Chapter 135: The Cave That Rejects All

The Mugong-wielding Young Lord + Follow Chapter 135 Chapter 10.

Dragging things out was never any fun.

‘Variables are known for changing when you least expect them to.’

Rayrn ran without rest until he reached the coordinates.

Blocking his path was a massive cave.

Although it was a cave, the inside was bright.

Whoosh

The interesting part was that even though it was clearly bright, he could not see inside.

It was not dark, yet it was bright.

It was not so bright that it would blind him, yet he could not see.

“Still, it’s peculiar.”

Intrigued, Rayrn pushed his body inside.

Thud.

“Oh?”

As if refusing his entry, the wall repelled Rayrn.

Had he not stabilized his center of gravity in that instant, his body would have collapsed.

An illusion.

Or perhaps a physical or magical trap.

He had expected such things to block his path.

But he had not considered that the dungeon itself would reject him.

“Hmm… This is a new one.”

It was certainly not internal energy.

Nor was it Aura or Mana.

“It’s mixed, but that’s superficial. The foundation is Mana, but… no, that’s not it. This is interesting.”

Mana had at least been a possibility.

Perhaps it had been twisted or mutated in a way Rayrn did not know.

But it was too sparse.

The place was filled with a power other than Mana.

“Let’s see.”

If he weren’t curious about new powers, he wouldn’t be Rayrn.

‘Because knowledge is power.’

He immediately scoured the Northern Mountain Range.

Wherever he saw a monster.

“Humanoids have similar vital points. It doesn’t matter if they don’t, either.”

Poke. Press.

He neutralized their vital points or broke their limbs to capture them, then threw the monsters directly into the cave.

-Keeek!

Squeal!

Boom! Crash!

Every single one of them was bounced back out.

It wasn’t just a matter of losing their balance.

They were sent flying, bleeding as if they had crashed into an iron wall.

“Oh. It’s even more violent toward monsters. It feels like it’s rejecting them entirely.”

It rejected monsters more violently than it did humans.

That explained why monsters never came here.

-Kreeeak!

As he stood still, the monsters began to read the situation and left, as if they desperately wanted to be anywhere but there!

“So, it rejects everything. If it’s a property that is incompatible with monsters… there’s only one thing it could be.”

There was only one kind of power like this.

Divine power.

The power held by gods.

Divine power.

Further explanation was unnecessary.

Since divine power changed according to the god’s attributes, it was difficult to group them all together.

“It’s not that I’ve never felt divine power before. But something like this is a first.”

The important thing was which god this divine power in front of him belonged to.

As a son of the Count’s house, there was no way Rayrn had never seen a priest.

Earl Ofern had even invited priests to treat Rayrn.

He had invited all sorts of gods related to healing: healing, earth, and sun.

‘A father’s love.’

Considering the circumstances of the Ofern Count’s house at the time, calling in priests must have cost a significant amount of money.

Yet, Earl Ofern had invited them silently and without complaint.

He must have called them in whenever he could afford it.

It must have been the Earl’s—Rayrn’s father—own way of expressing his paternal love.

Thanks to that, Rayrn had seen not only those priests but also many who traveled for pilgrimages.

‘Every one of them was pure. Even those who served gods classified as evil were not dirty.’

Their common trait was that they were all pure.

Though their characteristics and types differed, they were all pure.

“But this is completely different. Can an artificial thing be divine? Hmm…”

Whatever was in front of him, it wasn’t that.

What kind of god’s divine power could this be?

It felt artificial, yet it was pure.

Then, it turned dark again.

It was a darkness different from Demonic Mana.

It was pure darkness.

Even Rayrn knew of such cases from ancient texts.

It was one of three things.

“Either it’s a forgotten god. Or they are gods who wish to hide their power in this world. Or it’s a minor god…”

Regardless, it was divine power.

The important point was that the divine power before him was refusing Rayrn’s entry.

It looked like the divine power was incredibly thick.

Even if left alone, the entrance would likely hold for at least several hundred years.

He had come excitedly thinking there would be a variable.

‘It’s a variable, but probably not a major one. Or maybe it’s not even a variable at all.’

It wasn’t the kind of variable Rayrn was looking for.

He had no reason to concern himself with things that would happen several hundred years from now.

But.

His gut told him something.

‘I have to get in.’

He felt it would be a shame to leave it as it was.

It wasn’t because he coveted the divine power.

There was something inside.

Because of that, Rayrn could not turn his heels.

‘Intuition becomes more important the higher one’s level gets. Let’s see.’

Rayrn did not give up and circled the cave.

Because there were no monsters, the surroundings were silent.

“It’s quite large. No side paths.”

No matter where he looked, there were no flaws.

There wasn’t even a hole-in-the-wall he could squeeze through.

It meant he couldn’t use any cheap tricks.

So he had to win at the remaining entrance.

“Shall we see how much it can withstand?”

Vroom—!

Rayrn summoned his Aura with all his might.

As if to perform an ensemble, the circle in his heart began to react.

After hunting the Hell Spider, the circle he called his middle Dantian began to resonate with the Dantian in his lower body.

When Rayrn reached the 5th Class, that resonance became even greater.

Magic and Mugong were different.

But they were the same in that they used Mana to exert power close to a miracle.

In the end, the difference was just in how they handled Mana.

It wasn’t impossible for these two to combine.

“Haaap!”

He went beyond a swordsman’s sword-qi and was on the verge of Sword Kang.

There was a tiny gap, but to anyone, it looked like Sword Kang.

In this world, it was the Aura of an Aura Master, the so-called perfected Aura.

It was a level beyond that.

‘Still unfinished. But it’s almost there. I suppose that means I’m close to Hwagyeong.’

It was an unfinished power, but Rayrn did not feel impatient.

Instead, he felt satisfied.

As his level of Magic increased, his understanding of Aura also rose.

His understanding of Aura increased, and the more he resonated with Magic, the higher his level of Magic climbed.

There was no reason to be impatient.

With every moment, every passing hour, his understanding was rising.

He learned something new every time he studied magic circles, used magic, or taught Mugong.

It would be strange to be impatient.

“The rest…”

Goooooo—!

He forced the energy of his unfinished Sword Kang to rise.

Whoosh—!

The moment the resonance of his circles reached its peak, his Aura became complete, albeit momentarily.

He had been waiting for this moment.

“Haaap!”

Crash!

He swung his sword toward the cave.

Krrrrrr—!

In that instant, a white energy surged.

The white energy radiating from the cave momentarily focused its power.

It was to block Rayrn’s Aura!

‘It reacted! As expected…’

The creator of the cave likely never imagined that someone would try to break it with such reckless, overwhelming power.

They must have thought someone would bring a key or solve the problems they had set up to enter.

But sometimes, such primitive methods…

‘Are the most effective ones. When the body is weak, the head suffers.’

There were times when it excelled over any other means.

Rayrn judged its power by the cave’s reaction.

The power imbued in the cave was immense.

It was enough to make him feel that Sword Kang alone might not be enough.

A power strong enough to block even Sword Kang, which was said to cut through everything!

However.

“That’s not all there is to it. Heh!”

He began to chant magic spells endlessly.

[Strength].

His power became stronger.

[Haste].

His time was momentarily accelerated.

His agility increased, his mind cleared, and the energies in his surroundings poured into Rayrn.

He amplified his power by every available means.

-Shall I help?

“The price is for later!”

-Sounds good.

He was granted the power of the Fire Spirit that had been guarding his side.

Vrummmmm—!

A massive power boiled over.

The power of flame that entered through Rayrn was quickly loaded onto his Sword Kang.

Every bit of power Rayrn could muster right now was poured into his sword.

“Haaaaaa!”

Rayrn poured all the power he had raised into it, as if hurling it.

Toward the entrance of the cave!

Toward the massive power blocking him!

KRAAAAAAAAANG—!

A massive explosion occurred.

The white light turned into a blinding, radiant white glow, as if it were burning.

Vrummmmmmm—!

A massive storm of power arose.

Rayrn did not avoid the storm but met it head-on.

‘It really is pure.’

He actually enjoyed the power etched beneath the storm of power.

It was violent, but there were pure energies within it.

Rayrn accepted those powers.

1000—

Pure energies flowed through his entire body toward his Dantian.

Just like when he had done the Marrow Cleansing for the first time.

It felt as if the energies in his body were becoming clear.

In reality, the small amounts of impurities accumulated in his body were completely disappearing.

‘Incredible.’

Rayrn had already cleansed his body’s impurities once.

By undergoing Transcendence, impurities didn’t accumulate easily.

To think it would wash away even the few impurities he had left!

It meant the power contained within was that pure.

Crackle—

The moment all that power poured out, creating the storm and then fading away!

Whoosh—!

The closed cave opened its entrance.

“Oh…”

The inside was larger than Rayrn had imagined.

‘They folded the space. Is this some kind of pocket dimension? Is such a thing possible?’

Rayrn had thought that by forcibly breaking the entrance, the functions inside might disappear.

But that worry was unnecessary.

Every space inside was revealing itself without any distortion.

“Shall we go?”

Rayrn stepped inside.

***

While Rayrn was pushing his way into the nameless cave.

The Black Mages who had gathered over a long time were also about to make a single major decision.

To survive, Black Mages were those who moved in fragmented cells by nature.

The same went for Necromancers.

It was not well known, but they had gathered.

It was only about 10 years ago.

Before that, it had been strictly fragmented cells, much like the memory of the Black Mage Rayrn had swallowed.

However, they, too, sought change.

They followed the ways of the Magic Tower.

They called their leader the Tower Master, placed elders beneath him, and established an actual organizational form with executives below them.

It was a method that looked complex at first glance, but the Black Mages adapted well.

There were those who wanted to remain as fragmented cells until the end.

But even they knew how to utilize the system while remaining fragmented.

Only the leadership needed to gather and move.

That was the method they had created.

Those who had gathered were confident in their power.

But they were not overconfident.

‘Did history not prove it?’

Countless Black Mages and Necromancers had met miserable ends after overestimating their power and rushing in.

Every time that happened, they had no choice but to hide deeper into the darkness.

To keep from dying.

To survive.

Having experienced the history, they dared not overestimate their power.

Instead, they strove to coldly assess their own power and desperately chip away at their enemies’ power.

Utilizing every available means!

The situation seemed quite successful.

Quite a few of their experiments had concluded successfully as well.

However.

“We are particularly blocked in Malexia.”

“How absurd. Simply absurd.”

Malexia, where Rayrn was, was the problem.

The Black Mage forces were being whittled away every time they sent them.

Yet, Malexia was a place they could not ignore.

“Hmm…”