Already, the fear is palpable in the air. The miasma feels… appropriately dreadful, I suppose. I can feel it, scratching against my mind, trying to infect me, to make me back down, turn tail and run.

  I step forward. [Selection] latches onto the king. Then, through that thin tendril of connection, [Suppression] slams into it.

  Until now, each time, it made the armors stumble, but the king barely seems to notice. Its visor turns to me, the darkness beneath it burning. I dodge before I even see it move, jumping to the side.

  There’s a crack and the ground splits where I just stood. The king’s sword is stuck in the stone, but the goliath pulls it back out in one smooth motion. It looks at us, as if trying to pick a new target, then settles on Thatch.

  His eyes glow emerald, and I see the king shift faintly under the debuff. As it moves, I double, then triple down on my [Suppression]. It slows, ever so faintly, and Thatch’s skin turns red with anger as he sidesteps.

  A moment later, Inu places an armored boot on the sword, and Opal comes crashing into it from behind, stabbing the greatsword into the gaps of the armor. Some of the darkness seems to spill out into the room, making everything colder and darker, but then the king’s fist crashes into Inu.

  The metal of her armor crumples more, absorbing the force of the blow, but still sending the girl flying backwards. I solidify more grains of mana, placing them around the king like landmines as it swings for Opal, who simply… winks out of existence.

  Some kind of teleportation, maybe?

  Ice gathers around the animated suit of armor, and Jess becomes its next target. We’re lucky it only charges in a strange line, crashing into one of Norman’s barriers and shattering it before the girl in the wheelchair yanks Jess out of the way with those strange strings.

  Then, more of them appear, attached to suits of armor. Their pieces move in a jerky, unsettling way as tiny strings connecting them to the girl’s fingers. There are two soldiers under her command, each one leaping at the dreadking.

  Bay sprints at it right after it throws off one of the puppets, and a pulse flows from her hand, through the air, and into the armor. For just a moment, it’s stunned, and the second she steps back, Opal appears above it, slamming the greatsword down on its head.

  Inu rises from the rubble, and Thatch is barrelling toward the animated suit. I direct some of my mana grains towards it, sneaking them into the darkness that seeps from the wounds Opal has inflicted.

  The room grows colder yet again, my mana clashing with the miasma, my will forcing the king to be just slow enough where we can manage, and it locks onto me again. It looks different. The darkness seems to pour out of the gaps in the armor now.

  With a spin, Opal is thrown off in a blur of cloth and iron, and then it’s on me.

  This time, the king is different.

  I see the sword coming and step backwards. It’s slower, almost measured, but I have no defense. All I can do is create more distance, stepping back with each approach, as the monster throws cut after cut.

  No longer does it charge and slam, instead its movements are more refined. One slash leads into another, then a thrust comes at my stomach. When I lurch to the side, it slashes at me, and the puppeteer girl has to yank me back.

  A second later, Inu is there, holding bent pieces of armor strapped to her forearm as a makeshift shield. A titanic blow crashes down on her, and I can feel her bones grind in protest as they stop its momentum.

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  My friends winces in pain.

  Who the fuck does this king think he is?

  I redouble my effort on [Suppression]. Once again, the inky thing inside me is forgotten. My pain doesn’t matter. I want this fucker on his knees. I want him dead.

  My will surges like a tidal wave, my mana pouring into the skill as it triggers, over and over, stacking and redoubling the debuff. I see the sneer of darkness on the king turning grim. It stumbles, then falls to a knee.

  Strings and ice wrap around it, and it fights.

  It fights so hard, so violently, and I do not care.

  Calmly, with measured steps, I walk towards the kneeling monarch. My eyes don’t blink. My will doesn’t waver. The grains of mana that I’d been placing around as landmines all gather before me. There’s over a dozen of them, and I will them to fuse.

  They crash into each other, each held apart, but I squeeze them more. And more and more, until the grains of rice become a spiky, larger blob.

  [Solidification 2 > 3]

  It’s ugly, but it also holds three times as much mana as I can hold with my full vessel.

  Gingerly, with my own two hands, I place it inside the visor. The king tries to slash at me, but Opal stops the sword. Thatch grabs its fist. Inu holds down its legs.

  I feel the blob of mana tumbling into the miasma within the armor, and then I detonate it.

  A wave of air spills over, the mana instantly disintegrating, spreading, annihilating the miasma. It burns through the force animating the king, and its weakened will struggles against mine. I [Suppress] it more, and my mana does more damage.

  It’s a virtuous cycle, breaking down and eroding the insides of the king until it dies.

  [You have killed a lv. 15 Dreadking]

  [Level up! 7 > 10]

  [First Threshold crossed! Please select a Class.]

  Nine points. I place two in heart, one in power, six in vessel.

  Lv. 10

  Heart: 12

  Power: 3

  Vessel: 23

  Before I get a chance to talk to my friends, or look at the classes, the system chimes up again.

  [Dungeon: Dreadburg cleared! All participants will be granted rewards.]

  [Reward: 1 Tonic, food, water, 1 minor request.]

  I look at that last part. It feels like the prompt is waiting for me, growing faintly more impatient as the seconds tick by. What does minor even mean? The prodding becomes incessant.

  “Give me something to help practice controlling mana,” I say.

  [Reward: 1 minor mana maze.]

  Okay. That settles it. This system definitely has a thing for plays on words. All my skills start with “S” and end with “ion”, too. Then, as if to distract me from that thought, things begin to manifest in front of me.

  The food is disappointing. It’s dried or canned stuff, mainly plants and grains. Edible, definitely. There is a salt shaker, too, though it’s only halfway filled. The water is a simple little floating bubble, encased in a layer of mana, and I swipe it up into my bottle.

  What really interests me is the tonic. A bit of red liquid inside a glassy liquid. A healing potion? The name sounds a little too fancy for that. But then again, what do I know?

  Comparatively, the mana puzzle looks mundane. It’s a small, brass cube, though it feels a little heavy. There’s a few channels carved into it, and I’m curious to know how it’s supposed to help me practice. I look forward to it.

  “Holy hell, that was badass, Snow!” Opal says with a laugh. “How’d you do that? The king just stopped. Did it get demoralized or something?”

  I smile, just a little. “It’s one of my skills. [Suppression]. I use it as a debuff.”

  They grin. “That’s awesome. Mine are [Bound Armament] and [Blink].” They then pointed at the girl in the wheelchair. “That’s Amelie. Hers are [Elasticity] and [Puppeteer].”

  She looks at me. “You’re Snow?” she asks, her voice neutral.

  “Yeah,” I say.

  “I’d have thought you would be taller,” she notes.

  I tilt my head. “Why?”

  “Opal talked about you a bit. They gave me a… strong impression,” she says.

  Not knowing how to reply to that, I just shrug slightly. “Well,” I say. “This is me.” Will the apocalypse change that, though? Remains to be seen, I suppose. I’m curious just how invasive this system is.

  Actually, there is a little more I can find out about it just now, isn’t there? “Show me my class selection,” I say.

  possibly guess what Snow's class might be on? xD

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