章 66: A Monster Underground

Quickly shaking her head, Stella thought, 'There's no way someone handsome would bother covering up their face.' before returning to her 'Party Duties.'

Meanwhile, within the C+ Gate 'Tyrant's Obsession.'

Cassius stepped foot into a brand-new world, almost instantly feeling something different about this one. Although it was his first time in a C-Rank Gate, he had expected it to be pretty similar to the other Gates he had ventured into. However, it appeared that was not the case, as based just on the heaviness of his body, the gravity in this place was at least ten times stronger than it was in the outside world.

This also made it ten times stronger than the gravity level in the other Gates, as they had no difference in gravity.

"How interesting…"

The first thought to come to Cassius's sadism-trained mind was how well this place could function as a training ground. Yet, that thought was quickly set aside when he better observed his surroundings.

During his time conquering dozens of lower-rank Gates, he encountered various biomes within those isolated worlds. From lands of ice to thick jungle forests, and even to ruined cities long since overrun by monsters. However, oddly enough, this was his first time arriving in a world of sand. The air was arid, and the high temperature suffocated the atmosphere, creating rolling waves of heat.

"The monsters… where are they?"

All around Cassius were just miles and miles of brownish-yellow sand, with occasional hills of the same sand scattered here and there. Other than the scorching heat searing down on the barren desert, it was just sand. The wind whistled, but not even the chirps of a cricket could be heard from where he was standing.

Cassius was beginning to think that this Gate was a sham, as even with his Perception stat, he could not sense any other living organisms within a few hundred feet.

However, just as he was about to walk back out of the Gate and head to one of the other two that had appeared, the sand beneath him started to shake.

Curious, Cassius turned around, with his icy blue eyes following the slight tremors to their source. A few dozen meters ahead of him, beyond the progressively more prominent ripples, there appeared a brown feeler. It wasn't very large, but it playfully whipped around, almost as if it were an intrigued puppy.

The first thing Cassius wanted to do was approach this feeler and snatch it up, but when he pieced together the tremors and the feeler, which was at the center of them, he stopped in his tracks.

Things were certainly not as simple as they seemed.

As he was in his Hoodie's 'Stealth' mode, Cassius couldn't be normally perceived by anything below the B-Rank. And based on the spirited movements of the feeler, it was very likely to be a monster of some sort and also somehow related to the tremors. However, seeing as he was still unable to sense anything, this monster clearly possessed a proficient set of stealth Skills.

'Hmm… I guess I should take a more direct approach for this one.'

It became abundantly clear that he would not have the upper hand in a battle of stealth, so he decided to do something bolder. Yet, with this monster's strength stat likely in or around the C-Rank and his only in the High D-Rank, a direct confrontation was not a wise choice. This left only one viable option for him to make…

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

Sonic booms abruptly exploded out from where Cassius was standing as he circled the outer radius of the tremors. He transformed into a shadowy blur, moving so fast that the attentive feeler was unable to keep up. It tried again and again to trace the unknown blur, but wound up repeatedly failing.

Infuriated, the tremors increased in intensity, with the sand in the middle sinking further into the ground. Something seemed to be making its grand appearance, and it would no doubt be extremely large.

However, as if expecting something like this to happen, Cassius merely increased his speed while making full use of the Mid-Silver Skill 'I AM SPEED.'

Sand specks were thrown up in every direction, with the rate at which they were upturned only quickening the more the sand at the tremor's center sank deeper. The jumpy feeler had already vanished into the waves of sand, seemingly making way for its main body. But it quickly reappeared, along with three others, as the main body felt something preventing it from fully emerging.

That was when it realized that Cassius was purposefully tossing sand in the direction of the feelers, effectively restoring all the sand that had sunk into the ground. This action of his made the monster's efforts pointless.

Angered even more than before, it mustered up more of its strength, essentially turning what should have been a simple entrance-scene task into an arduous struggle against being trapped underground.

A couple of minutes later.

The underground monster was left in a state of disarray, as no matter how hard it pushed up, more and more sand pressured down on it. And thanks to its light feelers, it was able to figure out that the shadowy blur was becoming faster and faster, which made no sense! It kept exerting greater amounts of strength, even exceeding previously preconceived limits, yet it amounted to nothing, as the human became fast enough to void its struggles!

Eventually, the unknown underground monster was no longer able to resist being buried deep underground.

An entire sand mountain was stacked on top of it, and though it could survive beneath the sand to a degree, so many tens of thousands of pounds of sand crushing down on it was…

At some point during his speedster display, Cassius heard the faint sound of squelching.

Assuming that it was the sound of the underground monster being squashed, he boosted his speed with a few more AP, hoping to speed up the monster's death and resume his exploration of the Gate.