The doors grounded open with a last, shuddering groan.
Cold air spilled out from the darkness beyond—not the sour, humid stench of monster dens, but something dry and ancient. The kind of chill found in rooms forgotten for centuries, a place that only remembered how to breathe once disturbed.
Hajime stepped across the threshold without hesitation ready for anything.
The chamber beyond was circular, wide, and tall enough that even his Night Vision couldn't pierce the shadows pressing down from above. Dim crystals were embedded along the walls in evenly spaced rings, but their light was thin and tired, more ghostly glow than true illumination. To ordinary eyes, this would've been a half-blind stumble into the dark. To him, it was perfectly readable.
His gaze snapped straight to the center.
A massive block of red-gold stone occupied the heart of the chamber. It rose from a low dais, its surface covered in tangled layers of sigils. They wrapped around every side of the monolith like an intricate lattice, overlapping so densely the lines resembled circuitry etched into molten ore. Mana crawled through the carvings in sluggish pulses, the entire construct beating with a deep, muffled rhythm—like a heart buried beneath stone.
Hajime halted a few meters into the doorway.
Infinite Resonance rippled outward, his awareness sliding along the surface of the seal.
Three layers of seal greeted him along with a head poking out of it.
The outermost was a hardened shell—dense, stable, built to absorb impact and ensure whatever was inside remained intact. It wasn't meant to restrain anything. It was armor.
Beneath that, the second layer felt aristocratic, refined. The delicate cadences in the glyphs, the distinct pattern of the mana. Exactly the kind described in dusty castle tomes he would expect to hind in fantasy setting like this one.
The third layer was different.
Wrong.
Energy-suppressors woven tightly with Anti-detection logic and explosion triggers. It didn't just bind; it concealed. Any presence divide or otherwise attempting to peek in would sense only static. And if they attempted to open it forcefully the structure would collapse inward the blow up, annihilating the prisoner and possibly half the room along with it.
"Thorough," Hajime muttered under his breath. "A treasure vault where even a god can't retrieve the hidden treasure."
He approached one step at a time.
The block shuddered. It would be more accurate to say that the head poking out of the box twitched.
And something pale spilled forward with it.
Hair.
Long strands of golden-blonde hair slipped from the opening, tangled and dulled, but still luminous even in the weak light. It hung down like a curtain, ends brushing the dais.
At first, he thought it was simply that.
Then the hair moved.
"…Who goes there?"
The voice was faint, raw, as though dragged across broken glass. But undeniably human. And female.
Hajime's fingers brushed Donner's grip out of habit as he narrowed his eyes shocked that whatever it was it still heed on to its Consciousness, he then peered past the curtain of hair.
A face waited there. Obviously.
Skin pale as bleached bone, giving her an almost ethereal glow against the red-gold stone. Her cheeks were hollow from long stillness, but the features themselves were fine—small nose, soft lips, slight jawline. And peeking through that veil of hair, a pair of eyes glimmered crimson-red, rich and clear like blood under moonlight.
Shock. Fear. Confusion. All of it surfaced at once in her gaze.
The rest of her body… didn't exist. Or rather, it was swallowed by the block from the neck down, fused seamlessly into the stone as if she had been cast inside molten rock and left to harden.
"…A alive person," Hajime muttered, more to himself than to her.
He had expected many things—a sealed super-weapon, the core of an dead god, an ancient construct.
He had not expected a girl.
She stared back, equally stunned.
For a brief moment, silence reigned.
Then Hajime shrugged.
"Sorry," he said, voice bone-dry. "Wrong room. I'll see myself out."
He turned casually and began walking towards the door.
"W-Wait! Please… help me!"
The desperate cry ripped from her throat, echoing off the stone walls, thin and trembling from centuries of disuse.
"Don't wanna," he replied immediately.
He leaned against the door.
"Wh-Why…?" she rasped, desperation scraping raw in every syllable. "Please… I'll do anything, so—!"
Even while trapped, even with only her neck free, she strained forward, hair swinging helplessly.
Hajime clicked his tongue.
"You're sealed in a god-proof box at the bottom of hell," he said. "Whoever put you here didn't do it because you were friendly. From where I'm standing, freeing you sounds like the kind of bad life choice that gets people removed from the 'alive' category."
Then he started closing the door. Light slowly shrank around her face.
"As far as I can tell, there's nothing useful in here," he added. "No treasure, no exit, no advantage. Doesn't help me get out of this labyrinth. So—"
He shoved.
"—I don't see a reason to touch it." It was simple, efficient logic. The kind he lived by now.
Behind him, the girl didn't stop.
"No! I-I'm not… anyone dangerous!" she cried. "Please wait! I… I was—"
The stone grated loudly as he put his weight into it.
"—I was betrayed!"
The words cut through the narrowing gap like a blade.
His hands froze. Those words triggered something, it triggered his multiversal awareness where he saw.
He saw this exact scene play out in his memory but the only difference was him. The other version of him was missing an arm, using the tattered clothes from his fall, he was much more emotionally detached than him now and yet even then he stopped, even then he helped her.
The doors stopped when only a sliver of light was visible. Through that thin slice, he could still see one of her eyes—wide, trembling, shining with something that wasn't quite hope, but close.
Ten seconds passed.
Then twenty.
Hajime clenched his jaw.
"…Seriously," he muttered. "What the hell am I doing."
He sighed sharply, then shoved the doors open again and stepped back into the chamber.
The girl stared, stunned that he had returned.
He scowled.
He hadn't intended to help her. Every instinct he'd honed in the abyss rejected the idea. There was no proof she wasn't a monster in human shape. No guarantee releasing her wouldn't undo someone else's hard-won security measure. Logically, the best move was to leave.
But those words—I was betrayed— and those vision had struck deeper than expected.
He had believed he'd buried that memory. The spell that fired behind him, the shock of falling, the feeling of being betrayed by someone.
Apparently he'd only shoved it into a corner and thrown dirt on it.
He faced her squarely.
"Explain," he said curtly. "How did you end up in there."
She swallowed.
"I… was born with too much power, and was essentially immortal" she whispered. "They called me an atavism. A throwback to the most primal form of our race. A monster in the shape of a girl, no matter what they did I could regenerate from it."
"Regeneration?" he asked.
She nodded minutely.
"From anything. Decapitation, burning… even complete disintegration. As long as i have magic in me, my body reforms."
No pride colored her voice. Only weariness.
"My uncle feared me. The court feared me. They claimed I was 'tainting' the natural order made by god. That I would eventually fall to corruption."
"So they tried to kill you," Hajime said flatly.
"Yes. For years." Her eyes lowered. "And when that failed…"
"They sealed you here."
"…Yes," she breathed. "A place even the god cannot clearly observe. Officially… a 'protective confinement.'"
He snorted.
"Right. Protection. Sure."
In return, he offered her a stripped-down version of his own story: the otherworld, the Summoning, the traning, a wrong moment. A spell from behind. A plunge into darkness. The fast, brutal decent downhill using nothing but stubborn will and stolen powers.
She drank in every word, gaze unblinking, as though she wanted to memorize his existence.
When he finished, she murmured, "You are just like me"
"Betrayed, left alone here to rot in hell and yet you fought back, your body… your will… they have already ascended the world's rules."
"Same goes for you," he replied.
For a moment, silence stretched.
Her mana brushed his from within the seal—weak, frayed, but exquisitely precise. Infinite Resonance reacted instinctively, mapping and tracing.
A faint whisper of familiarity tugged at him. Not recognition. More like déjà vu.
He pushed it aside.
"Can you break out on your own?"
"No," she said at once. "The outer shell is weakening, the bloodline layer is confused… but the innermost seals remain untouched. If I you try to break them from outside, the failsafe will activate."
"Aren't you immortal?, can't you try to break it from inside? Even if you exploded you could simply reform again."
Another small nod.
"This seal never meant to kill me, it would blast every thing that is not me into oblivion thought. And i can't do it because i don't have enough mana, most of my mana is being used to keep me alive and of the remaining amount 90% is getting sucked by the seal."
Hajime sighed.
Puzzle boxes were annoying. Puzzle boxes wired to explode were worse.
He stepped closer and set his palm on the stone.
"Sit tight. I'll check how bad this mess is."
Infinite Resonance spread through the layers.
The outer layer: manageable. With patience, he could peel it off safely.
The middle layer: bloodline authentication, identity confirmation, pattern monitoring. Ancient, but crumbling on the edges. Still workable. Predator for the win.
The inner layer: an over-engineered nightmare. Energy-suppressors, watchdog circuits, obliteration triggers. One wrong move and everything goes white.
He pulled his hand back.
"Alright. First rule: don't piss off the failsafe."
Turning to her, he said, "Push a little mana outward. Slow and steady. Like tapping."
She blinked, then complied. A faint pulse pressed against the stone from within—weak but controlled.
He matched the rhythm, syncing their patterns. Predator smoothed the mismatches, nibbling gently at the glyphs until they accepted the adjusted signature as close enough.
The lines glowed.
The block trembled.
With a low groan, several portions of the stone around her upper chest and shoulders slid open, spilling dust.
She gasped softly as real air touched skin that had known only stillness.
More of her emerged.
Golden hair tumbled down in tangled waves. Her collarbones, shoulders and her small yet developed chest came into view.
Hajime's eyes moved automatically.
Months of treating everything as a target or resource had sharpened his observational instincts, and they catalogued details before he could stop them: a small frame caught between girl and woman, hair too long from confinement, posture unnaturally still.
Her cheeks flushed faintly beneath the grime as he used her now free hands to cover herself.
"…Pervert," she whispered.
"Not my fault they didn't include clothing in your tomb package for eternity," he replied dryly.
He reached into his Inventory and retrieved a spare coat—long, soft, white, made of armored cloth and claw bears monster pelt.
"Here."
He draped it over her. The coat slid down her shoulders like a cloak, covering everything necessary.
She stiffened at the touch, then gripped it tightly with trembling fingers.
"…Thank you," she murmured.
"Don't thank me yet," he said. "I could still explode."
He returned to the second layer, carefully dismantling kill-switch glyphs while rerouting detection loops into harmless cycles.
He was halfway through when the floor rumbled.
A deep vibration crawled up through his boots. Dust sifted from the ceiling. Somewhere beneath the dais, stone scraped ominously.
Sense Presence blasted a warning through his mind.
Of course. He was wondering why it hadn't made a move till now.
The center of the chamber bulged upward. Cracks webbed across the floor. A massive, armored tail smashed through the tiles, sending shards flying.
Then the rest of it emerged.
A colossal scorpion hauled itself out of the ruptured stone.
Eight thick legs gouged into the floor. Two enormous pincers snapped, serrated edges gleaming. Its tail arched overhead, dripping a liquid that hissed and ate through cracked tile.
Its entire carapace gleamed dull grey, streaked with faint blue veins.
Mana surged beneath the shell in unnatural flows.
Detect Magic whispered the answer.
Shtar ore.
A rare, mana-hungry mineral. The more energy it absorbed, the tougher it became. Excellent for armor. Terrible for anyone trying to break it.
This thing's carapace wasn't just infused with Shtar ore.
It was built from it.
The scorpion's cluster of eyes locked onto the sealstone.
"Guardian," Hajime muttered. "Of course."
On the dais, the girl trembled.
"They… left it here to watch me," she whispered. "To make sure I never escaped."
"Yeah," he replied. "Great design choice."
He stepped in front of her, planting himself between the seal and the monster.
"What are you doing?" she cried. "You can still leave! It only cares about me. If you go now, it will keep me here!"
The scorpion scraped its claws, tail dipping.
Hajime didn't glance back.
"If you leave me," she pressed, voice cracking, "nothing changes! I stay sealed, the labyrinth goes on. You live. Why risk—
"Then what would be the difference," he cut in quietly, "between me and the ones who locked you here?
Her words died instantly.
For a moment, the entire room seemed to hold its breath.
"…I'm not your jailer," he continued. "And I'm not their cleanup crew."
His eyes sharpened.
"And I don't use people as vault ornaments."
The scorpion lunged.
It came impossibly fast, pincers sweeping. The tail snapped forward, spraying droplets that hissed where they landed.
Hajime moved.
Supersonic Step folded distance. Air Dance let him pivot midair on invisible footholds. He slid under a pincer, coat whipping behind him, then sprinted sideways as the stinger crashed into the floor.
He fired Donner at a joint.
The rail-gun accelerated bullet struck Shtar-reinforced chitin with a sharp metallic crack and ricocheted.
"Figures."
He needed more power. Or a weak point.
Preferably both.
On the dais, the girl strained forward.
"I can help," she rasped. "Even like this—"
"No," he snapped, dodging another strike. "You're barely free. Your body still tangled. You don't have enough mana to even try and break the seal how are you going to help? and what is you make the seal go BOOM?"
"That's my problem!" she insisted. "Not yours!"
"Wrong. If it exploded I will be the one in trouble."
He vaulted over another leg, boots tapping briefly against the hardened carapace. Even through the soles, the shell felt unbreakable.
He landed near the dais once more.
"This is stupid," he muttered. "But fine."
He holstered his weapon and turned to her.
"Drink."
"…Eh?"
"Drink my blood, your a vampire aren't you" he repeated.
"The target is you and you are stuck here. I somehow doubt the you will lack mana after drinking my blood, afterwards try to unlock the seal from inside and I will help from my side, then Keeping you with me makes its attack pattern predictable. I will keep distracting it from here to stall it so quickly recharge yourself." hajime continuesly thru stun and frag granades to keep it distracted.
"I—" She stared at his outstretched hand, stunned.
"You asked why I didn't leave you," he said sharply. "I gave you my answer. Don't make me repeat it."
She grabbed his arm.
"My magic needs fuel," she said urgently. "Blood is ideal. If I drink yours, I can break the inner seals completely in a few moments."
Her throat trembled.
Then she let out a soft, incredulous laugh.
"…You really are an idiot," she whispered. "A dangerous idiot."
"Shut up and drink you dumbass."
She didn't argue further.
He tilted his head aside, exposing his neck as he bent down.
"Quickly," he said. "We're a little busy."
She froze at how easily he'd offered his neck to her even though they just met.
Then the scent of his blood—heavy with Ambrosia, charged with raw mana—washed over her. She went into a hazed state her eyes glazed over.
Her fangs pressed to his skin, hesitated…
Then pierced.
Heat exploded under her skin as she drank his blood. She was intoxicated and addicted in one gulp. Mana surged outward.
Hajimes heart-reactor flared to keep pace with the sudden drain in blood. Power rushed through her in a torrent, slamming into her dry reserves like a entire lake trying fill a nearly dry well.
Her mana core roared awake, magic flooding her limbs that had been denied from it for ages.
Infinite Resonance seized the blood-bond that she tried to form with hajime, twisting it, adapting it.
What should've been a one-way vampire bond was seized, restructured, rewritten.
Patterns aligned.
Mana braided.
A connection formed deeper than instinct.
«Infinite Resonance (Partial Awakened → Completely Awakened)»
«First Bond— Establishing
First Bond— Established.
Bond calibration— Calibrating
Bond level— Tier 1 Achieved
Bond level— Tier 2 Achieved
Bond level— Tier 3 Achieved
Bond level— Tier 4 Achieved
Bond calibration— success.»
TIER 1 — Emotional Resonance
"The spark—when two souls first acknowledge each other."
This tier awakens when trust, safety, and emotional familiarity first form.
Core Effects
Minor Stat Sharing
Nexus receives a faint increase to:
Strength, Agility, Mana Generation.
The woman receives mirrored boosts.
Skill Echo (Basic Imitation):
Nexus can replicate simple actions or abilities of his bonded Resonator partners at 10–25% efficiency.
(e.g., basic sword stance, minor elemental magic, skills etc).
Mana Connection:
He becomes able to Sense their emotional state as change in the colour of "mana hues".
Detect danger around them
Perceive their mana signature even through walls or illusions
Unique Abilities:
Calm Mind Link: He can send emotional stabilization to his bonds and Eases fear, Clears mental fog, Helps them focus in battle
Shared Instinct:
In brief moments of danger, their instincts align, letting them dodge or react in sync.
Limitations:
Range limited to line of sight or 50 meters.
Only minor boosts—no combat-changing enhancements yet.
TIER 2 — Heart Resonance
"Friendship becomes devotion. Two hearts begin moving in rhythm."
This forms with deep loyalty, trust, emotional intimacy, and shared goals.
Core Effects
Enhanced Physical Abilities (Moderate Sharing)
Both receive 20–30% boosts to:
Strength
Reaction speed
Spellcasting focus
Nexus' body adapts to their elemental affinities, gaining limited resistance.
Elemental Co-Affinity Awakening If she wields an element (fire, ice, wind, shadow, etc.)
Nexus unlocks: His own minor version of that element, Basic spells, Resistance to that element.
Early Co-op Magic (Duo Arts):
They can cast combined spells:
Twin-element enhancement
Small barriers
Accelerated healing
Linked projectile spells
Unique Abilities:
Synchronized Movement
Perfect team combat:
Shared operation, Coordinated strikes, Instinctive positioning.
liberation a type of mana burst that stuns nearby enemies, Clears debuffs from his bond beerer, Briefly boosts both speed and attack power.
Limitations:
Mana link lasts only during emotional alignment.
TIER 3 — Soul Resonance
"Souls intertwine. Separation becomes impossible."
This tier requires deep emotional connection and complete vulnerability.
Core Effects:
Full Sensory Sharing, they can share:
Vision
Hearing
Touch (muted)
Danger sence (Perfect for battle synchronization.)
Mental Link Allows:
Telepathic communication
Emotional exchange
Tactical coordination
long distances comunication (up to 10 kilometers).
Ability Synchronization
Nexus can perfectly reproduce her abilities at 100% efficiency, even advanced skills.( 5 skills is the limit)
Resistance Sharing
If she is immune or resistant to something, Nexus shares it—and vice versa.
Unique Abilities
Soul Mirror: He can reflect harmful debuffs, curses, back at the attackers.
Life Thread Link
They can transfer:
Health
Mana
Status resistance
Limitations:
Pain resonance may occur if Nexus is careless. Thought he may not care about this limitation.
Bonds become emotionally intense—betrayal causes slight damage to soul core.
TIER 4 — Intimate Resonance
"Closeness deep enough to reshape one another."
(Still non-sexual—physical intimacy like holding, hugging, shared warmth, sleeping close.)
Core Effects
Personal Forms Unlocked
Each woman gains a unique combat form:
Transformation:
Weapon manifestation
Spiritual outfit manifestation "Astral Dress"
Aura manifestation - status sharing
Signature Magic Style:
Their own spells evolve into Unique spell,
Faster chanting,
Personalized element combinations.
Mana Ocean :
Their mana pools merge into a co-op reservoir in battle:
Infinite flow in between while linked
Rapid regeneration of mana
Effect Multiplier on magic
Resonant Barriers:
United Will : Powerful defensive constructs formed by holding hands or touching.
Unique Abilities:
Nexus Overdrive: it dramatically boosts→Speed, Strength, Spell damage (Lasts 60 seconds).
Lost Echo: They can teleport near eachother by "aligning" their mana signatures.
Limitations:
Emotional instability can disrupt forms.
Requires mutual vulnerability and trust...»
(Note: since she jumped to tier 4. They also has access to skills of every tier before it).
Warmth rushed through her entire being. Her seal broke instantly and while she was free a red princess dress woven directly from magic and starlight manifested upon her frame.
Her Astral Dress.
For the first time since she had been sealed, she felt alive.
Hajime inhaled sharply as the Resonance snapped into place—
And when he saw her, he was mesmerized by her appearance she was simply standing there like a lone goddess looking down at the mortal world, she slowly lifted her gaze
—then turned toward the scorpion, eyes blazing with renewed focus.
"Alright," he said, voice low. "Round two."
And this time… we're doing it together.
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Author: "Stone pls."
Reader: "Head empty, pockets too."
Author: mentally uninstalls motivation 🧠🚫
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