Solo Cultivating in Superhero Academy
Chapter 79: The mummy again

Chapter 79: The mummy again

Elius’s mind—sharper now that the adrenaline had cooled—suddenly remembered something. Something critical.

The bet.

The one he made with the Vanguard Justice Juniors.

Specifically, with Jiro—the sand manipulator.

If he lost that bet, he wouldn’t be allowed to enter a second dungeon. And the stakes were far higher now.

He needed to enter a fire-attribute or earth-attribute dungeon.

Those were the dungeons where he was most likely to obtain the techniques he lacked.

The techniques to complement the two cosmic curses laid upon him that also benefits him.

Lava Scissor’s defeat had earned him the curses of the Fire and Earth Pantheons. Two Primordial cosmic beings now marked him. Watching. Waiting.

If I don’t get techniques to match those attributes... It will take time for me to grow stronger.

But if that Mummy earlier really was Jiro, then the bet was over.

Elius exhaled slowly and rubbed his temple.

"Damn it..."

He shook his head, dismissing the dark thoughts for now. Later. I’ll deal with it later.

"What’s wrong?" Clint asked suddenly, noticing the shift in his expression.

Balkan looked up, pausing mid-sentence. "You’re sulking."

"You just beat the final boss," Monkaar added. "You’re supposed to be gloating."

Elius hesitated.

Then said, simply: "Jiro."

The three immediately went quiet.

The air shifted.

They all knew what he meant. The fourth member. The missing one. The boy with sand powers. The one who didn’t come with them. The one they assumed had stayed behind.

The one... they now feared was the Mummy.

Clint looked away, biting his lip. "You think that was him?"

"I don’t know," Elius said. "But if it was..."

Monkaar clenched his fists. "That mummy screamed like a dying god."

Balkan’s jaw tightened. "We tried to kill it. We did kill it."

No one spoke for a long time.

Finally, Elius exhaled and turned to face them. His voice was calm again, but his eyes were focused.

"Follow me."

They looked at him in confusion.

"There was something behind the sand coffin," he said. "Back at the entrance. The mummy didn’t come from the coffin. It came from the back wall."

"What does that mean?" Clint asked, already standing.

"It means," Elius said slowly, "there’s a chance the mummy wasn’t Jiro."

Monkaar blinked. "You think he might still be..."

"If we check the sand wall at the entrance," Elius continued, "we’ll know. If the coffin is untouched, then Jiro’s still inside. Still alive. Maybe even trapped."

The three of them stared at him, the embers of hope lighting their weary faces.

Balkan nodded. "Let’s go."

Clint cracked his knuckles, a rare look of focus settling in. "Yeah."

Monkaar clenched his jaw, his voice deep. "We’ll find out."

Together, they turned, stepping over the scorched ground of the fallen hive.

Broken fangs, shattered shells, and split limbs crunched underfoot.

They had barely taken five steps—just five steps away from the throne of the Hive Queen’s corpse—when they heard it.

Crunch.

It was not a soft crack or an insect twitch. No, it was a slow uncomfortable crunch, like something immense grinding against bone, like cartilage being forcibly rearranged.

The sound was loud and moist, a splitting pressure that instantly scraped across their nerves like a saw against a chalkboard.

Clint froze mid-step.

Balkan’s three dreadworm titans twisted their heads.

Monkaar instinctively dropped into a battle-ready crouch.

Elius—his eyes narrowing like drawn swords—turned back toward the Hive Queen.

Something moved.

Not just a twitch from some dying nerve impulse. Not just an aftershock of the collapsing chamber. No, they all felt it.

Something slithered behind them.

It wasn’t fast. It wasn’t sudden. But it was definite.

That kind of movement that didn’t ask permission—it informed the world of its presence.

A dragging, coiling presence that made the hair on their necks stand.

The crunch came again. Louder. Wet. Obscene.

Then, another.

CRACK.

Elius’s voice was sharp. "Be prepared!"

Clint’s hands flew to his waist, fingers stretching and curling as six flickering energy bullets appeared at his fingertips like glowing mercury.

Balkan’s arms spread wide as he roared to the depths, and from a shimmer in the shattered floor, the earth shook—his three Dreadworms burst forth, each as tall as a building, their scales black and red with stone armor and glowing with lava veins.

Monkaar crouched, fists trembling. He pressed his palms into the cracked floor and it rippled like water, subtle pulses forming across it as his Earth Echo prepared.

But Elius?

He stepped forward.

Not toward the Hive Queen.

But toward the aura.

Because he felt it before he saw it.

The overwhelming presence that crept up from the hive queen’s exoskeleton wasn’t just pressure—it was dread.

It was the kind of dread that cultivators only felt when standing too close to a Qi well formed by a dying Immortal.

The kind that suggested the rules of the universe were being rewritten.

The kind that whispered: You are prey now. And it knows.

The exoskeleton of the Hive Queen pulsed.

A heartbeat.

Boom.

Then again.

BOOM.

The cracks spiderwebbed from her chest to her abdomen. Her carapace twisted inward like something was pushing against it—from within.

The sound grew louder, more erratic.

Snapping, shearing, grinding.

And it kept going. Louder.

The sound was no longer just a noise—it was a presence.

Each time the sound cracked through the air, Elius felt like he was staring down a sinkhole.

A spiritual chasm that threatened to pull his soul out of his body and drown it in silence.

And he was standing at the edge.

All of them were.

The temperature dropped.

The lights from the hive walls dimmed.

The Dreadworms roared lowly, shifting like frightened cattle.

"W-what the hell...?" Clint whispered, staring.

Balkan stepped back without realizing it. "This... this is wrong."

Monkaar’s fists trembled, and for the first time since they’d entered this dungeon, he said nothing.

Elius stared at the Hive Queen’s body. It was beginning to bloat. Swell. Bubbles formed under its shell, filled with what looked like sand.

Then it stopped.

Silence fell. A brutal silence. No humming of insects, no crackling of flesh. Just...

Stillness.

For a moment, it was like the world held its breath.

Then—

Fwshhhhhhh.

A jet of sand burst from the Hive Queen’s mouth.

It was not liquid. It wasn’t a drip or a spray.

It was a force, a geyser of finely grained sand spewing out like a volcano’s breath, launching into the air in a pillar.

It arced high above, touched the fractured hive ceiling—and cascaded down in sheets.

Elius stepped back instinctively.

The sand wasn’t normal.

It moved.

It rolled, pulsed, twisted. Not like sand that was caught in the wind—but like a being that was breathing.

Like it had intention.

Like it remembered.

"Holy moly," Clint said, swallowing his spit. "I feel like this is going to be a big problem."

Elius didn’t answer.

He couldn’t.

The sand was still forming.

Still growing.

A bulbous shape appeared at the center of the swirling mass. It twisted, the grains pulling tightly, then unraveling, layering upon layer.

Legs—eight of them—pushed out.

First like tendrils, then thickened, covered in a carapace made from compacted sand crystals.

Each leg moved, digging into the floor. Click. Click. Crack.

A bulging torso rose next. Wide and contoured, shaped by sand pressure into armor plates. Then came the eyes.

Not one. Not two.

Many.

Too many.

A dozen.

A hundred.

Tiny black orbs began forming along its head, like glass marbles pushed from under its sand-skin.

Each eye moved independently. Some blinked.

Others just stared. And as the creature’s head finished forming, mandibles unfolded—long and serrated, like jagged scissor blades formed by hardened desert winds.

Elius couldn’t speak. His body tensed instinctively. His Qi stirred inside him, rattled like a cage of lightning bugs trying to escape.

The others were paralyzed.

Even the Dreadworms backed away, grumbling and shaking their armored heads.

The sand solidified entirely now.

There it stood.

An eight-legged, multi-eyed, sand-fused nightmare, born from the corpse of a queen.

And then—

It lifted its head.

It turned all its hundred eyes at once—

Toward them.

And then it roared.

ROOOOOOOOARRR!!!