The Artificial Dimension - Sector 3.Simulation Sub-Level: The Ruined Catacombs.Day 3 - 10:45 AM.
The frantic, desperate ascent from the molten nightmare of the fourth floor was an exercise in absolute, grueling physical agony.
Following the obscure, highly classified structural anomalies that Rudeus remembered from the deep lore of the visual novel's game engine, they had managed to locate a hidden, collapsed spatial rift. It was a perilous, near-vertical shaft that bypassed the main labyrinthine stairs entirely, dumping them unceremoniously back into the damp, shadowy corridors of the third floor's ruined catacombs.
Rudeus stepped out of the narrow fissure, his heavy combat boots echoing softly against the cracked stone tiles. He immediately dropped into a low crouch, his crimson eyes sweeping the darkness, his ears straining to pick up the sound of skittering claws or the heavy, unnatural breathing of a Shadow Assassin.
Nothing. The corridor was completely, eerily silent. It seemed the Goddess of Fortune had finally decided to throw them a miserable scrap of luck.
"By the Goddess..." Veronica gasped, stumbling out of the fissure behind him. She braced her hands against her knees, her chest heaving violently. "Thanks to her divine mercy... there are no monsters waiting for us here."
They had been practically sprinting ever since they left the hidden cave, navigating the treacherous, magma-filled pathways of the fourth floor, and executing the exhausting vertical climb through the shortcut. The physical toll was immense, and they had easily wasted several precious hours in the artificial dimension just trying to reach this checkpoint.
"Hey, Rudeus..." Veronica panted, wiping a thick layer of sweat and grime from her pale forehead. "In your tactical estimation... what time is it already in the outside world?"
Rudeus didn't answer immediately. He was currently bent over, gasping repeatedly for air, his lungs burning as if he had inhaled crushed glass.
The primary reason for his catastrophic exhaustion was not his lingering fever, nor the sheer vertical climb. It was the unconscious, black-haired girl currently strapped securely to his back.
"Haah... haah... haah!" Rudeus wheezed, adjusting his grip under Adelina's knees with a pained grunt. "Maybe... maybe it's already around one in the afternoon out there. We need to hurry. Let's rush toward the primary stairwell to the second floor before... haah... before that massive, horned demon recovers his senses and finds us first."
Veronica nodded her head sharply, forcing herself to stand upright. "I see. Thanks. Yeah, let's go right now before Professor Vane, or whatever the hell that monster truly is, manages to track our scent."
Rudeus offered a strained nod in reply. He gritted his teeth, violently rearranging Adelina's dead weight higher onto his shoulders.
'Shit! What in the absolute, living hell does this girl actually eat?!' Rudeus screamed inwardly, his spine screaming in agonizing protest.
'Why is she so goddamn, unnaturally heavy?! Jesus Christ! Even Mel... my late Vanguard Captain and my late girlfriend, who was fully grown and wore reinforced tactical gear... wasn't even remotely this heavy! It feels like I'm carrying a sack of condensed lead bars!'
Rudeus began to march down the corridor, his boots dragging slightly.
'Goddamnit. Mind you, she is currently only fifteen years old! The exact same biological age as me! How unbelievably, terrifyingly dense is her muscle mass going to become when the actual, main plot of the story officially starts in a few years?!'
Rudeus, genuinely terrified by the sheer physical density of the future Sword Saint, started shaking his head in absolute disbelief as he walked.
Veronica, walking slightly ahead to scout the path, noticed him shaking his head and groaning. She looked back over her shoulder.
"What's wrong?" Veronica asked, her brow furrowing in concern. "Is the fever coming back?"
Rudeus let out a long, pathetic sigh.
"...Nothing," Rudeus grumbled, his voice strained. "It's just that... she is so goddamn heavy! Mind you, she is exactly the same age as us—fifteen! What in the fucking hell does she eat to weigh this much?!"
Veronica stared at his incredibly pained, frustrated expression. For a brief second, the sheer, life-or-death tension of their situation evaporated. She couldn't help it. She let out a clear, melodic laugh that echoed through the catacombs.
"Sigh. You really should be able to figure that out on your own by now, Rudeus," Veronica teased, a genuine smile touching her lips.
"Figure out what?" Rudeus asked, completely baffled.
"Didn't you hear the announcer days ago? She is widely recognized by the High Priests as the literal reincarnation of the previous Sword Saint, and the sole mortal blessed directly by the Goddess," Veronica explained, her tone taking on a mock-academic cadence.
"...Which fundamentally means," Veronica continued, "It's entirely natural for her bone density and muscle mass to be astronomically high. She probably consumes a terrifying, inhuman amount of protein, roasted meat, and magical beast cores just to sustain her divine blessing. You're basically carrying a compressed boulder."
Rudeus let out a massive, aggrieved sigh.
'I mean, Mel also ate a ridiculous, unhealthy amount of meat and protein supplements back in the Vanguard! But she wasn't even a fraction of this heavy!' Rudeus argued stubbornly in his own mind, refusing to accept the anime-logic of a magical Sword Saint's diet.
"Sigh. Whatever," Rudeus grumbled aloud, adjusting his grip one final time. "Let's just hurry the hell up and get out of here before my spine snaps in half."
Veronica laughed again, a bright, beautiful sound, and nodded her head firmly in confirmation. "After you, partner."
As they resumed their grueling jog through the dark corridors, Rudeus continued his internal, highly profanity-laced rant.
'God! Why did you even bother to reincarnate me into this miserable, high-fantasy universe?! Just to force me to give an incredibly heavy, unconscious woman a piggyback ride while I actively suffer from a viral infection and spinal compression?! What kind of sick, twisted joke is this?!'
***
The Artificial Dimension - Sector 1.Simulation Sub-Level: The Verdant Plains.Day 3 - 01:15 PM.
The frantic, desperate marathon from the ruined catacombs of the third floor, through the winding, deceptive stone mazes of the second floor, finally, miraculously came to an end.
They breached the final heavy iron threshold. The suffocating darkness and the stench of decay vanished instantly, replaced by the warm, simulated sunlight and the scent of fresh pine needles.
"FINALLY!" Rudeus shouted, his voice cracking with sheer, unadulterated relief.
He staggered forward onto the soft grass of the Verdant Plains, his legs trembling so violently they threatened to give out completely.
"We finally reached the absolute first floor! And look—right there!" Rudeus pointed a heavy, iron-clad finger toward the center of the massive clearing ahead of them.
"Yeah! I see it!" Veronica responded, her oceanic eyes lighting up with a brilliant, overwhelming joy.
Standing in the middle of the sun-drenched meadow, humming with a stable, brilliant violet energy, was the primary extraction portal. The gateway back to the real world.
They had finally, impossibly reached the exit. It meant that despite the sheer eternity they had spent suffering, bleeding, and fighting in the dark depths of the dungeon, they had only wasted exactly three whole, agonizing hours in the original, real-world timeline. The faculty wouldn't even realize anything had gone wrong yet.
"Finally!"
Veronica didn't just smile. Overcome by a massive, crashing wave of pure, unfiltered emotional relief and adrenaline, she rushed directly toward Rudeus.
She threw her arms entirely around his neck, pressing her face into his shoulder, and gave him a fierce, desperate, incredibly tight hug.
"Thank you! Thank you for absolutely everything, Rudeus!" Veronica whispered into his tunic, her voice trembling with profound gratitude. She didn't care about the dirt, the sweat, or the heavy commoner strapped to his back. She only cared that they had survived together.
Rudeus, momentarily stunned by the sudden physical affection from the Princess who used to look at him with undisguised revulsion, just let out a soft, highly amused laugh.
He knew that, logically, he should be the one saying "thank you" to her. She had saved him from the fever. She had dragged him back from the brink of death in that cave. But he didn't offer a verbal reply. He simply raised his free right hand and gently, affectionately patted the top of her silver-blue head.
"Alright, let's go now before—"
Rudeus's sentence abruptly died in his throat.
The warm, simulated sunlight didn't fade. The wind didn't stop blowing.
But a sudden, suffocating, entirely invisible wave of pure, apocalyptic dread slammed into him with the force of a physical blow.
Veronica, still clinging to his neck, seemed entirely oblivious to the catastrophic shift in the atmosphere.
'Another hidden killing intent?! Is it the same stealth technique that the Shadow Assassin used?!' Rudeus's mind raced, adrenaline violently flooding his exhausted system. He frantically, wildly rolled his crimson eyes, scanning the tree line, the sky, the grass, desperately trying to pinpoint the origin of the monstrous presence.
And then, he saw it.
Materializing directly out of thin air, mere feet away from their position, was a towering silhouette.
Rudeus's crimson eyes blew wide open in sheer, absolute terror.
He didn't hesitate. He didn't warn her.
He violently shoved Adelina's heavy, comatose body off his back, throwing her directly into Veronica's arms.
Veronica shrieked in surprise as she was forced to hurriedly, clumsily catch Adelina's dead weight. Her oceanic eyes widened in profound shock and confusion, looking up to demand why Rudeus had suddenly thrown the girl at her.
Rudeus didn't offer a single word of explanation. With a violent, two-handed shove, he physically pushed Veronica and Adelina hard to the side, sending them tumbling into the tall grass.
In the exact same microsecond, Rudeus ripped his heavy Six-Flanged War Mace from his hip and swung it upward in a desperate, two-handed block.
-CLANG!
The sound of the impact was absolutely deafening, like a massive bell being struck by a cannonball.
Rudeus parried the descending, razor-sharp obsidian claws successfully, but only barely. The sheer, overwhelming kinetic force of the blow drove him down to one knee, the dirt exploding outward from beneath his boots. The iron shaft of his mace groaned and bent slightly under the apocalyptic pressure.
"TCH!" Rudeus clicked his tongue, his jaw clenching so tightly his teeth threatened to crack. His crimson eyes glared upward, filled with a cold, terrifying realization.
What he had desperately, frantically feared would happen had finally, inevitably come to pass.
Looming over him was none other than the Greater Demon General, Dratkthar.
The Demon was a horrifying sight. He was heavily bloodied, his massive, crimson-skinned body covered in deep, glowing, agonizing burns and lacerations inflicted by the divine chains of the divine power Adelina had summoned. There were jagged, unhealed scars crisscrossing his chest, and thick, black demonic blood dripped steadily onto the grass.
But he was not dead. And he was not bound.
"RUDEUS!!!!" Dratkthar screamed, his voice a distorted, multi-layered roar of absolute, unadulterated demonic fury.
The Demon General pushed harder, pouring an impossible amount of physical strength into his clawed hand as it remained deadlocked against the iron flanges of Rudeus's mace.
'Goddamnit! It finally happened! He entered his final, ultimate phase!' Rudeus screamed inwardly, his muscles screaming as he fought a losing battle against the titan's strength.
'The Great Demon General of Agony! In his goddamn, canonical final form!' Rudeus realized with crushing despair.
"RRRAAAAAHHHHH!!!!" Dratkthar roared again.
Because his legendary, tiered broadsword had been completely destroyed by Adelina's final strike in the cavern below, the Demon General was forced to fight completely bare-handed. He was pushed into an absolute corner, utilizing his massive, obsidian claws as his primary weapons because he had no other choice.
Dratkthar didn't try to win the deadlock of the upper body.
With blinding, terrifying speed, the massive demon shifted his weight and violently drove his heavy, armored knee directly upward into Rudeus's unprotected stomach.
"ACHK!" Rudeus's eyes bulged, all the oxygen violently expelled from his lungs. The impact felt like being hit by a runaway freight train.
He was instantly, violently thrown backward through the air, sailing over twenty feet before crashing heavily, back-first, into the thick trunk of an ancient oak tree.
-CRACK!
The thick bark splintered upon impact. Rudeus collapsed onto the grass, coughing up a spatter of dark blood, his vision swimming with black spots.
"RRRRAAAAAHAHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!" Dratkthar roared again, raising his bloodied claws to the simulated sky, shaking the very foundations of the artificial dimension with his anger.
He slowly turned his massive, horned head, locking his glowing, amber eyes onto the Princess who had just scrambled to her knees in the grass.
"You! Princess Veronica!" Dratkthar sneered, his voice dripping with venomous, ancient hatred. "How absolutely dare you, and that goddamn, meddling bitch Amanda, constantly get in my way! You have entirely, systematically foiled my years of meticulous planning to assassinate the next Sword Saint before she could awaken!!!"
Veronica, staring into the face of her mother's murderer, felt a massive surge of adrenaline completely override her terror.
She gritted her teeth, raising her hands. She prepared to channel her absolute maximum output, intending to cast the devastating Night's Devourer spell she had just received from the System.
But suddenly, the glowing white light forming in her palms flickered, sputtered, and violently died.
Her oceanic blue eyes widened in sheer, paralyzing shock as she realized exactly what the Demon General had just done. He hadn't cast a fireball. He had activated an innate, passive aura.
He had deployed his Abyssal Anti-Magic Field.
'N-no....' Veronica thought, her heart dropping into her stomach as she felt the ambient mana in the air around her become completely, terrifyingly inert. It was as if she had been plunged underwater and told to breathe.
'Th-this absolutely cannot be happening!' Veronica screamed inwardly.
She looked over at Rudeus, who was currently struggling to push himself up from the base of the oak tree, coughing violently.
If her magic was entirely sealed... she was completely, utterly useless as a Sorceress.
But she was not just a Sorceress.
Veronica reached down to the specialized leather sheath strapped to her thigh. With a sharp, metallic shing, she drew a long, wickedly curved, perfectly balanced combat blade.
'If my royal magic won't work against him anymore... then I need to physically utilize the brutal, close-quarters assassination lessons that Amy meticulously taught me in secret!' Veronica resolved inwardly. She dropped into a low, flawless, lethal knife-fighting stance she had drilled a thousand times in the dark.
Dratkthar didn't care about her knife. He was entirely, utterly consumed by an enraged, bloodthirsty madness. Because of her and Rudeus interference, he had failed to kill Adelina. Because of the Night Ravens, the agonizing three months leading up to this exact moment had been a living hell of foiled plots, ruined schemes, and the arrest of his most trusted aide, Gavin.
"I will make every single one of you pay in blood!!!!!" Dratkthar roared, his crimson skin pulsing with dark energy.
"DIEEEEEEE!!!!!"
The massive demon lunged forward with terrifying, explosive speed, bringing a massive, sweeping claw strike down toward Veronica's head.
Veronica's eyes widened. She barely, narrowly managed to duck underneath the strike, the razor-sharp obsidian claws severing several strands of her silver-blue hair as they passed over her.
"Haah..." Veronica gasped for air, executing a rapid backward combat roll to create distance.
'Goddamnit!' Veronica cursed inwardly, her muscles already screaming in protest. 'If I only possessed the exact same, monstrous physical stamina and reaction time as Rudeus, then maybe I could easily dodge and counter these brutal attacks! But I am just a human girl!'
Meanwhile, over by the oak tree, Rudeus finally managed to force himself up onto his knees, spitting another mouthful of blood into the grass.
'That bitch's knee strike nearly ruptured my internal organs and killed me on the spot!' Rudeus thought, his vision blurring slightly.
He reached out with a trembling hand, tightly clenching the leather haft of his fallen Six-Flanged War Mace. He used it as a crutch to force himself into a standing position.
His crimson eyes flared, glaring at the back of the massive demon currently advancing on Veronica.
'I need to catch him completely, utterly off guard,' Rudeus analyzed inwardly, his tactical mind shifting into overdrive despite the agonizing pain. 'Since the situation has already gone completely, catastrophically south, and we cannot fight him head-on... I absolutely need to deploy that goddamn Blood-Orchid into his system.'
Rudeus tightened his grip on the mace.
'I only have one single, fleeting chance to execute this maneuver. One chance!'
Rudeus didn't hesitate. Even though he was not completely healthy, his body still ravaged by the lingering fever and the brutal internal trauma, he forced his muscles past their breaking point. He exploded into a full-out sprint, moving with the exact same, terrifying, blinding speed he utilized when he was completely healthy.
He pushed his physical limits to mimic the ultimate assassination technique.
'Night Raven Art: Shadow Step Cascade!'
Rudeus physically blurred out of existence, rapidly ricocheting his momentum against the ground to close the distance instantaneously.
"JUST DIE ALREADY, YOU PATHETIC PRINCESS!!!!" Dratkthar roared, raising both of his claws high above his head to deliver a fatal, downward crushing blow to Veronica, who was currently cornered.
-CLANG!
Dratkthar's glowing amber eyes widened in sheer, bewildered shock. His descending claws were violently intercepted by a heavy, black iron mace.
"TCH! You again?! You goddamn, persistent defect!!!!" Dratkthar roared, enraged that the insect had gotten back up.
Dratkthar completely abandoned his attack on Veronica. He turned his full, unmitigated fury onto Rudeus, releasing a blinding, chaotic barrage of high-speed claw slashes.
-CLANG!
-CLANG!
-CLANG!
Rudeus barely, desperately parried the relentless barrage, his iron mace sparking violently with every deflection. The sheer physical pressure was slowly forcing him backward into the dirt.
'Goddamnit!' Rudeus cursed, his arms going numb from the impacts.
He risked a split-second glance back at Veronica. He saw her holding her blade, looking utterly helpless as the ambient mana continued to be suppressed.
'So he really did activate the specific, overpowered passive ability from his final phase! That goddamn, incredibly annoying Abyssal Anti-Magic Field!'
Rudeus's encyclopedic knowledge of the game's brutal combat mechanics flashed through his mind as he fought for his life.
Based entirely on the visual novel's deep lore, the boss fight against Dratkthar consisted of four distinct, highly punishing phases.
In his first phase, the demon only utilized long-range abyssal magic spells and defensive barriers against the player. That was widely considered the easiest part of the encounter, provided you were an expert at dodging and punishing his repetitive magical barrages. Though, the speedrun community's most recommended strategy was simply to over-level Adelina to Level 20 and use a unique, high-tiered elemental weapon found hidden in an Arc 1 side quest to melt his health bar.
Then, transitioning into his second phase, Dratkthar would activate his signature "Architect of Agony" ability—a conceptual, reality-warping mechanic so incredibly convoluted and hard to fully understand that players actively needed to consult community wikis or deep-dive forums to figure it out. Based on the forum consensus, the absolute only viable way to beat his second phase without exploiting glitches was to perfectly dodge and execute frame-perfect counter-attacks, since the boss only possessed a small window of vulnerability after using the "Architect of Agony" ability twice. It was the hardest, most agonizingly slow way to beat the phase, testing pure player skill... unless you used cheat engine codes to one-shot him.
If a player miraculously beat the first and second phases, Dratkthar's third phase would trigger. This phase was completely different. The demon would summon a legendary-tiered, cursed broadsword. It was universally considered the most brutally unforgiving phase of the entire game if you hadn't maxed out your agility stats during Arc 1. The only recognized, viable strategy to defeat this third phase was to actively taunt the boss. By continuously, relentlessly taunting him through dialogue options, the player could manipulate his massive, fragile ego, causing him to make reckless, highly punishable mistakes, allowing you to catch him entirely off guard.
At the exact time when Rudeus and Veronica had intervened to save Adelina in the cavern below, the canonical battle had already reached the absolute climax of that third phase, culminating in Adelina successfully destroying the legendary broadsword.
And lastly, the fourth, apocalyptic phase. His final stand.
Dratkthar would violently transform into his true, unsealed form: "The Great Demon General of Agony."
This was the absolute hardest, most broken encounter in the entire visual novel if you didn't know the specific gimmick to beat it. In this form, the boss would relentlessly, endlessly spam his suffocating Anti-Magic Field, rendering all spells useless, while simultaneously utilizing the damage-absorption properties of the "Architect of Agony" ability.
And the absolute, only canonical way to defeat him in this final form was—
'Inflicting so much catastrophic, overwhelming physical damage in a single, sustained burst that the demon physically cannot absorb the sheer volume of agony, causing his core to overload and detonate!' Rudeus recalled inwardly, gritting his teeth as he parried another strike.
He knew, with absolute, terrifying certainty, that achieving that damage output right now was entirely, mathematically impossible. In the canonical timeline, the only individual who ever successfully managed to deal that specific, required amount of damage was none other than Professor Avalon, fighting in tandem with the Headmaster of the Academy—and the Headmaster was an entity who already existed within the legendary, god-like Transcendent Realm of power!
But... since Rudeus possessed a highly unorthodox, desperate contingency plan, he needed to hurriedly, flawlessly execute it before his stamina gave out entirely.
-CLANG!
Rudeus parried another devastating, two-handed downward strike from Dratkthar. He parried it with such explosive, desperate force that he could physically see the thick, pulsing veins popping out on the demon's red forehead.
'Great! He is already completely, blindly enraged, but—!'
Rudeus briefly, desperately tried to reach deep within his own soul, attempting to forcibly activate the terrifying, lethal aura of the Black Death to end the fight instantly. But because his body was severely compromised by the fever, the aura remained entirely dormant, refusing to activate.
He clicked his tongue in deep frustration. If magic and auras wouldn't work, he would have to rely on the brutal, dishonorable street-fighting techniques he had perfected when he was just a violent teenager fighting thugs in the back-alleys of his past life.
He dropped his guard entirely, leaving his upper body completely exposed.
Dratkthar roared in triumph, stepping forward to deliver the killing blow.
Rudeus didn't swing his mace. He shifted his weight entirely to his left leg.
With blinding, untelegraphed speed, Rudeus violently snapped his right leg upward in a devastating, perfectly aimed front kick.
-SLAM!
-CRACK!
Dratkthar's glowing amber eyes widened to the absolute size of dinner plates. The terrifying, towering Great Demon General instantly froze in place, his claws stopping inches from Rudeus's face.
Rudeus had delivered a catastrophic, full-power kick directly, squarely into the demon's unarmored "no-no square."
Dratkthar's massive body violently shuddered. He slowly, agonizingly dropped straight down, his knees crashing heavily into the dirt.
"YO-YOU! YOU GODDAMN, DISHONORABLE BRAT!!!!!" Dratkthar shrieked, his voice pitching up several octaves in sheer, blinding agony.
"My goddamn...!"
The Demon General collapsed forward, curling into a tight, trembling fetal position in the grass.
"AHHH! GODDAMN, PATHETIC LOWBLOW!!!" Dratkthar screamed in pure, unadulterated torment, violently clutching his crushed groin with both of his massive, clawed hands.
'Great! The oldest trick in the book works on demons too!' Rudeus celebrated inwardly, not wasting a single microsecond of his opening.
He immediately leaped backward, executing a rapid back-dash to put distance between himself and the incapacitated boss. He spun around and sprinted frantically toward where Veronica was kneeling beside Adelina.
"Veronica! Are you alright?!" Rudeus demanded, sliding to a halt beside her.
Veronica nodded rapidly, repeatedly gasping for air, her blade still clutched tightly in her hand. "Don't worry about me! I am perfectly fine here!"
She didn't wait for him to ask. Recognizing the execution of the plan, she frantically rummaged through the deep, sealed compartment of the leather satchel she was still carrying.
She pulled out the pulsing, blood-red flower and practically shoved it into his outstretched hand.
"Here! Take it!"
"Thanks!" Rudeus yelled, snatching the Abyssal Blood-Orchid.
'Thank God! Thank absolutely everything that I have such an incredibly quick-witted, responsive partner!' Rudeus thought, a massive surge of pride swelling in his chest. Veronica hadn't panicked; she had anticipated the exact tactical requirement of the moment.
Rudeus spun back around. Dratkthar was just beginning to push himself up from the dirt, his face contorted in a mask of absolute, murderous fury.
Rudeus didn't hesitate. He reared his arm back, took a single, powerful step forward, and threw the blood-red flower with the precision of a professional pitcher.
The flower sailed perfectly through the air, completely bypassing the demon's lowered guard.
Dratkthar, opening his mouth to roar another curse at the boy, didn't even have time to react.
The Abyssal Blood-Orchid flew directly, flawlessly into the Demon General's gaping, roaring maw.
-GULP!
The demon instinctively, reflexively swallowed the object before he could stop himself.
'Touchdown!' Rudeus screamed inwardly, a massive, triumphant grin breaking across his face. He had successfully, flawlessly delivered the ultimate bait directly into the boss's internal system.
The reaction was absolutely instantaneous.
The ground beneath their feet began to violently shake. A low, terrifying, collective roar echoed from the surrounding forest, growing exponentially louder by the second.
Rudeus and Veronica's eyes widened simultaneously as they felt the overwhelming, chaotic presence of hundreds—thousands—of high-tier, frenzied monsters rapidly converging on their exact location from every direction, driven entirely mad by the concentrated pheromones now radiating from inside the demon's stomach.
"Let's get the absolute hell out of here!" Rudeus ordered, his voice cracking with urgency.
Veronica didn't hesitate. She forcefully clutched his offered hand. With her free arm, she miraculously managed to heave Adelina's dead weight back up onto her own shoulders, fueled by pure, unadulterated terror.
They ran.
As they sprinted toward the humming violet extraction portal, the vanguard of the monster horde burst from the tree line. Massive, armored minotaurs, rabid dire wolves, and towering chimeras, completely ignoring the humans in their desperate, pheromone-induced frenzy to reach the source of the scent.
A few stray monsters blocked their path to the gate.
Rudeus didn't slow down. He swung his Six-Flanged War Mace like a madman, clearing a path through the chaos with pure, brutal kinetic force.
-SLAM!
-CLANG!
-CRUSH!
-CLANG!
He shattered skulls, broke ribs, and crushed armor, fighting with the desperate ferocity of a cornered animal until he finally, miraculously breached the perimeter of the portal's energy field.
He stepped onto the designated extraction platform. He was safe.
He stopped and looked back over his shoulder.
'Good! The suicidal contingency plan actually, flawlessly worked,' Rudeus thought, panting heavily.
Fifty yards away, the titanic form of the Greater Demon General was completely, entirely buried beneath a literal, writhing mountain of frenzied, attacking monsters. The beasts were tearing into him, desperate to reach the Blood-Orchid in his stomach, completely overwhelming his physical defenses with sheer numbers.
Rudeus let out a long, shuddering sigh of absolute, profound relief. They had survived.
Veronica, standing beside him on the portal platform, carrying Adelina, also let out a massive sigh. She watched the chaotic, violent scene where Dratkthar was being buried alive by the horde.
"Thanks to the Goddess's mercy... your insane, brilliant plan actually worked, Rudeus," Veronica whispered, her voice trembling with exhausted gratitude.
"Yeah... haah... haaah... haaah!" Rudeus gasped repeatedly, resting his hands on his knees. "I honestly, genuinely didn't even think it would actually work that perfectly in practice. Let's go through the gate right now before—!"
The sound was sharp, wet, and absolutely terrifying.
-SLASH!
Rudeus's crimson eyes blew wide open. Time seemed to instantaneously, violently freeze.
He didn't feel any pain. The massive, catastrophic shock and the adrenaline flooding his system completely muted the agonizing trauma.
He slowly, confusedly rolled his eyes downward, looking toward where his right arm was supposed to be gripping his mace.
He saw his own, severed right arm. Still clad in the heavy black iron gauntlet, still tightly gripping the leather haft of the Six-Flanged War Mace. It was slowly, almost lazily falling through the air, tumbling end over end, until it hit the dirt with a dull, wet thud.
A massive, arterial spray of bright red blood violently erupted from his severed shoulder, painting the grass and the glowing stones of the portal platform.
Rudeus slowly raised his trembling left hand. He numbly clutched his cleanly severed, heavily bleeding right shoulder.
He didn't scream. He didn't panic. He was in a state of profound, absolute physiological shock.
He slowly, stiffly turned his head, looking back toward the horde.
Standing ten feet away, completely ignoring the monsters tearing at his back and legs, was Dratkthar.
"Haah... haah... haaah..." Dratkthar gasped repeatedly. His massive, obsidian claws were dripping with fresh, human blood.
You could clearly see the devastating bruises, the deep bite marks, and the severe lacerations inflicted by the relentless horde attack covering his entire body.
And yet... right before their horrified eyes, the horrific wounds were slowly, visibly, miraculously knitting themselves back together.
'That goddamn, broken, parasitic healing ability of his!' Rudeus realized inwardly, a cold, absolute despair finally settling over his heart. The sheer amount of agony the monster horde was inflicting upon the demon was actively, exponentially fueling his regeneration and his abyssal core. He was effectively immortal as long as he suffered.
Rudeus slowly turned his head away from the demon. He looked back toward the portal.
He looked toward Veronica.
Veronica had completely, utterly collapsed onto the floor of the portal platform. The comatose Adelina lay beside her.
Veronica was entirely paralyzed by absolute, unadulterated terror. She was staring at Rudeus's severed arm lying in the dirt, and the massive geyser of blood pulsing from his shoulder. Her mind completely, violently shattered.
Rudeus looked at her horrified, weeping face.
Despite the catastrophic trauma, despite knowing he was about to die in the dirt of a simulated dimension...
Rudeus smiled. A soft, incredibly sad, but fiercely protective smile touched his pale lips.
"Run."
When Veronica heard that single, quiet word, her heartbeat completely, terrifyingly stopped.
Run.
It was the exact, identical word. The exact same, devastating command that Amanda had screamed at her in the suffocating darkness of her 'Bad Ending' nightmare, right before her head was severed from her shoulders.
The nightmare had come true. History was violently, cruelly repeating itself.
Veronica frantically, hysterically shook her head back and forth, tears flying from her face.
"N-no! No! No! I absolutely won't! I w-won't abandon you!" Veronica shrieked, her voice tearing her vocal cords, desperately reaching out toward him.
Rudeus ignored her plea. Using the absolute, final dregs of his fading strength, he forced himself to stand upright. He turned his back on the advancing demon and began to slowly, unsteadily walk toward Veronica on the platform.
Behind him, Dratkthar's glowing amber eyes narrowed in sadistic delight. The demon lunged forward.
Dratkthar's massive, razor-sharp claws violently slashed horizontally across Rudeus's unprotected back.
-SLASH!
A massive spray of blood erupted from Rudeus's spine. He stumbled forward, but he didn't fall. He kept walking.
-SLASH!
Another devastating strike tore through his armor and deep into the musculature of his back.
-SLASH!
Dratkthar repeatedly, mercilessly slashed the boy's back, tearing his flesh to ribbons.
But Rudeus completely, entirely ignored the excruciating, mind-breaking agony. He ignored the demon tearing him apart from behind. His sole, absolute, singular focus was reaching the girl on the platform.
"Hahahahaha! Just look at him, Princess!" Dratkthar roared with sadistic, booming laughter, casually walking behind his victim, delivering another shallow, mocking slash to his shoulders.
"Look at the great monster of the Blackfyre Duchy! He is helplessly, pathetically struggling to walk like a goddamn, crushed rat!"
Veronica, forced to watch the boy she cared for being slowly butchered in front of her, felt the exact same, overwhelming, suffocating sense of absolute powerlessness she had felt when Amanda died. She couldn't do anything.
Driven by pure, hysterical desperation, Veronica frantically raised her hands. She tried to force her sealed mana core to activate, desperately trying to cast her newly obtained, god-tier magic art, Night's Devourer.
But the glowing white light sputtered and died instantly.
"It's all entirely useless, little girl..." Dratkthar mocked, casually raising a hand as he continuously cast another layer of his oppressive Abyssal Anti-Magic Spell, ensuring the domain remained completely sealed.
Veronica stared at her empty hands, absolutely, profoundly horrified by the inescapable outcome.
The exact, tragic, unchangeable outcome she had desperately feared and fought against had finally arrived.
The entity chosen by fate to violently replace Amanda's role in the 'Bad Ending' sacrifice... was Rudeus. No matter what choices she made, no matter what alliances they forged or what secrets they uncovered... The fundamental forces of Fate and Causality demanded a blood sacrifice to balance the scales of survival. And Rudeus had willingly stepped onto the altar to pay the price.
Rudeus, bleeding profusely, his vision entirely graying out, finally reached the edge of the portal platform.
He stood over Veronica.
"Ru-Rudeus..." Veronica sobbed, reaching up with trembling hands to touch his pale, blood-spattered face.
Rudeus only smiled down at her. It was a beautiful, heartbreakingly gentle smile.
He slowly knelt down on his remaining knee. With his only remaining hand, his left, he reached out and gently, affectionately cupped her tear-stained cheek.
He slowly slid his hand back, gently covering her left ear with his palm, an intimate, fiercely protective gesture designed to shield her from the horrors of the world.
He leaned down, pressing his forehead against hers, and whispered softly into her uncovered ear.
"I'm so sorry, Princess...." Rudeus murmured, his breath hitching, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth.
"It seems... I broke our promise."
Veronica's oceanic eyes widened to their absolute limit in sheer, unadulterated devastation.
Before she could even scream, before she could even tightly grab his remaining arm to pull him with her...
Rudeus violently shoved her. He used the last ounce of explosive, kinetic force in his body to push her and Adelina backward, directly into the swirling, humming violet vortex of the extraction portal.
"NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!"
Veronica's agonizing, soul-tearing scream echoed across the clearing as she fell backward into the void, reaching desperately, uselessly toward him while tears streamed endlessly from her eyes. The portal instantly snapped shut behind her, vanishing into thin air, successfully extracting the two girls to the safety of the real world.
"YOU GODDAMN, MEDDLING BRAT!" Dratkthar's amber eyes widened in sheer, unexpected fury. He had absolutely not anticipated that the boy would possess the sheer willpower to prioritize the girls' escape over defending himself while being actively butchered.
Enraged that his primary targets had escaped, Dratkthar raised his claws.
-SLASH!
With a single, brutal, horizontal swipe, Dratkthar violently severed Rudeus's remaining left arm at the shoulder.
Rudeus's mutilated, bleeding body finally collapsed entirely. He dropped heavily onto the bloody stone floor of the deactivated portal platform, completely helpless, lacking both of his arms.
His usual, fiercely burning, vibrant crimson eyes finally lost their color, fading into a dull, cloudy, lifeless grey.
He didn't scream. He didn't cry. He simply lay there in the dirt.
He slowly, agonizingly raised his head, turning his dull gaze upward toward the towering Demon General.
"I will absolutely never, ever forgive you for constantly foiling my meticulous plans!!!" Dratkthar roared, his face contorted in absolute, unhinged hatred.
"You goddamn, interfering Blackfyre bastard!!!!!"
Dratkthar didn't use his claws to finish him. He wanted him to suffer the ultimate humiliation.
He raised his massive, armored boot and brutally kicked the boy in the ribs.
-KICK!
Rudeus's body was violently thrown across the stone platform.
-KICK!
Another bone-shattering impact to his stomach, causing him to vomit a massive amount of blood.
-KICK!
-KICK!
Dratkthar repeatedly, mercilessly kicked the helpless boy, exactly like a cruel child kicking a broken toy.
Rudeus entirely ignored the physical pain of the brutal kicks. He was already completely numb. He was intimately, tragically used to this exact feeling of helpless agony.
It was the exact same, cold, suffocating feeling of being helplessly beaten to death that he had experienced when Nesmeranda had brutally murdered him in his past life on Earth.
'I-is this really, truly the end?' Rudeus thought, his consciousness rapidly slipping away into the dark abyss.
'Did I foolishly, desperately waste the last three agonizing months of my life, enduring hellish training to forge this incredibly strong physique... just to pathetically, helplessly die to the goddamn final boss of Arc 1 in a school simulation?'
A single, final tear leaked from his dull eye, mixing with the blood on his cheek.
'Haah... I'm so sorry, Rosetta....'
'It seems... I absolutely cannot save you after all....'
As Dratkthar raised his heavy, spiked boot to deliver the final, skull-crushing kick that would end his life...
Rudeus suddenly, inexplicably heard a voice.
It wasn't a roar. It wasn't a shout. It was a calm, impossibly serene, incredibly familiar whisper that echoed directly within the deepest, darkest recesses of his fading soul.
"Would you want me to take temporary control of your physical vessel?"
The voice was gentle, but carried an undertone of absolute, undeniable, universe-shattering power.
"I made a promise to you in the void...."
"You absolutely will be able to survive this ordeal, and you will live to save that certain character."
"That certain character you love the absolute most in all the realms, and..."
"...Your first, eternal love."
Rudeus, hovering on the absolute precipice of death, didn't hesitate. He knew exactly who that voice belonged to.
He offered a weak, bloody, triumphant smile to the empty air.
"Take it..." Rudeus whispered back to the entity within his soul.
"Take complete control of my body...."
"And avenge me...."
Dratkthar brought his heavy boot down with executioner's force.
But the boot never connected.
Before Dratkthar could deliver his final, lethal kick... a sudden, microscopic point of absolute, pitch-black light materialized directly above Rudeus's shattered body.
There was no sound. There was no warning.
-BOOOOOOOMMMMM!!!
A catastrophic, apocalyptic explosion of pure, concentrated, destructive black energy erupted from the boy's body. It wasn't an explosion of fire or heat; it was an explosion of pure kinetic and conceptual force.
Dratkthar was violently, instantaneously thrown backward with the force of a hurricane. The massive Demon General was blasted so incredibly far backward through the artificial dimension that he violently crashed through the spatial boundaries of the first floor, his body obliterating hundreds of trees before he nearly breached the containment seal of the second floor.
The blinding, absolute black light completely consumed the entire sector.
After a full, agonizing six minutes of terrifying, suffocating silence, the blinding black light finally, slowly began to dissipate. The entire first floor of the simulation was covered in a dense, swirling sea of thick, black smoke and ash.
"Haah... haah... haaah. What... what in the goddamn, abyssal hell just happened?!" Dratkthar groaned, struggling to push himself out of a massive crater three miles away.
He frantically, desperately searched the dense smoke with his glowing amber eyes, trying to locate the boy's corpse.
Slowly, the heavy black smoke began to part.
Dratkthar saw a solitary silhouette standing in the center of the devastated clearing.
Dratkthar's amber eyes widened in sheer, unadulterated, primal terror.
The entire Artificial World literally, physically held its breath. The massive, endless hordes of frenzied monsters that had been relentlessly rushing toward Dratkthar suddenly stopped dead in their tracks, paralyzed by an aura they couldn't comprehend. The simulated birds froze in the sky. The wind completely died.
Dratkthar slowly, fearfully looked up at the simulated sun.
It was no longer shining. It was slowly, steadily, terrifyingly being devoured by a perfect circle of absolute, pitch-black darkness.
A Total Solar Eclipse.
It was a celestial phenomenon that was conceptually, fundamentally impossible to occur within the closed, programmed parameters of this artificial dimension. But here he was, staring up at the eclipsed sun, experiencing the impossible, apocalyptic event for the very first time in his immortal existence.
He looked back down. He finally saw the silhouette completely.
It was no longer a fifteen-year-old, green-haired boy in a battered Vanguard uniform.
Standing in the center of the ruins was a breathtakingly beautiful, impossibly handsome, tall man.
His hair was no longer green; it was a cascading waterfall of pure, pristine, luminous white that fell past his broad shoulders. He was wearing a blindfold. But this time, it was not a simple piece of cloth. It was a luxurious, pitch-black silk blindfold, intricately, flawlessly embroidered with the golden, writhing symbols of ancient Eastern Black Dragons.
It was none other than the legendary Blindfold Man.
The enigmatic, omnipotent Husband of Nesmeranda. The supreme entity who had personally, directly plucked Damien's soul from Earth and sent him to this universe.
He was so impossibly, transcendently handsome, radiating such a profound, divine majesty, that entire pantheons of goddesses would willingly wage apocalyptic wars across the cosmos just to claim him.
He was entirely clad in flowing, magnificent ancient Chinese black silk garments, the kind of breathtaking, mythical attire you would only ever see meticulously illustrated in legendary murim manhwas and ancient xianxia novels. Deep within the folds of his black silk robes, the exact same Eastern Black Dragons embroidered on his blindfold seemed to literally writhe and shift across the fabric, as if they were living, breathing entities bound to his will. His long, elegant fingers were meticulously manicured in pristine, glossy black.
More importantly, his physical body was completely, entirely whole. Both arms were perfectly attached.
The Blindfold Man slowly, gracefully tilted his head upward, looking at the eclipsed skies with a calm, serene demeanor. He had completely, seamlessly taken over Rudeus's physical vessel. However, as an entity of his staggering, multiversal magnitude, he explicitly knew that he possessed an incredibly limited, fleeting amount of time he could safely manifest in this fragile, lower-dimensional reality before the universe's physics collapsed around him.
He slowly lowered his head, turning his blindfolded gaze directly toward the crater where the Demon General cowered.
He slowly, deliberately clenched his black-manicured hands into tight fists.
The ambient temperature of the entire artificial dimension instantly dropped to absolute zero. The aura of sheer, unadulterated, cosmic anger radiating from him was so overwhelmingly dense it visibly warped reality.
Even from three miles away, Dratkthar could clearly, perfectly hear what the entity whispered, the voice echoing directly inside his mind like the tolling of a final, executioner's bell. Dratkthar's eyes widened in absolute, despairing terror as he realized the impossible, apocalyptic truth of who he had just offended.
The Blindfold Man spoke, his voice calm, beautiful, and dripping with the absolute promise of total annihilation.
"How absolutely, fundamentally dare you..."
"...To repeatedly kick him into the dirt, and dare to attempt to kill him..."
The Blindfold Man took a single, slow step forward.
"I will absolutely never, ever forgive anyone in creation....!"
"Who dares to lay a single, filthy finger upon my dear Meus Egomet!"
He raised his hand, pointing a single, black-manicured finger directly at the trembling Demon General.
"And my beloved older brother..."