Instantly, I began rushing at him, summoning my Shadow Daggers.
I ran like crazy, leaving burn marks in the stone pavement. I walked over corpses like nothing. They meant little to me.
The emerging Voidborne had already become much taller, his complexion slowly turning pitch black.
His eyes were becoming dimmer, losing their luster. Not only was the iris affected, but all of it.
The mouth had long vanished, but somehow I could still see a horrifying grin on his, no, its face.
This face was no longer human; it was a full-fledged Voidborne.
Shortly before I arrived at the scene, it developed a purple crown sitting on top of his head.
I frowned. "Of fucking course it's a higher Voidborne. Wait... That's a huge fucking crown. I'm fucked, aren't I?"
Indeed, the crown was larger than all others I had seen before, even the leader of the squad freeing me from prison couldn't hold a candle to this one.
As if such a strong adversary wasn't enough, I could sense other, lesser Voidbornes drawing in. They probably heard the destruction caused by my spell.
I had expected this, but I was sure I could beat all Voidbornes in the near vicinity, as they were all lesser ones.
But now, with a Higher Voidborne right in front of me, that plan of mine could only go awry.
Realizing the situation, I thought of how I could win against the Higher Voidborne and about 100 Lesser Voidbornes.
"This is my only chance", I thought, my mind running at the highest speed possible.
I activated one of my strongest, yet also riskiest skills: [Requiem of Ruin]
[Requiem of Ruin] [SS+]
Gained by Skill Selection. Makes you exponentially stronger in all regards. Comes at a huge Mana cost. If used for more than 20 minutes a month, it leads to instant death.
Yes. Somehow, defying my B-rank luck, I was offered an SS+-rank skill in my last Skill Selection. Not only that, but it had turned into my biggest trump card.
I knew the risks connected to using it were immense, which is why I had never used it before, but it seemed like I had little choice now.
"Requiem of Ruin", I said calmly.
It felt like the world itself listened to my world. For a moment, it was completely quiet.
And then, power surged through me like never before. I could see better, move faster, and I felt Mana practically seeping out of my Mana Core.
Instantly, I was in front of the Higher Voidborne and slashed at its torso.
It didn't even have time to react. My dagger mangled its torso, but failed to do more damage.
It jumped back and looked at me with a wary stare.
Its invisible eyes locked onto me. It tried to appraise me, I felt it within my bones, but I did not care.
I activated Speedster's Trick and found myself in front of the Voidborne, trying to slash at its torso again.
It managed to react instantly and dodged. Little did it know this was all a feint.
Because I was behind it! I slashed at its neck and practically decapitated it. Not giving it any further mind, I looked at the Lesser Voidbornes, which had now arrived.
I activated [Ruler's Will] and forced them to kill themselves. After all, they did not know I betrayed the void. They still respected me.
Instantly, the Voidbornes impaled their hearts using their claws.
Some were able to resist me, but I just picked them off using my insane agility.
[YOU HAVE GAINED 30000 EXP]
[EXP REMAINING UNTIL LEVEL UP: 30000]
I smiled, seeing this. But my smile vanished immediately as soon as I felt some pressure from behind me.
The Voidborne I had practically decapitated before now stood some distance behind me, glaring at me.
Its neck was completely reattached, and it looked unharmed.
I frowned and yelled: "You're a stubborn one!"
It ran to me like in a frenzy, and while it ran, I noticed something. It was absorbing some of the Void Force from the dead Voidbornes around me.
I needed to do something, and fast!
I parried its attack and tried to stab it like before, but it immediately pushed my dagger away with its claw.
I had to use all the force in my body not to let go of my dagger.
I looked at the Voidborne and saw how its crown had grown larger and somewhat deeper in color. It was beautiful, but I ignored the strange sensation I felt.
I jumped back, creating distance between myself and my enemy.
I thought about how I could fight it. It was now only slightly weaker than I, even using [Requiem of Ruin].
"How is that possible? It reached SSS-rank, but how?! It's only 10 minutes old!"
"I can still kill it, though. I need to distract it and then cut off a limb, so that I have the advantage."
Determined, I checked how much Mana I had left and saw that I had enough to fight normally, while keeping [Requiem of Ruin] activated for 18 more minutes.
Even if I wanted to keep it up for longer than 18 minutes, I couldn't; otherwise, I would die.
Using [Supreme Shadow Magic], I created around 20 clones of myself at about A-level. Previously, this would've been impossible for me, but with my temporary boost of strength, this was relatively easy.
They stayed back and began to fire projectiles at the Voidborne. This was the best plan I could come up with.
Although those projectiles couldn't harm it, they were still very annoying to deal with, and with enough of them hitting, it could impede some of its bodily functions.
As soon as they started firing, I dashed towards the Voidborne, which had been staring at me for the 30 seconds I used to think and summon my clones.
With my daggers, I slashed at its torso, but it crossed its arms to block my attack.
*CLANG*
A metallic sound was all my attack amounted to. I wasn't even able to push it back a bit.
Not minding this, I slashed again and again and again. It blocked every single one.
The Voidborne didn't fail to notice that with every slash, I became faster.
This was a feature of my Weapon Art, [Daggerfall].
At the point where I slashed faster than even my eyes could perceive, I could see some scratches appearing on the arms of the Voidborne.
Realizing this, it jumped back. Some projectiles had also hit it, but they did little to no damage, as I had expected.
What I had succeeded in, though, was making it angry.
It sped towards me, the ground trembling with every step it made.
Before long, it was in front of me. I slashed at its face, but it parried with its claws. Its force was much greater than anticipated.
Being forced to jump back, I cast a spell.
"Infinite Shadows"
A dark fog appeared around me, hiding me from the Voidborne's sight.
It spread around endlessly, encompassing me and the Voidborne. I had gained an advantage.
With my passive skill [Voidsight], I was able to see through the fog with no problem.
I looked towards the Voidborne and saw it being strangely calm. I concluded that even though it couldn't see, it could still perceive me through the movement of my mana.
Realizing this, I quickly summoned 2 clones of myself and sent them towards the Voidborne.
Picking up tempo, they created their daggers and attacked the Voidborne, one from the right and the other from the left.
It blocked their attacks with one claw each, but it didn't expect me to come from behind.
I had used "Shadowy Step", a spell that allowed me to teleport to anything covered in shadow.
Raising my dagger, I stabbed it through the Voidborne's torso, piercing it completely.
After ensuring it was dead, I jumped back and recalled Infinite Shadows.
Suddenly, I could feel a huge amount of Void Energy building up. It was the corpse of the Voidborne I'd just slain!
"It's an explosion!" I screamed out, running away. But it was too little too late.
*BOOOOOOOOOOM*
An explosion of a size the world had never seen before occurred then. I was blasted away, almost losing my consciousness. I fell onto the hard ground several hundred meters away and lay there for a moment.
Every part of my body was in pain. I checked my Mana and saw I had only approximately 3 minutes left of [Requiem of Ruin].
Seeing this, I immediately deactivated it. I had to conserve Mana.
Letting myself get healed using [Devour], I began thinking.
"This isn't looking good. I don't have much Mana left. I need to escape the city. And quickly"
After collecting myself for a couple more minutes, I began running. I ran for 20 minutes until I reached the walls encompassing the entire city.
Little did I know though, that outside was where I would die.