Return of the S-class Young Master

Level B Dungeon: Monster Maze

What was good and what was evil?

What was conscience?

The moment Cielo stepped into the dungeon created by Rito, all of these lingering questions inside her vanished—as if they were never inside him at all. As soon as he felt the soft ground beneath his shoes, the space warped around him in a blink of an eye.

Gone was the misty, dark forest around him, replaced by a huge maze-like garden. No matter how he tilted his head, the sky seemed far away from his reach. Surrounded by walls of grass and dozens of passageway choices, Cielo grinned.

“Rito, this is useless for someone with God’s Eyes.” A pair of electric blue eyes gleamed as he raced like a madman in the right direction. “But would it not be a waste if I will not chew this course well before I swallow it whole?”

Having been blessed by the omnipotent God’s Eyes, Cielo needed not to dwell so much time inside the first floor of a level-b dungeon. But the purpose of the training was to strip him of his conscience and the only thing that could answer such purpose was to kill all the living things inside the dungeon.

Ping!

[DUNGEON LEVEL: B]

Ping!

[DUNGEON NAME: MONSTER MAZE]

Information notification bars appeared before Cielo one at a time. They vanished as soon as he absorbed the details. With his hands in his pockets, he trudged deeper into the maze.

Aside from the sound of his breathing, nothing else could be heard—it was as if all sounds seized to exist but him.

“Got you,” whispered Cielo. Without turning around, he raised his right hand on instinct to his right direction. Palm facing to the right direction, a shrieking three headed red snake appeared on the spot after passing through the wall of greenery. He needed not to utter the words of death for the middle-class beast on his way to him.

The moment the God’s Eyes met with the first head’s eyes, blood spluttered on Cielo’s shirt.

“Tsk.” Wiping the blood off from his cheek, he dropped the handkerchief as he moved forward. Not bothering to look back at the lump of flesh and blood he left without remorse.

From the three-headed snake to the six-limbed polar bear, Cielo did not show any mercy. Almost every turn he made, a monster from a variety of sizes and levels would appear to attack him.

By the sixth monster, a scaled gorilla, Cielo staggered. His line of vision started to narrow as his head throbbed.

Darkness started to creep from the corners of his line of vision, making him cover his left eye.

Hissing from the pain, Cielo took a step back—the first dodge he had ever made ever since he entered the Monster Maze.

“Kekekeke!”

A monster with a silhouette of an old woman looked at Cielo, revealing her frog face.

Croak!

The monster grinned—showing a set of crooked fangs—before it leaped toward Cielo with his claws extended.

“Sly frog,” murmured Cielo. He immediately covered the lower half of his face with his arm when he noticed a mist of green that surrounded the frog hag monster.

Dodging to the left, Cielo coughed upon the suffocating feeling brought by the poisoned fume in his chest cavity.

‘This cannot last. I must end it now… but my eyes… it is still throbbing,’ Cielo though with his one eye closed while the other could hardly maintain focus.

Dodging had become harder over the course of time for Cielo. Realizing that the limit of his body aligned to the God’s Eyes were reaching its limit, he knew deep down that he must surpass his boundaries.

“Kekekeke!”

Closing his eyes as soon as the frog hag monster jumped toward his blind side, Cielo rolled to the other side of the maze hallway.

‘Focus!’ Cielo chanted at the back of his mind. But to dodge and expand his limitations at the same time was something harder than he initially thought.

“I will kill your most important one,” said a raspy voice from his left side. Because of this, Cielo, who was about to leap to his left side went still, giving the enemy the opportunity to slash his back with its poisonous claws.

Ping!

[WARNING! LEVEL B POISON ENTERED THE CONTRACTORS’S BODY!]

Ping!

[SIDE EFFECTS: NAUSEA AND FAINTING]

A pair of notification bars appeared in front of Cielo even with his eyes closed. The information entered his mind. It was as if his thought was conquered by the God’s Eyes.

Bloodlust.

Cielo felt a compound sense of bloodlust above him.

Bang!

Rolling to his right, he immediately stood up and dashed to the other side—eyes completely closed.

“You said you will take an important person from me,” said Cielo, “You should have not opened your mouth. Maybe, just maybe, you could have lived.”

A pair of bright blue eyes snapped open. A wisp of azure aura surrounded the sweating Cielo as if all the colors of the skies scattered around him in a turbulent embrace.

Meeting the crazed gaze of the frog-faced old hag a meter away from him, Cielo grinned. “Die.”

Splash!

A flood of crimson ink erupted in place of the once cackling frog-faced monster.

A splitting headache ensued right after the command left Cielo’s chapped lips. Despite the hazy vision, he turned around to head at the center of the maze where the door to the next floor would lead—this was also the place where the boss of the first floor was waiting for him. Simply put, Cielo could not go to the higher level without defeating the floor monster boss first.

As he drew closer to the center of the maze, the number of the monsters dwindled. And on the next turn, a meadow welcomed him where a big stone pride was situated. On it was a sleeping white tiger that almost occupied the entire stone surface.

The tiger got three tails, wiggling them as it slept.

The sound of the twig breaking as he walked alerted the big cat, waking the enemy. A pair of predatory golden eyes opened, meeting a pair of dimmed blue eyes.

“Hello, big guy,” Cielo greeted with a smile. “You would not let me pass even if I ask you to, right?”

A low growl answered him instead.

It backed away, as if it was reluctant to engage in a fight. But the moment Cielo took a step forward into the meadow, it released a threatening growl for the intruder.

Cielo sighed. His line of vision started to get worse. Every time he focused on the enemy, a stabbing pain would wriggle in his eye sockets. The throbbing of his head did not leave, it only got worse. Though his body was still in good shape, his mental state was pulling him down….

….because of the voices that started to infuse in his train of thought.

Voices of the departed, no, voice of the grieving people he held dear rang inside his mind, making him wince and flinch from time to time.

-Cielo, take your sister with you. And remember, survive!

-I said let go!

-Brother Cielo is always the best in the whole wide world for me.

-Run! Run away, Son! Run and never look back!

Cielo shook his head, as if by doing so would make the grieving voices go away. He opened his arms wide to the growling and pacing three-tailed colossal white tiger. “Why won’t you attack me?”

The boss roared at Cielo yet it moved to the side, revealing a portal to the second floor of the dungeon. This earned the tiger a frown from Cielo.

As if an answer to Cielo, soft cries of infant tigers resonated in the meadow.

“You want to preserve their lives by letting me pass.”

Growl!

A dry burst of laughter escaped from Cielo’s lips. Looking up at the artificial skies of the maze, he covered his eyes and laughed some more. “So this is what Rito wanted me to learn. What is conscience? What is the boundary of good and evil? What it takes to take the Black Serpent’s malice?” A soulless grin stretched on his lips. “You are indeed merciless, Rito, you bastard.”

Hands in his pockets, Cielo sauntered to the door. Without looking at the direction of the vigilant three-tailed tiger, he walked past it in calm stride.

Growling at him the more he grew near to the neast, the three-tailed white tiger was ready to launch an attack should Cielo decide to turn around and trick it. The instinct of a mother was a driving force for the colossal monster, displaying a tumultuous deadly around it—ready to attack Cielo and ready to protect its young ones.

‘The meaning of conscience. The thread of being a hero and a villain. The boundary of righteousness and greediness. This is it,’ Cielo thought.

Taking the last step into the door, he whispered. “Die.”

Then there was silence.

Gone was the growling affection of a parent. Gone were the cries of the newborn monsters. Only silence remained.

Unbeknownst to Cielo, his shadow that showed the silhouette of a young man was replaced by a gigantic shadow of snake.