[You have completed the seventh trial]
[Reward: Lord Mark upgraded to King Mark]
The lion dissolved, replaced by a simple, stark, yet utterly formidable crown. The word KING was etched below it. The air around him seemed to bow. He was royalty here.
Trial Eight. A test of sacrifice. He was offered an easy pass in exchange for one of his Engraved skills. He laughed, a cold, hollow sound, and chose the harder path, battling through a nightmare realm for what felt like days.
[You have completed the eighth trial]
[Reward: Trial Ticket]
A ticket, similar to the Engraving one, appeared in his inventory. Its purpose was unknown, a mystery for later.
Trial Nine. The final test before the summit. A chamber of pure pressure, meant to crush his spirit, to force him to his knees before the true throne. He did not bend. He did not kneel. He stood, the King Mark on his hand burning like a brand, his stats, his skills, his sheer, unbending will forming an invisible citadel around him. The pressure built until it shattered, unable to break him.
[You have completed the ninth trial]
[Reward: King Mark upgraded to Sovereign Mark]
The crown on his hand flared with a light that threatened to blind. When it faded, the design had simplified into a perfect, unadorned circle—a orb. There was no word. It needed none. It was the mark of ultimate authority. The SOVEREIGN mark.
The light of the ninth trial's completion faded. Aelion stood on the tenth and final step, steam billowing from his mouth in the suddenly frigid air of the staircase.
It was not the steam of exertion, but of a body operating at such an intense peak of power that it radiated energy. His body thrummed with unimaginable strength, his mind was a fortress, his spirit an unbreakable diamond.
Nine trials lay behind him, their rewards integrated into his very being. Before him, only the final step remained, leading to the throne that had waited for an eternity.
He exhaled, a long, slow plume of vapor that crystallized in the air. The journey had been a metamorphosis. He had entered as a player. He now stood as a Sovereign.
Without a moment's hesitation, a fraction of a second to even process the Sovereign Mark's immense power thrumming in his veins, Aelion stepped onto the tenth and final step.
The transition was instantaneous. The staircase vanished, replaced by the echoing vastness of a colossal, obsidian arena. It was utterly silent, a vacuum of sound that felt more oppressive than any noise. The air was still and charged, thick with latent magic.
Before him, arranged at the four cardinal points of the compass, were four towering portals, each swirling with a different elemental energy. They were exactly five kilometers away, a precise, cruel distance designed for a war of attrition.
To the North, a portal of churning, violent emerald, marked with the spectral, howling visage of a Wind Wolf.
To the East, a gateway of roaring, infernal orange, emblazoned with the sinuous, burning form of a Flame Salamander.
To the South, an archway of grinding, monolithic brown, etched with the massive, ponderous silhouette of an Earth Giant.
To the West, a vortex of deep, crushing azure, marked with the coiled, hypnotic pattern of a Water Python.
For a heartbeat, nothing happened. Then, the silence was shattered.
They did not step out. They poured out.
Not in numbers. In hordes. A tidal wave of monsters erupted from each portal—a surging, endless river of fangs, claws, and elemental fury. The ground trembled under the charge of the Earth Giants.
The air grew hot and acrid from the Salamanders' breath. The humidity spiked as the Water Pythons slithered forward in a gleaming, scaled tide, and the sky darkened with the leaping, ethereal forms of the Wind Wolves. It was an apocalypse. An army meant for a thousand players, not one.
A calculating glint, cold and devoid of fear, passed through Aelion's mind. 'A test of scale. A test of endurance. They want to see if a king can also be a general of one.'
The greatsword and daggers were useless here. This required a different tool.
A bow materialized in his hands. It was not ornate, but a thing of brutal simplicity, carved from black heartwood and strung with a filament of condensed void. He nocked a string that wasn't there and pulled.
The air itself condensed, drawing in from around him to form an arrow of pure, shimmering blue mana. He could feel his immense mana pool, already bolstered by the 50% stat increase, draining at an alarming rate with the draw of this single shot. He wasn't aiming at the hordes. He aimed directly at the apex of the arena's dome.
He released the string.
The blue arrow shot into the air like a reverse meteor. At the zenith of its arc, it hung for a microsecond before it multiplied.
One became ten, ten became a hundred, a hundred became a thousand, then ten thousand. In the span of a breath, the sky was blotted out by a descending storm of cerulean death. They were not simple arrows; each was a seeker, a homing missile of concentrated magical energy.
The mana cost was catastrophic. His pool bottomed out instantly. A wave of debilitating weakness washed over him, a familiar, hated feeling that mirrored the exhaustion of his real body. His vision swam. 'Now.'
His Engraved instinct, the Life Steal woven into his soul, activated. But it was not a trickle. It was a tsunami.
As the arrow-storm descended, the first waves of monsters died. Thousands were simultaneously impaled, frozen, and vaporized.
And from each death, a thread of vibrant, crimson vitality ripped free. They crossed the five-kilometer distance not as individual strands, but as a roaring, visible river of life force, a torrent of stolen energy that slammed into Aelion's chest.
The weakness vanished. The void was not just filled; it was overfilled. His body screamed with power, overflowing with more vitality than it could contain. He was drowning in it.
And he knew exactly what to do.
He began to power his skills not with mana, but with this overflowing, stolen life force. He raised his hands.
Fire erupted, not from his mana, but from his very blood, fueled by the essence of a thousand dead salamanders. Lightning crackled, charged by the dying shrieks of wind wolves.
Ice shards formed in the air, crystallized from the stolen breath of water pythons.
He became a nexus of destruction, a self-sustaining engine of death. He didn't cast spells; he exhaled annihilation.
A flick of his wrist sent a wave of fire that incinerated a battalion of giants. A glance summoned a localized blizzard that froze a river of pythons solid. The hordes advanced, and they died.
Bodies piled up, forming grisly, smoldering walls around him, only to be blown apart by the next cataclysmic blast.
It was not a battle; it was a harvest.
And then, as suddenly as it began, it stopped.
The portals flickered and closed. The last monster fell. The river of vitality ceased. Silence returned, heavier now, filled with the smell of ozone, ash, and blood. The arena floor was a charnel house of epic proportions.
The world flashed.
He was back on the staircase, standing on the tenth step. The obsidian throne was directly before him, so close he could touch it. Steam rose from his body in great plumes, his avatar radiating the residual heat of unimaginable expended energy. The Sovereign Mark on his hand pulsed with a soft, steady light.
He took the final step forward and sat upon the throne.
A wave of power washed through him, a final, culminating surge that should have been the ultimate satisfaction. He had done it. He had conquered the unconquerable. He was the King of the Dungeon.
And yet... he felt hollow.
It was a cold, familiar emptiness. The thrill of the fight was gone. The challenge was over. The throne was just a seat. The power was just a number.
It was a feeling he knew all too well from the real world—the anticlimax of a victory that changes nothing fundamental. His legs, in the reality that mattered, remained still. 'Is this all? Another peak reached, another summit that offers a view but no true escape?'
A golden script appeared, pulling him from his thoughts.
[You have completed the 10th trial]
[Reward: Time Extension Ticket]
A ticket, seemingly made of aged parchment and golden hourglass sand, appeared in his hand. Puzzled, he focused on it, pulling up its description.
[Time Extension Ticket]
[Description: Extends the time you have in the Sublimation Realm by 6 months.]
Aelion's eyes dilated. His breath caught in his throat. The Sublimation Realm? He had never heard of it. The 100th Floor was supposed to be the end. The ultimate goal.
The throne was the final prize. This implied something else entirely. Something beyond. 'They have something surprising planned after the finish line,' he realized, a spark of something—curiosity, anticipation—igniting in the hollow space within him. A slow, genuine smile began to form on his face.
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