The Runic Alchemist

This one fact insinuated something that Damian did not want to accept at all! How? Who? The Sun God did this?

All around him, as far as his eyes could see, there was only sand—endless dunes stretching into the horizon. Was he mistaken? Or had he truly, somehow, ended up on the real planet that the dungeon was based on?

He was all alone. In the middle of nowhere. Which direction should he go? Were the others even here.. or was this just for him?

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Not wanting to waste what little mana liquid he had left, Damian removed his armor and upper shirt, then drank the Skybound Fall potion(Grants temporary wing-like appendages for gliding or limited flight). Immediately, wings grew from his back. Canceling his flight spell and all others that kept him airborne, he let himself fall head first.. but soon, he spread his wings and began to glide.

All four directions looked the same, so he simply chose the one where a strange black dot loomed in the distance. His eyes couldn't make it out clearly; the heated air twisted and shimmered, distorting everything beyond a certain range. Damian had plenty of wormhole scrolls in his inventory, so he bound over ten of them with ropes around each of his legs. Using one, he jumped to a height of at least 300-400 meters before flying forward with the help of his wings, slowly closing in on the black dot while expanding a small amount of mana to keep his body cool. Once he was close to the ground he repeated the whole process.

After an hour of flight, or falling, he finally realized—the black dot was a mountain! With another forty minutes, he landed atop it. Sitting in a small cave that offered some shade from the scorching sun, Damian once again extended his mana sense in all directions. At the very edge of his perception, he found something—someone. A mana signature, faint but familiar.

Lifewarden.

Damian stood, ready to continue his jump-fall-glide process, when he sensed a nearby monster's mana signature getting too close.

A massive bird emerged from above his cave, circling above the mountain, waiting for him to step out.

Stepping just beyond the cave's entrance, Damian baited it forward and summoned his fiery spear. The creature dived, its razor-sharp beak aimed downward, talons outstretched to seize him.

Just as it came too close to dodge, Damian angled the tip of his spear upward and unleashed an unforgiving stream of fire. Flames engulfed the bird, scorching it from head to talons. Its charred remains crashed into the stone mountainside before tumbling into the sands below.

It was not a monster. Just a simple magical beast.

That was not a good sign.

If beasts like this existed here, then it almost confirmed his fear—he was not in the dungeon anymore. The Sun God had thrown them out. Somehow.

Wasting no more time, Damian activated a runic scroll wormhole and leaped in, spreading his wings as he fell from high above, racing in the direction of Lifewarden's dwindling mana signature.

Twenty minutes of endless dunes later, Damian found him—a black speck in the distance, lying in the sand, surrounded by monster corpses.

Damian quickly landed beside him.

Lifewarden was pierced in the shoulder, the leg, and the side of his stomach, bleeding from everywhere but still breathing. Third-rankers surely were tough sons of bitches.

He was one of the ones who had been attacked. Bloodedge had pierced his shoulder. At least that meant he wouldn't go for Damian's throat the moment he healed him.. hopefully.

Damian swiftly constructed a small shelter—four wooden walls and a roof and floor—to provide some shade. Slipping a highly potent healing potion into Lifewarden's mouth, he began dragging the monster corpses out of the hut.

That was when he noticed—they weren't just monster corpses.

Some of the dead Highswords had come along with Lifewarden. Most, he didn't recognize, but the beastman pugilist from the Neutral Section and one of the Worldscribe section members were among them.

Sighing, Damian collected their weapons and spatial storages before sealing their corpses in a separate spatial storage.

The number of third-ranker corpses in his inventory just kept increasing.

While waiting for the healing potion to take effect, Damian stretched his mana sense to its absolute limit.

Nothing.

No one was around them.

But the others should be here if Lifewarden was here. From the air, his wormhole had opened in—the initial fight location and Lifewarden's position were the closest to each other.

If the red wave teleported them based on their starting positions, then his friends should be together. And the other Highswords should be with.. that thing.

What even was that thing?

Had Land Breaker gone mad?

No. The Sun God had said it was corrupted.

And he.. in his dumb arrogance, had released it into this world.

Saving the world? Fighting for peace? Helping the common people..?

Who was he kidding?

He was no different from the rest of them.

They ignored everything for their pointless power struggles, and he ignored everything that could go wrong in the name of curiosity, invention, and progress.

Making the world a better place? What use was the mana generator in that regard? It was just a tool to make himself more powerful than everyone else. No different from the way nobles and kings hoarded power over lands and people.

"Wh.. Ah.. Wha..?"

A weak voice snapped Damian from his thoughts.

Lifewarden.

Damian moved closer, grabbing a glass from his inventory, Damian filled it with water. Pressing it to Lifewarden's lips, he let him drink. Lifewarden swallowed greedily, barely managing to crack his eyes open.

As Damian propped him upright against the wooden wall, Lifewarden blinked rapidly, struggling to make sense of his surroundings.

Finally, his gaze cleared. He looked at Damian. Then at his own stomach, where his wounds had closed without a trace, leaving just a bloody and torn tunic.

He understood what was going on.