Infinity Is My Affinity?!?-Chapter 99: Okay, That’s The End Of That… I Think

-Thud-Thud-Thud-Thud-!

Each step of my ice-encased boots launched a spray of frozen dirt into the air, as I sprinted up the main path of the dungeon.

The 45MP I dumped into the evenly spread Ice reinforcement turned my panicked dash into a terrifyingly fast blur.

All the while, the agonizing screams grew louder and louder until they completely drowned out the wind rushing past my ears, and all I could hear was that dying man and the shrieks of hundreds of goblins drowning even him out.

And a few beats later, I skidded to a violent halt as I reached a wide, arched entrance carved into the left side of the tunnel wall.

As I threw myself against the stone frame, my chest heaving, I quickly peered inside, and the chamber that came into view was a massive cavity, dimly lit by scattered patches of spirit moss.

But I didn’t need bright lights to see the absolute slaughter taking place inside, while the thick, coppery stench of rotting meat and fresh blood that hit my nose almost made me gag.

Half of the floor was drenched in red while a massive horde of hundreds of goblins swarmed the center of the room.

They were grotesque, standing barely waist-high with pimply green skin and wildly glowing red eyes.

The vast majority of the swarm were dog-piling the mutilated remains of an adventuring party, frantically tearing into the fresh meat with a sickening chorus of wet tearing sounds and high-pitched screeches.

While at the far edge of the gory feast, a single surviving man was desperately scrambling backward.

He was bleeding from a dozen deep scratches, his face pale with absolute terror while a tight ring of goblins stalked toward him, cutting off his escape.

[There!]

I instantly severed the flow of the 45 MP Ice reinforcement, feeling the physical strength drain out of my body before raising both of my hands and extending my index and middle fingers toward the ring of monsters.

I pushed 20 MP straight to my fingertips while keeping my Domain, Precognition, and the 5 MP cognitive Ice reinforcement perfectly steady.

And the very next instant, four highly compressed AP Ice Pebbles materialized before me, two hovering before each of my outstretched hands.

Taking a final shaky breath, I locked my blue-glinting eyes on the goblins cornering the man, and let loose.

-Ta-Ta-Ta-Ta-Ta-Ta!....

The pebbles tore through the air, each shooting off with a sonic crack of its own like four Gatling guns going off at once.

The streams ripped across the dimly lit chamber, shredding through the goblins surrounding the man, each pebble ripping and tearing through at least two or three of those monsters, spraying the air and the chamber with dark green blood as the ring collapsed into a mangled pile of twitching limbs.

-Ding!

{Host has slain Tier-1, Mid-Stage Goblin. +100 EXP}

-Ding!

{Host has slain Tier-1, Mid-Stage Goblin. +100 EXP}

-Ding!

{Host has slain Tier-1, Mid-Stage Goblin. +100 EXP}

-Ding!

{Host has slain-}

[Mute that! We’ll handle it later!] I mentally screamed, shutting the jarring, overlapping chimes ringing in my skull that were completely throwing off my focus.

-Ding!

{Combat notifications muted.}

The bleeding man stared at the sudden carnage in absolute shock before whipping his head toward the entrance, his wide eyes locking onto me.

And the second the realization of his clear path to the door registered, the man scrambled for a desperate break for it, dashing past me in his frenzy, almost crashing against the tunnel wall outside.

"Just sit tight," I ordered without taking my eyes off the room.

I could feel his gaze through the Domain, looking back at me in pure awe while he panted.

But the deafening crack of my magic had done more than save the man. It had actively ripped the attention of the entire horde away from their meal.

Hundreds of pairs of glowing red eyes snapped toward the doorway.

-EEEHHHHAAA-!

A synchronized, deafening shriek ripped through the dungeon as the entire swarm abandoned the corpses and charged straight at me.

While I kept my fingers pointed, maintaining the brutal rate of fire.

But not even a second later, the spike of pure, unadulterated panic realization pierced straight through my Ice-enhanced cognition that the math was instantly against me. 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝚠𝕖𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝕖𝚕.𝚌𝗼𝗺

I was mowing down dozens of them, but they were spreading out, rushing to flood the wide archway and overwhelm my firing lines through sheer numbers.

[Let’s try this...] I forced a smirk, though my hands were visibly trembling.

The four ice pebbles vanished into thin air, and for that terrifying fraction of a second, I had absolutely no defense against a literal tidal wave of monsters.

Forcing down the heart leaping straight into my throat, I slammed both of my palms flat against the threshold of the entrance, desperately dumping 45 MP directly into my new magic.

-Crash!

A massive, almost pitch-black root violently erupted from the ground on the left side of the archway, rapidly expanding and growing thicker than a tree trunk as it shot upward and stabbed itself deep into the ceiling.

A split second later, a second massive root erupted from the right side.

They slammed together in the center of the doorway, effectively sealing off the wide entrance and forming a dense, V-shaped funnel that left only a narrow, forty-centimeter gap right down the middle.

And the literal microsecond after the roots locked into place, the goblin tsunami slammed into the barrier with a loud-

-Crash!

The roots groaned under the sheer weight of hundreds of frantic bodies.

Goblins had absolutely zero sense of self-preservation. So the dumb things mindlessly shoved themselves toward the narrow opening, violently crushing each other as they scrambled to squeeze through the tight gap.

It was a nightmare straight out of a zombie movie, and the sheer, mindless brutality of them crushing their own kind made my stomach physically churn. But it was also the fatal choke point I needed.

I once again raised my trembling hands, aiming my fingers directly at the forty-centimeter opening, and pulled the metaphorical trigger.

-Ta-Ta-Ta-Ta-Ta-Ta-!

The four continuous streams of AP ice pebbles fired at such a ridiculous, sustained rate that they blurred into four solid white lines of death, ripping and tearing through the goblins that managed to shove through the gap. They even punched completely through, shredding into the chamber to hit a few more.

I didn’t even need to aim; my four streams of AP Pebbles covered the entire gap. I just kept the fire rate pinned to the maximum, letting my infinite regeneration and heightened cognition manage the steady, mechanical slaughter while I forced myself to breathe.

The deafening barrage lasted for several long, grueling minutes until the shrieks slowly died down, replaced by the sound of most of my pebbles hitting the walls on the other side.

But I still didn’t stop firing, not until I was absolutely certain nothing moved on the other side of the roots.

As I slowly lowered my frost-wisping hands, the adrenaline crash immediately let itself be known.

My arms felt heavy, and the only sound that echoed in the chamber was the sickening, continuous dripping of green blood.

Goblin gore literally coated the far side of my barricade, accompanied by the faint, bubbling snarls of the few that somehow still clung to life.

[Okay, that’s the end of that... I think.] I let out a heavy, shuddering sigh, trying not to focus on the smell or look too closely at the mess that lay before me, before rolling my tense shoulders and turning around to check on the survivor.

The red-haired man was slowly getting up from the cavern floor.

But his movements were wrong... jerky, unnatural, and deeply disjointed, while a low, wet snarl bubbled up from his throat.

The moment it did, every single hair on the back of my neck stood straight up. The sheer dread I had managed to keep suppressed instantly broke free.

The man slowly raised his head, and the eyes that were wide with terror just moments ago now glowed with a violent, frenzied red glint, while sickly green pus aggressively oozed from his nose, ears, and the corners of his mouth, dripping down his chin in thick, contagious clumps.

[He was already infected!] My brain realized with a violent jolt. [Fester-Frenzy both!]

Before I could raise my hands-

-Aaaaah-!

The infected man unhinged his jaw, letting out a feral shriek, and leaped straight at me with his blood-soaked hands outstretched.