It feels as if time has slowed down as both warriors dash at me, and the shamans start mumbling something. I see mana collecting in their hands.

The warriors reach me, and the first shaman finishes his casting. The area around me changes. It's as if I was thrown into the deep mud, and the harder I try to move, the more difficult it becomes. It's the same field the Goblin shaman on the first floor used.

But not this time.

My mana resonates against the field around me. I take a step to the side to dodge a stab and block the attack from the second goblin.

The field changes slightly, and [Resonance] fails.

Interesting.

I create armor around my body, filling it with as much mana as possible and it deflects the next few attacks from the goblin warrior.

Meanwhile, I reach towards the field around me with [Resonance], but it fails again. So I observe it deeper and then realize something. The shaman changed the frequency his mana works on to activate the field. It wasn't a significant change that would affect the skill. No, he only twisted it slightly in response to my [Resonance].

One of the warriors' spears gets covered in pale blue mana. As he stabs at me, it pierces through my armor and into my leg.

I ignore it and send more mana toward my armor, turning it a darker shade of blue.

My attention is on the field around me and my skill.

I observe, I perceive, and I [Focus], adjusting [Resonance] slightly in a similar way to how the shaman did. I change the frequency it works on, and the field around me disappears.

No longer slowed, my kick sends one warrior flying away. I immediately shoot my flames at him, all the heat I drew from the air while dealing with phantom goblins. I feel relief as I finally release all that heat and it blazes up into the surroundings.

Before the flames reach him, the second shaman does something to them. My flames change direction as they approach and are all drawn towards the goblin shaman with ease, ignoring my hold over the flames and the fact they're mine.

Again, I resonate against the field about to slow me down. I disrupt the mana strengthening the goblin warriors and stab my dagger through one of them, barely avoiding the other. The wounded goblin warrior jumps away.

The remaining warrior jumps away, and as if it's a signal, the field tries to slow me again. This time, it operates on multiple frequencies. At the same time, my flames and the goblin's are launched at me as three dark orange fireballs.

I send a resonating mana against the field trying to hold me down. One after another, I quickly identify each frequency and adapt my [Resonance] to tear them apart until the field entirely disappears.

My eyes are fixed on the shaman who sent fireballs at me. As my mana reaches the fireballs, I remember how he took control of my fire and how he was creating it to throw at me.

I reach out and grab one of the fireballs, the one with the most thermal energy he stole from me. I force it to behave more according to my will while feeding it more mana. I move it to collide with another ball, and as they meet, they both explode. The explosion catches the last remaining fireball. The heat makes the air flicker, melting the stone on the ground and turning any flora into dust.

One of the warriors dies in the flames, while the remaining three goblins group together, both shamans absorbing the explosion.

On the other side, I step towards the explosion, absorbing all the heat that reaches me. Constant notifications ring as the air around me feels slightly breezy.

Flames swirl around me, pass by me, and disappear in front of me as I move closer to the monsters. Goblins continue to shout something in their language. The shaman that tried to trap me in the slowing field has burned his hands, with bones showing.

I release my flames simultaneously with the fire shaman and they collide. Dark orange and my dark yellow flames fight and push against each other, spilling terrifying heat all around.

My heart beats as I feed them more and more.

As the shaman's flames start to weaken, I concentrate the cones into a thin stream of glowing yellow flames. I narrow the stream more and more until it's as thin as my wrist and shoots like a laser against the trio of goblins.

A shield activates to try to stop them, but the flames melt through it, too concentrated for the shield to block such a small point of impact.

Laser-like flame cuts through all three monsters, reminding me of a red-hot iron rod cutting through styrofoam. All three of the goblins die and the notifications sound.

I invest all stat points into mana.

After glancing behind and seeing a giant Cinderbeast getting closer, I put distance between us again.

Okay, this is getting harder and harder. I've already started countering the poison's effect on my mana handling. To be honest, it's not that difficult; I have some experience with that. The bigger problem is that the poison even affects my mana regeneration.

Is it due to the weapon's rarity, or was it working together with some skills of the Phantom Goblin?

I curiously look at the weapon in my hand. It's a small, short dagger made from black obsidian-like material with glowing red circuits etched all across the blade. The interesting thing is that there isn't a mana stone to keep the effect running or continue transferring my mana into it.

It's as if the entire dagger is a mana stone, meaning that there are materials capable of handling mana even without a mana stone. Good to know for the future.

As for Beyond, it's different than I expected. Well, it's not like I knew what to expect from it.

The first floor's objective was to survive 30 days; the Beyond's first quest is to survive 1 hour. Right now, it feels as if this place is designed to filter out the “weeds” in a similar way to the first floor. It's either that or each time I enter Beyond, I will return to the floors I already visited, and they will be much harder.

And hell, the Beyond is difficult. Extremely difficult. I am absolutely sure I'm currently the only one from our group able to survive this. Maybe not even Tess would be able to stay alive, and I consider her to be the strongest after me.

Question mark monsters are everywhere, so many of them. Heck, I still remember my surprise when a bunch of Cinderbears popped up at the start.

The presence of the giant Cinderbear gets closer, and I stand up again, quickly running away. This time I try to use the least amount of mana and be as efficient as possible.

From a distance, I continue to observe the Cinderbear. The monster is massive, easily as big as the Undead bear and deer I fought. Like them, he also has two question marks. Not around level 150 like them. No, this cuddly bear is well over 200.

Yet, the entire time I watch him, and feel his gaze on me, I think of how I could kill him.

All while dealing with goblins once in a while. Each goblin warrior is around level 150. High enough to tear through most members of group 4. Yet I'm doing fine. Wounded in multiple places, poisoned, with my mana barely replenishing and slowly getting lower, I'm calmer than before.

I'm alone, relying only on myself.

I don't have to care about anyone. I can go all out and fight as I want, and all this danger pushes me to my limits.

Is it supposed to be like that, or am I just that strong, stronger than the standard? How strong am I from the point of view of the system?

I stand up, and a little bit of blood remains on the ground where I sat. Huh. I focus a bit more and tighten the mana bandages around my waist, chest, and thigh. The wounds continue to refuse to close.

After checking my reserves, I realize that I have barely around half of my mana left, which reduces the efficiency of my Mana-Fortified Resilience. It's fine, I'll push through.

When there are only 30 minutes remaining, the suns disappear from the sky as if someone flipped a switch.

On a void black night sky without any stars, lights appear. Beautiful blue, green, and pink polar lights swirl all around, lighting up the ground underneath with moving and uneven light.

As if all at once, the screeches of the monsters sound all around me. The goblins, wolves, bears. All terrifying and full of anger.

Then I feel all the presences moving towards me.