Filvis kept her staff raised, watching the strange figure carefully.
His appearance was all wrong—green skin, silver hair, and barely any clothes left. Scorched stone surrounded him, like something had exploded, but he looked calm. Too calm.
"Who are you?" she asked.
The man didn't move. "My name's Zamasu."
"That's not an answer," Filvis said, tightening her grip on her staff. "Are you with the Loki Familia?"
"No."
"Then are you with Evilus?"
"No."
Lefiya tensed up beside her. Her eyes darted around the area, like she expected an ambush at any moment. 'Why is he even here?' she thought. 'He just appeared out of nowhere!'
Filvis kept her eyes on him. "Then explains why I've never seen you before. How did you get here?"
Zamasu nodded once, like he had expected the question. "I don't know how exactly. I was walking toward the 26th floor after passing through the 25th."
"You made it that deep alone?" Lefiya asked, stunned.
"Yes."
He spoke plainly, like it was just a fact. There was no pride in it.
Apparently after he woke up after burning through his ki reserves, he had journeyed diving to the deeper floors.
While on the 25th, he noticed some glowing crystals embedded in the walls. These seem exclusive to the 25th floor as he hasn't seen these types on the higher floors before.
They looked like they might be valuable, so he broke off a few and put them in my satchel. After he did that, they stopped glowing.
While he was walking, the crystals suddenly started glowing again—way brighter than before. Then they cracked and broke apart.
That triggered something. A vortex opened right in front of him and dragged him in.
The force of it had crushed his body. His arm guards broke apart and his clothes ripped.
He only survived the ordeal thanks to his resilience and immortality.
He glanced down at himself. Only about 70% of his shorts had survived. The rest had been torn away.
Zamasu looked at her but said nothing.
His unnatural calm posture and the air of mystery that surrounds him made the two elves wary.
"You don't know?" Filvis repeated, her voice quiet but sharp. "You show up in a restricted area, you probably have seen things you shouldn't, and your answer is you don't know?"
Her fingers tightened around her staff. The tension in the air was thick, the glow of the crystals around them seeming to flicker in sync with her rising frustration.
Zamasu met her gaze, calm and unreadable. He didn't say anything, just stood there without a hint of tension or fear.
His silence wasn't hostile—but it wasn't reassuring either. It only made the moment more uneasy.
For Filvis, the choice was simple. The will of Dionysus came before everything else.
This stranger, with his strange power and calm attitude, was a problem.
It didn't matter where he came from or what he wanted—he showed up at the worst possible time and saw too much.
That made him dangerous. Knossos wasn't a place for unknowns.
He had to be removed.
Lefiya, still hurting and barely able to move, noticed the shift in Filvis right away.
The way her stance changed, how she suddenly went still. "F-Filvis, wait—" she said weakly, trying to sit up. Pain shot through her leg. "Don't—"
But it was too late. Filvis had already started chanting, her voice echoing through the cavern and cutting Lefiya off mid-sentence.
"Oblivion's Touch, coil and consume—"
Her words were quick and controlled. Darkness formed at the tip of her staff, but this time it wasn't like the chaotic magic she'd used on Lefiya earlier.
This was sharper—focused, deadly.
Zamasu moved the moment her lips began to form the spell. His calm shifted into sudden speed. Instead of backing away, he rushed her.
In a blink, he closed the distance. His right fist, tight and steady, shot forward straight at Filvis's chest.
The goal was simple—break her focus, end the chant, and maybe crack a few ribs in the process.
He expected a counterattack. Fire, ice, wind—something loud and obvious, something he could dodge or absorb.
That was the kind of magic he'd imagined—basic, elemental, straightforward.
What came next caught him completely off guard.
Just as his fist was about to land, Filvis finished her chant.
"—Umbra Lancea!"
The spell shot forward—a thin, jet-black line, fast and silent. It wasn't a blast or a wave.
It was precise, and it hit Zamasu square in the face before he could react.
There was no explosion. No knockback. Just a sharp, cold feeling—like something had been erased.
For a moment, it felt like a piece of his face had simply stopped existing.
Pain hit hard and fast. A small part of his forehead was gone—skin, muscle, even a bit of bone.
The spell had carved a coin-sized hole straight through. But almost just as quickly, the damage started to reverse.
His immortality has taken effect.
The pain was sharp—like a white-hot needle jabbing straight into his forehead. It wasn't enough to take him down, but it definitely caught him off guard.
His charge stumbled.
The punch, thrown with tons of force, missed Filvis by inches as she sidestepped effortlessly.
Her movement was smooth, controlled, and her eyes weren't afraid—they were watching him, calculating, surprised by how fast he was and how quickly his wound had already started to heal.
The hole in his forehead closed in less than a second, leaving only a faint red mark before even that faded away.
Zamasu came to a stop. Not because he was scared—but because he was confused. Genuinely confused.
He lifted a hand and touched the spot where she hit him. Nothing. The skin was fine. The pain was already gone. But that spell… it wasn't what he expected at all.
He had been ready for something flashy. A fireball, a blast of wind, some kind of magic missile—something out of an old fantasy story or maybe even a Harry Potter spell.
Instead, it felt like part of his face had just been deleted.
He stared at Filvis, eyes wide now—not in fear, but in shock. What the hell kind of magic was that?
Filvis smirked coldly when she saw him hesitate—just for a second. His aggression had stopped, and in his eyes, she looked surprised. She shifted her stance, raising her staff again.
"What?" she said, voice sharp and mocking. "Never seen real magic before, outsider?"
Zamasu didn't care about the insult, but it made him think.
Wait… that wasn't like any magic I've seen before. Not like fireballs or lightning or anything normal. That thing just erased part of me. How is that even possible?
He realized this magic wasn't like the usual spells in stories or games.
It was something completely different, something dangerous, and he had no idea how to deal with it.
That sharp sting on his forehead wasn't just pain—it was a warning sign. He needed to be careful.
Warnings called for quick action.
The calm part of his mind—the human inside, buried beneath all this power and past—pulled back from the sudden danger.
But his body, trained by his Saiyan instincts and survival logic, reacted fast and hard.
Confusion disappeared, replaced by a clear focus: deal with the threat.
His right hand shot up, palm open toward Filvis.
No spells, no flashy moves. Just pure will, drawing from the deep energy inside him.
A bright golden ball of ki formed in his palm almost instantly, sharp and deadly.
Filvis's eyes grew wide. The smug look disappeared. She knew raw power when she saw it—even if it came in a form she didn't recognize.
She started to chant, shadows twisting around her staff—"Abyssus Vor—"
She never finished.
"Hah!"
Zamasu shoved his palm forward. The ki blast wasn't a beam—it was a small, fast-moving orb of energy, flying straight at Filvis.
It hit her right in the chest before she could raise a full barrier or finish her spell.
The impact was brutal. It sounded like a huge fist hitting a slab of meat, echoing through the cavern.
The dark energy around Filvis's staff disappeared instantly. Her eyes widened in shock and pain, wiping away all her calm.
The ki blast exploded on impact, sending a shockwave through the air.
The force threw her off her feet. You could hear her ribs crack, and her insides were compressed hard.
She flew backward like a ragdoll, a strangled scream escaping her before she crashed spine-first into the jagged crystals where Lefiya had fallen earlier.
The impact sounded awful—flesh hitting crystal with a sickening crunch.
Filvis fell to the base of the formation, pinned for a moment before collapsing onto the cavern floor.
Blood spread quickly across her robes, dark and heavy from the severe damage the ki blast caused.
More blood dripped from her mouth and nose.
Her staff fell beside her, useless.
She gasped, making a wet, struggling sound, her body twitching weakly.
Her eyes were glazed with shock and pain, staring blankly upward.
She wasn't dead, her vitality, enhanced by whatever power Dionysus had bestowed, clung on —barely conscious, her life slowly slipping away on the cold stone floor.
Zamasu didn't hesitate. She was still a threat. Eliminate her.
He walked forward, each step steady and quiet over the broken ground.
His eyes locked on Filvis's fallen body. There was no hatred in his gaze—just the cold certainty of what needed to be done.
His hand rose again. A ball of golden energy started to form in his palm, brighter and tighter than before.
The air around it shimmered from the heat, casting sharp shadows across the cavern.
He stopped a few steps away. The light from the ki blast lit up his face, his expression calm and unreadable.
He took aim—either the head or the heart. Wherever it hit, it would finish her.
"NO! STOP!"
Lefiya's voice rang out, sharp and desperate, cutting through the silence like a slap.
She had pulled herself forward, ignoring the pain in her leg and the dull throb in her ribs.
Now on her knees, one hand pressed to the floor for balance, the other still holding Forest Teardrop, she looked up.
Tears ran down her dirt-streaked face, but her eyes were fixed on Zamasu—wide, pleading, and terrified.
"Please!" Lefiya's voice cracked, raw with pain and fear. "Don't kill her! She's down—she can't fight anymore! Please… just stop!"
The words came fast, driven by something deeper than logic—something that refused to let go, even after everything. Even after the betrayal and the fight, even after coming so close to death.
Seeing Filvis broken like that, and the cold, unflinching look in Zamasu's eyes as he prepared to end her—it hit too hard.
She couldn't stay silent. Not when there was still a chance, no matter how small.
"Please… don't."
Chapter 42 end