Free Web NovelChapter 121: The Team Forms
The rooftop was quiet at six in the morning.
Kai activated the Storm Sovereign Cloak, and the wind that had been moving across the building’s surface changed direction, drawn toward the fabric before dispersing. The material shifted, the feather patterns moving along the silver-black surface, and the agility boost wasn’t exactly speed.
It felt more like the air had decided to cooperate.
He took three steps across the rooftop. The distance those three steps covered was wrong in a way that required recalibration.
"Yeah," he said to nothing in particular. "That’s ridiculous."
His phone produced seven notifications in the span of four seconds. He already knew what that meant. He opened the group chat.
Kei: New C-Rank just appeared.
Rin: I have a bad feeling about this.
Kei: That’s because you’re boring.
Rin: That’s because you’re stupid.
Kei: Same thing.
Lina: It really isn’t.
Dorn: Crystal Canyon. Someone sent a screenshot.
The image loaded. A canyon filled with massive crystal formations at different heights and angles, the surfaces catching light and distributing it in every direction simultaneously, the whole space looking less like a dungeon and more like something that had been designed to make people stop walking.
Kei: We should do it.
Rin: No.
Kei: Yes.
Rin: No.
Kei: Yes.
Lina: Both of you stop.
Kei: You’re not my supervisor.
Lina: Unfortunately.
Kai watched several more exchanges arrive and then.
Kei: Kai?
Kai: What?
Dorn: You want to run it?
The chat produced four messages simultaneously.
Kei: HE REPLIED.
Rin: We’re doomed.
Lina: Definitely doomed.
Kei: Worth it.
Kai put the phone away. Then took it back out.
Kai: Sure.
Kei: LET’S GO!
Rin: Why did I agree to this group?
Lina: Nobody knows.
Dorn: Meet in thirty.
Kai deactivated the cloak and went downstairs to get ready.
...
They gathered outside the gate district thirty-two minutes later.
Kai arrived to find Kei standing with both arms raised in a welcoming gesture that was not directed at anyone specifically and was simply being offered to the general area.
Rin was standing three meters away from Kei with the expression of someone who had decided this was the correct operational distance. Lina was checking her gear. Dorn watched Kei.
He looked tired already.
Kei spotted Kai.
"Rank One finally arrives," he announced, at a volume appropriate for addressing a crowd. There was no crowd. There was a street.
Kai walked past him.
Kei looked deeply offended. "You were supposed to appreciate the introduction."
"It wasn’t a good introduction."
"It was a fantastic introduction."
"It wasn’t."
"It absolutely was." Kei fell into step beside him without being invited. "See? You’re already engaging. This is going well."
"I regret everything," Kai said.
"That’s the spirit."
Lina sighed. Kei looked at the sky. Rin walked on the other side of the group at a distance that communicated she was technically present but reserved the right to deny involvement.
Then Sera arrived from the cross street. Several hunters nearby recognized her immediately and they began whispering.
Queen of Light.
The Valkyrie.
The Shining Hunter.
Sera acknowledged them with a small nod. She was used to it by now.
Kei looked at her and then chuckled. "Yeah."
Kai looked at him. "What?" ƒreewebɳovel.com
Kei continued nodding. "No, no. It makes sense."
"What makes sense."
Kei pointed at both of them. Not subtly. With full commitment to the gesture.
"You two."
Silence. Sera immediately started laughing. Rin covered her face. Lina found something to look at on the other side of the street. Kei became suddenly and intensely interested in his boots.
Kai looked at all of them.
"I hate every one of you," he said.
"Good," Kei said. "Friendship achieved."
They started moving toward the gate district.
The district was busier than usual.
More hunters moving between registration points than the standard morning numbers, more guild representatives positioned at the corners watching the incoming traffic. And a few reporters moved through the crowd looking for interviews.
The first new C-rank gates since the phase reset had drawn the kind of attention that the F-rank and E-rank gates had never produced because the difference in difficulty meant a different category of hunter was showing up.
People recognized Kai before he had gone twenty steps inside the district. A younger hunter spotted him first. His eyes widened, and then he immediately nudged his friend. Within seconds, the whispers started.
"That’s him."
"Rank One."
"The guy who cleared Sky Fortress."
"The Divine Maze Hunter."
He kept walking.
He was used to it now. It came with the ranking, and the ranking came with being strong, and being strong was useful, so he tolerated the rest of it. Mostly.
Kei was watching the crowd react. "You know," he said, "most people try to get this kind of recognition."
"Most people are welcome to it," Kai said.
Dorn laughed.
Sera, from slightly behind them, said, "He’s been like this since I’ve known him. You get used to it."
"How long does that take?" Lina asked.
"I’ll let you know when it happens," Sera said.
They reached the gate, and then one hunter looked at Kai. Then he looked at the gate before immediately changing lines.
"I’ll wait for the next run."
His friend nodded. "Good idea."
Kai’s lips twitched at this, but he didn’t say anything as he and the others stopped at the front of the gate. The fracture in the air was large, and the light coming through it was distinctive, blue-crystal tones that were visibly different from the standard gate coloration.
The interior was partially visible through the threshold. Even from outside, it communicated scale.
The system notification appeared.
[C-Rank Dungeon Found.]
[C-Rank Dungeon: Crystal Canyon.]
[Recommended Level: 42.]
Kei stared at the notification. Then at Kai. Then back at the notification.
"You outlevel this by ten levels," he said.
"Twelve," Kai said.
Kei closed his eyes briefly. "That somehow makes it worse."
"He’s not wrong," Sera said.
"He really isn’t," Rin said.
Dorn looked at the gate. "Does that mean it’s going to be easy?"
"For him," Lina said. "For the rest of us, it’s still a C-rank dungeon."
Kei pointed at this distinction as if it were important. "This is a valid point. We are normal hunters. We have normal levels. This is not a small dungeon."
"Nobody said it was a small dungeon," Rin said.
"I’m managing expectations," Kei said.
"You’re managing nothing."
"I’m managing a lot."
"Ready?" he said.
Nobody objected. They went through.
The world on the other side of the threshold stopped everyone for a full three seconds. Massive crystal formations stretched toward the sky.
Blue.
Silver.
Purple.
Light reflected everywhere.
The entire canyon shimmered.
A glowing river wound through the valley floor.
Even Kei stopped talking.
That by itself communicated something.
"Okay," he said, after a long moment.
Nobody argued with him.
Not even Rin.
Kei was looking at the canyon walls where the crystal formations caught the light and sent it in forty directions at once.
Lina had her hand on her weapon, but she was also looking at the nearest crystal cluster with the expression of someone trying to work out the geometry of it. Rin had gone quiet in the way she went quiet when she was mapping something.
Sera was standing beside Kai and looking at the canyon floor where the luminous river bent around a formation and disappeared.
"Whatever made this place," she said, "it wasn’t thinking about us."
Something moved at the far end of the canyon. A silhouette emerging from behind a large formation, the shape of it looked wrong like it had grown from the canyon itself.
[Crystal Drake.]
[Level 41.]
Drake’s head came up. The sound it produced echoed through the canyon, and the crystals picked it up and distributed it, the roar arriving from every direction simultaneously rather than a single source.
Shapes began emerging between the formations at different distances. Eyes catching the light, they moved like creatures that knew every inch of the canyon. ƒгeeweɓn૦vel.com
The dungeon was waking up.
Kei expression shifted from impressed tourist to something more focused. He rolled his shoulders. Rin had her weapon drawn without any particular ceremony.
Lina adjusted her stance with the small, efficient adjustments of someone who had been doing this long enough that the preparation was automatic.
Kei activated his skill, and the Pulse Fist output built at his hands, quiet and ready. Sera spun her spear once in the way she spun it when she was confirming the weight was where it should be.
Kai drew the Fractured Blade.
The Crystal Drake lowered its body, crystal plates shifting along its spine as it gathered itself, and the canyon floor cracked slightly beneath its feet from the weight of the preparation.
Then it charged.
The luminous river bent the light around it as it came, and the crystal formations on either side caught the reflection and sent it everywhere, the Drake multiplied in every surface simultaneously, the whole canyon full of its image.
Kai stepped forward to meet it.
And smiled.
