In the same dungeon where Tatsuki was fighting against the Dozen Legged Spider, Kuroto was in another room, but on his side, he waited and waited but nothing had happened at Kuroto's for several minutes.
First Person POV
It had been several minutes, and I was just waiting for something to happen—but literally, nothing happened.
"What the hell is going to happen," I said, tired of waiting.
At this point, I just wanted something to progress. My patience levels weren't that high, you see.
For several minutes, I was practically spinning, looking around to see if at least something
would happen.
"VoidMind, do you know what's happening?"
VoidMind: "I do not have even the slightest clue, but I have come to realize that when we entered this room, your Regulator became weird in a way. Upon further analysis, I came to realize it's impossible to manipulate your Regulator here, and you cannot use Instinct Takeover. Aside from that, there's nothing I know."
"That just made me more confused."
I stopped looking around minutes later.
After it had been fifteen minutes, I suddenly sensed something behind me.
"Finally."
"What the heck are you doing here?" I asked in puzzlement, seeing God of Absolute standing in front of me.
"Been a while, huh?"
"NO it has not."
"That's a rude way to put it, even if it's true."
"I'd obviously react like that when you made me wait full fifteen minutes for absolutely no freaking reason."
God of Absolute sighed.
"What is with this place anyway?" I asked him.
"This is the trial dungeon of True Awakening... The Primordial Dungeon."
"I don't understand a thing you're saying."
"You don't need to. After completing the trial, the Primordial Dungeon will tell you everything."
"Then where's my trial?"
"That's the problem. Your trial was interrupted."
"What? Interrupted by whom?"
"By your memories.
"Huh?"
"Let me explain. Primordial Dungeons—although created by me—still function at a limited level. These dungeons read through a person's entire memory, including the entire soul's history itself. When the Primordial Dungeon tried searching through you, something interrupted it and caused an error... and then, it gave you a title."
"What in the actual hell are you saying? I don't understand anything."
"The Primordial Dungeon gave you a title, due to it being unable to access your memories and only getting a slight glimpse... the title it gave was Error 404: God's Mistake."
"I have no idea what you're saying, but what does it mean that it gave me a title?"
"Your title is something you'll be known by, otherwise the name, greater beings will recognize the title the moment their eyes land on you," he said with a proud smile.
"Who the heck are the greater beings you're talking about?"
"You don't need to know. At least for now. Since the Primordial Dungeon couldn't set up the trial for you, I'll have to do it myself."
I nodded in agreement, and yes—I didn't understand a single thing he said aside from the title part a little
"The trial—Test of Strength—begins," he said as he raised his hand and snapped his fingers. Then, he disappeared.
I didn't understand in the least whatever he said, but it didn't matter at the moment.
The second he disappeared, I felt a pressure behind me.
I immediately looked back to see something.
"What in the hell is that?"
Looks-wise, it was a normal polar bear... but by every other standard?
It was most certainly a monster. And not just in the sense of feeling a strong presence or mana—its size alone was enough to scare a veteran dungeon raider, be it someone from an Order or just someone else, let alone the monstrous mana it emitted that scared even me.
The polar bear was a giant, several times bigger than myself. It had red eyes filled with hatred—but not a kind of hatred I had ever seen before... a hatred of a merciless predator against prey.
The moment the bear seemed to gain consciousness, I realized—it wasn't that kind of hatred.
No... this was the hatred of a destroyer. The kind that would massacre an entire country for the pure desire of destruction. That suited the monstrosity better than anything else I could use to describe it.
The mana it had wasn't like anything I'd ever seen. Every nerve in my body refused to stand before this monstrosity—even though it was conscious, it still didn't attack me right away.
I was confused what it was, but then, a memory flashed through my mind which told me about the species.
An extinct species of bears that died out a century ago.
This species of bear was so dangerous that, during its time, it was titled as a Natural Disaster. Although people a hundred years ago weren't as strong as those today, it was still rumored that if it existed now, it would cause disasters just as brutal.
The name of this species of bear was the Dreadpaw Titans. These giants were known to have enough raw power and use of magic that—if they were intelligent—the world would have ended several decades ago, and no one would've been able to stop them, probably.
The Dreadpaw Titans, unlike any other bears, hunted purely to cause disaster. They were so mindless they didn't even understand when to eat.
The way these monstrosities went extinct was... starvation. Simply starvation. They were mindless enough to not understand the meaning of hunger or survival. Even then, the moment they were born, they'd live for at least two years, and the population kept decreasing slowly until they all died out.
They naturally lived in Antarctica—the coldest place on Earth—and it was assumed they couldn't survive in any temperature above -15°C, but that was merely an assumption..
That is the sole reason humans couldn't know much of anything in Antarctica until a century ago.
The way these natural disasters survived for so long without eating was because of their almost never-ending mana. Without food, mana naturally played an important role in animating the body itself—but at the cost of more mana loss than recovery.
That's how the natural disaster known as the Dreadpaw Titan survived for several decades... until they finally went extinct.
I assumed it was God of Absolute who gave me these memories.
"I'm not scared of you, Dreadpaw Titan—because I've seen greater malice," I yelled at it, aware it wouldn't understand my language.
The individual I was referring to was the Black Cloaked Manipulator. It's true that I called Hayato's fake malice greater than the Manipulator's—but I wasn't including him in that comparison. I was talking about true malice—genuine hatred toward another—and the Black Cloaked Manipulator had more of it than any real enemy I'd ever faced.
The Dreadpaw Titan still wasn't attacking me. It just looked at me for some reason instead of charging at me instantly like I'd thought they normally did.
I wanted to make sure of two things before making any move.
VoidMind: "Your Regulator's condition remains the same. You cannot use Instinct Takeover, nor can you influence your Regulator even a little. And as for your Fear Manifestation—it seems it's not practical enough for you to utilize in such situations. You might have been able to use it if you'd manipulated your Regulator at a level even lower than before, but as I mentioned—you can't."
"Damn it."
I was pushed into a situation where I didn't have a dagger, since the one I'd gotten from Daiki had disappeared the moment we entered this place.
But this mind of mine had an idea.
VoidMind: "Your idea will most certainly work without any consequences."
I extended my right hand to the right, completely straightened and pointed it. Then, I used Fear Manifestation in the same way I had before with Daiki's daggers. Although it was still Fear Manifestation, I called the technique Fear Devourer.
The Fear slowly crawled through my arms and into my hand. I gasped a little as it happened, because that feeling was certainly not pleasing. The Fear, after crawling through my arms, slowly reached my hand as it began to be visible from the outside—covering my entire hand as the Fear completely turned its color pitch black. The extra skin of Fear didn't feel perfectly still, yet the Fear seemed immovable.
Then, it slowly made a pointy shape, extending about an inch longer than the height of my fingers—equalizing with my hand, the Fear crawling like a swarm of pests. Displeasing.
"Ugh..."
It felt extremely weird. It didn't hurt, but the weirdness was making me lose focus. But after a full minute of standing still and doing nothing except adjusting to the feeling, I was finally not weirded out as much.
My guard was down, but I knew for certain it wouldn't attack me. Since the Dreadpaw Titan was a destroyer of every living thing it saw, I knew it was obliged not to make the first move—or else it would've done it the instant it gained consciousness.
When I looked at it again after finishing the Fear Devourer with my hand, it was grinding its teeth in extreme anger and impatience.
"I was correct."
I immediately jumped at the monster, aiming at its eyes that were as big as my hands.
His obligation was done—he was no longer obliged not to attack me.
As I was inches away from its eyes, I sensed its right paw flying straight at me.
As one's instinct would dictate, defense from an attack took greater priority than offense.
The paw was too fast, but I instinctively countered with my right hand by stabbing it straight into the paw. Its brute strength was too much—it almost hit me—but the strength was disrupted because of my attack using the Fear in my hand. Normally, it would've sent me flying by logic even after the disruption, but for some reason, the brute strength of my hand with Fear was far stronger than what it would've been with mana. In simple words, both our strengths canceled each other out for a second until the disruption.
Even though I was bleeding in pain, the moment I jumped down and looked back, it had already started coming for me. So I just ran ahead instead of attacking it head-on, since I was fully aware that any other body part of mine would NOT last against its brute strength.
I had a different strategy for attacking this time—but for a few seconds, I had to run in a straight line as it followed me at the same speed.