Bro, I'm not an Undead!

(A/N: Bonus Chapter).

PCHT!

PCHHT!

Ice fell to the rather dry ground with a pulse of mana.

Skullius who had just appeared within a different space broke apart the white ice that had accumulated over his bones with a burst of mana, his figure shaking to vacate the rest of the pieces from his bony surface.

The ice barely lasted a second though, as it seemed even if he left it, it would have been removed from his, Ferex's and Yuyui's person.

A terrifying heat blasted his body, the Penetrator noticing his bones turning wet then dry within the same breath's worth of time.

It was so hot here that the air couldn't afford to stay still. It was constantly burnt, its shape twisting as between two objects, the imagery was distorted.

Yuyui and Ferex's ice was molten off rather quickly and before they could feel the sensation of being wet, this little moisture they gained was stripped by the scorching atmosphere!

The lime haired girl grimaced as she felt the uncomfortable heat, her blue core powered body being able to survive the high temperatures but her clothes... not so much!

They immediately burst into flame leaving the girl her naked!

Yuyui was surprised but she didn't try to cover herself. The sense of decency had yet to return to her fully after all those years of solitude and besides that, she knew Skullius was uninterested in what riled up most men.

The Penetrator turned to her and threw her the VergeRider.

"Is it alright for me to wear this?" Yuyui asked as she carefully handled the form shifting first set of the armour.

"Of course it is. I don't have any use for the first two sets which I can use right now. I also can't unlock the others since I don't have much Null Life Essence," Skullius said.

He was going into this bare boned and he was confident in winning still.

Yuyui hesitated only for a second as she then wore the first set of the VergeRider, its form growing to fit her figure well.

Skullius scouted this new place.

Behind him was a hazy, small crack that they couldn't get through until the Cluster was cleared while before him was a vast...world.

It looked like the inside of a volcano, a massive cavern-like space with dark soils where streams and rivers of orange-pink coloured magma flowed everywhere, the landscape turning down after a few hundred meters at a cliff as beyond this, was where an expansive, unique view began.

Skullius gazed at his staff, his guidance field telling him that the charges he had accumulated for [Jolt Ray], the milky blast released by the staff and [Jump], the teleportation skill he had used just now to appear in mid-air, were to be used only when truly necessary.

The Elimparidis Stone Staff used the energy it received from spaces absorbed into the white gem at its top to power [Jolt Ray] and [Jump].

When he had taken in the Temple of Unlusted Tears into Fortune, a small amount of charges had been generated for both skills, more specifically four for [Jump] and six for [Jolt Ray].

"Let's go," Skullius said while sending an order to Ferex.

The Hound increased its size with Skullius leaping to ride on its back, his hand grabbing onto Yuyui to bring her up as well.

The three walked up to reach the cliff against the scorching wind, the full view of this entire place emerging in their sight.

A blazing utopia appeared!

Right after the cliff, the massive descent below presented a large boiling pool of magma that spanned for roughly 600 meters. It was followed by a rocky, uneven land which was somehow merged with trees and shrubs that grew on literally everything!

These trees had dark barks, almost as dark as the black soils, the leaves on them being wisps of extremely hot flames that also had the orange-pink hue!

After this strange forest that featured over multiple spots within the miles worth of pure new world here, was a civilization!

Dome shaped houses made of black bricks with what looked like a chimney over each of them that spat out fumes.

As for the residents...

They were black scaled humanoid creatures with tall, skinny frames.  Most had two or three off-white horns growing from their foreheads with pointed tails and a pair of webbed wings on their backs mainly featuring a blackish red hue.

These creatures were happy to live naked as their expansive settlements strewn over this world consisted of various sizes of their kind, those with some distinction donning burning armours which were made from carved rock.

"Bro... there's so many of them," Skullius remarked while Yuyui was utterly creeped out by these creatures.

At a rough estimate, there were over 300,000 of them!

In such situations, most mercenaries would focus on finding the Cluster General and killing it to collapse the Cluster which would be the most effective way to deal with such scenarios featuring high numbers but...

Skullius had a different plan in mind.

Since this was a blue Cluster, there were likely to be a large number of Tier 4 and higher monsters.

While most of them would most likely outclass him stat-wise, Skullius had a few tricks to spam that were going to give him the advantage.

Definitely.

"Alright, Ferex. Time to go with the Eat-Me-Up strategy again," Skullius said as he disembarked from Ferex along with Yuyui who looked quizzically at the Penetrator.

"What's the Eat-Me-Up strategy?" she asked.

The Penetrator's sockets flared as he emitted a chuckle.

He didn't answer as instead, he looked to Ferex who immediately followed his master's order, his size building up as he grew over five meters tall, the Pseudo Spirit Walker's Hide covering his Unliving Thread.

The Hide released light bursts of smoke but didn't burn away fortunately.

Skullius jumped into Ferex's maw which was opened wide while dragging Yuyui who was once again dumbfounded at the things her master casually did.

Soon, Ferex disappeared, his unseen figure scaling down the cliff silently.

Within the pool of scalding hot magma below, roughly twenty of the dark scaled creatures could be spotted, swimming leisurely as they seemed to have a high tolerance to extreme heat.

They chatted in their own language, some playing games as young and old among them could be differentiated by height and the growth of the horns.

Two of these creatures who seemed to be having a swimming contest around the pool swam past the others with great fervour and joy on their faces.

They went arc after arc as they splashed magma over themselves for several minutes, some of the other fellow Cluster beasts watching them while the rest went about their business.

Then, it happened.

A long, thick black chain sprang up from somewhere on the dry grounds, wrapping around the neck of one of these two!

Immediately, the Cluster beast was pulled him over while gasping!

...!

The other Cluster beasts upon seeing this were alarmed, their eyes turning to their peer who had just been dragged across the dark soils over to a space a distance away where tangled shrubs and trees met, creating a cover!

The moment this terrified creature seized being dragged about, the chains that kept strangling it having stopped pulling, a tall skeletal creature appeared in its sight, its four sockets burning fiercely with a blue flame!

....!

The creature tried to scream as a great sense of horror overcame it but Skullius didn't stop it from trying.

"I guess I was wrong. The chains still work well with my Penetrator form," he said with a chuckle, his hand resting over the abdomen of this Cluster beast he had captured as it brimmed with mana.

"Now let's see what kind of core you have."

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