The white cleared.
Aaron was on his feet.
He didn't remember standing up. His body had just made that decision without asking.
*Okay*, he thought. *Okay I'm up. Good. That's something.*
The Mana Beast was right there. Both arms still raised. Chamber still too bright. Aaron's ribs were doing something unpleasant and the barrier was rebuilding and none of that mattered right now.
He moved.
*Back of the neck. Same place. One more time.*
WHOOSH.
He came in from the right. The Mana Beast turned toward him and Aaron dropped low under the turn and came up behind it and drove the Void Scythe into the back of the neck with everything. Both hands. All his weight.
The acid ran in deep.
SCREEEEEE.
The creature's legs started going wrong. Uncoordinated. The signal between its head and its body getting lost somewhere in the acid. It swung backward and caught Aaron across the ribs.
CRACK.
He flew sideways. Hit the floor. Rolled. Came back up.
COUGH. COUGH.
*Ribs. Yeah. That's going to be a conversation later.*
The healing factor grabbed them. He kept moving.
"NOW!" he shouted across the chamber.
Zxara pushed off the wall.
One leg barely working and she pushed off it anyway and hit the Mana Beast from the front with everything S rank had left and the impact cracked the air and the creature staggered and Aaron drove the scythe into the back of the neck one final time and twisted and the acid went all the way through.
The Mana Beast made a sound that had no name.
BOOOOOOM.
It dropped.
The floor cracked in every direction. The mana in its hide faded fast. The blue-white light dying completely. The chamber going quiet except for breathing.
Aaron stood over it.
*We actually did that*, he thought. *We actually just did that.*
Zxara sat down on the floor. Not by choice. Her left leg made that decision and she went down and stayed there. Both hands pressed to the wound. Head back against the wall. Eyes closed for exactly two seconds.
COUGH. COUGH. COUGH.
She opened her eyes and looked at Aaron still standing.
*How*, she thought. *How is he still standing after all of that.*
Aaron looked at his screen.
[MANA BEAST : DEFEATED]
Then the quest updated.
[MISSION : DEFEAT THE DUNGEON BOSS]
[STATUS : IN PROGRESS]
*What.*
He stared at it.
*What do you mean in progress. We just. It's right there on the floor. What do you mean.*
"What," Zxara said. Reading his face.
"Still in progress."
"What do you mean still in, huh?"
"It's still in progress Zxara."
She looked at the Mana Beast. At the quest. At the chamber.
"That wasn't the boss," she said quietly.
"No," Aaron said.
Neither of them said anything.
Then the footsteps started.
BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.
From the far end of the dungeon. Slow. One at a time. The kind of steps that didn't hurry because hurrying had never once been necessary.
Aaron's screen fired. Wrong colors. Text bleeding into itself.
[ WARNING ]
[ WARNING ]
[3RD STAGE ADAPTED PLAYER : DETECTED]
[Classification : DUNGEON TRUE BOSS]
*Guardian*, Aaron thought. *The Mana Beast was its guardian. That thing we just spent everything defeating was just the guard.*
It stepped out of the dark.
Tall. The dark material on its skin not crawling. Churning. Like something underneath was in constant violent motion that had nowhere to go. Eyes that absorbed light and gave nothing back. In one hand a weapon made from the same material as its skin. Long. Dark. Something that had no name in any language Aaron knew.
It looked at the chamber.
At the Mana Beast on the floor.
At the Mountain King.
At Zxara.
At Aaron.
It stopped walking.
"Pathetic," it said. The voice came from somewhere layered and wrong and not quite its mouth. "You destroyed my guardian and you stand there like that means something."
*Okay*, Aaron thought. *It talks. That's new. That's great. Love that.*
"You don't even know what you are doing here," it said. "You don't even know what you are."
"Neither do you," Aaron said.
The Demon looked at him for a second.
Then the aura hit.
BOOM.
Not a sound. A pressure. The air replaced with something heavier that had no direction because it came from everywhere at once. Aaron's knees buckled. Zxara went down sideways with a sound she didn't plan to make. The Mountain King staggered.
Aaron planted his feet.
*Don't go down. Don't go down. Don't you dare go down right now.*
His legs shook. The barrier ran full and the pressure found the gaps anyway and pressed through and he felt it in his chest and his teeth and the back of his skull.
*So this is 3rd Stage*, he thought. *This is what that actually feels like. The Being in the street was this. This is what Zxara took a hit from and kept going.*
"Interesting," the Demon said. "Most things your size stop moving at this point."
It started walking toward him.
*Move first. Don't let it set the pace.*
Aaron moved.
He crossed the chamber fast and drove the Void Scythe acid-dark at the Demon's chest with everything he had.
The Demon raised one hand.
CRACK.
It caught the blade with its bare hand. The acid hit its skin and the skin absorbed it. Just took it in. The way the Mana Beast had absorbed mana from the floor.
*Oh that's bad*, Aaron thought. *That's really bad.*
He pulled.
The Demon held.
It looked at the scythe in its hand. At the acid that had stopped working. At Aaron still pulling against it like that was going to change anything.
"Moron," it said.
CRACK.
It closed its fist and the Void Scythe shattered into pieces that hit the floor and scattered and Aaron stood there with empty hands.
*Okay*, he thought. *Okay the scythe is gone. The acid didn't work. The barrier is struggling. Mountain King is being suppressed. I have no weapon.*
*What do I have.*
The hit came before he finished the thought.
BOOM.
He hit the wall. Dropped. Sat there with his ears running that single high tone and his vision splitting.
*Get up*, he thought.
*I know.*
*GET UP.*
He got up.
Looked at his hands. At the mark on his arm glowing faint purple. At the shadows under his feet.
*Not the Mountain King*, he thought. *The aura is suppressing it. I need something that doesn't care about aura pressure. Something that moves fast and low and hits before it can react.*
*Something built for exactly this.*
He reached.
The mark on his arm went from faint purple to full dark.
The shadow spread outward fast and low and the temperature in the chamber dropped and the Demon stopped walking and looked at the floor for the first time since it had walked out of the dark.
For the first time it went still.
The shadow rose.
Not the Mountain King.
The Void Serpent came up from the dark coiling and fast and the acid dripping from its fangs hit the stone floor and dissolved it on contact and the Demon took one step back.
One step.
*There*, Aaron thought.
*There it is.*