1 Battlefield of Death
"Ugh… my head,"
"What's wrong? Need something to drink?" The healer beside me asked while placing her palms of green light on me.
The torn flesh on my arm immediately began to regenerate, thanks to her help of her, but I couldn't relax yet as we still weren't done with this dungeon yet.
"Do you remember how big the rift was?"
"It was pretty large, meaning this has to be at least a C-rank dungeon…."
"Goddammit… Those damn higher-ups not even caring to evaluate its rank…."
As I stared over the mountain of corpses, completely covering the sand beneath us, my long black hair fluttered with the slight breeze, and my baggy black eyes focused on the objective.
The landscape had become something entirely different with the amount of death that had spread on the battlefield.
There had to be at least a hundred more adventurers left out of the five thousand that had entered… and with this many deaths, the dungeon had to be at least an A-rank dungeon.
Even if the size of the rift doesn't compare to the contents of the dungeon, that doesn't make it the lowest valuable rank.
As I looked up into the sky from the mountain of corpses, a single black eye stared down at us, its swirling pupils spreading throughout the entirety of the sun.
"How many more skeletons have been estimated to come out now?" I asked the healer, as she had just gotten in contact with the other side of the battlefield.
As she finished touching her earpiece, she turned back towards me to help me stand up while also explaining the current situation.
"Seems a suicide rush will commence soon. Nobody has the stamina to continue…."
"Shit…" I muttered, biting down on my lower lip while looking up into the sky, almost being entranced by the large swirling black pupil.
"How much mana do you have left?" The healer asked, taking out a mana potion from the depths of her bag.
Seems supply is also running low… I better let her keep it since she's a valuable healer.
"I'm fine,"
It wasn't fine.
In just a few hours, the suicide rush had commenced, and everybody had cleared the wave of skeletons, thinking everything was over… but it wasn't. Nothing was over until the rift to escape this hellish place opened up.
After lighting yet another cigarette, the smoke filled my lungs, shaping it into a pair of condensed balls that, when concentrated outside of my body, would shoot straight through the skeleton's terribly hard bones.
These weren't any normal skeletons since they groaned and moaned like zombies yet had the intelligence of an E-rank warrior… not very impressive for a human, but extremely impressive for a mindless monster.
FWOOSH FWOOSH FWOOSH
All of a sudden, the condensed balls of smoke appeared outside of my body and smashed the very few skeletons in front of me.
The horde had risen from the corpses, just about revealing where this seemingly infinite supply of deathly minions came from… it was our comrades who entered with us.
"There is no way to win but to be the sole survivor," I muttered before snapping my fingers, and a large insane smile cracked across my face.
I knew what I had to do now as I took a step back and began to regather my mana, watching the others charge in and get absolutely obliterated by their fallen comrades.
Organs and blood spilled across the battlefield once more… until, finally, it was just myself, standing atop the tallest pile of corpses.
"Bring it on, assholes," I muttered before snapping again, my cigarette smoke quickly expanding and turning into various weapons, spreading across the sky.
My body creaked with exhaustion, and my mana reserves were being pushed to their limit as I squeezed every last ounce out of my body.
"I only have enough for the first calvary… Alright…" My lips pursed into yet another insane smile as my body rose up, my pinkies locking together, causing my hands to cross. "[First Calvary: Armory of Valhalla]!"
My voice echoed through the planes as a thousand weapons made completely of condensed smoke swirled like bullets and then blasted toward the army of skeletons below.
BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM
The hundreds of thousands of shards that sprayed the air made it completely toxic to inhale as the atmosphere mingled with them.
Each time I took in a deep and exhausted breath, I felt the shards cut my lungs, creating deadly internal bleeding that I knew would kill me if I didn't act fast.
So, I covered my nose and mouth with the light armor I was wearing and descended into the pile of corpses, rummaging through to try and find a single piece of healing equipment.
"Ugh… my head," I muttered as it throbbed again, causing me to nearly pass out right then and there.
As I fell onto my hands and knees, a warm pool of blood soaked my clothes… and then, it appeared.
It appeared right there.
.
[Congratulations on clearing the Trial of Hades]
[5650 Entered] [1 Remaining]
[Condition Fullfilled]
[You have been granted the Hades System]
[Installation will commence]
.
The throbbing in my head suddenly got worse, and it felt as if a tumor was rapidly expanding inside my brain, about to burst from my skull.
Blood poured from my eyes, ears, and nose as I attempted to hold onto my consciousness.
I turned onto my back in order to get some fresh air, only to suddenly realize that I was breathing in the boney shards once again.
But my body had become too limp for me to even turn over anymore… so I just laid there, staring up into the sky with a fog clouding my vision.
The black eye stared deep into my soul as if waiting for something.
.
[Willpower of host is too strong]
[Anesthesia will be injected]
.
My brain shut off as if a switch had been flipped.
Everything went cold, and my surroundings went silent… it was so familiar that I couldn't help but curl up into a ball as I squeezed my eyes shut, attempting to escape the deafening darkness around me.
[Hades System has been installed]
