96 A terrifying thought


    Seizing the opportunity, Alex lowered his stance andunched himself forwards, directly towards the panther''s position. With how close the two were to each other, the panther had no time to react before Alex already had his fist dug deep into its abdomen.


    Growl!


    It let out a painful roar as it desperately shed and wed at Alex with all its might, prompting him to jump back, away from the range of the beast''s ws.


    But the damage had already been done.


    Alex''s punch wasn''t any ordinary punch — his fist was infused with fire, increasing the lethality of his attack by a huge extent.


    By the time his fist hade into contact with its stomach, it was already toote for the sneaky beast. With the kic impact of his fist packing quite a punch, it seared through the panther''s skin, muscles and entered deep into its gut.


    The attack was so fast, that the panther hadn''t even registered any pain, as the nerves in the region that was hit werepletely burned to dust before they could send any signals to its brain.


    But the moment Alex''s fist came into contact with one very vital organ, it knew.


    It was well and truly, fucked.


    With its liverpletely kaput, the panther made a desperatest dash towards Alex, putting everything it had left in thesest few attacks. But the sheer amount of blood lost in the process, thanks to its increased heart rate andck of a liver, its movements were sluggish and it copsed to the side, heavily breathing while Alex watched from afar.


    He knew the moment his fist came into contact with the liver that the fight was already over. All he had to do was maintain a steady distance from the beast and it would copse from blood loss before it could even reach him, which is exactly how the situation yed out.


    "Know your enemy." Alex voiced his thoughts out loud as he approached the beast.


    In a way, he was talking to the panther. Due to its overconfidence andck of judgement, it hadn''t assessed that Alex was actually vastly stronger than itself and that it stood no chance right from the beginning.


    But it was also a warning to himself, as if he ever grew too overconfident orcent, he''d end up just like this panther one day.


    As it let out itsst breath, Alex sunk his hand deep into its skull and fished around for any beast cores.


    "Tsk." He was unlucky and didn''t find any, but he was pleasantly surprised to see a brand new soul orb appear in his inventory.


    ''Well, that''s better than I could have asked for!''


    His disappointment vanished as he took the soul orb out without a second thought and absorbed it on the spot.


    After around an hour, the process was finally finished and his progress was brought up to 74%, bringing him ever so slightly closer to E rank.


    ***


    A few hourster, Alex walked through the corridors of the maze with a much less tense look on his face.


    The reason why he looked so rxed was simple — the tunnels were no longer bathed in total darkness. He didn''t know how, or why, but at a certain point the tunnels were lit by torches with mes that seemed tost forever.


    At first he was enchanted by this magical mechanism, but the moment he moved his hands close to a torch to investigate, its fire died out and didn''t return to normal even when he took his hands away.


    From this point he hadn''t bothered to try his hand at it again, as it was a useless endeavour.


    Over the past few hours, the wound on his arm hadpletely healed, but he hadn''te across any other beasts again.


    He had expected to have at leaste across another one or two, but there was nothing impeding him on his way to the centre of the ruins. He had been avoiding all traps as well, so there was no trouble to be had from them.


    In fact the process had started to get a little boring, as he just kept on seeing the same winding corridors with dead ends for hours on end.


    That was until he finally found it.


    At a point he was forced toe to a stop, as there was nowhere for him to go anymore.


    In front of him stood two huge, towering doors over ten metres tall each.


    ''This has got to be the heart of this ce.''


    Behind those doors was most likely the exact thing he hade looking for.


    A sword befitting his requirements.


    Before entering, he checked everywhere around the doors and the surrounding walls, ceiling and floor. But there were no traps, no signs of a beast, nothing. The only things he noticed were some protruding rocks on the door and walls, but nothing happened when he pressed them.


    There weren''t even any signs of the doors having ever been opened before, which was confusing to Alex.


    ''How did they find out there''s a sword at the centre of these ruins then? They must have entered the centre room through some other means, that''s gotta be the only exnation.''


    Without further ado, Alex stepped forward and ced his hands on one of the doors, pushing forwards with all his strength.


    He pushed.


    And pushed…


    But the door just wouldn''t budge.


    ''How the fuck is anyone supposed to open this thing if not even I can???''


    Considering Alex''s strength, it would at least take someone at D or D+ rank to push open these doors, or someone at a higher ssification.


    Completely clueless at how to proceed, Alex gazed around the area, looking for anything that might give him a clue on how to open these doors.


    ''Hmmm?''


    Alex spotted something in the centre of the door — some sort of engraving.


    ''It looks like a man… holding onto a rock on a wall?''


    Alex was utterly baffled when he analysed the engraving. It was so faint that he could barely make out its meaning, even with his eyesight.


    ''Wait, this looks familiar! But it can''t be…''


    Seemingly having recognised something about the engraving, Alex struggled toe to terms with his realisation, but considering he was all out of options, he put his conflicting thoughts aside, and grabbed onto the door once again. n/?/vel/b//jn dot c//om


    But this time, instead of pushing with all his strength, he did the opposite.


    He pulled!


    Creak!


    The door cracked and shook the surrounding area, as it actually started opening!


    ''So this whole time I had to pull instead of push, and that mysterious engraving was just an instruction…''


    Alex was slightly embarrassed for not having tried it beforehand, but he had more important things to worry about.


    ''Those protruding rocks were actually door handles? But the doors on the sign weren''t any bigger than the people opening them…''


    Alex looked up at the 10 metre tall door as he pulled with all his strength.


    And a horrifying thought entered his mind.


    ''Giants… This ruin was never built by humans… That exins why the corridors were so tall and wide.''


    Alex was genuinely shocked.


    As far as he knew, humans were the only sentient species that had been discovered so far, apart from that Divine beast he had encountered.


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