As the purple poison arrows began hitting him and the poison spread further, Ellis was sent backward from the shock of the impact. After nearly a dozen poison arrows hit him, his hands were so disfigured that they were barely recognizable, and he felt it was a miracle they were still attached to his torso. When no more poison arrows came, he was left in a state of painful relief as he didn't use his daily chance of absolute shield .
Then the light of the healing effects arrived with the shadow of his mother. And as Ellis began to feel the impact of healing, he felt as though he had been transported from hell to heaven, unable to suppress a moan of euphoria.
The transition from being half a step away from death to perfect condition, combined with his exhausted mind recovering, brought him such an intense feeling.
Seeing the mage boss astonished by the scene in front of him, then trying to squeeze himself dry and struggling to fire more poison arrows, Ellis felt that it was enough now, and he should put him to rest while taking some revenge for the body state he put him in.
Launching himself at the mage boss, Ellis closed the dozen-meter distance in the blink of an eye. Arriving in front of him, then he took great care not to kill him and began barraging him with his righteous fists.
Although the boss put up magic shields in front of him for defense, they were as flimsy as paper against Ellis's onslaught. Being a mage with even less defense than the archer, it was game over for him once Ellis was this close.
Their battle was of distance after all, but now that Ellis was right beside him and in perfect condition, the boss stood no chance.
After a couple of minutes, when he was satisfied, making his first masterpiece, Ellis held the boss by the neck and was about to go toward his sister. However, turning his head, he saw her standing some distance away, thankfully without a scratch. She had her hands wrapped beneath her chest, squeezing them as if to amplify their presence. While staring at him with amused eyes, waiting for him to finish his venting.
Maybe because he was too absorbed in punishing the boss, Ellis hadn't noticed his sister's presence. But as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened and everything was completely fine, he casually said.
"So, did you finish the archer guard?"
"Yes, but unfortunately, nothing dropped," Clara replied, a hint of disappointment in her voice.
But Ellis wasn't too disappointed, knowing the most important target—the final boss—was still alive. He hoped that something valuable would drop from it.
"Well, there's still the final boss."
Ellis walked toward his sister and threw the boss in front of her. And she finished him off with a few decisive punches to his face, as he was already on brink of death.
Looking at the corpse intently, Ellis saw a bronze orb materialize above its head before falling to the ground.
Feeling joyful and happy, Ellis turned to his sister, eager to urge her to pick up the loot and see what could lay inside. But when he noticed her staring intently at the air in front of her, he remembered her class-up mission and wondered if the boss's level really had been above 75, surprising her. To confirm, he asked.
"Did you complete the mission? Was the boss's level really above 75?"
Snapping out of her thoughts, Clara turned her attention to her brother. Though still surprised by the new title she had acquired, the implications of the message were even more meaningful and important to her.
"Yes, he was. But, more importantly, I got a title. As I'm the third person in the world to clear a dungeon ALONE."
Hearing what his sister said and grasping the implications, Ellis realized that the Twilight Codex didn't recognize him as an entity that entered the dungeon, since he didn't possess the system. This meant it either didn't consider his participation in clearing the dungeon or simply couldn't detect his presence at all. Which one of these was true, he wasn't sure.
'Aurora, do you know the reason?'
[It's likely the Twilight Codex couldn't detect you.]
[But fundamentally, it should be due to the shard of **** absorbing the Seed of Evolution.]
Reading the first answer confirmed his suspicion, and he leaned toward this choice more, but the second sentence intrigued him.
He recalled the messages from when he first emerged from the gray gate. At that time, he had been slightly disappointed that the Seed of Evolution had disappeared and been absorbed by the gray shard. As it had a badass name, seemingly straight out of a cheat ability from a novel's protagonist. But with so much happening at once, he hadn't had the chance to dwell on it, as more pressing matters had taken priority.
And it's not like it got stolen; rather, something he had absorbed another thing he didn't know he had, so he didn't mind much.
'What is this Seed of Evolution, exactly anyway?'
[It's likely a byproduct cultivated by the Twilight Codex, also serving as a connection between the hosts and it.]
'As its name has the word "Evolution" in it, it can't just be something to connect with the Twilight Codex. So, what other uses does it have?'
[The previous system the host had was likely built on top of it, but I don't have enough authority to know its core function.]
Seeing that it was the foundation of the system, Ellis wasn't surprised; he had already thought it was related to the Twilight Codex. However, reading about the "insufficient authority" again, Ellis felt a surge of irritation.
"Ahem"
Seeing her brother stay silent and bewildered that his expression kept changing, Clara couldn't help but clear her throat and cough to bring him back to reality. As after this many sign of abnormal things happening, she wanted some answers.