The Lesser Wyverns were strong.

  Liliya was stronger.

  She blurred forward and crashed into the incoming horde with a blistering opening strike. The Lesser Wyverns clearly didn’t expect her to charge in head-on as she did, and their ranks quickly dissolved into screeches of pain and confusion as she carved a bloody path into their numbers.

  Her sword moved so quickly it left afterimages in the air as she chained consecutive [Piercing Strikes] into [Blade Flurries] into [Blade Tempests]. These wyverns were far stronger than the goblins and dire wolves she’d faced before; she estimated they were around level 40 to 50. They were no match for her, though. Her mana empowered her strikes, enhancing her honed swordsmanship, and her blade drew ghostly silver-violet lines across the air, leaving behind a trail that lingered in place.

  Her lungs burned and sweat poured down her face as she moved, taking care to never let her sword remain still for even a single second. Already, her passive skill [Dance of the Sword Saint] was putting in work, and she could feel her strength and dexterity rising with every twirl of her sword.

  Liliya tilted her head to avoid a vicious clawed swipe that would’ve eviscerated her before leaping high into the air to dodge a sweeping barbed tail strike that would’ve crushed and skewered her in equal measure. As she leaped, she sliced upward, unleashing a [Heavens Defying Slash], her strongest skill to date that she had gained at level 55.

  Her sword entered the bottom of a wyvern’s chin and exited at the top of its skull, cleaving apart muscle, bone, and cerebral tissue in a single powerful strike. Crimson blood splattered everywhere, but she had already left the splash zone, landing on the side of the cave wall and pushing off it diagonally in a downward slash that took out another wyvern’s eyes.

  The remaining wyverns behind them let out panicked screeches as they backed up and changed their strategy. She saw several of their throats swell as they prepared to unleash some ranged attack.

  Fireballs blasted at her, so scorching hot they distorted the air around them. She evaded them all with unpredictable footwork, twisting and rotating past the flames. So these Lesser Wyverns had the fire element.

  That wasn’t good, actually. Less because she was worried about getting hit, and more because they were underground. She didn’t want to suffocate to death because the fire burned away all the oxygen.

  Increasing her speed even more, she leaped off the ground, walls, and ceiling until she became little more than an omnidirectional whirlwind of death. Her muscles strained and were pushed to their utmost limits as she used her superior agility and relatively smaller size to her advantage, cutting through their ranks from every direction.

  Then, she unleashed her Conceptual Skill for good measure.

  The ghostly silvery-violet trails that had lingered in the air suddenly solidified into existence as ultra-fine threads of mana, hanging loosely for a split second before constricting. Several wyverns were immediately trapped by the bindings, letting out alarmed screeches as the mana threads coiled tightly around them. With their movements restricted, it became even easier to cut their vitals.

  Liliya’s Conceptual Skill was [Binding Threads], manifesting from her Concept of Suppression. The tip of her sword drew lines across the air that she could solidify as threads and tighten with just a thought. The threads weren’t particularly tough, but impairing an enemy’s movements for even half a second was already invaluable.

  The wyverns tried their best, they really did, but all the power in the world didn’t matter if they just couldn’t hit her. Fireballs dissipated harmlessly against the limestone walls, ferocious teeth bit down on air, and their crushing tail strikes only served to damage each other. All while her threads settled and cinched around them, further hindering their attacks.

  Steel glinted and silvery-violet lines of magic trailed across the air almost like ribbons as she danced through their ranks. After what felt like an eternity but probably lasted only a minute or two in real-time, Liliya finally came to a stop at the end of the passageway, landing in a graceful twirl to bleed off her extra momentum.

  Behind her was left a trail of littered wyvern bodies. Blood spilled onto the ground, soaking the cave floor, and a few wyverns let out dying gurgles as they slowly perished. She breathed heavily as she counted how many she’d cut down – she’d lost track amidst the chaos. Her eyebrows rose as she counted eighteen in total.

  Ping!

  [System Notification: Through slaying 18 Lesser Fire Wyverns, you have gained +2 Levels]

  [System Notification: You have reached level 60! Please select your new skill]

  Liliya examined the skill options that popped up, skimming through them all briefly before selecting the most obvious choice.

  [System Notification: You have gained the new skill [Heavens Asserting Slash]! Cost: 520 MP]

  Liliya smiled. Her two latest skills, [Heavens Defying Slash] and [Heavens Asserting Slash], were her most MP-intensive skills by far, but they were well worth it.

  “Was that all of them?” Levi asked as he stepped up to her, having navigated through the carcasses with a surprising ease. “Well done, by the way.”

  Liliya accepted the compliment with a nod. “These are just the advance guard,” she said, trying to calm her breathing. “There will be more further inside.”

  “Hmm. Makes sense.” Levi then looked at her more closely. “Ah, you have something…” He tapped on his cheek.

  Liliya blinked, then snorted as she drew out her handkerchief from her [Inventory] and wiped away the flecks of blood that had landed on her cheek. “Thanks.”

  She used [Loot] on the bodies, nodding approvingly at the haul that landed inside her inventory. Wyvern fangs, hide, scales, bones, hearts, and livers. She wished she had a high enough [Butcher] skill to extract their sinews and gallbladders or a [Harvest] skill to safely collect their blood as well, but she’d take what she had.

  “Out of curiosity, do you ever clean your inventory?” Levi asked from the side.

  Liliya nodded. “Every few months or so, I discard the junk I don’t need that’s cluttering up space.” One’s inventory space increased with level, and since she was still only level 60 at the moment, she needed to be more organized about it.

  “No, I mean, do you ever clean it. Like, to get the blood out.”

  Liliya stared at him blankly. “It’s System-automated…” she said. “There’s nothing to clean…”

  “Right…”

  After a brief rest, they continued trekking deeper into the cave. They would have to search and clear out every nook and cranny to ensure they wiped out all the monsters within. The Adventurer’s Guild normally sent surveyors after a dungeon-clear mission to make sure there were no enemies left surviving to repopulate the dungeon, but it never hurt to be too thorough.

  If this dungeon was left alone, then the wyverns within would grow more and more powerful. That wouldn’t really be a problem if they just stayed within the cave. However, there was a very high risk that as resources and territory grew scarce, a ‘dungeon break’ would occur, the wyverns within spilling out into the outside world and immediately savaging the town of Farband nearby. That was why adventurers had to clear these dungeons as early as possible.

  They came across several more wyverns, which Liliya defeated easily enough. There were other minor monsters as well; melon-sized poisonous spiders that spat out acid, colonies of vampire bats that tried to suck out their blood, and of course, slimes.

  There were always slimes.

  Liliya cut them down without using any skills; they weren’t powerful enough to require them, and she wanted to conserve her MP whenever possible. As a Sword Saint, her skills used more mana on average than most other physical-based fighters. Using a quick [Status], it revealed that she had already burned through around thirty-percent of her MP, though of course she still had her emergency mana potion with her.

  This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  The cave gradually became brighter due to the increased luminites lining the walls and ceiling. Luminites were naturally-occurring stones that absorbed ambient magic and emitted the energy as light. They served as a good indication of how much ambient mana was present in a location. Soon, the cave became so well-lit that Levi lowered and discarded his torch.

  They must be getting close to the core of the dungeon where the ambient mana was most concentrated. They should soon be running into the dungeon boss.

  As they walked, Liliya wondered where the wyverns’ source of food was. Most monsters didn’t need to eat as often as humans did, capable of sustaining and nourishing themselves on the ambient mana in an area. However, they typically still needed something to eat; there was only so much consuming mana could do.

  The minor monsters they’d encountered earlier wouldn’t have been enough to sustain this many wyverns – though slimes were known to be especially nutritious. She doubted the wyverns were heading aboveground to hunt for food either, else the town of Farband would’ve been under attack by now.

  The answer became clear as they turned a corner and emerged into a massive cavern. Luminites dotted the cavern ceiling and walls, casting a dim glow over everything below. Wyverns nested on ledges and ridges in the walls, and an underground river flowed through the cavern bottom with several wyverns waiting at the edge.

  As Liliya watched, she saw one of them plunge its head into the water, rummage around for a few seconds, then rise back up with a gigantic fish wildly flailing in its mouth. The wyvern swallowed the fish whole in a single gulp before letting out a satisfied trill.

  “Huh,” Levi said, sounding faintly amused. “They’re pescatarians.”

  The sound of his voice drew the wyverns’ attention. They turned and screeched angrily as they caught sight of the two.

  Liliya sighed. “Thanks for that.”

  “Sorry.” He didn’t sound sorry.

  No matter.

  Liliya bent down slightly, eyes rapidly flicking around as she identified priority targets and calculated the optimal path.

  Then, she exploded into motion.

  Levi honestly felt a little bad for the wyverns.

  He watched as Liliya dashed forward, instantly becoming a streak of glinting steel and silvery-violet light. The wyverns at the edge of the river were cut down first before they could even properly react. Up above, the wyverns that had been roosting on the cavernous ledges took flight, screeching and hissing as mana swelled and gathered in their throats.

  Fireballs rained down on Liliya from all sides, to no avail. She dodged them all with effortless grace, dashing across the cavern floor and easily taking care of the wyverns that landed to engage her in melee combat.

  Levi noted with mild interest that she was using the same skill as earlier that caused the mana that trailed from her sword to coalesce into existence. With his True Sight, he could see that the threads were mostly powered by some external source; it was likely her Conceptual Skill, then.

  He leaned against the cavern wall behind him as he waited for her to finish.

  From how big a deal the textbooks had made of the Ascension Trials, he had expected it to be a lot more difficult. However, he supposed there was a reason why Professor Merriweather had been so confident that Liliya would have no problems clearing the dungeon. At the end of the day, the dungeon was only silver-tier, and Liliya was both overleveled and far more skilled than the average Institute graduate.

  One by one, the wyverns in the cavern were slain. Several flew into the air to try to stay out of range, but Liliya simply ran up the walls vertically, finding purchase in the ledges that jutted out. She then leaped into the air and onto a flying wyvern, landing on its back.

  The wyvern screeched as it flailed around wildly, trying to dislodge her, only to give one final shriek as she thrust her blade into its eye, piercing its brain. Before it even began to fall, Liliya was already leaping to the wyvern next to it, slicing her sword across the air and using her mana threads to pull her to the poor beast.

  Levi watched with slightly arched eyebrows as she proved to be the superior aerial combatant, cutting down the flying wyverns without any change in pace. One wyvern managed to twist its head around and spit a fireball straight into her face at point-blank range, but she reacted immediately, slashing her sword and releasing a pressure wave that dispelled the fireball. Another flurry of powerful strikes and the wyvern was falling through the air, Liliya already long gone onto the next target.

  Finally, the final wyvern was slain with one last dying screech. Liliya landed softly in a kneel as blood and corpses splattered to the ground around her.

  Abruptly, a deafening roar filled the cavern. Levi glanced over to see a massive wyvern appearing from an opening in the wall, around three times bigger than all the wyverns they’d encountered so far. It was easily the size of a house, and it loomed above Liliya, its slitted yellow eyes filled with malice and fury.

  This must be the dungeon boss, then.

  Liliya surged forward immediately, not even a hint of hesitation in her movements as she met the wyvern boss head-on. Unlike the wyverns from before, this one did make her struggle; Levi wagered they were probably around the same level, or perhaps the wyvern boss was even slightly higher leveled than her. Streams of blazing flames blasted out from the beast’s maw, melting rock and stone wherever it touched, and every swipe of its claws sent shockwaves rippling through the air.

  However, Liliya was too fast. She slowly whittled the wyvern down little by little, unleashing dozens of meticulous strikes as she practically danced around its massive form.

  The wyvern boss could barely keep her within its field of view as she encircled it with advanced footwork. Blood flowed from numerous tiny gashes on its body as it gradually weakened under the sustained onslaught, countless mana trails spiraling around it in the air. Slowly, the wyvern was driven to the back of the cavern.

  Then, Liliya activated her Conceptual Skill. The mana trails instantly materialized into existence and constricted around the wyvern boss. It let out a roar of pain and anger as it thrashed, trying to break free. Then it froze – in the split second it had been distracted, it had lost sight of Liliya.

  The wyvern’s eyes flittered around, left and right, trying to find her. Its ears twitched, swiveling around, but it was futile; blood was already leaking from its left ear from where Liliya had stabbed it earlier, puncturing its eardrum.

  Too late, the wyvern thought to look up. Perhaps it had finally heard a flutter of movement, or maybe its instincts had kicked in. Either way, it raised its head to see Liliya crouched low upside down on the ceiling above, defying gravity as her mana threads adhered her to the cavern’s ceiling. Levi could see an absurd amount of mana gathering and concentrating in her legs.

  Then, she exploded forward, the rocky ceiling behind her cracking from the sheer force of the launch. She crossed the distance in the blink of an eye, faster than the wyvern could react, and slammed her sword down right onto the wyvern’s shoulder like a blade descending from the heavens. A powerful shockwave blasted outward from the impact, sending out gusts of wind that buffeted the walls of the cavern.

  Her sword scythed downward, cleaving flesh, sinew, and bone asunder in a single mana-empowered strike until it finally reached the heart.

  The wyvern boss’s eyes bulged outward as it let out a roar of pain and fury. It swiped outward at blinding speeds with its claws, its jaws snarling and biting wildly, but Liliya had already reversed momentum and leaped backward to avoid the death throes of the beast.

  After nearly half a minute, it finally perished, collapsing to the ground in a resounding crash.

  It was over. They’d cleared the dungeon.

  Liliya reappeared next to Levi a moment later. She had a massive smile on her face, radiant with a fierce triumphant joy, her emotions for once fully shining through in the heat of the moment.

  “So,” she said. “I think we might be adventurers now.”

  Levi chuckled. “So it seems. Excellent job. You couldn’t have held yourself back a little? Given the wyvern boss a sporting chance?”

  Liliya laughed. “That Greater Wyvern was at least level 65, perhaps higher. I nearly died thirteen times while fighting it, if you couldn’t tell.”

  “You mean you lived thirteen times.”

  “Ah, yes, of course.”

  Liliya’s entire body was shaking. From the leftover adrenaline or excitement, Levi couldn’t tell. He couldn’t help but smile as well; her cheer was infectious. She seemed like an entirely different person from even an hour ago.

  “Let me go [Loot] the bodies real quick,” Liliya said. She headed back to the boss wyvern at the far edge of the cavern, Levi following behind now that the fight was over. He wanted to examine the wyvern up close.

  As with before, Liliya held her hand up and intoned, “[Loot].” She turned to Levi as her skill took effect, automatically looting and harvesting the wyvern’s corpse. “Let’s do a final sweep of the dungeon afterward, though I’m pretty sure we already cleared out all the enemies–”

  A massive crack resounded throughout the cavern.

  Liliya and Levi both tensed up. The sound had come from the wyvern boss’s corpse. They looked at it warily.

  After nothing happened for several seconds, Liliya relaxed.

  “Probably just the broken bones interfering with [Butcher] or something–”

  That was when everything went wrong.

  Across the cavern walls, runic scripts that had been invisible a second prior suddenly blazed to life, arcane characters that shone with an unearthly dark light.

  Liliya’s eyes widened. “What the– Runes?! But those are man-made – they aren’t supposed to be here–!”

  Levi raised an eyebrow in interest as he looked around.

  An artificial dead man’s switch triggered by looting the boss wyvern’s body?

  That wasn’t ominous at all.

  With another resounding crack, the left wall of the cavern fractured and collapsed in a thunderous crash. Dust and debris were sent flying up as an incredible amount of ambient magic flooded the room.

  Then, from within the cloud of dust emerged Greater Wyverns. Ten, twenty, thirty of them. Each of them were even bigger than the wyvern boss Liliya had just slain.

  The ground beneath them trembled as the Greater Wyverns stepped forward. The terribly magnificent beasts took in the sight of their fallen brethren before turning to Levi and Liliya with frenzied snarls.

  “Hmm,” Levi said. Then, he reached into his pocket and took out the mana and stamina potions Ayla had made for him, offering them to Liliya. “You may want to drink these.”

  The Greater Wyverns roared.

  Patreon is now 5 chapters ahead! Planning to hit 6 by the end of this weekend.