The Extra's Rise-Chapter 204: Northern Sea Ice Palace (5)

What exactly were dungeons?

The simplest answer? A mess of space-time nonsense held together by monsters and bad luck.

More specifically, dungeons were hotspots for mana beasts, places where the very fabric of reality twisted itself into a knot, creating pocket dimensions separate from the world outside. Step into one, and you weren’t just walking into a cave or ruin—you were entering something entirely different. Something that shouldn’t exist, yet somehow did.

Dungeons were ranked from 1-star to 9-star, just like mana beasts.

Except 1-star dungeons didn’t actually exist.

They were more of a footnote, a theoretical baseline, like writing "Level 1" in a game where the tutorial tried to kill you. The real dungeons started at 2-star and climbed up to 9-star, each one home to a boss monster matching its rank and a horde of weaker creatures swarming within.

And if the boss died? The entire dungeon collapsed.

Which led to the biggest mystery of dungeons—why did killing a single mana beast unravel an entire alternate dimension?

It wasn’t like the boss was actively holding the dungeon together—it didn’t expend mana to stabilize the warped space. It just existed, and somehow, its death was enough to tear reality apart from the inside out.

Theories existed. Some claimed dungeons were born from supernatural events, places where mana had warped so violently that it folded in on itself, creating a self-contained bubble of chaos. Others suggested they were simply natural fluctuations of space-time, like wrinkles in reality that happened with or without the boss monster inside.

The second theory made more sense—mostly because dungeons kept appearing all over the world, too frequent to be caused by some ancient catastrophe every single time.

And the dungeon that had formed here, in the ruins of the Northern Sea Ice Palace?

It was a six-star dungeon.

In the novel, she had conquered it alongside Lucifer, back when she was already at low Integration-rank. And even then, it had been laughably easy—barely a challenge for her, and even less of one for Lucifer, who had been even stronger.

But now?

Now, we were much, much weaker than that.

I was at White-rank. Seraphina was at high Silver-rank. A full two ranks below where she had been in the novel when she first faced this place.

Which was why I handed Erebus over to her.

She needed the boost. Not because she was weak—because this dungeon wasn’t meant to be cleared by me.

This was her trial.

I was just here to support her.

What we wanted from this dungeon wasn’t just survival.

It was the reward—the Ice Crystal Lotus, the lost treasure of the Northern Sea Ice Palace.

Somehow, it had escaped destruction. Or rather, it had been absorbed by the dungeon, pulled into this warped pocket of reality when the palace fell.

That lotus wasn’t just a relic. It was the key to Seraphina’s future.

If she obtained it, it would grant her enlightenment, sharpening her understanding of her own Gift—Ice Crystal Jade Body. Right now, she could already balance the two opposing concepts of freezing and blossoming, but this would push her beyond balance.

This would merge them.

Not just as two coexisting forces, but as a new concept entirely—one she could wield as her own art, independent of Mount Hua’s teachings. She had done it in the novel, but much later. This would let her do it now.

And that changed everything.

"Arthur."

Seraphina’s voice pulled me from my thoughts.

I turned to her just as she tensed, her gaze flickering forward.

"What is—"

"Focus," I said, cutting her off. I lifted a hand, pointing ahead.

She followed my gaze.

Then she saw them.

A dozen four-star presences, their mana signatures prickling against our senses.

Silverback Wolves.

Large, muscular, their fur gleaming like polished steel beneath the dim dungeon light. Their eyes glowed with predatory hunger, low growls rumbling from deep within their throats as they paced forward, circling, assessing us.

Seraphina inhaled sharply, steadying herself.

"Seraphina," I said, my voice calm despite the tension in the air.

She glanced at me.

"Trust me," I said simply, a smile pulling at my lips.

She held my gaze for a moment longer—then turned back toward the approaching wolves, her hand tightening around her sword hilt.

The crimson Bone Armor I had given her through Erebus wrapped around her form, fitting her as if it had always belonged to her.

It suited her.

A warrior forged from ice and blood.

And then—

The wolves attacked.

’Are you not going to help her?’ Luna’s voice echoed in my mind as I stood back, watching Seraphina rush at her opponents.

’I don’t need to,’ I replied. ’I need to conserve my strength for the six-star dungeon boss as well.’

That thing was going to be a problem.

Seraphina could handle the wolves just fine, but the boss? That wasn’t something she could take on alone—not at her current level, not even with Erebus reinforcing her.

Mana beasts were, in general, weaker than humans at the same level. Sure, they had absurd physical strength, heightened instincts, and natural adaptations, but they fell behind in the finer aspects of combat. They lacked arts, tactical training, and, most importantly, the human ability to push beyond limits in ways that defied all logic.

Not to mention, the mana core system humans used was vastly superior to the beasts’ mana star system in terms of efficiency.

That was why I had been able to kill a five-star beast at just mid Silver-rank, despite the seemingly massive gap in raw mana quantity and quality.

But a six-star beast?

That was a different story.

The jump from White-rank to low Integration-rank was where mana underwent the most drastic transformation—a full tenfold increase in both power and capacity. The boss of this dungeon had been weak for its level, which was why Seraphina had been able to slaughter it easily in the novel when she had already reached low Integration-rank.

But right now?

With her at high Silver-rank and me at White-rank?

Even together, it would be a challenge.

The wolves, though?

Seraphina made short work of them.

Her blade flashed, and with it, the air filled with a flurry of cyan plum blossoms—manifestations of her sword intent, blooming midair before slicing through the pack like razors.

She moved like flowing water, weaving effortlessly between the wolves, her strikes both precise and merciless. Every step was calculated, every movement part of an intricate dance of death.

Her swordsmanship was beautiful. Sharp yet delicate. Precise yet fluid.

It carried the very spirit of Mount Hua—a balance of grace and lethality, of elegance and destruction.

She didn’t just cut down her enemies—she painted the battlefield with their demise.

Seraphina exhaled, her plum blossoms dissolving into the air, their fleeting glow vanishing like embers in the wind. The wolves lay slaughtered, their bodies frozen, cut apart with an efficiency that bordered on artistry.

She straightened, her breath steady despite the fight. Then, she turned to me.

"Explain," she said.

No accusation. No anger. Just calm suspicion, sharp and measured.

I walked up to her casually, hands in my pockets, as if we weren’t standing in the middle of a dungeon filled with unknown threats.

"Six-star dungeon," I said. "There’s something here that we need to get for you."

Her gaze didn’t waver. "How do you know?"

Her voice was smooth, but I could hear the shift—doubt creeping in, wrapping around the edges of her words.

And, well—fair.

It wasn’t exactly normal to randomly drag someone into a sealed-off dungeon in the ruins of their dead mother’s palace and just so happen to know that there was some once-in-a-lifetime treasure waiting at the end.

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I looked at her, considering my next words carefully.

I couldn’t tell her the truth.

That I had transmigrated from another world. That I had read this life as a novel before waking up inside it. That to me, she had once been just words on a page before becoming something much more.

The answer should have been simple.

I should lie.

It was the safest option. The smartest option.

But…

I thought back to her kneeling in the snow, ready to vow herself to me.

She had trusted me.

I should trust her. So I will tell her a white lie with a secret of mine.

"I bonded with a qilin," I said finally. "That’s where Lucent Harmony comes from. As you know, a qilin can read the flow of fate itself—which is why I know about this place."

Seraphina’s eyes widened.

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Her ice-blue gaze searched mine, assessing, analyzing. Then, after a long moment, she tucked a strand of silver hair behind her slightly pointed ear, exhaling slowly.

"Thank you for telling me," she said.

I smiled. "I trust you like you trust me."

She said nothing, but I saw it—the way her shoulders relaxed, the way the tension in her stance cooled, just slightly.

Because even if she trusted me, this whole situation—a dungeon, on a sealed-off island, that I somehow knew about but never mentioned before—had left her on edge.

Now, at least, she had an answer.

"Let’s go," Seraphina said.

And together, we stepped deeper into the unknown.