Chapter 7
A lone man with messy red and blue hair walked through my entrance as if he owned the place.
He didn’t panic at the first spike pit. He didn’t flinch at the warning scratches on the walls. He simply stepped aside from each trap with lazy precision, demolishing my first‑floor monsters with blasts of what looked very much like holy magic, and kept walking.
To be honest, I was outraged.
And, under that, a little bit afraid.
When he reached my golem‑ghoul sector, the fight finally became something resembling fair. The hulking golems slashed at him with their metal fingers, forcing him to dodge into other attacks. For the first time, he took real hits. Blood smeared the stone as he stumbled, breathing hard.
Then, to my horror, he reached into his pack and pulled out what looked exactly like a full healing potion.
From one of my chests.
I watched, numb, as he uncorked it and drank. Light flared around him. Torn flesh knit together. The exhaustion faded from his eyes.
He was becoming genuinely dangerous to my dungeon.
To me.
By the time he pushed into Makkura’s territory, he was my first true threat – the first person to make my core feel like it was skipping beats.
He stepped into the boss arena and did not pause to gape at the towering pillars, the ghost‑blue flames, or the shadows coiling overhead.
He just looked up.
Straight into Makkura’s face.
The wyvern tensed, ghostly wings rustling high above. He could feel it too: this man was a worthy opponent.
Makkura dived.
He dropped like a living spear of black flame, jaws spread wide, blue fire licking between his fangs. It should have been overwhelming. It had been overwhelming for everyone else.
This man met him with the sharp edge of a blade blazing white.
“By the power of God,” he roared, voice ringing through the chamber, “heed my words, pass judgment upon this foul being, and purify him!”
Light erupted from the sword in a blinding pillar. Makkura twisted, but not fast enough. The beam tore through one of his hind legs. Scales, bone, and ghost‑blue blood exploded in a spray across the floor.
Makkura crashed down, screaming, then forced himself back into the air on three limbs. Ground combat was no longer an option. With one leg missing, staying airborne was the only way he could still fight at all – and even that was barely possible.
He didn’t stand a chance alone.
I felt my terror spike.
“Kuroe, now!” I yelled through the system.
In my core view, the elder lich straightened from where he’d been endlessly polishing his staves.
“At once, my liege,” he said, and vanished.
A ripple of warped space opened above the arena. Kuroe stepped out of it, skeletal robes billowing, four staves blazing with crimson fire.
He didn’t hesitate.
All four bony hands moved at once as he chanted, magic circles flaring into existence around Makkura’s ruined leg.
“Reforge the broken bone, restore the sundered flesh,” Kuroe intoned, his voice echoing with layered, undead resonance. “By my authority as Hell’s Lich – mend.”
A brilliant red‑white glow consumed the torn stump. When it faded, Makkura stood on four legs again, panting, eyes wide with shock.
“Thank you, my friend,” he murmured, voice low and solemn.
“You are very welcome, Lord of the Pitch‑Black Hell!” Kuroe replied in his usual pompous tone, bowing in mid‑air as if he wasn’t hovering over a death arena.
The battle that followed was nothing like the easy massacres I’d grown used to.
It was a war.
Makkura rained down torrents of ghost‑blue flame, strafing the arena in sweeping arcs. The intruder rolled through the fire, his holy blade flaring to life again and again as he carved out safe pockets of scorched stone. Kuroe layered hexes, barriers, and skeletal summons over the field, his four staves never once still.
The man answered with miracles.
Each clash of sword against scale sent ripples of light and shadow through the air. Holy magic flared against necromantic fire. Makkura’s breath met shining shields that cracked, splintered, and re‑formed. Kuroe’s curses slid over armour glowing with divine protection. Every spell, every swing, every explosion left someone bleeding or burning.
Time blurred.
They fought until even my undead bosses looked exhausted. Makkura’s scales were cracked and blackened, one wing hanging in tatters. Kuroe’s robes were shredded, his bones charred and splintered, blue flames guttering in his eye sockets. The intruder’s armour was dented and scorched; blood soaked his clothes beneath the glow of healing light.
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And still, none of them backed down.
I watched, numb, as they pushed each other to their limits. My floors shook from the force of their blows. Chunks of stone rained from the ceiling. Trap runes flickered under the strain, some winking out entirely.
Then, at last, something changed.
The intruder staggered, dropping to one knee. His sword point dug into the stone. For a heartbeat, I dared to hope.
He raised his head.
A wild light burned in his eyes.
A notification slammed into my vision.
(- Individual [[Marakama]] has activated the SKILL [[Self‑Destruct]]. -)
“What the hell is Self‑Destruct!?” I yelled, panic spiking so hard my interface glitched.
“The ability is a last‑resort skill,” the DMI answered at once, maddeningly calm. “The user sacrifices themself to unleash a devastating explosion of raw mana. He appears to be attempting to clear the dungeon in a single strike.”
“Cancel it! Turn it off! Do something!” I screamed.
“I cannot interfere with a registered adventurer skill,” the DMI replied. “Please prepare for impact.”
Raw mana roared out of Marakama’s body.
Light swallowed the arena in a single, deafening instant. It wasn’t just bright; it was absolute. Every corridor, every room, every crack in both of my floors filled with blinding white radiance.
For a heartbeat, there was no dungeon.
There was only light.
The shockwave tore through my labyrinth.
Walls shattered. Floors buckled. Pillars crumbled into dust. Traps, sigils, and painstakingly placed decorations disintegrated like sand in a storm. I felt each collapse as a physical blow, like someone taking a hammer to my core.
Then, at last, the light faded.
Silence crashed down.
Where there had once been cleverly laid corridors, lava channels, and towering boss chambers, there was rubble. Collapsed tunnels. Exposed rock. Broken, flickering lamps and fractured bricks scattered like bones.
At the epicentre of the devastation lay a single, charred corpse.
Marakama.
He’d died in the blast he’d created.
My mobs respawned automatically, blinking back into existence as my systems struggled to stabilise – but the walls, the floors, the structure… all of that stayed broken.
Everything I had built, every careful trap, every themed hallway, every chest and lamp and decorative bit of brickwork… gone.
“Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!”
My scream reverberated through the ruined labyrinth, raw and wordless. Rage boiled up inside me, hot and molten as the lava that used to run through my second floor.
Notifications flickered at the edge of my vision.
I ignored them at first, too furious to care, until one number caught my eye.
My level had skyrocketed.
From the sheer volume of mana and damage involved in that explosion, I had shot all the way up to level 150. My PT counter spun like a broken odometer, stopping just shy of one billion.
It did not make me feel better.
If anything, the sight of all those points with nowhere left to spend them made the anger worse.
The rage burned through me.
It felt like something inside my core cracked open.
Another notification appeared.
(SKILL [[Respawn]] has evolved into the greater SKILL [[Time‑Space]].)
I froze.
“DMI,” I whispered. “Explain. Now.”
“The skill [[Time‑Space]] is an evolved form of [[Respawn]],” it said. “It allows for large‑scale temporal and spatial restoration of dungeon structures at an extreme PT cost.”
“In normal words?” I demanded.
“In essence,” the DMI said, “you may rewind the dungeon itself.”
Hope flared.
“Cost?” I asked tightly.
“Approximately nine hundred and ninety‑five million PT for a full dual‑floor restoration,” it replied. “Current reserves: just under one billion PT.”
It would drain almost everything I had earned from that hellish explosion.
I did not hesitate.
“Do it,” I ordered.
Time‑Space activated.
My PT plummeted, numbers free‑falling until they stabilised just above five thousand. A deep, thrumming pressure rippled through my core. Blue light – not the harsh white of Marakama’s blast, but a cool, steady glow – spread out from my chamber, racing along shattered halls and collapsed shafts.
The rubble lifted.
Broken bricks flew back into place. Cracked walls fused seamlessly. Lamps reassembled themselves, glass reforming and metal bands slithering back into shape. Lava bubbles rewound, surging back into their channels. Chests reappeared whole, lids closing over scattered gold and cracked crystals that were suddenly pristine again.
Every stone, every trap rune, every carefully placed decoration reversed the moment of its destruction and snapped back into the form I remembered.
My dungeon came back together in a single, breathtaking wave.
My happy place.
My comfort zone.
My kingdom.
The restored words floated in front of my vision like a promise:
[[ The Labyrinth of Yuuno ]]
I barely had a second to bask in the sight before another notification hammered across my interface.
(- [[Prestige Activated]]: All SKILL(s) will evolve. LEVEL and PT will reset. -)
“Wait, wha—”
The world jerked.
Darkness swallowed my senses.
When I came to, I was back in my core chamber. The dungeon looked the same – fully restored, lava flowing, lamps burning, bosses sleeping in their lairs – but my level counter sat at 1, and my PT total hovered around a depressing five thousand.
I stared at my status window.
Then I did the only reasonable thing.
I ranted.
For a full hour, I screamed at the system, at the DMI, at whatever cosmic programmer thought “reset everything you worked for” was a fun reward mechanic. I called them useless, spiteful, bug‑ridden AI. I threatened to uninstall the universe.
The DMI, very wisely, did not respond.
Eventually, I ran out of creative swear words and emotional energy.
My notifications patiently waited.
Sighing, I opened them.
(- New distinct‑SKILL(s) unlocked: [[Parallel Minds]], [[Dungeon Master Lv.2]], [[All‑Seeing Eye]], [[Time‑Space]] (greater skill), [[Odyssey]], [[Necromancer]]. -)
I stared at the list.
My old skills, evolved.
New ones, ominous and powerful, slotted into place.
Prestige hadn’t just taken everything.
It had rebuilt me into something far more dangerous.
Deep in my core, something cold and determined settled into place.
“Fine,” I murmured, eyes sweeping over my beautifully restored labyrinth. “If that’s how this world wants to play…”
I felt every floor. Every trap. Every monster. Every boss who had fought and bled for me.
“…then let’s see what the Labyrinth of Yuuno can really become.”
(- New TITLE [[Hero Killer]] -)