Dimension Weaver: My Wife Is The Dragon Empress!

After all, with what they saw, that woman didn't strike them as the type to spare a human's life even if they did nothing wrong.

Now, they were still sitting inside the lab, listening to all the rumbling, shaking, and destruction that was happening outside and yet they couldn't take a glimpse of that.

The tension was over the roof and no one could handle it as they kept shaking violently. They had no idea whether they were going to die or not.

"I… I can't anymore… This is too much!" Suddenly, one of them stood up. It was the female scientist. "I can't handle waiting here any longer!" She exclaimed.

"What? What are you even saying?"

The other two looked at her in confusion.

"Are we seriously going to sit here and wait for our deaths? How does that make any sense? That woman had her control over us for weeks and we couldn't do as much as raise our voices. I've had enough!"

"..." The other two scientists' expressions changed upon hearing that. It was indeed true what she said, this was their prison and they had been inside of it the entire time. They even forgot what the light of the sun looks like anymore.

"If we're going to die anyway, we might as well try to escape! It's better than not doing anything and waiting for her to come back and kill us!" She added with a shaky voice. Even she knew that what she was saying was a huge risk.

But, the question was: what do they want more? Their freedom or their lives? Depending on the answer, it was technically easy to decide what they wanted to do.

Looking at each other with complicated expressions, the scientists tried to find any courage within each other's eyes. Just a speck of approval or willingness would probably make them do it.

"She… has a point." One of them said in a low, hesitant tone. "We already lost everything, what would change if we lost our lives too?"

"..."

As if it wasn't already enough, hearing the sounds outside had given them a spark of hope that help could be waiting. After all, the entire past few weeks have been really quiet except for some occasional instances.

If they could just leave this building, then they could truly have a chance to survive.

"Are you with me?" The woman asked.

"..."

For a few seconds, neither of the two spoke as they contemplated everything and tried to find whether it was truly worth it or not. In the end, both of them had the same exact conclusion.

"... I'm in." One of them said.

"Me too. I had enough of this room. I just want to go home."

In their eyes, a spark of hope ignited powerfully. Indeed, freedom was the greatest thing a human could possess, even more precious than their own lives.

***

"President! What are you going to do?" Chin-Hwa asked as he picked up the injured student.

"I'm going to stop this forest from closing up. Go ahead and leave, I will follow you shortly." She replied as she brandished her sword and dashed away before Chin-Hwa could even utter another word.

Staring at her silhouette, he clenched his teeth and quickly turned around to run. As much as he was worried, he didn't even entertain the thought of running after Hyun-Jae and simply stuck to what she wanted him to do.

"Please be safe, president…" He murmured as he quickly rushed back to the exit as fast as he could.

At the same time, Hyun-Jae continued going deeper and deeper into the forest as fast as she could. With a brief calculation, she estimated that she had around 30 seconds before the entire forest fully closed and she got trapped in there.

What she didn't tell Chin-Hwa was that she never had any intention of trying to escape. After all, her idea required her to go to the deepest part of the forest. Trying to reach that place and then leave was simply impossible.

'If this doesn't work… I'm dead.' She thought to herself calmly as she dodged a boulder and dashed forward.

Even under such a harsh penalty, Hyun-Jae kept her calm and collected self. There was no point in panicking when she had already made up her mind.

'25 seconds…' She counted in her head as she found herself at the heart of the forest, exactly in the middle.

Looking around her quickly, she searched for something. Her eyes analyzed every single detail in her vicinity for a few seconds before her eyes eventually fell on something promising.

Quickly, she rushed to it and went down on her knees before she changed the grip on her sword.

"This better work!" Murmuring to herself, Hyun-Jae lifted the sword in the air and stabbed the dirt mercilessly.

Her sword dug through the ground and went very deep. Eventually, it hit something hard like a rock.

When that happened, the entire forest shook as if it was hit by an earthquake far stronger than anything before it.

"Agh!" Hyun-Jae fell back from the shock as she found herself being buried with dirt. Quickly, she pushed it away and grabbed her sword as she approached the same spot and stabbed down again with all her strength.

The second hit made the entire forest shake again, but, this time, everything suddenly halted after that. The two jaws of the forest completely stopped moving. The noises died down for a good few seconds.

"Hah… Hah…" Hyun-Jae heaved up and down powerfully as she looked down at the hole in front of her with wide eyes. There, she could see a shining light peering through the dirt. It was a very bright blue light.

'It was there…' Wiping her sweat, Hyun-Jae slowly picked up her sword again, approached the hole, and peeked inside.

There, lying feet deep under the dirt was a giant shiny rock. Its size was at least twice as big as Hyun-Jae and it was exuding a huge blue light. That same rock now had a huge broken dent on its outer surface.

"The monster core…" Hyun-Jae blinked in a daze.

Her idea worked. When everything started, Hyun-Jae had already realized that she was dealing with a living being rather than a forest. So, by that logic, Hyun-Jae assumed that the forest, like every other monster, had a monster core deep within it.

That was a huge gamble considering the lack of knowledge about this thing. However, to stop this, she had no other choice but to put all her bets on this possibility. With that, all she had to do was to find the core.

That was the easier part since she knew that most monsters have their cores in their chests with some rare cases where it was in the head like the Dimension Walkers for example.

So, with that in mind, she blindly decided to go for the most logical possibility which was that the core is located right in the middle of the forest. Everything was correct.

'Did I kill… it?' Hyun-Jae asked herself as she touched the core. It seemed to be still lively, but the forest wasn't moving at all so she assumed that it was simply a sign that it was heavily damaged at least.

'Maybe if I pull it out.'

Deciding on what to do, Hyun-Jae grabbed the core with both hands and used her strength to slowly pull it out. Luckily, it wasn't hard to do that.

A few seconds later, the core was taken out as Hyun-Jae threw it on the ground.

"Ugh…" Groaning lightly, she was immediately met with a notification.

[Ding!]

[You have killed a level 23 Iluthian Woods. +14 all stats.]

[Ding!]

[You have leveled up 4 times. +8 free points.]

A surge of immense strength filled her body out of nowhere like a tsunami. It was the first time in her life that Hyun-Jae had ever felt such a thing. It was as if every part of her body went through a drastic change in a split second and became better.

The world became way clearer than before and her senses jumped a few levels of sharpness. Her body felt lighter, stronger, and way more durable. Even her skin under the dirt, became far brighter and more beautiful.

'A level 23 monster… I killed a level 23 monster…' She thought to herself in disbelief.

Never in her life did Hyun-Jae expect to kill a monster this high-leveled at her current power level. The memory of that giant that Talon killed was still vivid in her head. That thing wasn't simply terrifying, it was a true death threat to her.

Yet, out of nowhere, she found herself killing something 6 levels above her in terms of power, and that pushed her by leaps and bounds.

But, in the end, it was really good news. More strength meant that she was slowly becoming a powerhouse of her own, just like Talon. Smiling slightly, Hyun-Jae was about to stand up. That's when she felt it… Something that ironically she just recalled.

A true feeling of near death. Something that could very much end her life effectively.

(A//N: Thanks to everyone who supports the book with power stones and golden tickets, you guys are the best:) )