Chương 37: [LD-1] 36. Limit

XXXVI Limit Kiba slept for quite a while. I kept him silent company and let my thoughts run while I appreciated the edge of the world. We're just two monsters trying to survive in an inhuman society. My hand tightened around his. The words were powerful. However, I still wasn't convinced about my own nature. I sighed.

'I suppose there isn't anything I can do against it.' Whatever gifts (or curses) I was born with were a part of me. If they turned me into a monster, I couldn't stop them. That'd be like trying to stop yourself from breathing. Eventually, you'd need to. But that didn't mean I had to give in to every desire my subconscious mind tried to feed me. I hated to admit it, but killing had made me feel good. So good that I felt like I was walking around in my skin—as the being that I was always meant to be.

It was only my mind that had rejected what was happening. And that terrified me. I didn't want to become attuned to that part of myself, lest something core to me changed irreparably, and I took a step down a road there was no turning back from. You won't be going down that road alone, Master! Kil called. A smirk.

'Thanks. But don't act all cheery with me. I haven't forgotten what you did.' He gasped. What did I do, Master?

'Don't play dumb,' I snorted.

'I'll come up with an appropriate punishment later.' Thinking it's okay to spew out my business like that…my head turned the other way. Have mercy, Master! he cried and floated towards me from the other end of the tunnel. I put my hand in his face and refused to look at him.

"You know you look weird whenever you two do that." I turned and found Kiba sitting up and yawning. His arm had turned back to normal. All his wounds had closed, too.

'My god, am I jealous of that.' His healing factor was borderline broken. Was it a legendary ability like my Reaper's Condolence?

"When we do what?" I asked.

"Speak telepathically. You're literally waving at the air and looking at each other saying nothing. Someone who doesn't know what's going on will think you're crazy." My cheeks turned red. I'd never even thought of that! I coughed.

"I'll pay attention to it." He huffed and rose to his feet.

"We should find the others." Kiba led us back to the central chamber. Our exit dropped us off on a higher level than the central column Alexa and the others had fought on.

'They really killed a lot.' Dozens of bodies lay scattered around the surface.

"Are you sure they made it out?" I said. Kiba nodded and jumped onto the bridge below us.

"Goblins are cowards. Unless a bigger creature is leading them, they'll run once enough of them die." Which was what'd happened in my case, too.

'So it wasn't because I was super scary.' I'm sure those goblins feared you, Master! I chuckled and shook my head. Remembering part of our earlier conversation, I turned to Kiba, who spun his finger around his temple with a smirk. Ah, dammit. Not speaking telepathically was hard. A series of bridges got us to the central pillar. We took one of the bridges which hadn't broken back to the room we'd fought the warlock in. The others were waiting inside, all meditating.

'I need to consolidate my gains to.' I may have enough experience racked up to reach level fifteen in one go. Not that I would, since I was going to spend some of it on the catafalque.

"Joy!" Emily was the first one to notice our approach. She rushed out of her seat and drew me into a hug.

"Lords, I thought you were a goner." I laughed awkwardly and rubbed her back.

"I don't die that easily, I'm afraid." To be honest, I wasn't sure what would happen if I died. Would I transmigrate again?

'I doubt it.' The transmigration felt like a one-time thing. I refused to believe there were more alternate reality versions of myself to reincarnate into—if only because I wanted to spare them the misfortune of existing. Alexa exited her meditation.

"Thanks for bringing her back, Kiba."

"Don't mind. She's much too valuable for us to lose." The president inclined her head.

"I heard about the candidate…" she glanced over her shoulder at the entrance to the third floor.

"Was there anything else you noticed while there? Joy said you met a goblin which spoke our language?" If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it. Emily's lips pressed together, but she otherwise didn't respond to the reveal.

'She told them about the candidate.' Which was understandable. Our party was the foremost team among the students. It'd be our job to take care of the biggest threats. Kiba shook his head.

"The only thing I noticed was the smell of corpses."

"Human ones?" Alexa said.

"Yes." So some students had spawned on the third floor. That had a sour taste entering my mouth. The lives of the students who'd spawned on this second floor had been forfeit for the most part. Those who spawned on the third floor had no chance whatsoever.

'Kaiser…' if the man had really made this dungeon, he was a sick individual. My nails bit into my palms.

'He'll pay for what he did.' Alexa kept staring at the hole in the ground.

"We should head inside to see what we're dealing with." I frowned.

"Isn't it better to wait?" The candidate was level thirty-five. Even if we all reached level fifteen, there was no way to beat him. Alexa took off her glasses and wiped the glass.

"Hunting the enemies on this floor won't allow us to reach level twenty. There's too few of them." Realising she was right, I grimaced. Most of the goblins had likely fought in the battle with the warlock. Just now, we killed another swath of them. For all of us to go from level fifteen to twenty, we'd have to kill three to four times as many goblins as we had in the previous battle. It wasn't realistic. Especially not if we also wanted to leave some enemies for the other groups.

"Depending on whether there are enemies on the floor," the President said, "and what level they are, we'll come up with a plan."

"Will that plan involve the monster in the room?" Shota woke up from his meditation. [Techno - lvl. 13]'Four levels. Not bad.' I scanned the other two— [Engineer - lvl. 9] [Steelheart - lvl. 14] —and did a double-take as my gaze passed over Evans.

'Level 9?' That was only two levels higher than what he'd been before. We were all sharing experience for our kills, so he should have enough to get to about the same level as Douglas and Shota.

"I believe it will," Alexa said. The president put her arms beside her legs and lowered her head.

"Kiba, I know we kicked you out ourselves. However, to fight the candidate, we'll need all the manpower we can get. Of course, I'll understand if you want to sit out." He waved her away.

"I'll do my part." But glared at Shota.

"Even if it helps the ignorant." The Sarakawa heir snorted. He opened his mouth— I pointed at Evans.

"Is he alright?" The lanky boy was trembling from head-to-toe. Shota glanced to the side…and he shook his head.

"I knew Father made a mistake trusting him." Emily leaned in to whisper.

"His body is reaching Max Capacity." The term echoed in my mind. Max Capacity. Not all soul seas were equal. Though sorcerers could level through feeding experience to their soul sea, there came a point where that soul sea reached 'capacity.' That point differed for everyone. Most people would never reach their capacity in their lifetime, but there were enough folks who couldn't increase their level past one hundred. If they tried, they'd be at risk of popping their own soul sea like a balloon.

The aftermath of that…

"Shouldn't we stop him?" I whispered back.

"We already tried," Emily said.

"He didn't want to quit."

"But if he continues—""We don't get to decide for him," Kiba said. He crossed his arms over his chest.

"He's a man; he should be allowed to choose what he risks his life on." Shota's laugh was low and mocking.

"'Man'? Please don't praise him too much. What man struggles to reach level ten?" To that, the white fang didn't respond. A silence descended on the room, broken only by the repeated grunts escaping Evans's lips. Each groan seemed to pop another nerve on Shota's forehead until there was no more clear skin left. The heir jumped to his feet.

"Evans, stop this—" The lanky boy gasped and folded in on himself. My heart skipped a beat as I checked his level. [Engineer - lvl. 10] Tension I didn't know was there let go of my shoulders. We each gave the boy our congratulations, except for Shota, who wanted anything but to look in Evans's direction. Evans, luckily, seemed to have passed a boundary of sorts, because he went up three more levels without much issue. [Engineer - lvl. 13]'He'll likely face another barrier at fifteen.' Then again, at twenty.

If he was having so much trouble breaking through this one…

"Joy," Alexa called out. I let worry over Evans fade from my mind.

"I'm on it," I said and found an empty spot to sit. When I finished levelling, we'd head into the third floor. Heavy boots stepped through the blood and brain matter covering the ground on the third floor. Ogram's hammer, strapped to his back, hovered an inch over the floor. The tip of the head just poked out beneath his wool mantle. A hob rushed in front of Ogram to pick up a stray human limb lying in the middle of the road. The orc wouldn't have cared, for his mind was somewhere else. Strong of arm.

Fluent in the ways of war. Fear and respect for the old gods. That's what the sages of the Darkrock clan, who were in direct connection with the ancestral spirits, preached to their young for millennia. `'Pray, child,' Elder Manjayu, old even among the old, had told him once.

'Pray that a candidate will be born.' A candidate. What a lofty title. It was the last refuge of a race crushed beneath the boots of their overlords. The final cry of the mothers who gave up their newborns to their slave owners with tears in their eyes; the young had to be raised right so they could earn the right class for whatever future had been decided for them. His molars ground against each other.

"Rubbish." Everything and all of it. A candidate could not be born. They were made. Below a hammer matted in blood. On top of the skulls of a hundred infants who got snuffed in the crib, for fear that one of them had too much potential and became a lord. And at the end of a brother's last breath, who placed the burden of the clan on your shoulders.

"May I ask what you're thinking about, Lord Orgram?" Ogram side-eyed the green pipsqueak walking beside him. They said that every candidate needed a second. One that would guide them to climb the path. Ogram wasn't sure where the goblin had come from. But he was a wealth of information, so he'd kept him around.

"No," the orc grunted.

"You don't have to be so shy," Rhaast chuckled.

"We've known each other for a while now, haven't we? We're like family." They had. But the lord had no room for error, and so no room in his heart.

'In the end, you'll be sacrificed, too.'

"Do not speak to Lord Ogram so casually, runt," Bisem snarled. The bulky orc warrior, covered in plate, took up half the width of the tunnel. Rhaast sighed theatrically.

"I'm not a runt." Then turned back to Ogram.

"By the way, are you sure you want to let the humans go? We don't have to take this risk."

"Weren't you the one who told me I must take risks?" Ogram said.

"That was when you weren't yet a candidate and a prospect. Times have changed." Ogram didn't respond. He continued to march along the road. Until the end came into view. The tunnel and floor ended abruptly. There was nothing else besides a large floating platform attached to the ledge and a void yawning beyond. They had already inspected the elevator before, so they descended without pause.

The ride was like a deep sleep—the mind passing through an impenetrable darkness—but as they neared the ground, blue flashes of energy curved through the space and lit up the otherwise dark realm. An ionised smell punched into Ogram's nostrils. His hand twitched and itched for the handle of his hammer. The elevator came to a stop. At the bottom, the flashes had turned into a spectacle, and the lightning danced over the ground and up into the sky.

A titanic structure loomed ahead of them, whose silhouette was only visible where the electric discharge cast out the shadows. Pressure wafted off the structure. Enough that it nearly made Ogram's knees buckle.

"She will be in there?" the Lord asked.

"My intel is never wrong," Rhaast smirked. The goblin had his arms behind his head as if the power didn't affect him like it did the others.

"Should be near the realm core." Ogram nodded.

"Bisem."

"Lord?"

"Keep watch over the entrance—" Ogram didn't look away from the system's text hovering over the door. Red Skull Faction recognised. Enter the Temple of Lei? Y/N. Party Capacity: 0/50. Please select the party members you want to enter. Warning: instance difficulty will increase based on the number of party members.

"—if anyone nears…" Bisem's armour creaked as he knelt, and the bone whistle around his neck clattered against his chest. More than fifteen others knelt with him.

"Then the Wild Hunt will crush them. May Rhasa be with you, Lord Ogram." Ogram tapped his second on the shoulder. With a final deep breath, he pulled his hammer off his back. Then entered the temple.