to ash—there wasn't even ash remaining.
But for some reason, the wall behind didn't even get damaged. Not in the least.
"What?"
Ryota was confused, but the figure instantly teleported in front of Ryota again, still not having any malice toward him directly.
"This room is indestructible by all concepts and laws from existence itself. That is what the God of Absolute made it like—that is, if you know who he is."
Ryota gasped—and smiled, for some reason.
"It looks like he really is behind all of this," he said.
He sighed. "You said you'll entertain me, but that was a pathetic showdown even for the start of a show."
"Just like you humans say 'don't judge a book by its cover', I say 'don't judge a showdown by its start'."
The figure backed down once again.
Suddenly, from both his sides, two things started emerging.
They emerged, permeating from inside the wall, and were pushed out by something like a lift, by the way it looked.
They were slim-looking, red-colored knights with red katana-style swords—which weren't really katanas. Their eyes glowed in crimson red, their movements made metallic armor sounds, and their faces weren't visible.
"Interesting," Ryota said. He was finally amused by something from what the figure showed him, because the two Knights both looked extremely powerful.
The two didn't waste a second. The instant Ryota said 'interesting', they jumped straight at him.
They weren't sonic-fast like the beetles, but they were moving in random patterns and didn't rush in a straight line toward Ryota.
Ryota was aware an attack like the previous one wouldn't work on the swift knights. By the way they curved when moving toward Ryota, they seemed even faster than the beetles if they'd gone straight.
Ryota raised his hand to the right.
And then, a blade of yellow flames—releasing no smoke at all. The flames were weaker than the white flames by quite a margin, but these flames were weaponized instead, which was far more impressive than releasing a straight beam of white fire with no coordination.