Back when this world was nothing more than a game to him, Dalen occasionally played on the side of the evil god.
It wasn’t for any particular reason. The game offered such freedom that he thought, why not explore all the possibilities?
But things changed after he surpassed his hundredth playthrough.
Once he became determined to clear the game, his allegiance to the evil god was purely for reconnaissance, a means to an end.
After sacrificing countless lives to the evil god, the knowledge he gained was substantial.
“Can that really be an excuse?”
Yet, since being thrust into this world, he sometimes found himself pondering.
“Could I tell the countless lives thrown into suffering that they were merely stepping stones to save one last world?”
With a few mouse clicks, hundreds of refugees perished.
A single skill combo could set an entire village ablaze.
The corpse that met its end in this hall had been doing the same.
Alongside Enaxagous’s army, they had burned the capital of Eclahim and pursued the surviving paladins deep into the city’s underground.
“O, God… urgh…”
His intelligence stat had boosted his memory to the point where he could recall the death of the last paladin on his monitor.
Just simple graphics and a voice recorded by a reused voice actor.
Mere polygons and data. Sacrifices that enriched his character with experience points and the evil god’s favor.
Did the man in his underwear, clicking away at his mouse and keyboard on weekends, truly have the right to take those lives?
The internal conflict he thought he’d resolved long ago occasionally resurfaced after meeting the gray projection.
He shook his head to clear his thoughts. Now wasn’t the time for such musings.
The past was just that—the past. At the time, it was the best he could do.
Who could have known that a mere game was the reality of another world?
It was as absurd as saying an ant you stepped on was actually a hero destined to save the world.
Sssshhh—!
As the monster’s tail approached, Dalen ended his accelerated thoughts.
While he couldn’t deny his past mistakes, it was also true that those mistakes had provided him with invaluable knowledge.
Through his time on the evil god’s side, he learned strategies against various demons and monsters, including the one before him that had devoured a transcendent being.
Swoosh!
In the blink of an eye, the tail struck its target.
The end of the tail, split into three like a whip, tore through the air with a deafening sound.
Dalen, hit by the monster’s tail, crashed through a pillar and was sent flying.
With a loud crash, his body slammed into the hall’s wall, and the onlooker, Picake, burst into hysterical laughter.
“Hehehe! Yes, that’s it! Did you really think some measly spell crammed into that bulky body could stop an ancient beast… huh?”
The laughter didn’t last long. A blue flash reflected in his trembling black eyes.
Boom—!
With a thunderous roar, a bolt of lightning struck the monster’s massive form.
The creature, nearly 30 meters long, staggered and retreated, revealing Dalen as the gray aura dissipated.
“How… how is that possible?”
Picake muttered in disbelief.
“You call that a hit?”
Dalen stepped forward, seemingly walking on air.
“The initial experiment of the ancient Dark Moon Order, Varkabus. It’s a fearsome beast. Its ten pairs of eyes can create illusions strong enough to deceive even some fifth-tier transcendent beings, and its sheer strength can easily topple a building.”
With ripples beneath his feet and a holy sword crackling with blue and white lightning, Picake couldn’t help but avert his gaze. He looked at the wall where Dalen had crashed moments ago.
Instead of a body, only the remnants of a shadow, dissolving into ash, remained.
Dalen continued speaking.
“Its scales are as thick and tough as a true dragon’s, with strong resistance to poison and cold. In the northern regions, where it snows for more than half the year, there aren’t many mages who can handle such a beast. Warriors, even less so.”
”······.”
“It does have a weakness to heat, but you probably thought it wouldn’t be a problem. My domain in the labyrinth city was centered around lightning, triggered by changes in the weather, so you assumed I couldn’t use it here underground.”
He stroked his chin as he spoke. The sixth strongest assassin of the Dark Moon Order couldn’t utter a word.
His gaping maw revealed his thoughts—how, or why, he couldn’t comprehend the reality before him.
It was a face that seemed almost comical. The change was palpable.
The corpse inside that monster’s belly was the result of Picake’s betrayal, aiming to claim the glory of annihilating the paladins for himself.
No matter how many times he avenged himself on the polygonal figures beyond the monitor, he could never witness such vivid expressions. Dalen smirked slightly and let the holy sword drop.
Then, as the monster recovered from the lightning strike and rose, he took a deep breath and leaned forward.
Thud—
His body shot forward, stretching out like a drawn bowstring.
「Return to Darkness」
The shadow flickered along the pale outline.
「Dual Step Disperse」
In a split second, his form split into two.
Leaping to either side of the monster, each form began to chant a spell.
「Thunderclap」
Crackle—!
The net of electricity enveloping his hand transformed into a massive claw, splitting into dozens of strands that seared the monster’s flesh.
「Flame Serpent」
Whoosh!
A lightly thrown spear transformed into a fiery serpent over ten meters long, coiling around the monster and scorching it.
Kyaaa!!
Even the thick scales couldn’t shield it from the searing heat and electric pain.
The monster, writhing under the barrage of spells, opened its maw wide. Without warning, a green beam shot out from within.
Boom—!
In the dragon’s breath-like blast, one of Dalen’s two forms was engulfed, dissolving into gray smoke.
“Already using the breath pattern. Quick.”
Dalen, with a blue light flickering at his fingertips, smiled slightly and began forming hand seals again.
The battle had only been going for ten seconds.
Phase two was beginning.
Boom— Boom!
The spectacle of beams shooting in all directions. To a modern Earthling, it might resemble a laser show at a festival.
But the stone pillars and ceiling being pulverized in real-time were sights no ordinary laser show could offer.
Boom! Crackle—
Beams and lightning crisscrossed, while pillars of flame erupted from the ground and ice storms raged.
The relentless assault of spells and the monster’s desperate thrashing turned the centuries-old hall into ruins in an instant.
The countless flashes of magic illuminated the once-hidden form of the monster in stark detail.
[Wow, what a freakish patchwork of a monster…]
And just as Arvor’s muttering echoed in his mind, the creature’s appearance was nothing short of grotesque.
“Tch, disgusting rat-dragon.”
A long body with dozens of limbs like a centipede, a tail making up nearly a third of its length.
Dragon-like membranous wings attached to its back, and countless root-like tendrils dangling from its scale-covered body.
Add to that a rat-like head with ten eyes, and it was a creature so bizarre that even demons would be appalled.
Even beyond the monitor, its design was shocking enough that during their first encounter, he had been utterly helpless.
“You’re more skilled than I thought! But Varkabus is a beast on par with a dragon… that level of firepower won’t bring it down!”
Picake, who had been watching the battle in a daze, suddenly shouted.
A voice filled with desperate anger. But he wasn’t entirely wrong.
The blue lightning snaked between the scales, and the flames scorched their surface, but that was all.
The scales, as tough as alloys forged by a master blacksmith, didn’t break easily, and the damage that barely reached the inner flesh was being healed in real-time by the monster’s insane regenerative abilities.
[…A monstrous hybrid. Is this the result of mimicking Enaxagous’s cauldron?]
The spear beyond his mind murmured softly. Dalen nodded.
As the ancient dragon suspected, the Dark Moon Order was an organization created under Enaxagous’s influence.
However, it was such a well-hidden secret that Dalen hadn’t discovered it until well past his hundredth playthrough.
Across the continent, there were numerous organizations serving as pawns of dark deities, much like the infamous Shadowmoon Sect. These groups operated not only in the shadows but also openly in the light of day, their presence hardly a rarity.
“Now that the Shadowmoon Sect has begun to move, it won’t be long before the others reveal their true colors.”
When that happened, the continent would inevitably be engulfed in chaos and war. Some of these groups were so vast that they could sway entire nations.
But that was a concern for another time. For now, the immediate priority was to defeat the beast standing before them.
[It seems impossible to deal with this creature without opening your domain… That ratman assassin must have planned for this.]
“Indeed. Even if I forcefully open it, it would mean making an enemy of the Tsar’s nation. To strike from the clouds above would require obliterating an entire district of the city.”
[Typical assassin’s thinking. They’ve gone to great lengths to restrict your abilities.]
The voice of the spear, a low chuckle accompanying her words.
[Then why not show them? Show that fake hybrid dragon what a true dragon’s domain looks like, crafted by your own hands.]
There was a hint of excitement in her tone.
Dalen nodded, extending his hand. The flames dissipated, reforming into a spear, while the three-part form melted away like shadows.
Kyaak?
The sudden halt in the attack made the beast stagger and turn its head. Its ten pairs of eyes locked onto Dalen, who stood with his spear raised over his shoulder, eyes half-closed.
Rumble…
Beyond those half-closed eyes, time seemed to stretch infinitely, revealing a vision of a snow-capped landscape.
Nestled in a deep basin between towering peaks was a creature, its body resembling a long fire serpent, its wings and two legs crackling with blue lightning.
“Flaming arrows and shooting lightning.”
This vision had only recently come to fruition. The spells that once chased their tails in the backyard of a cabin had transformed into his unique skills, Flame Serpent and Thunderbird, wandering the mountain ranges for a time.
Typically, a single possibility would create a single landscape. However, over time, the possibilities branching from these two spells began to merge into one within Dalen’s mind.
This was partly because Dalen had grown accustomed to the power of the spear, and partly due to the constant growth he witnessed in the Azure Scales of Akasha.
Kyaaa───!
And at the culmination of this process, a second dragon took its place among the mountains.
“Domain Unleashed: The Chromatic Wyvern.”
A dragon of lightning and flame, modeled after the spear, tore through the boundaries of the world, casting its wings into reality.
And then—
Crunch!!
As the maw, seething with crimson flames, snapped shut, the massive beast’s head was torn off with disconcerting ease.
”…What?”
“What do you mean, ‘what’?”
Dalen drew his sword and swung it down.