Mimic Awakening

The next day, the three residents of the floating island gather in the living room of the almost finished house. The interior is almost empty; only a few pieces of furniture and carpets are present in the room.

The atmosphere in the room is grave; Azrael, Claire, and Alina cannot stop thinking about the events that happened yesterday, the continuation of their discussion last night. Especially Azrael, who cannot believe that he came face-to-face with one of this world’s gods.

"Dungeon God Vordoth, who is also known as the Evil God... To think that he actually exists." Claire mumbles under her breath. "It took Azrael’s most powerful attack to defeat a tenth of his power. That god is truly a monster on his own."

"I thought I was powerful, but I am actually a frog in a well. In our fight, he was toying with me the whole time. He even let me use my trump card without stopping me. He could have finished me whenever he wanted. Not even my second awakening can suppress the fear I am feeling..."

Sitting on the same couch as Claire’s, Azrael expresses his honest thoughts with a face displaying multiple emotions such as fear, anger, regret, disappointment, and so on.

Azrael sure has won their fight, but he only defeated a fraction of the god’s power, which makes Azrael wake up to the reality that there is always an eldritch horror in the sea. The gap between them is just so vast that Azrael feels the dizziness by just thinking about it. He is in the middle of his existential crisis.

"It’s fine to feel down, Azrael. Even though it was not as intense as yours, I also felt something similar when I faced you in the dungeon. I also felt fear of dying, and I was desperate to do anything to survive."

"I appreciate it, Claire. That at least helps me feel better." Azrael forces a genuine smile. "But I still couldn’t help but think how powerless I am in front of an actual god. I don’t think I would make it out alive once I face him again. I want to get stronger. I need to be strong."

"With your current power, you are at least ten times more powerful than me in terms of mana. From that, I can confirm that, mana-wise, that put you above the disaster class and have stepped into the catastrophe level. At that level, you are on par with the Great Calamities, which are capable of destroying multiple medium-sized nations or a large empire or two."

In this world, there is a classification system for how much of a threat a monster of a person can be. The factors of an entity’s threat level include its mana capacity, physical size and build, level of intelligence, and the scale of their capabilities.

For most monsters, their threat level is mostly classified by their mana capacity alone due to the level of intellect, driven by instinct rather than reason. But it cannot say the same for members of the intellectual race. Like how a yellow-cored lesser dragon is less of a threat than a human adventurer with the same magic core hue most of the time.

There are many classes of how much of a threat a thing can be. For intellectual races, placing an individual’s power poses a challenge due to various factors. But for monsters, their threat level is categorized by their mana capacity.

From the lowest, there are the crisis-class monsters, or the city killers. These beings are the monsters that possess at least a green magic core. Beings in this class have the potential to destroy a large city. First awakeners and mid-level pseudo-awakeners, people who experienced a massive power-up without gaining any awakened ability, also fall in this category.

Above the crisis class is the calamity class or multicity threats. As the name implies, a monster in this category can wreck havoc from city to city. Monsters with a blue magic core belong to this class, as well as powerful first awakeners and high-level pseudo-awakeners.

Some examples of the calamity-class beings are the greater variants of the dragon races, the colossus golem, even though it has a yellow core, and the Kingdom of Roheazul’s hero, Geoffrey.

Monsters capable of ruining a nation are called disaster-class threats. At this level, monsters possess the rare purple magic core. Disaster-class beings possess overwhelming power and are the worst threat a medium-sized nation can handle. Prime examples of disaster-class beings are the third awakeners, the Dread Horrors, and the archdragon.

Just as Claire claimed earlier, Azrael has reached the heights to become a catastrophe-class threat. Beings of this level are so tremendously powerful they can erase a few civilizations from existence; they can ruin several nations or one of the three regions on the continent.

Catastrophe-class monsters were only said to exist in myths and legends. However, there were a few instances of their appearance in the tens of millennia of history, such as the theoretical third-stage awakeners and the Great Calamities. Legend has it that Great Calamities were what would happen if the Dread Horrors were to evolve or assimilate.

Historically, no nation can overcome such threats alone. The last Great Calamity was said to be defeated by exhausting it to its limits. The three most powerful empires on the continent at that time, two of which do not exist now, joined together to relentlessly attack the catastrophe nonstop for months.

The catastrophe-class beings are the worst thing humanity can face right now. Though not confirmed yet, there are two more theoretical classes above that: the cataclysm-class (continental) and the apocalypse-class (global).

"But what is a catastrophe to a god that operates on a global scale?" Azrael retorts. "What’s worse is I cannot harvest those archdragons for powering myself up anymore."

"Yeah. There’s that, too." Claire agrees with a weak voice. "I can’t believe monsters won’t spawn in the dungeon anymore."

"If I learned that someone stole my power that way, I would immediately cut off the source of their power." Azrael somewhat agrees with the evil god’s logic.

Ever since yesterday, the dungeon in the floating island has stopped spawning monsters. They were sure it was the god’s intention since monsters are still spawning normally in other dungeons. Right now, Azrael is left with a massive yet inoperational dungeon.

But on the brighter side, he has a lot of empty space to use, and unlike when the dungeon was on the surface, the temperature inside has cooled down significantly. The fifth floor, which was previously unbearable, now has an air temperature like that of the Roheazul Kingdom’s summer heat, which is the same on the surface right now.

"You know what? There’s something I realized after facing Vordoth."

"And what could it be?"

Azrael speaks his thoughts with a serious tone, to which Claire replies in the same manner. He then looks straight at her eyes.

"I realized that I am not invincible. I could die at any moment. I was just lucky that time. There’s something I want to do but I couldn’t find the right timing. Claire, do you remember the deal we made back in the dungeon?"

"Yeah. I remember it clearly." Claire says that as she averts her gaze.

"I think I want to do it right now."