Chapter 33
The Sand Soldier's attack was simple.
From Deiodeun's level, it was enough to make one yawn. But Jeon was on the verge of death.
'My sand dominance isn't working.'
Whether it was because they were made of the same sand, or because some special power was at work, attacks like Sand Blaster and Sand Mixer didn't work on the Sand Soldier.
Rather, the more sand he used, the more it absorbed, and the creature's size and strength grew.
'What the hell…….'
Jeon made a bewildered expression.
It was clear that the Sand Soldier, like Jeon, also used sand as its power source.
'Then what about Eksion?'
Jeon hurriedly wielded Eksion to attack the Sand Soldier.
Thwack!
When he struck by imbuing his fist with Eksion, one of the Sand Soldier's shoulders shattered. Just moments ago, it had absorbed sand and quickly recovered from its injuries, but now it wasn't regenerating.
'As expected, Eksion can't be absorbed.'
Unlike other sand, Eksion was practically fused with him. So it was clear that the Sand Soldier couldn't absorb it.
Jeon condensed Eksion around his gauntlet.
Boom!
With a single punch, the Sand Soldier was smashed to pieces and scattered. But he wasn't even given time to celebrate.
Rustle.
A new Sand Soldier had appeared.
This time, there were two.
"Fine! Let's do this."
Jeon used Sand Step to approach the Sand Soldiers. Then he attacked by utilizing Eksion.
Boom! Boom!
With consecutive explosions, the Sand Soldiers were shattered.
A bewildered light rose on Jeon's face.
This time, four Sand Soldiers had appeared.
"What the hell? They double every time I take them down, is that it?"
If his hypothesis was correct, it was clear that if he took down these Sand Soldiers, eight would appear next.
His prediction soon became reality.
Truly, eight Sand Soldiers appeared.
The problem was that, unlike the first Sand Soldier, the newly appeared ones moved more smoothly and lethally.
"Ho! Are they learning?"
Deiodeun exclaimed in admiration.
The newly appeared Sand Soldiers moved to compensate for the deficiencies of the previous ones.
It was as if they were learning from their weaknesses through fighting Jeon.
Deiodeun watched Jeon's fight with an intrigued expression.
Of course, he didn't have the slightest intention of helping.
If this was a dungeon meant for Jeon, he had to break through it on his own. Just as he always had.
Thwack! Thwaack!
Behind the shattering Sand Soldiers, more Sand Soldiers were rising.
They attacked Jeon with an even more powerful momentum.
Jeon bit his lip.
"Fine! Let's see who wins."
By now, his fighting spirit was surging.
He fought the Sand Soldiers with all his might.
Sand Soldiers broke into sand, then gathered again to become Sand Soldiers.
It was a fight that seemed like it would never end.
The ones learning and improving weren't just the Sand Soldiers.
Jeon was learning in exactly the same way.
Through fighting the Sand Soldiers, he increased Eksion's versatility and refined his techniques in minute detail.
Thus, Jeon and the Sand Soldiers rapidly grew stronger by studying each other.
There was one difference between Jeon and the Sand Soldiers.
It was the presence or absence of Eksion.
While Jeon could utilize Eksion to attack in various ways, the Sand Soldiers had no choice but to fight mainly in close quarters.
"Haah!"
Boom!
Along with the explosion, more than ten Sand Soldiers were shattered.
Jeon ran toward the cave behind the Sand Soldiers.
Even while running along the cave, Sand Soldiers appeared endlessly to attack him.
Jeon continued running while taking down every single one of them.
After running endlessly like that, before he knew it, he arrived at a vast underground cavern.
In the center of the underground cavern, there was a large altar.
Above the altar floated an unidentified mass of light.
It was clearly the item that served as the core of the dungeon.
"Hoo!"
Jeon instinctively realized that inside that mass of light was an item related to him.
Humm!
At that moment, the mass of light emitted an even brighter radiance and caused an intense vibration. Then, the underground cavern was suddenly filled with Sand Soldiers.
Even at a rough count, there seemed to be more than a thousand.
"Damn it!"
Jeon's face contorted.
He had barely reached his destination, only to face more soldiers than he had fought so far.
Curses flowed out automatically.
Then, Deiodeun's voice was heard from behind him.
"Bastard, are you giving up?"
"Who said anything about giving up?"
Jeon flared up.
If he was going to give up, he wouldn't have followed all the way here with such difficulty. He would have gone back to Neo Seoul long ago.
Jeon took a deep breath.
'I can do it. I can do this.'
At that moment, the Sand Soldiers attacked Jeon.
They came rushing in, dyeing the massive underground cavern black, looking exactly like a tidal wave.
Fine particles were swirling around Jeon's entire body as he looked at them.
It was a phenomenon caused by forming Eksion into a hemisphere and rotating it.
It was a method that consumed mana extremely heavily.
With Jeon's current mana, he couldn't sustain it for long. Nevertheless, he used this method because he had faith in Ellura's Tears.
A fraudulent item that restored all mana once per day.
Maintaining that state, Jeon hurled his body into the middle of the Sand Soldiers.
Crunch!
Sand Soldiers were ground up by the Eksion spinning like a storm.
The ground-up Sand Soldiers broke apart and turned back into sand.
Even though numerous Sand Soldiers were destroyed, the remaining ones didn't hesitate to throw themselves at Jeon.
Boom! Boom!
The Sand Soldiers pounded the rotating Eksion with their bare fists.
It swayed as if Eksion would be destroyed at any moment.
Each time, Jeon also received no small amount of damage.
Bloodstains were already showing at the corners of his mouth. Still, Jeon didn't stop wielding Eksion.
When he had destroyed about three hundred Sand Soldiers, Jeon's mana was completely exhausted.
At that moment, Ellura's Tears created a miracle.
It restored all of Jeon's mana in an instant.
Eksion, which had momentarily seemed about to break, began spinning fiercely again.
Crack-crack-crack!
Jeon dashed forward in a straight line.
His goal was the altar.
The Sand Soldiers threw their bodies to stop him.
Far more Sand Soldiers rushed at him than were being ground apart. Because of that, Jeon was quickly buried by the Sand Soldiers and disappeared from sight.
Because they were made of sand, the Sand Soldiers felt no fear like humans.
Even if their arms flew off or their legs shattered, they rushed toward their target.
It was only because Jeon was heavily armed with the fraudulent item called Eksion that he endured; if he had been an ordinary Awakener, he would have disappeared without a trace, swept away by the wave.
Jeon truly fought like a madman.
Eventually, he lacked the mana to use the skill that made Eksion spin like a storm.
By then, a considerable number of the Sand Soldiers had already been dealt with.
From then on, he engaged in close combat.
Fighting with martial arts while utilizing Eksion to the minimum.
Fortunately, he had martial arts he had learned while fighting golems in an unnamed dungeon.
It wasn't a formal skill, and it was a haphazard martial art without any systematic structure, but since Jeon had learned it through direct experience, it unfolded naturally.
Thwack!
A Sand Soldier's head was shattered.
Without even time to catch his breath, Jeon struck another Sand Soldier's torso with his knee.
Like a beast, he fought like a madman against the soldiers made of sand.
Deiodeun muttered as he watched the sight.
"It's a mess! Still, not bad."
One needs to have that kind of mentality.
If you have no teeth, you have to bite with your gums.
To stand idly by or retreat just because you have no mana or can't use skills is no different from flaunting your own incompetence.
To survive, you have to do something.
Not even putting up the minimum struggle or resistance was a dereliction of duty toward life.
Deiodeun had survived this harsh world with that kind of spirit.
Neo Seoul had minimum rules thanks to its high walls and the protection of the Awakeners, but this wasteland had none of that.
You had to survive on your own.
Before anyone knew it, the fight was nearing its end.
Thwack!
The last Sand Soldier returned to sand.
"Hahk! Hahk!"
Jeon breathed raggedly, as if he would pass out at any moment.
His body was already a wreck.
It was a wonder that he was still standing on two legs.
Staggering as if he would collapse at any moment, Jeon walked toward the altar.
The mass of light above the altar flickered even more, as if welcoming him.
Jeon reached his hand toward the mass of light.
As if it had been waiting, the mass of light was absorbed into Jeon's palm.
Without surprise, Jeon accepted the light. Then, his wrecked body was healed before he knew it, and his exhausted mana was filled to the brim.
Only then did Jeon's breathing stabilize.
Jeon kept his eyes closed for quite a while.
Deiodeun silently waited for him to awaken.
"Whoo!"
Finally, Jeon exhaled and opened his eyes.
Deiodeun asked him.
"Well, did you get anything useful?"
"Would you like to see?"
Jeon channeled his mana.
Then, two Sand Soldiers appeared at his sides.
"You can command sand soldiers now?"
"I've merely grasped the principle. Right now, my mana limits me to summoning only two, but as my skills improve, I'll be able to summon more."
"Sand-made soldiers? They'll be useful when employing human wave tactics."
It would probably be impossible to summon a thousand Sand Soldiers at once like here.
Because this dungeon itself was structured optimally for summoning Sand Soldiers.
Outside, he would have to summon Sand Soldiers using purely his own mana, so for now, two was the limit.
A tattoo that hadn't existed before had appeared on Jeon's left arm.
It was a tattoo in the shape of two spears rising while intertwined, like coiled serpents.
The mass of light Jeon had absorbed had transformed into the tattoo.
Deiodeun asked.
"Any other information?"
"None."
Jeon shook his head.
There was no information whatsoever about who had created this dungeon or for what purpose.
It was then.
Rumble!
Suddenly, the entire underground cavern began to shake.
It was a sign that the dungeon was collapsing.
It was collapsing because Jeon had absorbed the item that served as the dungeon's core.
Crack!
Cracks formed in the space where the two stood, as if glass were cracking. Then, their figures disappeared as if erased by an eraser.
Shortly after, the two appeared exactly where the dungeon entrance had been. They had been transferred outside.
The dungeon entrance they had entered had vanished without a trace. Still, the two weren't surprised.
Because the end of a conquered dungeon was almost always like this.
Deiodeun looked around and was surprised.
"The sandstorm has stopped. The barrier is gone."
The thick sandstorm that had blocked Deiodeun's path until now had completely stopped. The barrier had been destroyed.
Only now could they proceed forward.
"Let's go!"
Deiodeun moved his feet.
Jeon looked at him with a slightly dumbfounded expression.
After suffering so much in the dungeon, he could have taken a day to rest, but leaving immediately was absurd.
"Well, I'm the only one who suffered. You didn't lift a finger, so of course you have energy to spare. Really……."
Swallowing the words "You old dog," Jeon followed Deiodeun.