"Boss! We did it! We really did it!" Hawk shouts.
His teammates are screaming and cheering, ecstatic that their leader, Ethan Barlett, has killed the Dungeon King with his fire magic.
Ethan is panting hard, on the verge of passing out.
From Hawk's point of view, Ethan looks high on adrenaline, drunk on victory. The Dungeon King is dead, and with its death, the King heartstone appears, replacing the fallen King. The most valuable heartstone a dungeon can produce.
But inside, Ethan feels something very different.
He is both terrified and relieved.
He had never imagined a dungeon could be this dangerous.
When he first entered, the sheer abundance of mana shocked him to the core. For a brief moment, he almost lost control, nearly overwhelmed by it. He had to force himself to suppress the mana, diverting it away, then carefully absorbing it little by little.
It took everything he had.
