The pitch-black sea of Elias's mana surged across the pristine white marble, violently colliding with the blinding light of the Corrupted Inquisitors.
Iron was the first to strike. The Elite Hobgoblin swung his massive battleaxe with enough kinetic force to shatter a skyscraper. An Inquisitor raised its greatsword to block.
CLANG!
The shockwave cracked the floating island beneath them. But for the first time since his extraction, Iron didn't easily overpower his enemy. The mixture of dark smoke and white holy fire radiating from the Inquisitor's blade seared into Iron's shadowy flesh. The giant shadow roared—not in pain, but in sheer, primal rage—as his arm began to evaporate.
Standing at the back of the formation, Elias felt a sharp tug in his chest. His mana was draining significantly faster than usual to regenerate Iron's damaged limb.
'Holy magic,' Elias thought, his eyes narrowing. 'The natural enemy of the undead. Even corrupted, that fire burns hot.'
"Don't fight them head-on!" Aria yelled, dodging a massive, sweeping horizontal slash from an Inquisitor. She moved like a silver blur, her daggers flashing, but when she struck the creature's silver plate armor, the blades sparked and bounced off. "Their defense is too high! I can't pierce the armor!"
"You don't need to pierce the armor," Elias said, his voice perfectly calm amidst the chaos. "You just need to find the seams. Eclipse!"
High above, the sky went entirely black.
The Void Chimera had ascended directly beneath the fractured celestial sun, spreading its massive wings to blot out the light. As the island was plunged into artificial twilight, the holy fire on the Inquisitors' blades noticeably flickered and dimmed.
[Skill: Domain of the Monarch (Lv. 1) activated.] [Enemy movement speed reduced by 30%.]
The heavy, ink-like shadow spread across the marble floor. The Inquisitors slowed, their joints stiffening as if submerged in deep water.
"Blood, break their posture. Aria, with me," Elias commanded.
The Commander-Grade Death Knight dashed forward. Leaving a trail of crimson light in his wake, Blood didn't aim for the heavily armored torsos. Instead, he swung his greatsword at the Inquisitors' knees, forcing the towering holy warriors off balance.
Aria didn't hesitate. She fully trusted the opening Elias was creating. She dashed forward, targeting an off-balance Inquisitor.
Swish!
Before the creature could raise its sword to swat her away, Elias activated Spatial Step. He instantly materialized out of Aria's own shadow, directly behind the towering Inquisitor. He grabbed the creature's floating, jagged halo with his bare, mana-reinforced hands and pulled it violently backward, exposing the unarmored gap at the back of its neck.
"Now!" Elias ordered.
Aria leaped into the air, her daggers glowing with concentrated violet mana. She drove both blades directly into the exposed gap, severing the creature's spinal cord.
The Inquisitor froze, its holy fire extinguishing instantly, before crashing heavily onto the marble floor.
"Keep moving!" Elias barked, already stepping into the shadow of the next enemy.
What followed was a terrifying display of lethal synergy. Aria's S-Rank assassin speed allowed her to dart through the chaotic battlefield, drawing aggro and creating micro-openings. Whenever an Inquisitor exposed a weak point, Elias was already there—teleporting through the shadows—to shatter their defenses, allowing Iron or Blood to deliver the crushing final blow.
It was a beautiful, bloody dance. For the first time in her life, Aria didn't feel like she was fighting alone. She felt like a deadly instrument being wielded by a master conductor.
Within five minutes, all twelve Corrupted Inquisitors lay motionless on the shattered marble.
[You have slain a Corrupted Inquisitor.] [You have slain a Corrupted Inquisitor...] [You have leveled up!] [You have reached Level 24.]
Aria landed gracefully, panting heavily, her violet eyes wide with adrenaline. She looked at Elias. He wasn't even out of breath.
"They were Level 35," Aria said in disbelief, staring at her glowing daggers. "A standard squad of B-Ranks would have wiped here. How did you know their halos were their physical anchor points?"
"Observation," Elias lied smoothly. He had fought these exact creatures in his past life, losing three good guildmates to figure out that weakness.
He walked among the fallen silver giants. The dark, electric-blue smoke of their souls was already rising, intermingling with a strange, pure white light.
[A corrupted holy soul has been detected. Extraction difficulty is high.] [Would you like to extract the shadow? (Yes / No)]
"Arise."
The extraction was violent. The white holy light violently fought against Elias's abyssal mana, causing the air to crackle with black lightning. But Elias's will—and his Epic-tier mana pool—was absolute.
With a deafening CRACK, the holy light shattered.
Twelve towering figures rose from the floor. They were clad in pitch-black plate armor, but the jagged halos floating above their heads glowed with a haunting, corrupted white light. Their greatswords burned with black fire.
[Extraction Successful!] [Shadow Inquisitor (Lv. 30) has joined your legion.] x 12 [Special Trait: Abyssal Light - Attacks deal both Dark and Holy damage.]
Elias couldn't suppress a dark smirk. His army had just gained a massive spike in raw power.
BONG.
A sudden, deafening toll of a massive bell echoed across the floating realm. The sound was so heavy it made the marble floor vibrate.
Aria and Elias turned their attention toward the colossal, ruined cathedral in the distance. The fractured bridge of light connecting their island to the cathedral suddenly flared, solidifying into a glowing path.
At the entrance of the cathedral, two massive, golden doors slowly swung open. A blinding, pure golden light spilled out into the twilight, accompanied by the sound of a haunting, angelic choir singing in a language neither of them understood.
[Warning: The Sanctuary's core has been disturbed.] [The Seraph of the Final Judgment has awoken.]
"Well," Elias said, recalling his shadows into the darkness at his feet. He stepped onto the glowing bridge of light, his eyes fixed on the golden doors. "It seems the Dungeon Master is ready to see us."