I couldn't even begin to **count** the number of entities gathered before me. They were countless, flooding the wreckage of the ruined ship. These were not mere wandering monsters—they were the living embodiment of an ancient nightmare, returned to exact its revenge.
The moment I drew my sword, the spirits surged toward me all at once. They didn't run… they **vanished**, reappearing in flashes so fast my eyes could barely follow their lightning-like afterimages.
I froze for a fatal second.
A deadly hesitation gripped me. How was I supposed to face such overwhelming numbers at once? It had been a **long time** since I last fought opponents in such numbers.
As I calculated my chances of survival, a purple glow ignited behind me.
An entity appeared directly in front of my face.
Its pale features were devoid of any expression, yet the pressure radiating from it was horrifying—powerful enough to crush the bones of an ordinary human merely by proximity.
*Move… now!*
I screamed within my mind, forcing my survival instincts to awaken.
With extreme difficulty, I raised my rusted sword and blocked its razor-sharp claws.
**CRAAASH!**
The collision of metal and lightning exploded like a sonic bomb, shaking the decayed ship to its core. My arm went completely numb as the surrounding pressure intensified, crushing me as though the weight of the entire ocean had settled upon my shoulders.
I staggered back several steps, sparks scattering around me. But the wretched creatures gave me no time to breathe.
They surrounded me from every direction, forming a cage of volatile mana.
I looked at them—and despite the pain tearing through my arm, a mocking laugh escaped my lips.
"Fools…
Do you really believe numbers like these are enough to bring me down?
Your delusions are laughable."
At that moment, I stopped defending.
I focused every fragment of my **Dual Core's** power into the blade of my sword, merging my dense physical aura with raw mana.
The sword began to tremble violently, releasing a roar like an approaching storm.
Suddenly, radiant emerald energy erupted, forming a raging vortex of green blades that spiraled around my body like a devastating hurricane.
**First Dual Core Fusion Form:
Cutting Wind Tempest.**
I unleashed the storm toward the mass of spirits.
The emerald blades tore through the air, shredding the spirits as if they were fragile cloth, scattering violet lightning mana everywhere. This wasn't a series of strikes—it was total annihilation.
The ship's interior was engulfed in exploding green light as the spirits' screams were swallowed by the tempest I had created.
Then… the light faded.
My breath caught.
The scattered mana was **reforming**.
The entities were returning.
Before I could fully process the shock, my sword shattered in my hand, fragments of rusted metal crashing to the floor.
"Fantastic… that's exactly what I needed right now."
I stepped back as the spirits advanced, their cold gazes unchanging, their pressure growing heavier with every passing second.
There was no point in holding back anymore. If I wanted to survive, I had to release **everything**.
I closed my eyes briefly and drew upon the Dual Core deep within my chest. The air around me responded instantly, spiraling into violent motion.
I coated my entire arm with wind mana.
But what followed… was no ordinary transformation.
My dense golden aura intertwined with emerald wind mana, forming something akin to a **cyclonic engine** around my arm. The compressed winds became invisible, yet they created a vacuum that devoured the surrounding air.
My arm appeared encased in warped glass, emitting a shrill whine that threatened to tear apart eardrums.
It was terrifying—and eerily calm.
The winds around my fist spun faster than sound itself, creating compressed, invisible wind blades that shredded the ship's wooden remains with mere proximity.
"Come," I whispered, the oppressive pressure around me now a source of strength.
"I'll show you how the wind harvests souls… without a blade."
I charged forward like a living storm.
My fist was no longer human—it had become the axis of invisible destruction.
I threw a punch at the nearest entity.
My body never touched it.
The wind pressure generated by the cyclonic engine detonated the spirit inches away, violet lightning mana exploding outward like shattered glass.
I didn't stop.
A twisting motion—
a wind-infused kick—
and several spirits were torn apart into scattered fragments.
The battle was overwhelming.
I moved so fast the spirits seemed frozen in place. Wood splintered. Mana detonated. I reaped them one after another.
But then… the true horror emerged.
Every time I destroyed one, the scattered mana reassembled faster than before. The spirits I crushed seconds ago rose again, their wings glowing brighter, their pressure heavier—as if they were feeding on my exhaustion.
Sweat poured down my face. My lungs burned. The raging wind around my arm began to weaken. My aura faded.
I had spent an enormous amount of power.
Yet their numbers hadn't decreased at all.
They were draining me.
I retreated, my back colliding with the broken mast of the ship. My breaths came in ragged gasps as sharp pain stabbed through my Dual Core.
I was at the brink of total depletion.
I stared at the countless entities closing in once more, their pale faces untouched by fatigue.
"…Damn it," I muttered bitterly.
"This is dangerous… isn't it?"
I wiped the blood from my lips as my vision blurred from exhaustion. At my current level, I couldn't defeat something that simply wouldn't die.
In that moment—when my body was on the verge of collapse—I made a desperate gamble.
If I couldn't kill them, I had to find what was sustaining them.
I gathered the last scraps of mana within my Dual Core and forced them violently toward my eyes, despite not having fully mastered this technique.
Agony flared as my eyes burned, and the world faded into dull shadows.
Except for one thing.
Thin violet threads of mana—like veins—extended from the spirits' feet, piercing through the ship's floor and sinking deep into the earth below.
"There… the source is beneath us!"
I condensed every remaining ounce of power into my right fist, wrapping it in violently rotating wind pressure.
I didn't aim at the spirits.
I struck the ground.
**Vacuum Burst!**
**BOOOOM!**
The ship's remains exploded upward, earth and debris erupting as a massive crater formed.
I fell into the pit.
As I brushed the dust from my face, I froze.
Before me—deep within the earth—lay something that did not belong to this world.
A shimmering botanical cocoon, the size of a giant beast's heart, forged from a substance resembling black diamond.
Its roots stretched in all directions like colossal nerves, connecting every tree in the forest… and every spirit above.
The cocoon pulsed.
With each beat, violet light surged outward, nourishing the entities on the surface.
I reached out to destroy it—but the moment I approached, a violent backlash erupted.
An ancient, tyrannical presence enveloped the cocoon, as if warning me that destroying it meant destroying the forest itself—or perhaps shattering the balance of the entire world.
"…It's not just a monster," I whispered in disbelief.
"It's the heart of this place."
I pulled my trembling hand back; the aura emanating from that diamond-like cocoon was far greater than what my current body could endure. But at that moment, I felt a searing heat inside my pocket… the core I had discovered deep within the ruins was pulsing wildly, like a starving beast that had finally found its prey.
"So… you're the one who will open this door for me?"
With great difficulty, I took out the core. It glowed with a faint light, but the instant it approached the black cocoon, strands of energy burst forth, wrapping themselves around the pulsating heart. What was happening was not a battle—it was **energy predation**.
I placed the core directly against the surface of the diamond cocoon. In that instant, the entire forest trembled. I heard the screams of the spirits above fade away as their power began to be forcibly drawn downward.
"Dual Core Absorption: Predator Mode!"
The core began to function like a converter—absorbing the violent violet energy from the heart of the forest, refining it, then channeling it directly into my body through my palm. It felt as though a river of ice and fire was surging through my veins. My Dual Core, which had been on the verge of depletion, began to expand and spin at an astonishing speed, devouring this ancient essence.
The pain was unbearable; it felt as if my bones were being reforged from scratch. Yet the power flooding into me was beyond description. My wind mana, once pale and weak, began to deepen in color, and the aura surrounding me grew denser and more stable.
The core did not destroy the cocoon entirely—it crushed its pride. It absorbed only the **surplus** of its power, the excess energy that had been sustaining those cursed spirits.
I stood within the crater, dust still swirling around me. I was no longer the exhausted mercenary I had been before. I looked at my hand, overflowing with power, then lifted my gaze toward the opening from which I had fallen.
"Now… let's see who the real nightmare is here."ز