The dust hadn't settled when the spirit sword came down.
Aaron moved. The blade hit stone where he'd been standing and the stone didn't just crack. It was gone. Clean carved absence where solid ground used to be.
*Don't let that touch you*, he thought. *Ever.*
The Void Serpent hit the Demon Lord from the left. Coiling fast around its arm. Acid running along the skin.
The Demon Lord grabbed it. Slammed it into the floor hard enough to shake the walls.
BOOM.
The Mountain King came from behind. Both fists driving into the Demon Lord's spine.
It didn't move.
Reached back. Grabbed the Mountain King by the skull. Threw it across the chamber.
CRACK.
Aaron watched both his shadows hit the floor and get back up and go again.
*They can't beat it*, he thought. *They're just keeping it facing the wrong direction.*
He checked his screen.
[MP : 34 / 1206]
The mark on his arm flickered once.
Went dark.
[ NOTIFICATION ]
[ Skill : Shadow Dominion Deactivated ]
[ Reason : Insufficient MP ]
*Okay*, he thought. *New problem.*
He opened inventory. One item. A potion from a side quest he'd forgotten about. He selected it and it appeared in his hand and he drank it without stopping moving.
[MP : 1186 / 1206]
Then his screen fired something new.
[ NOTIFICATION ]
[Side Quest Completed : The Void's Reward]
[Reward : Choose your weapon]
[Option 1 : Void Scythe – Acid Damage, Long Range]
[Option 2 : Nasaka Venom Fang – Dual Daggers, Void Serpent Material, Close Combat]
*Scythe*, he thought immediately.
The spirit sword came at his head again.
Aaron dropped under it. Came back up close. Too close for long range.
*Shit Daggers*, he thought. *Right now it has to be daggers.*
He selected Option 2.
Two blades appeared in his hands. Dark. Void Serpent material. Faint acid tracing the edges. Not dripping. Waiting. They fit his grip in a way that felt decided rather than accidental.
He activated Stealth.
Everything stayed the same except him.
The Demon Lord's head moved. Scanning the chamber. Finding nothing to land on.
For the first time since it had walked out of the dark it didn't know where he was.
Aaron came in from behind and drove both daggers into the Demon Lord's back.
The venom hit skin.
The skin didn't absorb it.
SCREEEEE.
The Demon Lord made a sound that had nothing ancient in it. Just pain. Real and immediate and completely unprepared for.
It spun around.
Aaron was already gone.
The Demon Lord looked at the wound. At the venom burning into its skin. At the empty chamber around it.
"How," it said. Not asking Aaron. Just saying it into the air. Like it was talking to itself.
Aaron came in from the left.
CRACK. CRACK.
Both daggers. Deep. Venom spreading from the second hit faster than the first.
The Demon Lord grabbed for him. Caught nothing.
*The aura works on fixed presence*, Aaron thought, moving. *I'm not giving it one. Keep moving. Never stop.*
BOOM!
He came in again from behind. Drove the left dagger in. Pulled it out. Moved before the Demon Lord finished turning.
The Demon Lord swung blind.
Aaron went under the swing and came up inside it and drove both daggers into its chest and the venom went in deep and the Demon Lord went back.
Two full steps back.
Aaron dropped stealth. Stood in front of it. Let it see him.
The Demon Lord looked at him.
Something moved through its ancient face that had never been there before.
Fear.
[ NOTIFICATION ]
[Leveled Up!]
[Leveled Up!]
The power hit his system all at once. Every reflex. Every sense. The barrier rebuilt to full in under a second and kept going past where full used to be.
*So this is 3rd Stage*, he thought. *So this is what this actually is.*
The Demon Lord raised the spirit sword.The mana energy coming out of it.
"So you are also one of them." Something shifted in its voice. Recognition sitting underneath the words. "Adapted player."
*Player*, Aaron thought. *It knows about the system. It knows what I am.*
*No time.*
Gravity Pull activated throughout the system. The air compressed inward from every direction and Aaron's feet left the stone and he felt himself being dragged forward and thought *I know this feeling. I've felt this before. At the portal.*
He moved with it. Used the pull's momentum to accelerate and came in faster than the Demon Lord expected anything to move inside its own skill.
The Demon Lord's eyes widened.
His magic power is tremendous!,"Demon Lord thought and said louder,"I haven't enjoyed a fight like this in ages."
Blue-white flame ignited in its palm. Ancient fire that burned things regular fire couldn't reach.
It threw it.
Aaron went under it. Heat close enough to matter. Kept moving.
The Demon Lord inhaled.
Deep. Slow. And the wild sound of his powerful ability came out.
KABOOM!
"Song of Dragon Fire."
The chamber temperature dropped.
Then spiked.
Aaron looked at it pulling everything into that one breath and thought *two seconds. That's all I have maybe.*
*Uncle Theren.*
*Rei.*
*I HAVE TO.*
Something happened behind his eyes. Blue flame. Not warmth. Something past temperature that he'd never felt in his body before and couldn't name and didn't have time to think about.
He moved.
[ 5x mupliler : activated ]
Full speed. Full stealth. Everything the 5x multiplier had stacked across this entire fight running through his legs and his hands and the two dark blades pointed directly at the Demon Lord's chest.
The Demon Lord released the Song of Dragon Fire.
Aaron was already inside it.
KABOOM.
The shockwave hit every wall at the same time. The floor cracked in directions that made no sense. Everything in the air came down.
Silence.
The dust cleared slow.
Aaron stood in the middle of it. Both daggers still in his hands. A cut across his cheek from something he hadn't tracked. Left leg wrong in the way the healing factor was already handling. One rib making a noise about later.
The Demon Lord was on the floor.
Head separate from the rest.
[ NOTIFICATION ]
[ You have defeated the Master of the Dungeon ]
[Leveled Up!]
[Leveled Up!]
[Passive Skill Obtained]
[The Great Spell Caster Kandiaru's Blessing]
[Long-lasting Buff : Health and Longevity]
[–Immunity : Disables toxic and abnormal conditions]
[–Improved regenerative capacity]
[Item Obtained : Lyod of Evil – Spirit Sword]
[Item Obtained : Ring of the Ancient – Accessory]
[Item Obtained : Mantle of the Deep –Accessory]
Aaron looked at the spirit sword on the floor.
Picked it up.
It fit his hand the way the daggers had.
*Mine now*, he thought.
He looked at his mana.
[MP : 445 / 1206]
He tried Shadow Dominion on the DEMON LORD.
[ NOTIFICATION ]
[Skill : Shadow Dominion] Cannot be used.
[Note : Due to low skill level.]
Aaron made a Serious face, looking at the screen.
He tried the shadow dominion on the smaller ones the other beasts, and on the Mana Beast.
[NOTIFICATION]
[Skill : Shadow Dominion] POSSIBLE
[ Major Rank : Mana beast ]
The shadows moved. Lot's of them along with their leader Mana beast. Fast and permanent and Aaron named it Magnus. The mana beast forms dissolving into dark and rising as bound and his reacting to the mark on the Aaron's body. "A Shadow army huh?" Aaron thought.They all joining and went still back in the Aaron's Shadow.
Aaron looked at his hands.
Shaking slightly.
*This power is too much for my body right now*, he thought. *I have to get stronger. Have to at any cost.*
He turned toward the passage.