Online Game: Starting With SSS-Ranked Summons

Pride's mental voice carried wariness as he assessed the cave before them. "Master, this place radiates powerful energy. I can sense the queen inside. She has gotten stronger since the last time I saw her...She might be more powerful than I now."

Arthur raised an eyebrow at the news but nodded in the end.

Aether bounced excitedly on Arthur's shoulder, apparently immune to whatever fear-inducing effects the Bone Cathedral was supposed to generate. "Master, it looks like a really big mouth! Are we going to go inside the mouth?"

Arthur's smile carried predatory anticipation as he studied the entrance that represented the heart of hyena power in the region. The Cackle Queen awaited within, surrounded by her pack and protected by defences that had never been breached by hostile forces.

That record was about to change permanently.

"Yes, Aether," Arthur replied with obvious satisfaction. "We're going inside the mouth. And the Cackle Queen is about to discover what happens when something bigger and hungrier decides to bite back."

...

They stepped into the cave, and Arthur immediately felt the oppressive weight of centuries-old malice pressing down upon him. The Bone Cathedral's interior stretched far beyond what the external entrance had suggested, its walls lined with skeletal remains that seemed to shift and writhe in his peripheral vision.

Suddenly, Arthur began to feel the cave around him begin to change. The sensation was subtle at first—shadows moving in ways that defied the light sources, distances becoming distorted, the very air taking on qualities that made his enhanced senses struggle to maintain proper orientation.

He looked to his right, expecting to see Pride's golden form and the crimson hyena guide, but found only empty darkness where his summons should have been standing. The absence was so complete that it felt like they had never existed at all.

Arthur immediately tried to activate his Space talent, reaching for the familiar sensation of dimensional manipulation that had become as natural as breathing. His will pressed against reality, demanding the fold and bend of space that would allow him to teleport away from whatever trap had been sprung.

Nothing happened.

The talent that had defined one of his most powerful combat capabilities simply refused to respond, as if some fundamental connection between his consciousness and his abilities had been severed entirely.

Which meant one thing—the Cackle Queen hadn't waited for them to reach her throne room. She had already activated her talent the moment they crossed the threshold of her domain!

The realisation hit Arthur with the force of a sledgehammer. He had underestimated his opponent, assuming that the legendary hyena would wait for direct confrontation rather than striking immediately through environmental manipulation.

"Well, not that it mattered. This was bound to happen anyway, and I'm prepared." Arthur muttered.

Suddenly, the cave around Arthur transformed completely. The bone-lined walls dissolved into a hellish landscape that defied logic. He found himself surrounded by a thousand crimson hyenas, their eyes blazing with supernatural hunger as they formed concentric circles that stretched to the horizon in every direction.

Beneath his feet, what had been solid stone became a roiling sea of molten lava that burned with temperatures that exceeded anything found in natural volcanic activity. The heat was so intense that Arthur could actually feel his legs beginning to burn, the pain shooting up through his nervous system with agonising clarity.

The sensation was absolutely real—not the distant, dreamlike quality he had expected from illusion magic, but genuine physical agony that made every instinct scream for immediate escape. His constitution, which had protected him from countless genuine threats, seemed completely irrelevant against whatever supernatural force was creating this nightmare scenario.

Arthur's mind raced as he processed the situation. The pain felt completely authentic, his mana remained inaccessible, and his spatial abilities were utterly non-responsive. For all practical purposes, he was trapped in a reality where a thousand superior-rank predators surrounded him while he slowly burned alive.

But Arthur's intellect, sharpened by months of impossible challenges and life-or-death encounters, cut through the sensory overload with clarity. This was an illusion—it had to be.

The Cackle Queen's talent specialised in psychological manipulation, not reality alteration. The pain was artificial, the hyenas were projections, and the lava existed only in his compromised perceptions.

Had the Cackle queen had such a force, she would have taken over the whole forest and expanded to even head towards Caldera. She had a thousand superior-ranked hyenas after all.

Arthur immediately focused his will, reaching not for his supernatural abilities but for his raw mental discipline. If his mana wouldn't respond to normal commands, he would force it through sheer willpower!

His consciousness pressed against the barriers that seemed to block his magical capabilities, pushing with his accumulated willpower.

He refused to surrender, even in situations that should have been impossible to survive.

"No, if mana doesn't obey me, then I will beat it until it does. If my body doesn't obey me, then I break it," Arthur spoke with domineering authority that seemed to make the illusory landscape flicker around the edges. His voice carried absolute certainty that brooked no contradiction from reality itself. "This ends now."

The pain in his legs intensified as if the illusion was fighting back against his resistance, but Arthur's resolve only strengthened in response. He had endured pain, agony, and loneliness during his journey from a mere helpless victim to what he was now.

Artificial suffering held no power over someone who had experienced the real thing.

"I am Arthur Fate," he declared with growing force, his words seeming to create cracks in the nightmare landscape around him. "I do not bow to illusions. I do not submit to fear. And I certainly do not burn in imaginary lava created by an overgrown dog with delusions of grandeur!"

His mana responded to the force of his declaration, breaking through whatever barriers the Cackle Queen's talent had erected around his consciousness. Power flooded back into his awareness like a dam bursting, carrying with it his full power.