'Vaelith,' he said internally, gaze still fixed on the ruin around him. 'What do you think of those SS-Ranked mantises' Authority?'

There was a pause at first.

Then Vaelith answered, his voice unusually subdued.

[Very dangerous. Had you not had the shadow wolves with you... you might have actually died in that exchange.]

Bruce nodded slowly.

He couldn't deny it.

This was the first time since transmigrating, since his very first Heal purged poison from his body, that he had come this close to death. And the irony wasn't lost on him. It hadn't happened when he was weak. It hadn't happened when he was struggling to survive.

It happened now.

When he was stronger than he had ever been.

"…I guess that makes sense," he muttered quietly. "Considering what I'm up against."

An Invader.

Something that existed outside Velmora's rules.

Something that didn't care about local balance or growth limits.

No matter how strong he became, there would always be something stronger. That realization settled deep in his chest, heavy but clarifying.

At that moment, Bruce felt a strange ripple in his mind, Vaelith exhaling sharply, as if releasing breath it had been holding.

[When that scythe nearly reached your neck…] Vaelith admitted, voice tight. […I nearly panicked. If my only chance at evolution died right in front of me—]

Bruce snorted softly. "Relax. I'm still here."

[Don't do that again so casually,] Vaelith snapped, then paused. [Let me give you the full details of their Authority.]

Bruce nodded. Even though he already had a solid grasp of it, confirmation mattered. Precision mattered.

By the time Vaelith finished processing the data, Bruce's Heal had fully settled. His body was completely restored now, skin fresh and smooth, muscles defined, and his hair had already begun to regrow, darker and longer than before, cascading down his back past his shoulders.

A faint blue panel flickered into existence.

[You have adapted to extreme thermal conditions.]

[Heat Resistance has evolved.]

[You have gained immunity to temperatures up to 50,000°C.]

Bruce glanced at it briefly, then dismissed it.

His eyes returned to the ground beneath his feet.

"…Strange," he muttered.

Despite the insane heat, the dungeon floor hadn't melted. It was scorched, cracked, and warped, but not liquefied. He shook his head lightly. "Guess it'll take even more than that to melt dungeon stone."

As the core of Velmora, Vaelith had already finished extracting all available information from the dungeon's remnants. The data flowed cleanly into Bruce's awareness.

[Authority: Reaping Appropriation]

[Steals sharpness and strike force from enemy attacks within its field of view, converting them into enhanced cutting power for its scythe forelegs. Accumulated power crumbles if unused.]

Bruce exhaled slowly as he read it.

"…As expected."

He replayed the moment in his mind, the sudden loss of momentum, the unnatural halt, the way his own force had been turned against him.

"It took everything," he murmured. "My speed. My momentum. The sharpness of Red in dagger form. Even my intent."

A pause.

"This is the first time a beast of the same rank has genuinely threatened my life," Bruce admitted quietly. "If these are just pawns… then the Invader controlling them is no joke."

The thought sharpened something inside him.

He had been taking Invaders seriously, but not seriously enough.

That complacency had nearly cost him his life.

Even with a godly healer class, even with infinite mana, he couldn't afford to assume safety. Power wasn't immunity. Strength wasn't invincibility.

And despite his outward calm, Bruce was anything but relaxed.

His senses were still stretched tight.

Because beneath the silence, beneath the devastation,

That aura was still there.

Faint.

Distant.

But undeniably alive.

Bruce's eyes narrowed.

'…As expected,' he thought grimly. 'Even that wasn't enough to bring it down.'

When he was sent flying by the impact from the explosion, he was sent flying all the way back, close to the spatial portal. The spatial portal was niw directly behind him. Directly behind were he stood.

Behind him, the dungeon portal fluctuated.

Spatial ripples spread outward like disturbed water, and a massive figure stepped through.

Gunther.

The former Anomaly.

Bulky and broad-shouldered, red hair flowing loosely down his back, a greatsword more than two meters long strapped across him like a symbol of his existence. The moment his boots touched the dungeon floor, he slowed, then stopped entirely.

His expression changed.

Confusion flickered first.

Then disbelief.

Then something far heavier.

There were no corpses.

No shattered shells. No severed limbs. No remnants of a battlefield he could recognize. Only dying flames licking at cracked stone, blackened earth stretching endlessly in every direction, and the faint heat haze still warping the air. The dungeon looked less like a place where a battle had taken place and more like a world that had been judged, and erased.

Gunther's breath caught.

'…This isn't normal.'

His gaze swept slowly across the wasteland. Every step he took felt wrong, as if he were walking across the aftermath of a catastrophe rather than a dungeon raid.

'No remains… no mana signatures… no recovery traces.'

His heart sank.

'Just what kind of fight must have happened here for the entire dungeon to be reduced to this state…?'

This wasn't suppression.

This wasn't clearing.

This was annihilation.

Gunther swallowed hard, his grip unconsciously tightening around the strap of his greatsword. He had seen destruction before. He had caused destruction before. But this, this was on a completely different scale. This wasn't brute force. It was something colder. More final.

His eyes finally settled on Bruce.

Bare-chested, ash-streaked, standing calmly at the center of the devastation as if the world around him hadn't just ended. No weapon drawn. No aura flaring wildly. Just quiet, terrifying composure.

Gunther's chest tightened.

'Just when I think I understand the scope of his strength… he proves me wrong again.'

The realization struck deeper than he expected.

'He's truly worthy of the Anomaly title.'

A bitter smile tugged at the corner of his lips.

'Compared to him… I'm nothing.'

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