The tapping of plastic, slowly scratching against a wooden surface, a small thud as it landed on a black square.
It had an almost scepter-like design with a ball-like structure at the very top, yet it advanced, no words, no retaliation.
It simply listened to the master behind the board, a man with dazzling sky-blue eyes that twirled in the darkness like sapphires.
It made you almost want to reach into the darkness, but you didn't, you knew better than to reach in.
If you reached in, you'd be nothing more than the emerald-eyed pawn that sat alone in the wooden dungeon.
His raven-black hair shifting as he breathed ever so softly, his soft, emerald-green eyes were closed deeply in a slumber.
Or so it seemed....
"Cut the act. We have to get going."
Wind fluttered around the man, twirling and twisting like ribbons in a dance. A beautiful man that seemed to even outclass the likes of Lumen Kalov, the heavenly beauty.
He smiled warmly at the boy, but something was behind that smile, something darker, something that saw the boy as just sub-human.
However, that smile seemed to awaken even the most cursed sleeping beauties, it was utterly beautiful as if an angel had appeared in human flesh.
Light from seemingly nowhere appeared to adorn his face in its radiance, a pure white-haired man that seemed to be directly crafted out the moonlight.
"Alright, let's go, Master~"
The young boy said, skipping across the wooden floor until the other advised him not to make too much noise, they might set off the Queen.
They couldn't let them know, not after all these days of waiting around, until the exact moment that he would appear.
The Main Character, Lumen Kalov.
Aka me...
The smoke and burning scent of greenery ignited by the battles I had faced, first a bird and then a hare?
The hare was reactive, the moment I came close to the center of the field it immediately set off like a bomb.
Flickering and dashing across the green field, tendrils of popping fire crackling out its coat as it bolted into me like a cannonball.
'It's so fast. What do you mean I passed this dungeon in only 10 minutes in the novel?'
The original Lumen never faced a challenge like this, originally there were only F- ranked monsters and an E rank boss, it mentioned nothing about a hare or a bird.
'Is this a butterfly effect?'
I jumped across the greenery, safely planting my feet against the emerald shrubs, the hare immediately reacted–So predictably.
I waited until the very last second, to the point where it couldn't back out even if it wanted to, and with my insane reaction time due to [Absolute Sword Dominion].
It killed itself.
It bolted against the sharp of my blade, slicing its own body in two fiery halves, the flames slowly flickering away.
There was no blood, just the soft fluttering away of flames.
There sat...
A monkey?
It did nothing even when I approached, it just simply sat there tending to its own business.
Plucking out blades of grass like weeds, igniting small embers in the ferns, nothing too harmful as the embers shifted away after a couple of moments.
'Should I kill it? Is it a trap?'
I stood there just a couple of feet from the monkey that was crafted out of still flames, yet it didn't do anything.
I even reached out to touch it, and it was relatively hot, but it didn't burn me at all just a slight heat that crept up my body in a wave-like manner.
After ten minutes...
I couldn't take it, okay.
I might be a little impatient, but ten minutes of doing absolutely nothing except staring at a monkey that ate its own boogers?
It's not fun.
I stabbed my sword deep in the monkey's chest, he didn't resist in the slightest he just sat there taking the weight of my blade.
A tendril of flames, a twisting and turning ribbon that danced around the monkey's dead carcass, it shot down towards the green, emerald-like grass.
It burned away, flickering into ash in a moment's notice, what replaced it–a massive wooden room, the room seemed to enlarge five-fold.
It was a circular room, the roof had gotten much higher, beams of support steadily standing across the room.
'An elephant?'
There was still a singular patch of greenery left, a little verdant tree, and at its base stood a red man.
His eyes were closed, beads hanging across his chest, robes that slightly ignited into embers draping down his slim body.
He opened his eyes, they seemed to hold a calm blaze, a still inferno of flames that moved slowly from side to side.
Tendrils of fire slowly twisting into shapes and patterns inside his irises'.
And beside him laid a pitch-black elephant, patterns, and lines of fire running across its entire body.
It slept peacefully alongside the monk-like figure, unlike the monk's peaceful, calm eyes.
When the elephant opened his, it seemed like a vertex of a furious blaze, a devouring fire that would engulf the world whole if it could.
I met the elephant's tusk head-on as it charged at me like a raging bull, wheels of flames twirling towards me alongside it.
'A mage and fighter combo? How annoying.'
I shifted my momentum across the tusk of the elephant, spinning around it I jumped up in the air and kicked off the elephant's hard charcoal skin.
I ran across it's back dragging my sword across it's back, but it was but a shallow cut as my main intention wasn't the elephant–it was the mage, the monk.
A huge wall of fire, like a bursting inferno it crackled in tendrils of rampaging fire, it tried to swallow me whole as it rushed toward me.
And on the other side stood an elephant who was rushing at me with that same devouring power as the flames.
'My only option is to go left.'
I bolted across, the flames flickering as they advanced against my body, the elephants tusk tracking my position as I ran.
I streaked across the crushing walls of flame and animal as fast as I could.
I skidded against the wooden floor, changing my direction, I slashed my sword across the elephant's side, digging deeper and deeper like a saw against its charcoal-black skin.
[Absolute Sword Dominion]
My sword floated before my hand, dashing and blurring across the elephant's body leaving tons of shallow cuts in its wake like a cage of swarming bees.
[Absolute Sword Dominion]
My sword once again flickered across the elephant's body, not even giving it a second to rest before I unleashed my swarm of cuts once again.
Tendrils of popping, crackling inferno that steadily twisted into a beam of pure flame that shot across the field alongside it a rain of fire poured down on me.
Little embers of fire that shot from above alongside the beacon, they popped and fluttered as most of them hit the wooden floor.
Somehow the wooden floor never caught on fire even after being hit with flames a multitude of times.
I blurred across all of them in an instant stabbing my sword which had swung back into my hand deep into the elephant's heart, it was in too much pain to retaliate against my attacks.
Of course, more balls of fire hailed down at me from above, beams of crackling inferno seemed to launch from every direction.
I dodged around them as if I were weaving a dance of blades, my blade launched from my hands.
[Absolute Sword Dominion]
Like a dazzling ray of light, it zigzagged straight into the monk's heart.
Then...
a glistening blur of silver.
The Pawn had been promoted to a Bishop.
Its previous role was to lead the attack, but now it was only supporting the main piece.
the Queen of White.
And unlike a regular chess match, both parties shared a king.
The most valuable and treasured piece that everyone wanted for themselves.
An elusive movement art, that would greatly boost both their skills.
The Fluttering Flames, Dance of The Sun God Steps.
Or the Fluttering Flames Movement Art.
That dagger that launched diagonally across the board only supported the Queen in front of him.
A charming man with hair as white as snow as if the moon itself was encased in his locks of hair, his blue eyes like a clear summer sky that radiated with life and vitality.
When looking up "pretty boy" he would 100% be the person that popped up.
A ball of gale launched from his palm, a burst of violent winds that knocked down the monk in an instant.
The wind seemed to carry along his footsteps as he walked, almost like a dance he floated ethereally above the wooden floor.
It was as if he was ice skating across the tendrils of wind that flowed like ribbon under him.
'The treasure room! This damn author. There's no way this isn't him.'
We both bolted towards the treasure room, streaks of silver trying to intercept me as I walked but to no avail.
The wind carried him but after all this time my speed stat was one of my highest sitting at an E with the boost from Mershex.
'How is he this strong after three weeks? I mean well I only took like two to become basically F+.'
Ah, I forgot to mention...
it had been three weeks since the author came into the novel.
Most of my time during that was spent well training.
Which means there's around only half a month before the academy starts.
'Hah, so he's trying to take items from me? What a cliche extra novel. Yeah, no.'
He already had the book in his hands and magic began fluttering around him coiling up his body like a snack,
a teleportation scroll.
[Absolute Sword Dominion]
My sword launched forward, piercing everything that stood in its path, tearing through it like paper.
'He probably doesn't expect me to go for his life.'
Well, I'm not the same main character he created...
but I'm not a monster that would kill him, he's not even coming for my life.
Those daggers were clearly aimed to only slightly slow me down; with my gift it was relatively easy to see.
So, I simply just ended the game.
By destroying the king.
The book that contained the Fluttering Flames Movement Art?
Ripped to shreds.
Author's note:
I'm dying help me; this chapter might be slightly edited especially near the ending because I wrote it while dying of a fever.