“You…!”
His eyes blazed with a fierce blue flame, anger simmering beneath the surface.
Instead of unleashing a torrent of rage, the man snapped his fingers a few times, forming a quick series of hand signs.
“Wailing Ghost’s Call”
Above the ruined forest, gathered magic swiftly etched a complex summoning circle in the air.
In the midst of an eerie wail, a massive skeleton emerged, piercing through the circle’s ominous blue light.
A deep, resonant growl echoed as the skeleton, even with only its upper body visible, cast a shadow large enough to cover a city square.
As soon as it spotted Dalen, it thrashed its head violently, then unleashed bright yellow beams from its hollow eye sockets.
Boom!
The twin beams began to sweep across the mountain range.
Like a scythe tearing through a field of weeds, the trees of the misty forest were ripped apart and uprooted.
As the beams carved deep wounds into the forest, Dalen’s response was simple.
“Return.”
The power of his command swept through the area.
Bound by a pact with a dark god, yet transcending its limits with necromancy alone, Dalen wielded the authority of a dark sorcerer who had ascended to godhood.
Before the command of the king of all the dead, the newly summoned skeleton crumbled into dust and scattered.
“What the…!”
Delaine looked down in shock.
Dalen yawned ostentatiously, tilting his head.
“Is that all?”
”······!”
The man extended his hand. A forest of purple vines burst from the ground, exuding a toxic aura.
Dalen immediately maximized the resistance of his divine tattoos.
Among the divine tattoos he had received long ago from the knight commander in exchange for exploring the rift, there were those that resisted plagues and poisons, in addition to those used for miracles.
Given that the effectiveness of divine tattoos varied with the user’s abilities, Dalen, with his magic power nearly at 100, possessed virtually perfect resistance.
Whoosh!
He charged through the valley filled with purple poison mist. The man waved his hand again as Dalen moved like an arrow.
“Wind Fortress”
“Wind Shadow Barrier”
A fortress-sized trap of razor-sharp winds was woven together.
Dalen, too, concealed himself within the wind, slipping through the gaps in the bladed storm.
“Earth Collapse”
“Clear Wave Strike”
An entire mountain exploded, spewing lava and fireballs.
Using a massive wave as both shield and transport, he swiftly escaped the fiery zone.
Crash! Boom…!
A series of cataclysmic disasters unfolded, turning the misty mountains of the Silent Moon into a wasteland.
And amidst the rapidly scorched earth and sky, Dalen anticipated and countered every attack with precision.
It wasn’t easy.
Each skill Delaine used was powerful enough to obliterate an entire village.
Dodging them by a hair’s breadth or countering with a prepared superior ability was a miracle beyond even a transcendent’s intuition.
But Dalen had the power to perform that miracle.
“The pattern is the same.”
More accurately, it was less about power and more about old memories.
“I’ve imagined and replayed this battle countless times.”
Thoughts flickered through the finely divided moments of accelerated cognition.
“Ever since clashing with the Ashen Warrior… I suspected this fight might come.”
Even without knowing the outcome, he hadn’t completely let go.
The corpse of the final cycle was both the greatest hope and the seed of a battle that could end everything.
Despite the excessive risk, he had no intention of avoiding the approaching fight.
If he hadn’t risked his life in every battle, he wouldn’t have come this far.
Ultimately, the only thing that mattered was how to seize victory.
“Whatever monster I hunted, I always started with a barrage of black lightning.”
The most efficient unique skill acquired in the final cycle, “Black Lightning.”
From behind the monitor, Dalen had tackled almost every monster with what was commonly called skill spamming—a sly but effective method.
That alone turned most enemies, including formidable bosses, into experience points and loot. The completed character of the final cycle was that powerful.
“For something on the level of a great demon, black lightning spam alone wasn’t enough. Then I’d test the waters and use the Crimson Flame Step.”
Distracting the opponent with a storm of lightning, then crushing them with an explosion of heat and lava.
If the enemy withstood even that, he’d freeze the entire space before they could recover.
Then, before the binding wore off, he’d unleash a barrage of diverse skills.
Mixing various long-range techniques and powers, he’d identify and exploit the opponent’s attributes and weaknesses.
“Until the final showdown with the five dark gods, it was a pattern that never failed.”
It was, in essence, a command sequence.
A formula built over countless hours, capable of confronting any enemy.
He had crafted the most perfect character possible by gathering all the hidden pieces and opportunities across the continent, and through hundreds of battles, he had honed the most efficient way to use that character.
However, a strategy optimized for every opponent also meant a rigid, one-dimensional approach.
Dalen’s constant taunting, even when he seemed to be on the losing side, was intended to draw out that rigid pattern.
Rumble!
A symphony of dozens of techniques bombarded the steps.
The mountainside and its foundation were overturned, the air shredded, unleashing an indescribable roar.
Dalen continued the fight, narrowly evading and deflecting attacks.
Even as he staggered back, he never allowed a critical hit, always delivering a taunting retort.
Thanks to recognizing and predicting the pattern, but without his own capabilities, it would have been an impractical ideal.
However, after the battle with the dragon god, by restraining his skills as much as possible, he had learned to fully harness his overflowing abilities, allowing him to continue this precarious dance.
“You rat. I’ll kill you with my own hands!”
Perhaps his patience had reached its limit. Delaine roared in fury, drawing his sword.
Though it seemed he was succumbing to rage, Dalen knew the truth.
“The dozens of techniques are a kind of probing. If a formidable foe can’t be defeated with long-range skill spamming, then it’s time for close combat.”
If it could be ended with skill shortcuts, that was best, but if not, it transitioned to the more complex control of close-quarters combat.
As the relentless barrage of black lightning abruptly ceased, Delaine’s figure vanished from its spot.
“Left…!”
Even prepared, his eyes couldn’t follow the speed.
His heightened senses reacted first.
──────!
Instinctively, he bent backward. The sword tip grazed where his neck had just been.
“Damn…!”
Though he dodged, his neck burned as if cut.
The power of the knight king’s sword, Durandal. Once swung at a target, unless blocked, it would inevitably inflict a wound.
“Damn it…!”
He regained his stance with a spring of his waist. He parried the following thrust with his holy sword. The swords clashed, and he countered with a thrust. His opponent lifted his sword, and the holy sword came down diagonally.
Sizzle!
Unable to block, he twisted his body to evade. The sound of air being sliced was followed by the misty mountain behind him being cleaved and collapsing.
Though he dodged, blood flowed from the cut on his chest before clotting. If it had been a direct hit, it wouldn’t have been just an internal injury; his entire upper body would have been erased.
A casual swing that could split the walls of the imperial capital in one blow wouldn’t fail to crush a transcendent’s body.
“With necromancy from the minions of Temomron, a dragon’s heart and bones, and even dragon blood. You’re half-demon yourself. How are you any different from me, prattling about dark gods?”
“Spare me. Are you picking a fight over skills?”
He blocked the descending sword by locking it between his blade and pommel.
The heart transplanted from the Azure Dragon throbbed violently, healing the internal injuries within his ribcage. He stepped in closer, raising his hand.
“Domain Full Release”
“Light of the Beginning on the Snowy Mountain”
Rumble…!
A mountain peak rose through the scorched ground.
Beneath the slashed sky, dark crimson clouds gathered.
Below the cracked ground, the red glow of the sulfur sea, usually visible only after descending a level, peeked through.
The upheaval of heaven and earth caused the already trembling boundary of the steps to begin collapsing entirely.
“Madman. Were you deflecting my firepower all this time to collapse the labyrinth itself…?”
Dallain noticed the boundary between the two floors collapsing and shouted with a fierce scowl on his face.
“You can’t seriously think you can destroy the labyrinth and just walk away with the Stone of Wishes. It’s impossible to cross the endless void of the Abyss…!”
“No.”
With a fluid motion, he deflected the sword to the side, letting it pass dangerously close to his shoulder. Ignoring the searing pain near his collarbone, he reached out with his left hand and grabbed the opponent’s wrist.
Caught off guard by the unexpected close-quarters maneuver, the opponent’s shoulder flinched involuntarily.
“I didn’t foresee the boundary between the floors collapsing either. How far will your wild assumptions go?”
He chuckled softly, raising his right hand. The open domain responded to his gesture.
In battles between transcendents, the display of one’s domain was a given, regardless of the strategic mind games involved. The clash of visions within their minds was inevitable.
And when the combatants were of different ranks, it was only logical for Dallain to reveal his domain first.
The key wasn’t how long you could hold back your domain. The real question was how powerful a blow you could deliver once it was unleashed.
‘And whether that blow can shift the tide of battle.’
With his thoughts in order, Dallain raised his right hand high and continued speaking.
“This is my first time trying this, so I’m not sure if I can pull it off.”
He had been stalling with long-range attacks, drawing the opponent into close combat, where even a punch would be awkwardly close. The reason was simple.
The power he was about to summon was a force neither he nor its original master had ever fully wielded.
“The Great Thunderstorm that Swallowed Hell”
Beyond the dense storm clouds, the final hue of the rainbow lightning began to stir.
Daltalion, the master of lightning who gathered all the world’s thunderbolts.
Despite creating a sea of rainbow lightning, he had never used the final color in battle.
Even after rejecting the call of the Sky Fortress and turning away from loved ones to hone his power, the last bolt remained beyond his reach.
Had he been given more time, he might have ascended to divinity and grasped that lightning. But the end left him no such luxury.
’…I made a decision recently. I won’t ignore the tragedies I might have caused.’
He recalled the words spoken before the sorcerer who scattered red thunderstorms.
To the man who reached destruction by abandoning everything dear, longing for what was lost beyond the end, he had given an answer.
‘Then there’s only one thing I can do. Protect what you couldn’t.’
He had avenged the martial artist by defeating the avatar of Suum.
He had repaid the blacksmith’s grudge by slaying the dragon god.
Could wielding the lightning he never held bring solace to the master of thunder?
The dead remain silent. No answer would come.
But having promised to do his best, there was no need to look back.
“You…!”
Seeing the blinding white light in Dallain’s eyes, the opponent tried to pull away in alarm. But his wrist was already firmly in Dallain’s grasp.
With a strength stat over 100, he could have broken free, but even a moment’s hesitation was inevitable.
For Dallain, that moment was enough.
━━━━━━┻┳!
Without a hint of hesitation, he brought his hand down, and a bolt of lightning shot straight down from the stormy sea.
“White Fall”
The pure white lightning pierced through the neck of the divine warrior.