The final stretch to the Glimmering Gem Cavern was less of a climb and more of a struggle against the atmosphere itself. The air didn't just feel thin; it felt empty. Every breath Agamenticus took felt like inhaling dry static.
The cavern entrance was a masterpiece of jagged, translucent purple quartz. It looked less like a geological formation and more like the world of Aethelgard had developed a crystalized infection.
"Watch your HUDs," Hina warned, her hand hovering over a glowing baton at her hip. "The moment we cross the threshold, the environmental drain increases by 400%. If your MP hits zero, the system will start pulling from your base stamina. If that hits zero, you'll collapse."
[SYSTEM ALERT: ENTERING HIGH-DENSITY MANA SINK — GLIMMERING GEM CAVERN][DEBUFF ACTIVE: MANA HEMORRHAGE — -10 MP/SECOND]
"Ten per second?!" Royson gasped, his blue mana bar already visibly receding like a tide. "I can't sustain high-level heals at that rate! I'll be empty in three minutes!"
"Then don't get hit, Princey," Susan chirped, though her usual neon-green arrow glow was flickering like a dying lightbulb. "And hey, Hina, is 'Agent Bossy' a system-recognized title, or do I need to file a request with the G-Force?"
"Move," Hina snapped, ignoring the archer as they stepped into the shimmering darkness.
💎 The Crystal Siphons
The interior of the cavern was a labyrinth of glowing violet glass. The walls hummed with a low, bone-shaking frequency. As they delved deeper, the source of the "starving" Cloud Beasts became clear.
Attached to the ceiling and walls were the Crystal Siphons. They weren't creatures in the traditional sense; they looked like floating, jagged clusters of obsidian glass, trailing long, translucent "tendrils" of light that latched onto the mana veins of the mountain.
"They're parasites," Agamenticus hissed, his Green eyes narrowing. He could see the stolen code pulsing through the siphons—a chaotic mixture of elemental data and raw system energy. "They are extensions of the third shard. It's not just repairing itself; it's building a fortress."
One of the Siphons detached from the ceiling, its shards clicking together like a swarm of glass insects. It turned toward the group, the center of its cluster glowing with a stolen, golden light—Royson's mana.
"It's locked onto your frequency, Royson!" Hina shouted, drawing her baton. "It wants the rest of your pool!"
⚔️ The Skirmish in the Dark
The Siphon lunged, moving with a jarring, teleport-like stutter. It wasn't flying; it was glitching through the air.
"Get back, you crystalline tick!" Susan yelled, let out a shot. Her arrow, robbed of its usual kinetic boom, struck the Siphon with a weak clink. The parasite didn't even shatter; it simply absorbed the arrow's mana and grew larger.
"Standard attacks are useless!" Royson cried, backing away as the Siphon's tendrils lashed out toward his staff. "It feeds on active energy!"
Agamenticus stepped forward, his dragon-hybrid form casting a long, jagged shadow against the violet walls. He didn't draw a weapon. He didn't charge a spell. He simply stood there, his arms crossed, looking thoroughly unimpressed.
"It feeds on active energy," Agamenticus repeated, a smirk playing on his pointed teeth. "But I am currently a vessel of Passive Defense. My power is not a spell to be drained; it is an inherent fact of my existence."
The Siphon slammed into Agamenticus's chest, its glass shards grinding against his tunic.
[COMBAT LOG: CRYSTAL SIPHON (LVL 35) ATTACKS AGAMENTICUS RIALTO][CALCULATING DAMAGE: 45 ATK VS 40 DEF] [RESULT: 5 DAMAGE — NEGLECTED BY REGENERATION]
Agamenticus didn't flinch. He looked down at the parasitic cluster as if it were a particularly annoying mosquito.
"You are trying to drink from an ocean through a straw, insect," Agamenticus growled. He reached out with a clawed hand, grabbed the center of the Siphon cluster, and squeezed.
With his DEF 40 acting as a solid physical barrier, the Siphon's energy-draining tendrils couldn't find a "leak" in his code. Agamenticus simply crushed the physical housing of the parasite. The shards shattered, and a burst of stolen blue mana sprayed across the tunnel floor.
"Efficiency," Agamenticus noted, wiping a crystal splinter from his palm.
"Whoa," Susan breathed, her eyes wide. "The Grumpy King actually did something cool. I mean, it wasn't '8-bowls-of-udon' cool, but it was up there."
"Don't get complacent," Hina warned, her eyes fixed on the ceiling further down the tunnel. Hundreds of tiny, violet lights were beginning to glow. "That was one. There are hundreds more between us and the Glimmering Heart. And the closer we get to the shard, the more aggressive they'll become."
Royson looked at Agamenticus, a newfound respect—and a heavy dose of royal concern—in his eyes. "My Lord, if the shard is truly at the center of this, the drain will be absolute. We'll be fighting blind."
"Then we don't fight," Agamenticus replied, his green eyes burning in the dark. "We conquer. Proceed."
As the party pushed deeper into the Glimmering Gem Cavern, the violet hum of the walls intensified until it was a physical vibration in their teeth. The mana drain was now so severe that Agent Hina's glowing tactical HUD began to flicker and spark, her authoritative uniform losing its digital sheen.
"System error… authority dampening at 85%," Hina gritted out, her tactical baton failing to ignite. "I can't maintain the perimeter!"
Suddenly, the ceiling erupted. A massive swarm of Crystal Siphons—hundreds of them—dropped like a curtain of jagged obsidian. They didn't target Agamenticus's passive wall or Royson's empty mana pool; they swarmed Hina, sensing the high-density tech-energy stored in her G-Force equipment.
"Hina, look out!" Royson shouted, reaching for a spell he didn't have the MP to cast.
"Move, Agent Bossy!" Susan yelled.
Susan didn't reach for her bow. She knew by now that mana-infused arrows were just snacks for these parasites. Instead, she dived into the bottomless chaos of her inventory and pulled out a heavy, leather satchel labeled: [KINETIC CHAOS KIT - PROPERTY OF ZENIA].
"Eat physical displacement, you glittery jerks!"
Susan didn't aim. She swung the bag like a flail, releasing a cloud of Magnetic Iron Filings and Industrial Strength Sticky Gloop. Because these items had zero mana value, the Siphons couldn't "drink" them. The filings jammed their clicking gear-like structures, and the gloop anchored them to the floor. Susan then began frantically throwing heavy, non-magical Iron Bear Traps into the center of the swarm, creating a physical barrier of snapping metal that forced the Siphons back.
"It's working!" Susan cheered, doing a clumsy victory dance. "Who needs magic when you have hardware store leftovers?!"
But in her excitement, she didn't see a large, rogue Siphon—this one pulsing with a dark, predatory violet—descending silently behind her, its crystal blades poised to strike.
"Susan, behind you!" Royson screamed.
Before the Siphon could strike, a blur of motion swept through the cavern air. There was no sound of a spell, no flash of mana—only the heavy, resonant crack of bone hitting crystal.
🧘 Enter the Monk: Shirani
The Siphon shattered into a thousand harmless dust particles. Standing behind Susan was a man who looked entirely out of place in the high-tech, high-magic chaos of Aethelgard. He was a muscular Nepalese monk with a calm, warm smile and a physique that looked like it had been carved from the mountain itself. He wore a simple, sleeveless black gi, and despite the sub-zero temperatures and mana-draining winds, he seemed perfectly at peace.
Agamenticus's green eyes narrowed, scanning the newcomer. Floating above the monk's head was a humble player tag: [Shirani - Lvl 32 - Wayfarer].
"A Level 32?" Agamenticus scoffed, his dragon horns twitching in confusion. "How did a whelp like this survive the trek up Oita, let alone the cavern?"
Shirani didn't answer with words. He stepped forward as the rest of the Siphon swarm turned their collective, buzzing attention toward him. He took a deep breath—a slow, rhythmic inhalation that seemed to draw not from the mana in the air, but from the earth beneath his feet.
"The mountain does not seek to drain," Shirani said, his voice a calm, deep baritone. "It seeks to balance."
He moved. It wasn't a "Skill" with a cooldown or a mana cost. It was pure, perfected physical movement. Shirani struck the air with a series of palm thrusts and sweeping kicks. With every strike, the Siphons didn't just break; they obliterated. He was hitting the structural flaws in their crystal bodies with such precision that they disintegrated upon contact.
Within seconds, the hundred-strong swarm was nothing more than sparkling grit on the cavern floor.
"Whoa," Susan breathed, her eyes wide as she looked at the monk. "He just… punched the mana-vampires to death. Royson, look! His vibes are like, mega-chill but also mega-punchy!"
Royson was staring at Shirani's level tag in disbelief. "Level 32… that's impossible. No Level 32 should have the raw physical ATK to bypass a Lvl 35 mob's natural armor, especially without a weapon."
Hina, recovering her footing, adjusted her glitching HUD. "He's not using the system-calculated attack power. He's using Internal Force. It's a rare, hidden combat tree that bypasses mana requirements."
Shirani turned to the group, bowing slightly. His warm eyes lingered on Agamenticus for a second longer than the others, as if he could see the dragon beneath the human skin.
"You seek the heart of the mountain," Shirani said. "The light there is hungry. If you proceed as you are, it will consume your spirits."
"We have an Agent trapped in there, monk," Hina said, her professional mask returning despite her flickering gear. "And we have a… target to secure."
"Then I shall walk with you," Shirani replied, falling into step behind them with effortless grace. "The path to the Glimmering Heart is treacherous, and my hands are free."
Agamenticus watched the monk, his emerald eyes suspicious. "A Level 32 'Wayfarer' acting as a bodyguard for the Dragon King? How droll. But if you wish to be shattered by the third shard, I shall not stop you."
As they continued their trek, Susan leaned toward Royson and whispered loudly, "I bet he could eat ten bowls of udon and not even get a stomach ache. Look at those muscles! He's definitely got 'Pro-Udon' vibes."
"Susan, please," Royson groaned, though he kept a very close eye on the mysterious Shirani.
The group continued through the violet-lit tunnels, the silence of the cavern broken only by the rhythmic crunch of boots on crystal dust. While Susan and Royson bickered in hushed tones about whether "Internal Force" counted as a "vibe," Shirani moved with a silence that seemed to defy the game's physics engine.
Agamenticus, his Green eyes shimmering in the dark, paced himself alongside the monk. He found the man's presence deeply unsettling. In a world defined by numbers, levels, and strict code, Shirani was a variable that didn't compute.
🧘 The Wayfarer's Insight
"You move with a great deal of purpose for a Level 32," Agamenticus said, his voice dripping with his signature pomposity. "Most whelps your age are busy dying to slimes in the Tutorial Fields, yet you treat this death trap like a morning stroll. What is your 'Internal Force' but a glorified glitch?"
Shirani didn't look at Agamenticus with the wide-eyed awe of a player or the cold calculation of an agent like Hina. He looked at him with the quiet recognition of an equal.
"Levels are but shadows cast by a flickering lamp," Shirani replied calmly. "The G-Force sees the shadow, but I see the lamp. And you, traveler… you cast no shadow at all."
Agamenticus stiffened, his dragon horns twitching under his hood. "Be careful with your metaphors, monk. I am the Dragon King. I cast shadows long enough to swallow empires."
"Perhaps in the world you were built for," Shirani said softly, stopping in his tracks. He turned to face Agamenticus fully. "But you are not a 'player,' are you? You do not have the hollow, restless heart of those who 'login' from the outside. You are a man born of this world's very marrow. You are Aethelgard."
The air in the tunnel seemed to drop another ten degrees. Even Susan stopped talking.
Agamenticus's eyes narrowed into dangerous slits. The "Invincible" tag above his head—the one he had arrogantly scrawled in the guest book—seemed to pulse with a dark, warning light.
"A bold claim," Agamenticus hissed. "And what if I am? Does a Level 32 'Wayfarer' intend to report me to the mechanical overseers?"
⚡ The Assimilation of Force
Shirani simply smiled. He raised his hands to chest level, extending his pointer fingers and pressing them together with meticulous precision.
"I report only to the mountain," Shirani said.
As his fingertips touched, a ripple of translucent, golden energy expanded outward from his chest. It wasn't mana; it didn't register on Hina's glitching sensors. It was a dense, physical pressure that seemed to push back against the cavern's drain. Shirani's breathing became so slow it was nearly imperceptible as he began to assimilate his Internal Force, drawing the scattered energy of his own soul into a singular, unbreakable point.
"You seek the third shard to repair your broken shell," Shirani continued, his fingers locked in the mudra. "I seek only to ensure the mountain does not shatter under the weight of your presence. We walk the same path, for now."
Agamenticus watched the monk's fingers, sensing a power that didn't rely on the system's permissions. It was raw, ancient, and frustratingly effective.
"Hmph," Agamenticus turned away, though his internal processors were racing. "Your 'Internal Force' is a tedious parlor trick, monk. But if it keeps the siphons off my back while I retrieve my essence, I shall tolerate your cryptic nonsense."
"Hey! Look!" Susan shouted, pointing ahead.
The tunnel opened into a massive, cathedral-like chamber. At the center, a colossal pillar of pulsating violet crystal reached from the floor to the ceiling. Trapped within the translucent stone was a figure in a G-Force uniform—Agent Kenji—and floating just above his head, embedded deep in the crystal heart, was the third Defense Core Shard.
The shard wasn't blue anymore. It was a violent, throbbing red.
The air in the Glimmering Heart reached a fever pitch of digital instability. As the party approached the central pillar, the violet quartz groaned, and the shards scattered across the floor began to vibrate and pull toward each other.
💎 The Shattered Crystal Golem
The ground heaved as a massive entity assembled itself from the cavern's debris. The Shattered Crystal Golem stood twelve feet tall, a jagged, asymmetric titan of translucent stone. Its chest cavity was hollow, save for the rhythmic, angry red pulse of the third Defense Core Shard which acted as its heart.
[BOSS ENCOUNTER: SHATTERED CRYSTAL GOLEM (LVL 45)] [STATUS: CORRUPTED DATA OVERFLOW]
"It's not just protecting the shard," Royson shouted, raising his staff to shield his eyes from the red glare. "The shard is animating it! The corruption is using the golem to vent the mana it's siphoned from the mountain!"
The Golem roared—a sound of grinding glass—and slammed a massive crystalline fist into the ground. A wave of red kinetic energy rippled outward.
"Susan, draw its attention! Royson, keep the perimeter stable!" Agamenticus commanded, his Green eyes flashing as he stepped forward to tank the brunt of the impact. Though he feared System Deletion, his current DEF 40 allowed him to stand firm where others would be crushed. "I will show this pile of gravel why I am tagged Invincible!"
Susan didn't need to be told twice. "Hey, Sparkles! Over here!" She launched a series of kinetic-heavy arrows that shattered against the Golem's shoulder. "I bet you taste like grape rock candy and regret!"
🔓 The Rescue of Agent Kenji
While the Golem was occupied with Susan's chaotic barrage and Agamenticus's stoic defense, Hina moved toward the central pillar. Her uniform flickered wildly, but she drew a heavy-duty G-Force Overload Spike.
"I'm pulling him out!" Hina gritted her teeth, jamming the spike into the base of Kenji's crystal prison. "The corruption is linked to his biometric ID—the shard is using him as an anchor!"
With a burst of white administrative light, the crystal pillar shattered. Hina caught the unconscious Agent Kenji as he fell. The moment Kenji was freed from the stasis field, the red pulse in the Golem's chest began to falter, its light flickering between a malevolent crimson and a steady, calm blue.
🧘 Shirani's Time Affinity
The Golem, sensing its anchor was gone, prepared a final, desperate explosion of mana. It raised both fists, the red light reaching a blinding intensity.
"The moment is stuck," Shirani said calmly, stepping past Agamenticus.
The monk once again pressed his pointer fingers together. This time, the golden aura around him didn't just push back the air—it seemed to stitch the very fabric of the room. This was his Time Affinity Internal Force.
"STILLNESS OF THE ETERNAL MOUNTAIN."
To the others, the world suddenly slowed to a crawl. The Golem's fists remained suspended in mid-air; even the dust motes in the cave hung frozen. Only Shirani moved at normal speed, walking with deliberate grace through the "skipped" time. He reached into the Golem's chest cavity, his fingers passing through the vibrating red energy as if it were water.
As Shirani's hand closed around the fragment, he whispered a brief Nepalese mantra. The red corruption evaporated instantly, and the fragment reverted to its true, serene Blue state.
Time snapped back into place.
The Golem, deprived of its corrupted power source, instantly crumbled into a harmless pile of unpolished quartz. Shirani stood in the center of the debris, holding the third Defense Core Shard out toward Agamenticus.
"The mountain's hunger is sated," Shirani said, his warm smile returning. "The balance is restored."
Agamenticus took the shard, the blue light reflecting in his green eyes. He felt his Defense stat tick upward yet again. "You... you have a strange way of making me feel unnecessary, monk."
"Not unnecessary," Shirani corrected. "Just early in your journey."
Susan let out a long whistle. "Okay, that was definitely better than the udon vibes. Shirani, you gotta teach me how to make time stand still so I can eat my eighth bowl without Royson judging me."
Royson, who had been holding a Minor Cinder in case things got worse, just sighed. "The fact that your first thought is still the udon, Susan, is the most consistent thing in this entire glitchy server."
Author's Note: Hi all, Kai Hoshin here, I am unfortunately deciding to move all multiverse books to Royal Road in 48 hours if the Webnovel support cannot handle security. I am forced into doing something I shouldn't be doing, because that is Webnovel's job, and I want my books to be in a place that is safe for all of my readers. If Webnovel does not address it, I hope that all of my readers can migrate to Royal Road, where you will be safer and in an environment where my multiverse can excel. I hope I don't have to do that, but fingers crossed:)