SHING!

SHING!

CLANG!

Nobody moved through the underground tunnel with far more confidence than before. The giant crawling centipedes screeched loudly while attacking from walls and ceilings but now things were different.

Every movement felt smoother. Every dodge landed perfectly. Every strike connected exactly where he wanted.

One crawler lunged from the right wall.

Nobody twisted sideways effortlessly. "...Too slow!"

SHING!

The twin blade crowbar sliced directly into the weak neck joint. Dark liquid splattered across the stone walls.

SKRRRRAAAAA....

The creature smashed violently into the floor. Another attacked immediately from above.

But right before its jaws reached him....a loose lantern suddenly dropped from the ceiling.

CLANG!

The lantern hit the crawler’s face directly. The monster’s attack shifted slightly.

MISS.

Nobody blinked once. Then grinned. "...Nah, this skill is absolutely sick."

Blossom Bunny happily bounced on his shoulder again. "Atta!" Pink petals swirled around Nobody softly.

The atmosphere itself almost felt different now. Like the world was bending slightly in his favor.

A third centipede rushed from behind him.

Nobody didn’t even look back fully. He simply moved his head slightly to the side.

FWOOOSH!

The giant jaws missed his face by centimeters.

Nobody immediately counterattacked.

SHING!

Critical weak point hit.

The crawler shrieked painfully.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[Critical Damage Applied]

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Nobody laughed loudly while spinning both crowbars. "HAHA! Look at me go!"

Another crawler lunged.

MISS.

Another.

MISS AGAIN.

Nobody pointed proudly toward Blossom Bunny. "Little dude! You are officially my MVP!"

Blossom Bunny proudly raised one paw. "Atta!"

Nobody grinned widely. "With this luck boost I feel unstoppable!"

The system window suddenly appeared beside him.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[Fortune Petal Shift Active]

Remaining Duration: 00:18

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Nobody blinked. "...Huh?...Wait." His smile slowly weakened. "...Duration?"

A crawler attacked immediately.

Blossom Bunny bounced slightly again. Petals swirled.

MISS.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[Remaining Duration: 00:12]

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Nobody’s eyes widened slightly.

"Well...metaphorical eyes obviously guys".

"...No no no."

Another crawler rushed downward from the ceiling.

Again its trajectory shifted slightly at the last moment.

MISS.

Nobody counterattacked instantly.

SHING!

Dark liquid exploded outward.

But his eyes kept drifting toward the timer.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[Remaining Duration: 00:07]

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

"...Blossom...Please tell me this thing refreshes automatically."

Blossom Bunny tilted its head innocently.

"...That is NOT reassuring."

The crawlers suddenly became more aggressive again. Almost like they sensed the luck field weakening. One slammed into the wall beside Nobody.

BOOOOM!

Stone debris exploded everywhere.

Nobody barely avoided it. "...Okay....Okay maybe I relied on this too much."

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[Remaining Duration: 00:03]

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Nobody gulped."...Oh boy I am gonna get cooked."

The centipedes screeched loudly together.

SKRRRRRREEEEEE

One from the front.

One from above.

One from behind.

Triple assault.

Nobody inhaled sharply. "Please don’t end now..."

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[Remaining Duration: 00:01]

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Blossom Bunny’s petals slowly started fading. The soft pink glow weakened.

Nobody’s confident grin disappeared completely. "...Ah."

The system flashed one final notification.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[Fortune Petal Shift Has Ended]

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

For exactly one second.

Then....

SKRRRRRRAAAAAAA!!!

All three centipedes attacked simultaneously at full speed and this time....nothing interfered with their attacks.

"FAAAAAAH!"

SKRRRRRRAAAAAAA!!!

All three centipedes attacked simultaneously.

Nobody reacted instantly. "Damn it!" He crossed both twin blade crowbars defensively.

CLAAAAANG!!!

One attack hit from the front.

Another from above.

The third slammed directly into his side.

Even with the block the impact was monstrous.

"...GAAAHHH!" Nobody’s entire body got launched violently backward.

BOOOOOM!

He crashed directly into the stone wall.

Cracks spread through the surface instantly. Dust exploded everywhere. The twin blade crowbars slipped from his hands and scattered across the ground.

CLANG... CLANG...

Nobody slowly collapsed onto one knee. "...Cough...!" Blood spilled from his mouth onto the stone floor. His breathing became uneven immediately.

"Haaah..."

"...haaah..."

Blossom Bunny panicked completely. "ATTA! ATTA!" The tiny bunny rushed toward him nervously.

The centipedes slowly crawled closer again.

SKRRRK...

SKRRRK...

Their glowing red eyes stared at Blossom hungrily now.

Nobody weakly lifted one hand toward Blossom Bunny.

"...No..."

"...Get back..."

Blossom Bunny shook its head rapidly. "Atta!"

Nobody forced himself upright slightly.

"...Listen..."

"...I’m calling you back."

The bunny froze sadly. Blue particles slowly surrounded Blossom Bunny’s body.

POOF!

The summon returned inside the system space safely.

Nobody exhaled heavily. "...Good..." He grabbed one crowbar again while struggling to stand. His legs trembled badly.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[WARNING] ⚠︎

User HP Critically Low

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

"...Yeah no shit..."

The system suddenly flickered again.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[Emergency Permission Granted]

Minor Healing ×2 Available

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Nobody’s eyes widened slightly. "Emergency...Healing...huh?" Then he immediately shouted: "SCREW IT!...APPLY TWO FULLY!"

Blue healing light instantly wrapped around his body.

FWOOOOOSH....

The pain lessened slightly. His bleeding slowed.

The cracked muscles recovered partially.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[Minor Healing Applied]

HP Slightly Restored

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Nobody inhaled deeply again. "...Still hurts like hell..."

But at least he could stand now. He picked up both twin blade crowbars again.

The centipedes screeched loudly and rushed forward once more.

Nobody’s eyes sharpened. "...Come then!" He charged too.

SHING!

One slash hit a weak point. Dark liquid splashed outward.

Another crawler lunged.

Nobody blocked the jaws.

CLANG!

Then something happened. The crawler’s body suddenly flickered strangely.

Nobody blinked. "...Hm?"

The monster’s body distorted....then vanished completely.

"...What?"

Another crawler disappeared too.

Then another.

The tunnel suddenly became silent. 𝒇𝓻𝓮𝓮𝙬𝙚𝒃𝒏𝓸𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝓬𝓸𝒎

Nobody froze instantly.

"...No..."

"...No no no."

The system window flashed violently.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[WARNING]

Enemy Skill Activated

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

New text appeared rapidly.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[Skill: Phantom Burrow Camouflage]

Effect: Temporary Optical Invisibility

Threat Level Increased ⚠︎

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Nobody stared blankly. "...THEY CAN TURN INVISIBLE?!"

A faint scratching sound echoed somewhere nearby.

SKRRRK...

But he couldn’t see anything. His breathing became unstable again. "...Where...?...WHERE ARE THEY?!"

The tunnel suddenly felt far darker than before. Every sound became terrifying.

A faint movement echoed behind him. Nobody spun instantly. But nothing was there.

Then another sound came from above.

Then the left wall.

Then somewhere underground.

"...No..."

"...NO THIS IS BULLSHIT!"

Sweat dripped down his face.

His grip on the crowbars tightened harder.

He couldn’t track them anymore. Couldn’t predict them. Couldn’t even see them.

The system flashed more warnings.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[Extreme Caution Advised]

ゞ(◎Д◎)ヾ

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

SKRRRRRK....

Something moved directly beside him. Nobody swung instantly.

SHING!

Nothing but empty air.

Then suddenly....

CLAWWWK!

Invisible jaws slammed against his shoulder. "...GAAAH!" Blood splashed outward. Nobody staggered backward desperately.

Another invisible attack came immediately after.

He barely blocked it.

CLANG!

But he still couldn’t see the enemy. Panic finally started breaking through him. "...STOP MOVING AROUND!"

Another unseen crawler rushed him. Another attack from behind. Another from above.

Nobody swung wildly now.

SHING! SHING! SHING!

"...SHOW YOURSELVES!"

Nothing.

Only scratching sounds, only screeches.

Nobody’s breathing became desperate.

"...F-FUK YOU ALLLLLLL!!!"