Slash, slash, slash!

In the White Abyss, Dante danced with his sword among a group of apes that came out of nowhere.

They were called the Frozen Apes. They were three meters tall apes with bodies that can produce strange ice-like hard matter from their skins to cover their bodies instead of fur.

That ice-like layer becomes solid after a few moments of interacting with the cold air, giving the apes a frozen appearance and a durable armor. That was how they got the name.

They were Rank 1 beasts who caused a lot of trouble for the mercenaries and hunters, as their durability and pure physical strength were always hard to deal with.

BAM!

But right now, Dante had just punched one of them in its neck, shattered the frozen layer and sent the ape flying away!

The ape crashed into another one and took it down with it. Before any of them could recover, a blade covered in black flames passed through their necks one after another, sending them flying upward. A moment later, their bodies finally fell to the ground, as though they just noticed that they were dead.

The blood splashed all over the place and painted it red. Dante stepped aside quickly before it could reach him.

"Three more left." Dante smirked, looking at the last three apes with killing intent.

With no hesitation, Dante charged toward them, his image blurring under the speed of the lightning boots, his physical strength, and the mana bursts he was using to accelerate himself.

In less than a second, he appeared behind the first ape. Covering his sword in flames, he stabbed the ape's heart three times in a row, penetrating the ice-like armor with ease.

As the ape fell lifeless to the snow, Dante's gaze fell on the second one while sending a shadow wolf after the third.

The ape lunged toward Dante, trying to land a punch with its thick frozen arm, but before it could touch Dante's face, he leaned his body backward and dodged the attack.

The ape's guard was wide open. Seizing the opportunity, Dante rapidly swung his sword, its blade leaving shadowy afterimages in its path.

Slash, slash!

With two swift movements, Dante severed the ape's extended arm and both of its legs before spinning and delivering a kick to the ape's chest. Once the frozen layer shattered, Dante quickly stabbed it before it could collapse from the lack of legs.

Thud!

Simultaneously, the third ape fell on the snow, a piece of its neck was visible in the shadow wolf's mouth.

"That's everything."

Nodding in satisfaction, Dante dismissed the shadow wolf and shifted his gaze to where Ruby was hiding.

Because there was no place to hide—other than under the snow—she had to create her own hiding place, which was just a sphere made of some types of solid plants.

The sphere suddenly opened, revealing the figure of a red-haired woman with an outfit of orange plants. The outfit covered her entire body like a ball of clothes. She looked like someone who had just dressed in everything in their closet.

It wasn't that she had finally decided to hide her body for once in her life, she was just feeling a bit cold.

The White Abyss was dangerously too cold!

It was so cold that if you try to drink a cup of boiling water, it'll be cold by the time it reaches your mouth.

Maybe there was something special about this zone that made it colder than the environment surrounding it, and maybe it was just a result of the lack of trees on the surface, but that didn't mean anything to Dante.

His artifacts were providing him enough warmth to move freely, and his body was already strong enough to endure some cold.

As for Ruby, she now had to harvest the cores while shaking with every passing breeze.

Ignoring Ruby, Dante looked at the place where the apes came from. It was a hole in the snow that led to what seemed to be a path underground.

'Finally, I found one!' Dante grinned before glancing at Ruby's Wheel of Luck, seeing that the arrows were now leading downward.

Why would an empty land with a few beasts on the surface be considered a death zone?

The answer was simple — the beasts didn't live on the surface to begin with!

There were countless tunnels hidden under the thick snow layer. Some beasts, like the FrostStorm Python, preferred to be close to the surface, but the majority of them were underground.

Of course, that didn't stop them from coming to the surface. The frozen apes were a great example of that, which made the place even more dangerous.

If it weren't for Shadow Detection, Dante would have fallen to the apes' surprise ambush.

"I'm done!"

Ruby finally finished gathering the cores as she threw them before Dante. There were exactly 6 cores.

"Finally!" A happy smile spread across Dante's features. He didn't hesitate to take the cores and absorb them in a few seconds.

The next moment, a warm feeling came from his core and spread through his body, bringing joy to him.

He had just gotten a boost in his stats!

Existence Essence ⟨500/1000 → 600/1000⟩

• Vitality: 47 → 48

• Spirit: 48 → 49

• Mind: 36 → 37

Dante clenched his fists and channeled his mana and spiritual energy, trying to get used to his new power as fast as possible.

Once he felt that he had gotten used to it, he shifted his gaze toward Ruby.

She was looking at the corpses with some sadness, and Dante knew exactly why.

'She wants to take them, but she can't. All these corpses will be wasted in this place. By the time we return, they'd likely be eaten by a beast that was attracted to the smell of their blood.'

It was truly a waste, but there was nothing they could do.

Well, maybe Dante could store them in his ring. Unfortunately, he was still cautious around Ruby.

"Anyway, let's go inside now." Dante said calmly: "You can jump first. You're my lucky compass, after all."

Ruby looked at the hole with fear: "C-can't you go first? You know that you're stronger than me, right? What about you carrying me on your back and I'll tell you where to go."

"What am I, a horse?" Dante shook his head, rejecting her offer with no hesitation.

The only women that Dante carried on his back were Elizabeth and her deceased knight, Selena. Selena was literally dying back then, and Elizabeth needed some support because of her blindness.

But Ruby wasn't only in perfect health with no disabilities, she was also Rank 2!

"Jump now before I change my mind!" Dante urged with furrowed brows, though Ruby couldn't see them.

Ruby opened her mouth to complain, but no words came out. What could she do to a person who can kill her barehanded?

Sighing in frustration, Ruby stepped closer to the hole and chanted a spell, causing a ladder of vines to materialize to the depths of the hole.

Next, she created a glowing flower and held it in her mouth while climbing down the ladder with her large backpack. When she reached the ground, Dante immediately jumped and landed behind her with no sound.

"See? It wasn't that hard." Dante whispered before casually taking the flower from Ruby's mouth like taking a stick from a dog: "How long would this glow last?"

"Maybe ten minutes. I'll have to make another one by then." Ruby answered honestly.

Satisfied by the duration, Dante finally examined the tunnel.

It was a tunnel of stone, snow, ice, and mud, large enough to fit an elephant inside—which was obvious, considering that the apes were here—and had some old fight marks.

As for the hole that they came from, it was so tight, barely fitting the apes, and was made in a rush. The apes likely felt some vibrations and immediately dug upward, using their strong grip to climb.

As for the tunnel, it was made with great proficiency that would make anyone wonder how some beasts were able to create that.

No, the real question was what even made that?

What creature decided to turn a wide place like the White Abyss into a complex network system of underground tunnels that reached tens, if not hundreds of kilometres underground?

'I hate the fact that I know the creature that did it, and hopefully we don't meet that thing. My misfortune is so close to vanishing!' Dante wished inwardly, giving his tendril black hole luck a glance.

"Anyway, where should we go now?" Ruby asked, sensing the direction that her ability led to with confusion.

Dante also had a puzzled expression on his face, because unfortunately, the arrows were only leading downward.

What's the problem? There was no path leading downward!

With his limited vision, Dante could see 10 different tunnels, and some of them branched into even more tunnels!

They could only choose randomly and hope that they'd find one tunnel that led downward without taking them far away from the opportunity they were looking for.

"That's really frustrating…"

Dante had two tricks to find the best possible path.

The first trick was creating his own path. He could turn his relic into a drill and just dig.

Unfortunately, that method, though possible and effective, was a bit dangerous. The entire place was dark, which made Shadow Detection entirely useless in detecting the possible dangers.

In the worst case, he might fall into the mouth of a giant Rank 3 monster that was just yawning by pure coincidence.

For the second trick, it was an old trick that Dante had a personal problem with.

'Should I use the misfortune coin?'

Dante strained his brain to find an alternative, but he couldn't think of anything.

Eventually, he just chose to use the coin, but there was something he had to do first.

'I'll adjust that crap and create a better spell!'

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