The explosive strike immediately led to some quaking.
Thane was struggling to move as he felt the Spirit inside of him tremble and shake. His fingers could barely twitch; every nerve fried from the feedback of his reckless strike. He tilted his head and saw that the entire place was becoming chaotic.
Small upheavals were appearing as if a volcano was about to burst up from whatever it was that Thane had hit.
Thane cursed as there were numerous Groundlings, but to his surprise, the Groundlings were howling!
Thane turned to the other side and saw a Groundling who attempted to chase after him. But the groundling was wobbling on its knees, and its muscles spasmed.
The cavern glowed in eerie pulses as the Groundlings around him shuddered in agony. One by one, their limbs stiffened, their mouths gaped as they screamed.
From their eyes, mouths, and even pores, pale threads of mana began to seep out! Wispy strands, like smoke torn free from a dying fire. All of it streamed toward the crater he had struck.
The ground itself thrummed. A hollow resonance rolled through the chamber like a heartbeat amplified through stone walls.
Thane's ambrosia-heightened sight let him trace the energy. The threads were weaving together, flowing down into a jagged crystal buried deep in the earth. Its glow swelled brighter with each stolen breath of mana. All into the ground that Thane opened up.
From what Thane could see, he knew that whatever it was that he struck was crying. It was on the verge of exploding, but now...
The Groundlings withered in moments, their bodies collapsing into dust as if they'd never been. Their very souls had been repossessed by the core that birthed them.
"It's sucking the mana it gave the Groundlings... to heal itself!" Thane cursed, gripping his bleeding arm and standing up.
The Celestial TV chimed in as it detected the energy.
[Dungeon Source Detected]
[Weaken the Dungeon Source to assimilate into TV Channels]
Thane blinked, blood dripping into his eye.
"Assimilate?! My TV can absorb that?!" A spark of hope cut through his exhaustion.
He staggered forward. Every movement made his veins bulge and rupture from the uncontrollable spirit energy he had unleashed.
But at each burst, there was also a strange relief as the bursting blood released the pressure inside of him.
Crimson lines split his skin like cracked glass, spraying fine streams of blood with each pulse of chaotic Spirit energy writhing in his body.
"Ahhh..." Thane grunted, clutching his ribs, forcing one leg forward.
But Thane continued as he knew that the Dungeon Core could summon more creatures soon once it stabilized its wound!
His heart hammered like a broken drum. His vision blurred. But in his focus, he called out...
"BONKY STICK!"
He summoned Bonky Stick.
The crude club shimmered into existence, heavy in his trembling hands. And Thane lunged forward.
Each step forward was a war. Each footfall painted the cavern floor with flecks of blood as it burst out of his skin.
It was painful. Each step felt like Thane was walking closer towards death.
The Dungeon Core pulsed in response. It gathered its remaining mana, threads of blue and black coiling together, condensing into a form.
The ground swelled, the soil in front of Thane churned and split.
And from the dirt rose a figure of stone.
The Dungeon Core had expended the last of its available mana to give birth to its creation!
In its last moment, it called out a Goblin! Taller than the Groundlings, its eyes were glowing unnaturally bright. Steam hissed off its body as the core funneled power into its veins.
The newborn goblin roared and charged, crude claws raised, and charged at Thane.
Thane's breath came in ragged gasps. He tightened his grip on Bonky Stick as he rushed forward, knowing that this was life or death.
It was like an anime flashback moment. Or perhaps, more accurately, Thane's life was flashing before him.
He saw his father's last goodbye before returning to the Lord.
"I wonder if Dad also got an Isekai package like me?"
He saw his bible study group meet for one last time before a series of events led to how they would part ways. Some are good terms, most are bad...
He saw himself being rejected by the girl during that Youth camp, which instilled a deep sense of insecurity in his confidence around women.
"Lord, why do I remember this now?!" Thane groaned internally.
He felt enraged. Angry at his dumb self. So angry that he channeled it into his weapon. Spirit gathered on his palms.
The goblin's reaction was fast. As a creature of a higher level, its stats were better, and it reacted faster than a Groundling as it raised its arm, set to block the obvious downward swing of Thane. Its eyes gleamed with expectation, ready to catch the blow.
Thane roared, raising Bonky Stick high, with two hands, but then his grasp of the stick changed as he dropped the stick on the last moment.
With a flicker of will, the club vanished.
[Random Spear I Got From the Groundlings I Killed Earlier through my Celestial TV's Item absorbing feature Number 1] appeared on his hands.
And instead of a swing, it turned into a two-handed stab,
The goblin had already raised its hands too high, but the spear stabbed right to its face.
Thane lunged.
STAB!
The spear drove forward, straight through the goblin's face.
But Thane knew he could not end it here.
"POINTY JUSTICE—NO, POINTY RANDOMNESS! GO!"
Shouting and pushing with all his might, he drove the spear straight and pointed it down.
Finally, the green glowing stone that was devouring the mana was in view. It looked like a beating heart, but was made of stone. It had a wound that was leaking with a strange ethereal green mist and was absorbing the threads of Mana that Thane could see.
FWIP!
[ENEMIES DETECTED.]
[Celestial TV shutting down...]
[5]
[4]
[3]
[2]
"Hmm... No shows about dungeon cores..." Thane browsed the selection and was disappointed at the results.
[1]
"GO!"
With the time he acquired, he managed to harness just enough spirit to perform one more Spirit strike and properly aim his spear despite the fact that there was a dead goblin clinging to it.
STAB!
...
The mana that fluctuated, the trembling ground, the strange pulse and ripple of magic all died out.
It simply stopped.
Thane was closing his eyes while he gritted his teeth, expecting an explosion of some sort.
[Groundling Dungeon Core detected! Assimilate to TV?]