OP Absorption
Chapter 65: Freedom

Chapter 65: Freedom

Hours melted away in the silent throne room.

Arachne, recovering slowly, answered Fin’s questions. Her voice, still raspy, painted a picture of dungeon ecosystems, mana flows, spawn cycles, and the delicate balance maintained by Lords under the watchful, iron fist of the Admins.

He absorbed it all. Information flooding into a mind supercharged and stabilized by warring power sources. It was knowledge no Hunter was ever meant to possess. Knowledge that painted the Guild, the rankings, his entire life, as a meaningless footnote in a cosmic conflict.

He didn’t react outwardly. The blank mask held. The cube pupils remained flat, absorbing light.

But inside? A silent earthquake was leveling everything he thought he knew.

Finally, he focused on her. The girl who tried to kill him, who he drained near-death, now sat explaining the universe’s cruel mechanics with the patience of a weary librarian.

"Why?" he asked, the monotone cutting through her explanation of respawn timers. "Why are you helping me? You hate me." He stated it as fact.

She flinched slightly at the directness. She looked down at her pale hands, then back up, meeting his unnerving gaze.

"I... I did," she admitted, her voice dropping low. "Every part of me screamed for vengeance. For what you did to me, to the Matriarch, to my Queen..." Her voice choked on the last word.

"But now?" She shook her head, confusion clouding her eyes. "It’s gone. Vanished."

She hesitated, then pushed on, voicing the theory she’d clearly been wrestling with. "That power you absorbed... the Matriarch’s essence, my own... it wasn’t just mana. It was... us. Spider-kin."

"I think," she whispered, "it changed you. On a fundamental level. Your very core signature... it resonates differently now. More... familiar. Like..." She struggled for the word. "Like royalty. Like... a King."

The idea was absurd. Yet, her instinctive revulsion had indeed evaporated, replaced by a strange, unsettling sense of... belonging. Of loyalty.

He stared at her, processing. Altered DNA? Seen as a King? It sounded like utter nonsense.

He just shrugged, the gesture minimal. The internal logic didn’t compute, so he discarded it.

He turned away, surveying the room. The opulent, dark décor felt oppressive. Ancient. Stale.

"This place needs a serious makeover," he muttered, his flat. "Whole dungeon’s out of touch."

Arachne blinked, startled by the mundane comment after their discussion.

He ignored her surprise, turning back to the core issue. "So. I’m the ’owner’ now. How do I leave?"

He half expected her to say he couldn’t. Trapped. The new warden of an eternal prison.

But she shook her head again. "You weren’t born here. You weren’t created by the dungeon or the Admins to serve this function."

"You’re an outsider who claimed ownership. The rules are... different for you."

"You can create an exit. A gate. Anytime you wish."

Hope? No. Just... possibility. "How?"

"Focus," she instructed, her voice regaining some strength. "Picture the destination. Feel the Mark on your chest. Will the space between here and there to... connect."

It sounded ridiculously simple.

He closed his eyes. He didn’t picture the Guild HQ or his apartment. He pictured the empty street outside the temporary encampment, just beyond the original dungeon entrance tear. The sky. Damp air. Freedom.

He focused on the Mark. Poured his will into it. Imagined a doorway ripping open in the fabric of the throne room.

He felt a response. A thrumming beneath his skin. Power answering intent.

He opened his eyes.

Before him, shimmering in the air, was a tear. Not the jagged anomaly of a natural dungeon entrance, but a smooth, oval portal swirling with the light of the outside world. He could smell rain.

It worked.

He looked back at Arachne. She stared at the portal, then at him, awe warring with her ingrained fear.

"Clean up," he ordered, gesturing vaguely at the corpses of his former team, the discarded scythe. "This place is a mess."

She lowered her head, the subservience instinct kicking in fully now. "Yes, my Lor—" She cut herself off, flushing slightly. "Yes. I will await your return."

He stepped towards the gate, then paused. He felt the connection to her, faint but persistent. A tool. A potential asset. A starving one.

He focused on the link. Pushed.

Not draining this time. Giving.

Mana surged across the connection. Raw, potent energy drawn from the integrated Mana Cell, filtered slightly through his core.

Arachne gasped, her eyes flying wide as the power flooded her depleted system. It was overwhelming, far richer and denser than any energy she had ever felt, even from the Queen. It filled her, expanded within her, pressing against her limits. Tingling warmth spread through her limbs, knitting weary tissues, restoring vitality at an explosive rate.

It was too much. Glorious, terrifying, intoxicating power.

Then, as abruptly as it began, the flow stopped. The connection severed.

He was gone.

She knelt on the floor, trembling, awash in borrowed power, staring at the spot where the human King had vanished. Alone in the silent, blood-stained throne room.

Waiting.

The light of the portal solidified into the cold drizzle of the outside world. He stepped onto wet earth, the swirling gateway vanishing behind him.

He stood on a muddy rise overlooking the temporary Guild encampment near the dungeon’s original tear.

Even from this distance, the scene was chaotic. Flashing lights from news vans cut through the gloom. Dozens of Hunters milled about, their postures tense. Figures in expensive-looking suits huddled under umbrellas, clearly Guild officials or city higher-ups.

Something had happened. Or they were waiting for something disastrous to happen.

His return.

He watched for only a moment, cold logic assessing the situation. Explanations. Debriefings. Suspicion.

"No time for this," he muttered, his voice barely audible over the rain. "I need to return home."

He turned his back on the encampment, the distant lights reflecting wetly in his eyes. He started walking, the drizzle plastering his hair to his forehead.

He looked at his side, far off in the distance, ’Hmm, could have sworn I felt someone watching me... whatever, I have their mana signature now, next time will be their last.’

He continued on, his mind racing, processing the impossible sequence of events. The betrayal. The Queen. The Mana Cell. The Admin. The Admins. Outer Gods.

’How do I explain myself to the guild?’ The thought was a cold spike amidst the swirling data. ’I can’t just go in saying my team betrayed me and an admin showed up.’

It would make no sense.

’They died but a D-rank survived?’ Utterly unbelievable. They’d lock him up.

He looked up at the cloudy sky, feeling the cold rain on his face. A grounding sensation in a world suddenly ungrounded.

Then, a different thought surfaced. Cold, clear, detached. Power hummed beneath his skin.

’Let’s set a new record, shall we?’

He focused. Mana surged, flooding his legs with incandescent green energy. He crouched slightly.

The ground beneath his feet didn’t just crack. It exploded outwards in a spray of mud and shattered earth as he launched himself forward.

WHOOSH.

He became a blur, a flicker against the grey landscape. Miles melted away beneath his feet. The drizzle became static lines he seemed to weave between, raindrops appearing almost stationary relative to his impossible velocity.

He laughed. A sharp, breathless sound lost instantly to the wind tearing past his ears. This was power. True power.

He leaped, clearing a small ravine in a single bound, twisting in a near-perfect backflip mid-air just because he could. He landed silently, propelling himself forward again without losing momentum. He spun, dodged phantom obstacles, reveled in the sheer, intoxicating freedom of movement.

The city skyline appeared, rushing towards him at blinding speed. Buildings grew from specks to towering structures in seconds.

It took him exactly one minute to cover the miles between the dungeon site and the outskirts of the city.

One minute.

He skidded to a halt on a rain-slicked alleyway roof, the force of his stop sending water spraying outwards. He stood perfectly still, breathing easily, the green energy fading from his legs.

Home was close. Meg was close.

But the world felt very, very far away.

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