"Perfect."
Yami nodded in satisfaction.
No matter how much the Leatherback Turtle thrashed and roared, the shadows held firm. It couldn't break free.
This gave him a much clearer sense of just how versatile his ability could be.
"Alright… let's test your durability."
He glanced up. Even standing on the creature's shadow above the waves, its sheer size made its head feel far away.
A thought sparked.
The shadow behind him shifted, swelling and reshaping in an instant.
A pair of massive black wings burst forth, entirely formed from darkness. He willed them to move.
Whoosh!
A violent gust tore across the surface of the sea, kicking up waves. His body lifted effortlessly, rising until he hovered right above the monster's head.
"…Surprisingly easy to control."
He could fly. Another discovery and a welcome one.
Still, he didn't let the thrill distract him.
Rolling his shoulders and flexing his wrists, he fixed his gaze on the monster's snarling face.
"A sandbag should act like a sandbag."
His right fist clenched. In the next breath, he struck.
The air screamed as his arm cut through it, the waves below surging from the force. His tiny fist met the Leatherback Turtle's thickly armored skull
Bang!
The head detonated. Shards of bone, gore, and armored plating scattered into the sea.
The rest of the body collapsed like a toppled building, slamming into the water and sending up a wall of spray more than ten meters high.
[Ding! You have slain the Leatherback Turtle and obtained 5,000 magic stones!]
[Ding! You have obtained the D-Class Monster Meme: "Armor"!]
"…."
Yami stared at his own hand. He knew he'd gotten stronger… but this strong? That was beyond even his own expectations.
"Hey, hey, hey… am I seeing things? That guy just flew up and one-punched a kaiju!"
Click, click, click!
"That's no joke, I've got it all on camera! He's definitely some kind of superpowered freak!"
On the shore, people had stopped running. Instead, they pointed, shouted, and recorded.
The noise reached Yami easily.
"…Guess the days of quiet beach vacations are over."
He sighed. He hadn't hidden his abilities but he wasn't exactly eager to be treated like a circus attraction either.
The fight was over, so he turned to leave
Then froze.
Something about the corpse drew his attention. An instinct whispered in the back of his mind, urging him.
His lips parted, and the words came out like an unshakable command.
"Arise."
The moment the word left him, the sea churned violently.
The turtle's massive shadow began to ripple, as if alive. Slowly, impossibly, it rose from the corpse, taking the same monstrous shape but this time formed entirely of blackness.
The shadow-beast lowered its head in silent, absolute obedience.
"…So this is a Shadow Soldier."
Yami smiled faintly. Now he understood.
Then he confirmed it... the power of his own Shadow Monarch was similar to Sung Jin-Woo's from Solo Leveling, but not quite identical.
The shadow soldiers worked in much the same way, though.
"What the hell… did the monster just come back to life?"
On the shore, terrified voices rose again as the shadow-formed Leatherback Turtle loomed in the distance.
Yami wasn't interested in staying any longer. With a simple thought, the massive shadow soldier dissolved into darkness and sank into his own — into the shadow space.
He cast one last glance toward the gawking crowd, then spread his wings and took off into the sky without a word.
"He… he flew away!"
The uproar behind him quickly faded as he gained height.
"My lady, are you hurt?" the driver asked, still shaken.
The black-haired girl slowly shook her head. Despite the chaos, she hadn't been jostled even once.
Her burgundy eyes lingered on the far-off sky where the mysterious man had vanished.
"Monsters… superpowers…"
Even as the eldest daughter of the Shinomiya family, she had never seen anything like this.
Her thoughts spiraled in directions she'd never considered before.
When something like this happened, a stir was inevitable. How far it would spread and what came next — no one could say.
By then, Yami had already reached home.
A sleek villa in the city.
He'd left all his clothes back at the beach, returning in nothing but shorts — a net loss if there ever was one.
After a shower and a change into fresh pajamas, he settled on the sofa, TV murmuring in the background.
With a thought, he summoned the Multiverse Dungeons.
Layers of floating realms appeared before him ten in total, stacked from top to bottom, each smaller than the one above it.
The image reminded him of an inverted mountain, narrowing toward the base.
[Ding! First level dungeon unlocked: Bone Cemetery!]
"So the first floor's open…"
His attention shifted to the topmost layer. The moment he focused, his vision and senses stretched outward.
A breath later, he was no longer in his living room.
Fog swirled around him. The air was heavy, cold, filled with the scent of death.
He stood in a forest of towering trees, each easily a hundred meters tall.
Yet from somewhere above — from a god's-eye view he could see what lay beyond: an empty graveyard sprawling at the edge of the forest.
Dozens upon dozens of burial plots.
Tombstones leaning in crooked rows.
Mausoleums. Bone piles bleached white under the dim light.
It lived up to its name — the Bone Cemetery.
"…This dungeon might actually be fun."
A world so unlike the one outside was already fascinating. And Yami planned to explore every corner.
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