Digging so deep, even with his mana and earth elemental control, was not an easy task. It consumed quite a lot of his reserves because the debris had to be constantly moved out of the hole, preventing cave-ins and maintaining structural integrity as he descended further into the earth.

Rumble… crunch… The ground shifted faintly around him, echoing the strain of his magic.

The heat built up around him, sweat clinging to his skin as muffled groans of shifting rock echoed like distant thunder through the tunnel walls. Grrrmm… crack…

That wasn't all—it was incredibly dark this far underground, the absence of light absolute and oppressive.

The air was dense and stale, pressing down on his lungs with a heavy, mineral-laced stillness. It was the kind of black that felt alive—like it might smother him if he let down his guard.

However, his spatial awareness acted as his all-seeing eyes like always. The darkness in the deep was nothing to him when he could detect everything clearly through his sixth sense, perceiving the environment in perfect detail despite being surrounded by pitch blackness.

He was just a couple of meters close to the spherical object now, close enough that his spatial awareness could examine it with much greater precision than before.

From this closer examination of the environment, he felt how actually big the thing was. It wasn't as small as he'd initially thought from hundreds of meters away. It was twice or even thrice the size of his own head—a massive sphere of something that pulsed with faint but detectable energy, which he could feel, indicating it was not just a weirdly shaped rock.

Thum… thum… thum… A faint pulse resonated from the sphere, slow and heavy like a heartbeat buried in stone.

The discovery made him even more curious to see what exactly it was. What could require such a size? What purpose did it serve, buried so impossibly deep?

His epic rank sword remained firmly in his hand all the time, held in a ready position. He was on full alert for any foreseeable danger that might show up without warning in this confined underground space.

For a moment, just as he thought there was nothing to keep him alert down here, that perhaps the sphere was dormant and harmless—

Suddenly, the earth started to rumble violently around him. RRRRRMMMMMBLLLE! And it also started to close up with terrifying speed, trying to swallow him whole within a crushing tomb of soil and stone.

A low, grinding roar rose from below, like the deep growl of something ancient and hungry. Grrrrrrrrrr… The walls vibrated with primal fury, stone scraping against stone in a terrible rhythm. Screeech! Crack! Thud!

Shit! Shit!

He also detected a sudden, large flux of mana from the strange sphere close to him just now. The energy signature exploded outward, massive and overwhelming. BOOM! The thing was definitely responsible for this trap closing around him.

Like a deadly hunter trying to trap its prey, the very earth had become a living weapon.

Leon knew he had to go all out immediately. No testing, no holding back. He didn't hesitate and activated his Mana Body Enhancement at Transcendent rank along with Raijin's Descent at Transcendent rank simultaneously.

Lightning cracked through the air with deafening force, KRAK-BOOOM! Golden arcs snapped through the walls like divine whips. The scent of ozone burst around him, sharp and electric. Zzzzzzap!

The whole atmosphere around him trembled violently from the sheer power. CRACK! A golden thunder symbol appeared on his forehead, blazing with divine intensity. Pressure radiated from his enhanced body, making the atmosphere tremble and distort around him.

Without holding back any of his power, using all fifteen percent of the strength he could safely access, Leon burst out of the collapsing hole as it was trying to swallow him completely. WHOOOSH! At the same time, while retreating at his full force with Transcendent rank speed, he used his skill Skybreaker Draw and slashed in the direction of the thing trying to kill him.

SLAAAASH!

He saw the earth in front split apart as he was retreating back toward the surface. The clothes he was wearing on the side got torn partially from the friction against the surface of the earth as he escaped successfully through the tunnel of destruction his attack had carved.

Chunks of stone clawed at his sides as he tore upward, crrrk… shrrk…, heat and friction biting into his limbs before his regeneration wiped it all away.

His skin acquired a couple of scratches all the way up, but they disappeared in a hundred-thousandth of a second as if they were never there, without him even using anything. His body healed itself automatically, regeneration happening at a speed that defied normal understanding.

Leon was not on the ground anymore but was up in the sky. The force with which he'd escaped had launched him a hundred meters above the ground. And he was not falling but floating as he had made footing with his spatial element, looking down at the ground with a serious expression on his face.

Below him, a huge explosion had happened on the ground. KABOOOOOM!

The blast sent out a shockwave that rattled treetops and flattened bushes for dozens of meters, WHOOOMPH!, the boom rolling across the forest like a sky-splitting drum.

This resulted in the formation of a crack hundreds of meters long that seemed to lead to the underworld, with only darkness visible below. But it was simply the destruction caused by his slash meeting the counter-force of whatever had tried to kill him.

An unknown consciousness stirred deep beneath the earth. Something ancient, something that had existed long before humans walked this land. Its thoughts were alien, fragmented, operating on principles beyond mortal comprehension.

Thud… thud… thud… The pulse of its awakening echoed through the ground.

I am wounded.

The realization came slowly, filtering through layers of earth and time.

It felt like the cracking of a deep-sea pressure seal—distant but devastating, a sensation that rippled across its buried tendrils like echoes through old bones. Crkkk… groooan…

Truly... I am wounded. The sanctity of my core has been breached—a fracture, however slight, that will take long cycles to mend.

This cannot be.

That human... that insignificant flicker of ephemeral will... inflicted harm upon me.

The thought carried weight, carried significance that rippled through the consciousness like shockwaves through still, abyssal waters. Woooooom…

A creature of breath and bone—of rot and short-lived ambition—has dared to harm that which endures.

I welcomed its essence. I permitted it to approach, believing it offered itself freely as sustenance. But it was a blade concealed in flesh... and now I bleed. Drip… drip…

The consciousness was furious.

Truly, deeply furious in a way it had not experienced for countless centuries. Grrrrrr… rrrrmmmmm…

This one... is no mere mortal. No stumbling animal of the surface. It is a threat. It is an anomaly.

But if such a being can harm me... then by devouring it—by folding its soul into my own—I shall not only heal...

I shall evolve.

Its defiance shall become the very fuel that accelerates my reclamation. Its strength... mine to unravel and consume.

The decision crystallized in that vast and ancient mind. Boom… boom…

The human shall be unmade. Body, mind, and spark. I shall strip it of its flame and reduce it to silence.

And in its silence, I shall ascend.

Suddenly, chilling noises like a grim reaper sucking souls out of countless victims resonated throughout the whole Thornwood Forest. Eeeeeeeeeeeeee—eeeeeeeee— The sound was indescribable, making every living creature freeze in primal terror.

Birds dropped silently from branches. Thump. Leaves withered in moments. Even insects seemed to vanish into the soil, the very forest recoiling from the cry. Shhhhhh… hush… silence…

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