As soon as I reached the tunnel, I ran toward the junction. Seeing Grendel firsthand, I was sure that he couldn't leave the boss room given the size difference between his body and the tunnel.

Upon reaching the junction, I found Alex sitting there, his head bleeding and his clothes scratched.

"Hey, did you fight a troll?" I asked.

He slowly raised his head and said, completely ignoring my question, "There are several trolls coming from the right tunnel. We need to run quickly."

"Alex," I called, drawing out my sword. "Is the middle tunnel still sealed?"

He nodded slightly.

"Alright then, go inside. I will be coming soon."

Since I had used Void Step twice to escape from the boss room, I was two hundred Yin Energy short of a breakthrough.

After a few minutes, several trolls barged out from the rightmost tunnel—the same tunnel from which I had come.

"Where has that human gone?" one of the trolls muttered as they reached the junction.

With a sudden flash, one of the troll's heads rolled to the ground as I descended from the ceiling.

"I'm here, you muscle heads!" I shouted, rushing into the middle tunnel.

"You damn human!!!" the trolls shouted, following me with their huge bodies.

Since their size was enormous, their speed was considerably low.

When I reached halfway into the middle tunnel, I quickly absorbed the Yang Energy from the Soul Stones that had been consumed in the boss room.

Ding…

"You have absorbed enough Yin-Yang Energy for a breakthrough."

The light bruises I had suffered during the fight with the previous trolls slowly healed, and my body also became stronger.

"Congratulations! The Host has successfully broken through! The Host's realm has increased.

Mid-Stage Spirit Warrior Realm → Late-Stage Spirit Warrior Realm

All stats +10"

"The maximum capacity of Yin-Yang Energy has increased!

Yin Energy: 22000/70000

Yang Energy: 22000/70000"

"What the fuck!!" I blurted out, seeing the amount of Yin-Yang Energy required for the next breakthrough.

The trolls were still five hundred metres away from me, and calculating by the speed at which their presence was closing in, I still had two minutes to spare.

"Vivi, activate Phantom Simulator."

---

"Human! Are you ready to die!?" A grumbling voice echoed from the front.

The voice belonged to the armoured troll who carried the leg bone as a weapon.

When I opened my eyes, the trolls had completely blocked the path forward, while fifty metres behind me was where Alex was hiding.

My eyes narrowed as I realised that the number of trolls was different from what it should have been.

"There should still be seventy-two of you remaining, but only fifty are here. Where are the other twenty-two—"

Before I could complete my question, the strongest troll among them swung the massive mace made of a leg bone at me.

In defence, the blade of my katana rose, blocking the attack with just one hand.

"My physical stats have increased by leaps and bounds," I laughed inwardly, amused by my own strength.

With a slight push, I forced the troll's hand back, but at the same instant, the remaining trolls launched their fierce attacks at me from the sides.

"Pseudo Sword Aura!"

The weapons coming from my left were cut down by a single swing of my blade.

As for the attackers on the right, I clutched my fist, my whole arm glowing with blazing energy.

"Yang Blazing Fist!"

The fist tore through the incoming attacks, burning away all the weapons in its path before obliterating the troll's head with sheer destruction.

Meanwhile, the armoured troll had already launched another fierce attack, slamming the mace toward my head.

A thunderous noise echoed from the impact, and my face turned sideways, the ribbon in my hair coming undone.

"Is that what you call an attack?" I asked, my voice deep and serious as my eyes pierced through the troll from behind the loose strands of my hair.

Looking at my fierce gaze, the armoured troll, for the first time in his life, felt fear, his steps instinctively backing away.

"Let me teach you what an attack is!"

With their weapons severed by my steel, the trolls on the left leapt toward me with a barrage of strikes. I released my katana, and as it fell, a radiant orb of energy manifested in my grasp. It was an incandescent seed of light, resembling a miniature sun that pushed back the shadows.

"Pure Yang Orb!"

With a sudden hurl of my arm, I threw the orb toward the incoming trolls. As soon as the orb left my arm, its size expanded, growing as large as the tunnel itself.

The tunnel lit up with blinding energy as the orb engulfed all the incoming trolls inside it, burning them to a crisp.

"Graaaaa!!!!!" The screams of trolls echoed through the tunnel, their bodies burning within the sphere of energy.

"Y-you… how do you possess such skills?" the armoured troll muttered, his lips shivering, producing the chattering sound of his tusks.

"It was a dungeon meant for weak humans only. What's someone as strong as you doing here!?" the troll demanded loudly.

Ignoring his question, I grabbed the sword from the ground and released the breath of yin energy outward.

"Breath of Grave!"

Except for the armoured troll, who instantly retreated several feet back from the area where I released the yin energy, all the trolls froze again inside thick sheets of ice.

"Are you afraid, troll?" I asked, running a hand through my long hair to remove it from my face.

"Y-you are a dangerous human!" the armoured troll muttered, tightening the grip on his mace. "I will critically injure you so you won't pose the threat to king even if it costs me my life!"

In a wide, open motion, the troll rushed toward me, coming in for a heavy attack, his hands raised high in the sky.

"A calm mind is the strongest ability in a battle," I said, raising my blade.

The katana in my hand moved like a calm, elegant wave of water in a horizontal motion, smoothly slicing off the head of the armoured troll without producing a sound.

I stabbed the katana into the ground, thinking the most troublesome of the group was dealt with—however, even after his head was sliced off, the armoured troll hadn't fallen yet.

The mace in his hand descended like a mountain, slamming into the centre of my head.

Thud!

The moment the attack landed, the armoured troll fell lifeless to the ground.

"Well, you at least managed to bleed me," I murmured, a trail of blood dropping to the ground, tracing a path from my head to my chin.

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