❛ 𝐒𝐇𝐀𝐃𝐎𝐖 𝐈𝐍 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐋𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓 ❜ ━━━ (𝘀. 𝗷𝗶𝗻𝘄𝗼𝗼)

| twenty seven ; the past of our powers

the shadow in the light

chapter twenty seven; the past of our powers

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

"memory is a way of holding on to the things you love, the things you are, the things you never want to lose."

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

a/n; this chapter is very long since i wanted to cover the entire double dungeon arc here, including the memory the architect showed. this chapter's total word count has reached more than 5k, which is why i took a while to upload :')

there was no time to respond as the statue began its attack. a large, tightly clenched fist came flying at them like a flashing light. jin-woo raised his arms to defend himself as y/n activated ruler's protection. it was somehow effective, but it didn't stop them from getting hurt.

y/n quickly shifted her sword to the front to set up another barrier as she pushed jin-woo away with ruler's authority. had she not done that, jin-woo would've gotten crushed by the statue's second attack.

the statue didn't waste another second as it began throwing punches at them. attacks poured in without a break, each punch powerful enough to take down a high ranking hunter in a single hit.

as time wore on, the statue's eyes widened in surprise. they're... blocking my punches?

it could see the determination in their eyes and it grinned. "what a surprise! you're exceeding my expectations!"

a light suddenly flashed in its vision. it wasn't really a light, but a punch from jin-woo. he gave y/n an opportunity to slash a wave of light to the statue, resulting in it being sent back all the way to the other side of the room.

it still stood right back up despite suffering two fatal attacks. cracks formed in its stone face as half of was already gone. instead, his real face was shown — a whitish-blue like colour.

"who knew fighting humans would be so interesting?" the architect grinned. "not once in my long life did i ever believe that a human could be a worthy opponent. how interesting."

"you still haven't answered my questions, architect," jin-woo spoke through laboured breaths. "about why you designed the system, why we were chosen as players... about what's happening to the world."

"do you want an answer?" the architect asked as it flew to them like an arrow and swung its fist big fist at them. "i see... you might be thinking that your questions won't be answered if you kill me."

the punch it sent sliced the air instead of the two hunters, as they separated into two different directions.

the architect took notice of jin-woo using ruler's authority  and raised its arm, "are you going to attack from that distance? it's pointless."

a bright white dome was pushed towards jin-woo's direction since he was closer to the architect. y/n observed that the architect was able to use the same skills as she and jin-woo could. it unsurprisingly used ruler's authority like jin-woo did.