Is This the End?

Hu. Hu. Hu.

Gasping for breath, Pro dashed through the tunnels. Dirt debris rained from the shaking tunnels as they shook. Pro's danger senses were tingling, and he could feel it growing stronger by the moment.

"It seems there really is a tracking mark on either the basket or the core itself. I could maybe throw off the dungeon boss if I threw both away, but ... I'm not reconciled! A treasure in hand, and finally getting an important quest item, it would be a waste to just throw it away!"

Pro continued to run through the twists and turns in the tunnel as he stared at the red orb in his hand.

"The little girl vigilance has now risen after being stolen from once. I won't be able to do it again! If I can't find a way to solve this dungeon or escape from it, I would be stuck here! If I'm stuck, the little girl will find me sooner or later even with all the tunnels I dug!"

Pro's eyes rolled as he tried to come up with an idea. The core seemed to be made of negative energy, but it had too much negative energy for him to destroy it ... what else could he do? Think, Pro, think!

A sudden spark of inspiration popped into Pro's mind. Pro's eyes gleamed with a hint of hesitation, but in the end, he grit his teeth as he made a decision.

"I'll take the gamble. Hopefully it won't be discovered!"

With a thought, Pro summoned his Negative Chronicles!

"It is the only thing I have that can devour large amount of negative energy. This orb is made of negative energy. Logically, it should work!"

As Pro brought the red orb in his hand towards the book hovering in front of him, he couldn't help but pray to the god of plots. Let readers curse the author for using plot armor to save him! He didn't care! Just let it work!

The red orb came into contact with the book. Pro's eyes fixed upon the point of contact. A whiff of red mist flowed out of the orb and was sucked into the book ...

"It worked! Thank the almighty All Thors above!"

Relief mixed with joy filled Pro's heart. As he ran forward, he watched in amazement as the book's absorption speed gradually sped up. It didn't take long before a shocking thing happened. The red orb actually began to dissolve and sink into the book's cover!

Tremble. Tremble. Tremble.

At the same time this happened, Pro felt the world around him began to shake.

A shriek filled with fear echoed from the tunnels behind Pro, "NO! Impossible! What are you doing to it! How dare you?!"

Feeling his danger sense exploding, Pro made a turn and rapidly dived into the tunnel on the side.

BOOM!

A figure wrapped in red mist rocketed past Pro's previous position, splattering a wave of dirt and causing cracks in the tunnel.

Cough. Cough. Spitting out the dirt from his mouth, Pro bounced up and ran forward with horror. The little boss is here!

Hugging the book against his orb, Pro rushed through the tunnels and made as many turns as possible, hoping to throw off the rampaging dinosaur behind him.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

Large chunks of dirt caved in as the tunnel behind him collapsed! A furious figure in red drilled through all obstacles as it homed in on its target!

"GIVE IT BACK YOU RAT AND I WILL LEAVE YOU A WHOLE CORPSE!"

Like anyone is going to believe the person that says that they would leave you with a whole corpse. This is the Negative Zone. Almost everyone is a soul body. There won't be any corpses left behind after death.

Rumble. Rumble. Rumble.

As the little girl approached, some of tunnels in front of Pro also began to collapse! Pro's eyes shrunk even further when he noticed the faint distortions in space!

Peeking down, Pro saw that the more than half the orb was already devoured by his book that was already slowly recovering to its pristine, new condition! It seemed that even the space in the dungeon had became unstable due to the dungeon core being devoured!

"No! No! Stop for me you rat! We will both perish if you continue!"

Nope. Pro wasn't going to stop, let alone discuss. Heck, he was almost out of breath from running. He doesn't even have the strength to talk back!

Right now, Pro only had one goal! Survive!

Sliding forward, Pro had a close shave with a spatial distortion fixed in the upper part of the tunnel he is running through.

Although Pro didn't know what would happen if he touched it, his danger perception had a stronger reaction to those distortions than the dangerous girl chasing after him!

What Pro didn't know was that the girl behind was also dodging these space distortions! This was probably the only reason that she couldn't actually catch up to Pro! Otherwise, with her flying speed, she would have caught Pro by now!

As more and more of the red orb was devoured, more and more spatial distortions appeared. Pro's rush forward began to slow down as he vaulted and rolled all over in order to avoid the spatial distortions.

Drops of sweat vanished as they came into contact with the spatial distortions, but Pro's bloodshot eyes only looked forward in order to calculate his next route of escape.

The little girl behind him was also begging him to stop in all sorts of way. From cursing to acting pitiful, but Pro had no mercy. He had already arrived at this step. There was no turning back!

Eventually, Pro had to come to a stop. In fact, even if Pro wanted to continue running, he couldn't. His way was completely blocked by spatial distortions!

Behind him, the little girl wrapped in red mist hovered in the tunnel as a wall of red mist sealed off all gaps to prevent any chance of escape.

"Hehehe! Keep running! Why don't you keep running! I will see where you can run!"

Turning towards the girl, Pro wanted to speak up in order to delay some time, but he could only gasp for breath as he stared down at his transparent soul body. It was a sign that his soul body was weakened, in this case due to exhaustion!

The soul body was like a physical body. It can still be exhausted due to too much exertion! Although Pro's soul may have been enhanced a bit due to his multiple traversals and cultivation, his soul was still wasn't strong enough to let him sprint for hours without rest!

Other traversers could, but he couldn't!

Not only that, Pro had also spent a lot of energy digging the tunnels. Although he did rest a bit when needed, he couldn't actually have a full rest because he wasn't in a safe enough place to do so.

Hence, Pro was truly exhausted now! It was a miracle he didn't pass out like he did during initiation!

Staring at the increasing spatial distortions in the area and the menacing dungeon boss in front of him, Pro's face paled as sweat oozed from his forehead. He was now trapped with nowhere to go! The little girl wrapped in red mist rapidly drilled through the air towards Pro.

"NOW DIE!"

As death approached, Pro felt as if time slowed down. He could see the fine details on the little girl's menacing face. He could see the red mist rumbling towards him like a wave.

He could see the world distorting around him as many visions appeared within the spatial distortions. Some showed collapsing trees, some showed the forest ground splitting and shifting apart. It was like an apocalypse.

He could also see that his end was coming. Is he really going to die here? Is it time to descend to the next layer? Will he return to his continuous death cycle? Or maybe, will his story simply end here because the author is too lazy to write more?

The assault from the dungeon boss approached.

Crack!

The world shattered. Fragments of the world rained through the air like the shards of the glass from a broken mirror. Red strands of mist seeped through the fragmented cracks of the world, speeding up its deterioration.

Through the faint cracks, one could peek into the misty, red world outside. In this external misty red ocean, countless small orbs resides.

Each of these miniature orbs had a different scene, each forming a different dungeon. There were ones with oceans, ones with medieval palaces, an assortment with different forests, jungles, and more.

However, the duo in battle didn't have a chance to glimpse into the mysteries of the dungeon.

A frightened face and a calm face that had accepted death were seemingly frozen in time before they were fragmented along with the rest of the orb. Like a broom disposing of dust, an intangible force swept these fragmented shards away into the misty, deep red ocean where countless similar small orbs resides.

And with that comes ...

The end.