I feel the outside world becoming far less visible to my senses. Through the two holes in the mansion floor where I slashed with my full-powered attack to free Raven from the threads, I can still send a weaker pulse of perception through it. However, the outside world isn't my main concern right now. It's the dozens of yellow eyes on me and the pulse of divine energy that floods out of the large marble orb at the back of the room, powering all of these statues. The density of True Core's power circulating through the white statues varies a lot, but the two that lunge toward me have the highest amount inside them. Their strength is equivalent to the manifestations I cut down entering this mansion, but the difference lies in their battle patterns. These statues aren't just dancing puppets rambling away and spewing white threads my way. The statue to my right is a tall and muscular man wielding a large battle axe, while the hunter to my left carries two short swords. My greater form towers over them in stature, speed, and strength, but they charge at me with no hesitation. Behind them, the remaining statues quickly shift into a triangular formation with the base holding the majority of marble hunters guarding the large sphere at the back of the corridor. All of them move in unison, and the yellow glow in their eyes seems lifeless. However, their intricately detailed armor, weapons, and facial features remind me that these were humans too... "It wouldn't be as fun if you let me win that easily—" The voice comes back, echoing out from the marble pearl as four more stone hunters wake from their stances, and two more bundles of string manifestations appear behind me. "It has been decades since another True Core came about. I thought all of the fragments in this world were collected after the Great War, but you've certainly made things lively again. I thank you for that." I don't listen to his words, and only zip through the corridor, easily slicing through the two string puppets. But when my swords clash with the knives, axes, and shields of the hunters before me, I face far more resistance than I did in my larger form. I shatter three of them to pieces despite the harder time cutting through, but it takes me two slashes to break through the shield of one of the tanks. The laughs echo through the corridor as I come to the realization there is a cost to increasing my speed and agility—that's a minor loss in my overall pure strength... However, I can tell this isn't the full picture. Not only has my strength fallen by a small amount, but that tank's divine energy density was greater than its partners... As more and more guards wake up every time I kill them, and countless thread bodies are created, things become clearer and I start to piece together a few patterns. The first is, I was right about that tank being stronger than the others... The closer to the sphere I get, the more powerful the hunters become. It takes me three to four hits to injure and finally kill each of them, shattering them into fragments of white marble. Just taking off an arm or a leg isn't enough. When I manage to break off small parts, hundreds of tiny white threads seep out from the wounded area and reach for the broken stone, piecing itself back together and hardening like nothing happened. Their chests or heads need to be destroyed in order for them to stop fighting... The other thing I notice is the manifestations of pure threads that attack me never change in strength. No matter how close or far away they get to me, they are always identical, and all it takes is one heavy slash to get rid of them. The last pattern I notice is the maximum number of moving statues and thread manifestations combined I ever face is six... The closer I get to the sphere at the back of the room, however, the fewer are summoned at once. Only two to three statues are sent toward me at a time, and they're significantly stronger than when a full six are sent my way. I get into quite the rhythm slashing through the constant stream of statues and strategically placed webs of threads to try and lead me away. Despite this, I make a few meters of progress every second, spinning and slashing my way through the air with my eye on the prize—the pulsing sphere at the back of the room. As I slash through more and more of the stone statues of hunters mindlessly trying to kill me, like they're monsters in a dungeon, I feel Raven's lifeforce growing dimmer and dimmer. She is frozen, with over 80% of her body turned to the same lifeless stone that I'm slicing away at here, but her core and mind are still intact, barely. The answers to everything I want to know lie within her mind. The only one stopping me from finding out is this mad, rambling man that finds pleasure in turning great warriors into stone and playing with their bodies like puppets. My own core burns brighter, and I start to control the output of my greater form with a far more intricate degree as I'm on a strict clock. I want to be as efficient as I can and destroy the source before it's too late. I begin manipulating the amount of energy I compact, growing in size temporarily by 25–50% during a slash of my blades to increase their power output, and compact my greater form even tighter, almost pressing up against my real body's skin when I need to make a split-second escape from the vast arrays of webbing. Eventually, as the seconds go by, and I smash through dozens of statues, I gain proficiency in my new technique and the ability to even manipulate only certain parts of my greater form becomes more natural. My legs can be compacted for greater speed, while mid-strike, I allow my swords to expand and extend to gain the maximum amount of power. Even as the divine energy of the statues becomes over double that of what they were at the front of the line, I'm able to slash through them in a single hit once I've completely mastered this new ability. The mad rambles and endless laughter don't stop as I smash through the last statue guarding the orb at the back of the room... In fact, they get louder and more incoherent. "Yes... Yes... this is it. Another worthy candidate for the throne I can keep for eternity. One who grows with ease and climbs to greater heights, obsessed with the fight even when there is no need to be. Another savior, blind to the fact that it is this instinct that kills them in the end. A moth helplessly flying toward the flame..." Behind the white orb, lurking in the darkness, there is a final statue that I couldn't perceive before. This is because it was merely just stone. Now, as the sphere pulses bright yellow, the brightest it ever has, the entire back of the corridor shows itself, and a glossy white dragon I recognize from the Apex Region's Association Headquarters stares down at me.