Her eyes immediately drew his attention, a warm, shimmering gold that seemed to have a gentle glow of its own. After a moment, he took in the rest: dark hair flowing past her shoulders, a simple white gown, and accessories of gold at her throat and upper arm.

Dominic stared at her blankly.

She was tall, taller than he’d expected, though he wasn’t really sure what he was expecting. She stood confidently, her weight evenly distributed and her shoulders relaxed.

Her white garment draped gracefully from one shoulder, secured at the waist with a wide gold clasp, and reached to mid-thigh on one side. The other side flowed longer.

Dominic, just nineteen years old, had only a moment ago survived a near-death experience and had just encountered a supernatural system of mysterious origin.

She glanced around the dungeon slowly and thoughtfully, noticing how strange the air felt where the wraith had vanished.

His torch still flickered on the cold stone floor, casting shadows on the dark ceiling. The empty corridor stretched out behind her, where four sets of boots had once been. Then she looked back at him.

"You’re the summoner," she said, her voice calm and even.

"Yes, I’m Dominic Kane," he replied, managing to sound steadier than he felt.

She took a moment to really observe him, as if gauging whether he’d be a good fit for something.

"Theresa Moon," she introduced herself.

[ LIFE-LINK ACTIVE: SHARED FATE]

[SUBJECT: THERESA MOON]

[TITLE: DEAN OF HELION ]

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Theresa’s golden eyes briefly flicked to his face, as if she felt the bond click into place.

"Convenient," she murmured. "The ones who left." Her golden eyes briefly glanced toward the corridor. "They did this deliberately."

"Yeah, it seems they did," he replied.

She looked at him with a mixture of grim, cold understanding.

"I see," she said.

After a brief pause filled with a tense silence, a beastial sound resounded in the dungeon, breaking the awkwardness in the air.

Both turned around, and down the corridor, the dungeon monsters were starting to reappear; they respawned after some time had passed.

Dominic knew it, but he had no energy to care until now. The air thickened twenty meters away, dark mana slowly pulling itself back together with patient intent.

This time, there were two wraiths.

Tensed by the sudden change, Dominic took a step back.

Confident and more experienced, Theresa stood her ground. Smiling at how Dominic was acting, he reminded her of the beginning of her journey, long before she reached her current level.

Sighing, she raised one hand, almost lazily, and he felt a warmth that settled over his skin like a second covering, dense, solid, and pressing in from all sides without discomfort. His clothes felt heavier.

"Stay close. We’re leaving now," she said, without looking at him. The confidence radiating from her was pretty strong, as if the wraiths stood no chance at all.

Then, without further delay, she stepped forward.

The moment the first wraith reached her, she used her amplification on herself.

The air around her arms visibly compressed, light bending at the edges of her skin. She caught the wraith’s strike on her forearm, and it dissolved on contact, dark mana scattering as if it had made a costly mistake.

The second wraith tried to flank her.

She turned smoothly, already moving, and her open palm struck at it with a speed that defied expectations for her size. No sound of impact, just a sharp, violent crack as the air split open.

The kinetic force continued past the wraith’s dissolution, punching through the space behind it and carving a fractured line across the stone floor.

Both corridors went quiet.

Theresa lowered her hand and looked at the floor near her feet. There was a faint scatter of dark mana dissolving into nothing. She stepped to the side of it, deliberately, and adjusted the fall of her garment at the shoulder.

She glanced back at him. "They’ll reconstitute soon. We should leave."

He nodded in agreement, and they started moving forward together.

They hurried through the second floor more quickly than he would ever have on his own.

Theresa walked just a little ahead, steady and relaxed, as if the dungeon was more of a minor obstacle than a threat.

They kept encountering more dungeon monsters, and each time, she dealt with them effortlessly, so fast that Dominic barely had time to register the danger.

One time, she amplified a simple, low-level flame spell, Candlelight, so tightly that it looked like plasma.

It instantly vaporized a group of goblins she targeted and shattered the stone within a two-meter radius, turning the ground into a sheet of black obsidian. All this without even raising her voice. She was doing it calmly as if it was nothing.

Dominic, amazed yet focused, kept taking notes, paying close attention to her mannerisms.

She didn’t speak while they moved, and neither did he. Walking behind her, he felt that words weren’t needed

He watched the way the torchlight danced on the gold band on her arm and admired how smooth and confident her movements were.

His thoughts drifted to the ceremony hall—peaceful and quiet. The card is in both hands.

F-rank Summoner.

His mind flicked to his father.

Then to Victor Harwick.

They cleared the first floor in just six minutes—mostly because that’s how long it took them to walk it at their pace.

Ahead, the entrance to the dungeon appeared, bright light spilling out. Theresa slowed down as they approached, stopping just before the exit.

She finally turned to look at him completely once more, her gold eyes examining him carefully.

"From what I understand, you have a list of people you want to get back at, right?" Theresa asked. 𝓯𝙧𝓮𝓮𝒘𝓮𝙗𝙣𝒐𝒗𝒆𝓵.𝓬𝓸𝒎

Dominic looked at her. "Is that what the system told you?"

"It simply told me what I needed to know," she replied. "The rest I figured out myself."

He met her gaze steadily.

"Now you know that, does that change anything for you?" he asked.

She took a moment to consider the question seriously, which he appreciated. She didn’t seem like someone who gave answers she didn’t mean.

Finally, she said, "No. I have nowhere else to be, and you seem pretty interesting."

She said that with a glint in her eyes, it was unknown what she was thinking and what she saw in Dominic...

With that, she gently stepped through the entrance and into the welcoming, bright outdoors.

Sighing, Dominic lingered at the threshold for a moment longer, feeling the loneliness of the dungeon—so close to breaking him just twenty minutes ago.

Finally, he decided to follow her out.

The instant night light kissed his face, vibrant new words appeared in the air before him.

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Theresa looked at him briefly, her face flickering with a quick, unreadable expression before she turned toward the light.

He glanced at Theresa, who was already a few steps ahead, walking into the light as if the dungeon were nothing more than a long corridor.

The timer flickered in his vision. Without hesitation, he followed her out.