Chapter 242: Crown of Wrath

Location:- Nightmare Trial

Place:- Dungeon Temple

The monster’s twin axes descended once again.

The blades tore through the air with enough force to split mountains, releasing a violent pressure wave that shredded the stone floor before them. The attack arrived exactly as it always had.

Only this time...

Yuuta smiled.

For the first time since entering this endless nightmare, terror no longer ruled his body. The countless deaths carved into his memory had become something else. Experience.

The instant the blades reached him, Yuuta threw his body backward.

The axes missed him by less than an inch.

A violet shockwave exploded from the swing, ripping through the chamber like a hurricane. Dust, broken stone, and shattered fragments erupted in every direction, yet Yuuta reacted before the pressure reached him. He bent his knees and launched himself upward, allowing the invisible wave to pass beneath his feet before landing several meters away.

His shoes scraped across the stone as he slid to a stop.

The monster remained perfectly still.

Its tentacled face stared directly at him.

Yuuta stared back, breathing heavily before a grin slowly appeared across his face.

"I can see it now..."

His voice was rough from screaming through countless deaths.

"After dying over and over... I finally understand your attack pattern."

The monster answered with silence.

Then its enormous legs bent.

Yuuta’s pupils shrank.

It’s jumping.

The prediction flashed through his mind before the creature even moved.

BOOM!

The eleven-meter monster launched itself into the air, crossing dozens of meters almost instantly. The force of the jump alone shattered the temple floor beneath it.

Yuuta didn’t hesitate.

He rolled across the ground just as the creature crashed where he had been standing.

The impact shook the entire temple.

Cracks spread through the ancient stone while a massive cloud of dust swallowed everything around them.

Yuuta coughed violently after inhaling the dust, forcing himself back onto his feet while wiping tears from his eyes.

The monster slowly turned.

For the first time...

It seemed confused.

Its prey had survived again.

Yuuta tightened both fists.

I can’t keep dodging forever.

His eyes swept across the giant body before him.

The creature stood like an immovable fortress, muscles bulging beneath gray skin tougher than steel. Each axe was larger than Yuuta himself, and every movement radiated overwhelming strength.

There’s no way I can overpower something like that.

I don’t have a weapon.

I can’t even lift those axes.

So... I need another way.

The monster suddenly roared.

Before Yuuta could think further, it lowered its body and charged.

The temple trembled beneath every step.

It wasn’t running.

It was a living battering ram.

Each stride cracked the stone floor as it accelerated toward him faster than any creature that size should have been capable of moving.

Yuuta sprinted straight toward it.

At the last possible second, the monster swung one of its axes horizontally, intending to slice him in half.

Yuuta threw himself into a slide.

The massive blade screamed just above his face, missing him by mere centimeters as sparks exploded from the floor.

He slid directly between the monster’s legs.

Now!

His hand grabbed a jagged piece of broken stone lying nearby.

With every ounce of strength he possessed, Yuuta slammed it upward between the creature’s legs.

"Take this!"

Crack!

The rock shattered instantly.

Yuuta’s hopeful expression froze.

"...What?"

The monster hadn’t even flinched.

Not a single scratch appeared on its body.

Its head slowly tilted downward.

Then one enormous foot rose into the air.

Yuuta’s instincts exploded.

He rolled away just as the foot came crashing down.

BOOM!

The impact left a crater nearly two meters wide.

Chunks of stone shot through the air like bullets.

Yuuta barely escaped before scrambling back onto his feet.

Without looking behind him, he sprinted toward one of the massive stone pillars supporting the temple.

His lungs burned.

His heartbeat thundered inside his ears.

Sliding behind the pillar, he leaned against the cold stone while desperately trying to catch his breath.

Sweat dripped from his face.

His entire body trembled not from fear anymore, but from exhaustion.

"What..."

He inhaled sharply.

"...what the hell is this creature?"

He peeked around the pillar.

The monster was already searching for him.

Yuuta slowly clenched his fists again.

"The good news..."

A tired smile returned to his face.

"...is that I finally learned how to dodge."

His crimson eyes narrowed as he watched the giant patiently searching the temple.

"The bad news..."

"...is that if I want to escape this nightmare..."

His gaze hardened.

"...I have to kill that monster."

The realization settled heavily inside his chest.

And for the first time...

Yuuta understood that surviving wasn’t enough anymore. If he wanted to escape this nightmare, he had to learn how to hunt.

Hidden behind the remains of a massive stone pillar, Yuuta forced himself to slow his breathing despite his heart trying to burst through his ribs.

Every inhale burned his lungs, and every exhale carried the memory of another gruesome death. Panic had killed him dozens of times already, and he knew that if he lost his composure again, this trial would simply claim another life before throwing him back to the beginning.

The monster had lost sight of him. Its enormous body slowly turned from side to side before both gigantic axes descended with terrifying force.

BOOM!

An entire pillar exploded into countless fragments, dust and stone raining across the altar. Without stopping, it swung again.

CRAAAASH!

Another ancient column collapsed, the impact shaking the whole temple. The creature wasn’t searching anymore. It was erasing every possible hiding place, one pillar at a time, patient and thorough in a way that made Yuuta’s skin crawl.

He swallowed hard, his crimson eyes darting across the battlefield while his mind raced.

Think. Think, Yuuta. There has to be a way out.

His gaze wandered across the broken floor until it suddenly caught on something and froze there. A memory surfaced, unbidden

the entrance gate, the stone, the strange pattern to hit. Back then, he had unknowingly poured that mysterious energy into an ordinary rock before throwing it, and that single attack had shattered the sealed entrance pattern of the dungeon without him even understanding what he’d done.

Slowly, he lowered his gaze toward the countless broken stones scattered around the temple.

That’s it.

Hope crept back into his hollow eyes.

The first gate had been shattered by an aura-infused stone. If the seal could break... perhaps flesh could too.

He didn’t know whether it would work against something this size.

He didn’t even know what that black aura truly was, where it came from, or why his body responded to it at all.

But it was the only idea he had left, and he was out of time to find a better one.

Carefully, he crouched and picked up a fist-sized rock from the ground. It felt ordinary in his palm cold, rough, insignificant.

Closing his fingers around it, he focused with every ounce of concentration he could scrape together, and slowly, the black aura sleeping somewhere inside him responded to the call.

Dark energy seeped into the stone through his palm, filling every crack hidden beneath its surface, and the rock grew heavier, denser, thin black veins spreading across it as though the aura itself was reforging the stone into something else entirely.

He peeked around the shattered pillar. The monster’s back was turned to him, still methodically destroying the temple one column at a time.

This is my only chance.

His arm drew back.

His whole body tightened, every muscle coiled tight enough to ache, and his crimson eyes locked onto the back of the creature’s skull.

Please.

Work.

With every last scrap of strength he had left, he threw it.

The rock exploded forward like a cannonball, wrapped in Pure aura that sliced through the air with a whistle deafening enough to hurt his ears, leaving behind a faint light trail that seemed to bend the light around it.

Even the monster sensed something coming and It made no attempt to dodge.

BOOOOOOM!!

The aura-infused stone struck it directly between the eyes, and the temple erupted in a violent explosion of dust and shattered rock, the creature’s entire upper body swallowed by the blast.

The impact echoed endlessly through the ancient chamber before a sudden, heavy silence dropped over everything.

Yuuta didn’t breathe. His heartbeat pounded so loudly it drowned out every other sound in the world. Seconds crawled by, agonizingly slow, until the gigantic body finally leaned backward and crashed to the stone floor.

BOOOOOOM!!

The entire dungeon trembled, dust rolling across the altar like thick fog.

Yuuta remained frozen where he stood.

"I..."

His lips trembled uncontrollably.

"Did I..."

The dust refused to settle. Nothing moved. The giant stayed completely motionless, and very slowly, Yuuta’s knees gave out beneath him.

He collapsed onto the floor, breathing harder than he ever had in his life, his trembling hands moving instinctively over his own body his chest, his arms, his face checking, confirming, needing to know it was real.

Everything was still there. His body was whole. His arm hadn’t been severed. His stomach wasn’t split open. His legs still belonged to him.

Warm tears blurred his vision, and a weak, broken laugh escaped his lips before collapsing into sobs.

"I..."

His voice cracked.

"I did it."

Another tear rolled down his cheek, and he clenched both fists so tightly his nails dug into his own skin.

"I actually killed it."

Every horrifying death flooded back into his mind all at once his arm being severed, his body crushed, his skull shattered, his torso split open, his intestines spilling across the altar, the endless pain, the endless screams, the endless darkness. He had survived all of it. He had won.

Yuuta threw his head back and let it out.

"I FUCKING DID IT!"

His roar echoed through the ruined temple, and for the first time since entering this nightmare, it wasn’t a scream born from terror. It was victory. It was relief. It was proof, finally, that he had clawed his way through hell and come out the other side.

Then a voice answered him, low and ancient, threading through the settling dust with something that sounded almost like disappointment.

"So weak."

Yuuta’s smile froze on his face. Every muscle in his body locked rigid, and slowly, almost mechanically, he turned his head toward the sound.

The giant corpse twitched. A single crimson eye opened beneath the layer of dust coating its face, then another, and its enormous fingers dug into the shattered stone floor.

CRACK... CRACK...

Its massive body pushed itself upright, broken stones rolling off its shoulders as the dust finally began to clear.

Yuuta’s pupils shrank to pinpricks.

There wasn’t a single wound on it.

No crack.

No bruise.

No trace that the stone had ever struck it at all.

The creature rose to its full height once more, towering over the ruined temple exactly as it had before calm, patient, entirely untouched and its enormous crimson eyes settled on Yuuta again. Not with anger.

Not even with surprise.

Only with quiet amusement, the way someone might look at a child who had just tried something foolish and endearing.

Yuuta remained kneeling where he was, and the triumph that had filled his chest only moments earlier shattered into nothing. His mind replayed every death he’d endured every scream, every axe, every impossible, unbearable pain over and over, again and again, refusing to stop.

The monster stared at him, patient and unhurried, its crimson eyes holding nothing but that same quiet amusement.

Yuuta stared back, unable to look away, unable to do anything at all.

The tears never stopped falling. His face slowly sank into something beyond despair, something with no bottom to it, as one single thought echoed through his broken mind louder than anything else.

I’m never getting out of this place.

His lips parted weakly.

"No..."

The monster slowly tightened its grip around both axes. Yuuta stared up at it with hollow eyes, and only now, only after believing for one brief and precious moment that he had finally won, did he truly understand the horror of this trial.

He hadn’t grown stronger. He had only earned himself one more execution.

The monster lifted both axes high above its head, its crimson eyes fixed on him without a trace of mercy.

"You are too weak," it said, its grinding voice filling the ruined chamber, "for the Crown of Wrath."

Yuuta’s eyes widened.

Crown of Wrath

He didn’t get the chance to finish the thought. The axes were already falling, twin shadows swallowing what little light remained in the chamber, and Yuuta could do nothing but watch them come.

Then, deep within his chest, something began to glow.

A faint light bled through the fabric of his shirt, small at first, barely more than a flicker, but it grew brighter with every passing instant, pulsing in rhythm with something that felt less like his heartbeat and more like a second, older one buried somewhere beneath it.

The monster’s eyes caught the glow just as the axes reached the final inch of their fall, and something in its crimson gaze flickered not amusement anymore, not disappointment, but the first real trace of alarm it had shown since this nightmare began.

BOOOOM!!

To be continued...