Solo Dungeon Runner-Chapter 35: [ Fractures ]

Alexander groaned while using every bit of strength he had to hold the monster back.

He didn't muster his strength from courage or survival.

It was rage that had him clinging onto the monster with his tendrils, his life depending on it.

"What are you?!" he yelled, out of breath. "D-tier?! C-tier?!"

The monster kept pushing forward, slowly crushing Alexander against the floor.

He could feel the air slowly depleting from his lungs, its arms slowly pressing against his chest.

Through the pain Alexander grinned.

He chuckled, his every breath a gasp for air.

It felt like something broke inside him.

The tendrils tightened around the monster. He reeled it back a few inches and relieved some pressure.

"You want me?!"

It felt like adrenaline lifting a car. Despite his grin and laughter, it was only a matter of time.

He glanced back, Fae was still fighting. Her sickles repeatedly struck the stone statue before her.

Sparks flew from each hit, her flow only increasing in speed.

That's what they wanted. They hoped this would happen.

The arm was once more pressuring his chest, a slow descent he couldn't stop.

Hopefully she makes it, he thought.

The cracks multiplied in his vision.

He was starting to black out, the tendrils slowly releasing their tension.

All he could hear was Fae's desperate strikes against the enemy further back.

Then, the sound of stone crumbling to the ground as the enemy fell.

[ Level up! ]

[ Your stats have increased! ]

[ Your companions grow stronger! ]

[ ???????? ]

Alexander's fragmented vision improved, the cracks diminishing while his head suddenly felt lighter.

In an instant, his eyes rolled from the back of his head back dead-center onto the monster.

He yelled, additional tendrils splitting through the ground behind it.

They all reached around the monstrosity's neck, tightly twisting around it.

Alexander's face was red, blood dripping from his eyes and nose. It looked as if veins would pop out of his neck.

His finger grasped at the air as he commanded the tendrils to reel the monster back.

Its arms finally left Alexander's chest.

It lost balance and fell on its back tightly held by the tendrils.

More of the smaller statues were coming through the hallway, he completely ignored them. At that moment, it was only him, and that monstrosity.

He slowly got up, walking toward the monster on the ground before him.

It tried to get away from Alexander's tendrils, thrashing around the narrow hallway.

It hit the walls, crumbling the stone further—each strike sending rippling shockwaves through the corridor.

Dust lifted, a cloud forming before it as it kept slamming itself left and right.

Alexander's bloodshot eyes concentrated on the monstrosity, his grin growing larger.

Each surface around the monster had small rifts that tore the stone open, even more tendrils exiting from the abyssal darkness they came from.

He could hear it for the first time.

It was talking to him.

The cloak he wore was opened. The magic circle on his chest burned through the black underlayer he wore, the outline of the rune had flickering flames visibly burning through his flesh.

Despite how bright it burned it wasn't enough.

He could feel it as each new tendril swirled around the limbs of the stone structure; how the rune finally couldn't contain what it was holding back.

It was a distant murmur, like an echo that came from the depths of his mind.

Whispers softly spoken in a language he couldn't even understand.

Yet he didn't feel weaker or scared.

The tendrils and him were linked, a feeble connection that was held by a single thread. A bond between him and the entity those tendrils belonged to.

They wriggled tighter, covering the monster whole. They started sinking into the stone, chafing stone away.

Alexander's eyes were wide open, still bleeding as he grasped at the air.

His fingers were slowly closing, with it the prison the amalgamation was a part of.

Loud cracking sounds echoed through the hallway, the monster breaking as the tendrils kept smothering it.

The resistance he felt yielded in a loud popping noise. The pressure he felt under the tendrils vanished.

[ Archmonster Fell! ]

[ Level up! ]

[ Level up! ]

[ Level up! ]

[ Level up! ]

[ Level up! ]

[ ... ]

Messages popped up repeatedly.

He could hear as behind him stone kept crumbling as if the corridor had collapsed.

Each statue that littered the tunnel before them fell to the ground, the torches on each side of them lit once more.

Each tendril slowly went back the way they came from while Fae slowly dropped her stance.

She turned around, her gaze instantly going onto Alexander.

Yet he barely saw her.

The mark on his chest was still ablaze, the feverish heat he felt in his brain making the world around him unstable.

The rune then extinguished at once, leaving a red outline behind.

As the world kept spinning he tried holding onto his balance, but his legs gave up before the attempt.

He fell forward, Fae reacting instantly.

She caught him mid-fall, his body lying on her back, his head above her left shoulder.

She held onto him with both hands tightly gripping him, his legs dragging onto the floor unable to support him anymore.

He could feel her concern as if it was his own.

"Sorry," he said, weak.

She turned her head, able to catch the corner of his eyes. Beyond the concern, he could feel relief.

The path they came from was one of pure destruction, rocks of all sizes covered the ground with a thin layer of stone dust hiding the tiles beneath.

Fae walked slowly with him on her back. She carried him as if he weighed nothing, her strength a true wonder.

He opened his profile, it floated before his eyes— a slightly glitching profile page he recognized well.

[ Name : Veil ]

[ Level : 12 ]

[ Archetype : Specialist ]

[ Class : Beholder ]

[ Fate : Command, — ]

[ Effects : Darkness, Will Breaker's set, — ]

Level 12... Considering what the messages said earlier, she must be matching my level, thought Alexander.

He coughed a few times, raising his hand to rub the blood off his face and tightly grab Fae's shoulder.

"Stop," he said.

She stopped walking and looked at him.

"Put me down," he said.

She nodded, gently laying Alexander against the wall where no chunks of stone were in the way.

Fae stood there, slightly tilting her head to the side.

The anger in his eyes was ablaze, like a wildfire.

"They hoped to get rid of us in here. We'll make them wish they succeeded."