Life Steal had evolved. The passive mode now healed him with every kill. The active mode could stack on multiple targets simultaneously. And a new sub-ability—Blood Sense—let him track wounded enemies.
[Oh my, little seed. Your THIRST for blood has been rewarded~]
But there was more.
His Unified Arms Mastery had jumped from Expert to true mastery. Twenty percent damage bonus with any weapon. Fifteen percent attack speed increase. His understanding had transcended individual weapon types into something fundamental.
And Combat Analysis—the ability to dissect enemy patterns in real-time. After three minutes of sustained combat, he'd have perfect counter-strategies.
Against the remaining Generals, this could be decisive.
Don closed the status screen and continued forward into the citadel.
But now he understood why his body felt different.
He wasn't just collecting power anymore.
He was integrating it. Evolving it. Becoming something the Abyss itself was teaching to survive.
The first cluster of enemies appeared—thirty fire shamans gathered in what looked like a ritual chamber. They were chanting, trying to summon something, their staffs glowing with concentrated flame.
They saw Don and the chanting stopped.
One of them—older, more scarred, probably a commander—raised its staff and shouted in the goblin tongue:
"The General is dead! The Flame-Eater has fallen! But WE remain! Kill the human! Avenge—"
Don activated Combat Analysis and Life Steal simultaneously.
[COMBAT ANALYSIS: ACTIVATED - ANALYZING 30 TARGETS]
[LIFE STEAL: PASSIVE MODE ACTIVE]
His four blades struck before the speech finished.
The commander's head separated from its shoulders. Three other shamans died in the same motion—throats cut, chests pierced, bodies bisected.
[LIFE STEAL TRIGGERED: +80 HP RESTORED (4 KILLS × 20 HP)]
[STAMINA RESTORED: +60 (4 KILLS × 15)]
Don felt the surge immediately. His minor injuries from the Morgash fight healed. His stamina—depleted from the battle—recovered.
Every kill was making him stronger.
The remaining twenty-six tried to cast spells.
Don activated his new Dual Casting ability and created two attacks simultaneously.
[ELEMENT: FIRE - RIGHT HAND]
[ELEMENT: ICE - LEFT HAND]
A pillar of fire erupted from his right palm. A wave of frost exploded from his left.
The fire burned through half the shamans before they could finish their incantations. The ice froze the other half solid.
Total combat duration: eight seconds.
[+910 XP] (35 XP per shaman, mixed levels)
[LIFE STEAL TRIGGERED: +520 HP RESTORED]
[STAMINA RESTORED: +390]
[COMBAT ANALYSIS: BASIC PATTERNS DETECTED]
[SHAMANS: Vulnerable during casting (1.5 sec window)]
[RECOMMENDATION: Interrupt spells for easy kills]
Don's Stamina had shot past its maximum—the Life Steal overflow mechanic giving him 60 seconds of boosted stamina reserves.
[STAMINA: 209/242 → 599/242 (OVERFLOW)]
[OVERFLOW DURATION: 60 SECONDS]
He felt superhuman. No exhaustion. No fatigue. Pure combat readiness.
[Oh YES, little seed! You're not just killing them—you're FEEDING on them! Every death makes you STRONGER!]
Don continued through the citadel, his Mini-Map tracking enemy positions, his Enemy Tracker identifying threat levels.
But now each kill was profitable. Life Steal healed him. Stamina overflow gave him limitless endurance. Combat Analysis was building a database of every enemy pattern.
Chamber by chamber. Corridor by corridor. Don moved through the citadel like a forest fire, leaving only corpses and cooling ash behind.
The corrupted fire elementals were different—they had no fear, no sense of self-preservation. They simply attacked until destroyed.
Three-meter-tall beings of living flame, their forms constantly shifting, burning hot enough to melt steel.
Don killed them with ice.
His combination weapons—Stormfrost Blade, Winter's Scream, Frozen Earth Breaker—proved devastatingly effective. Each elemental took one strike to extinguish.
[+150 XP] per elemental
[LIFE STEAL TRIGGERED: +300 HP PER ELEMENTAL]
And with his Unified Arms Mastery bonus, his ice weapons dealt twenty percent more damage, making each strike even more lethal.
Twenty minutes into the slaughter, Don encountered the citadel's elite forces.
A chamber deep in the structure's heart held fifty shamans—all Stage 1, Level 5-6. The strongest of Morgash's followers. They'd formed a proper defensive formation, overlapping fire barriers, coordinated casting patterns.
Professional. Organized. Dangerous to anyone below Stage 2.
Don activated Combat Analysis the moment he entered the chamber.
[COMBAT ANALYSIS: ACTIVATED]
[ANALYZING: 50 TARGETS - ELITE FORMATION]
[ESTIMATED TIME TO FULL ANALYSIS: 120 SECONDS]
He didn't wait.
Don walked through their fire barriers like they were warm mist.
His Fire Immunity made their attacks meaningless. His Flame Body absorbed the heat and converted it to strength. His four blades carved through their formation.
[COMBAT ANALYSIS: 30 SECONDS - BASIC PATTERNS DETECTED]
[WEAKNESS: Formation requires visual coordination]
[RECOMMENDATION: Eliminate leader or create smoke cover]
Don targeted the formation leader—the shaman shouting commands. His first blade took its head.
The formation collapsed immediately.
[COMBAT ANALYSIS: 60 SECONDS - ATTACKS DECODED]
[+15% EVASION BONUS ACTIVE]
[+30% WEAKNESS DETECTION]
Don's movements became more efficient. He could predict where the shamans would attack before they cast. His evasion improved dramatically.
Thirty seconds. Fifty shamans eliminated.
[+1,750 XP]
[LIFE STEAL: +2,500 HP RESTORED]
[STAMINA: +750 (OVERFLOW ACTIVE)]
[COMBAT ANALYSIS: PATTERN STORED IN SOUL LIBRARY]
[FIRE SHAMAN FORMATIONS: PERMANENT COUNTER-STRATEGY ACQUIRED]
Don's Soul Library had recorded the pattern. He would never struggle against coordinated fire shamans again.
Forty minutes after entering the citadel, Don stood in the central throne room.
Three hundred enemies remained—the final defenders, gathered around Morgash's empty throne. Fire shamans, elementals, and a handful of goblin warriors who served as the General's personal guard.
They watched Don approach with weapons raised but eyes filled with fear.
One of the shamans—ancient, its body more scar than flesh—spoke in a trembling voice:
"Human... the Flame-Eater is dead. We... we surrender. Spare us. Please."
Don's four blades spread into execution formation.
His Life Steal was active. His Combat Analysis had already cataloged every shaman weakness. His Unified Arms Mastery made every strike lethal.
"No."
The slaughter took three minutes.
Three hundred enemies, eliminated with mechanical efficiency. Don's blades moved like a threshing machine through wheat. His fire magic burned those who fled. His ice magic froze those who tried to hide.
But this time, Don activated Life Steal's Active Mode on the strongest shamans.
[LIFE STEAL: ACTIVE MODE - TARGET: LEVEL 6 SHAMAN]
[COST: 42 MANA | DURATION: 10 SECONDS]
Crimson energy flowed from the shaman into Don—not blood, but life force itself. The shaman withered as Don drained it, its body aging decades in seconds.
[DRAINING: 5% HP + 30 STAMINA PER SECOND]
For ten seconds, the shaman's life force flowed into Don. When it ended, the shaman was a desiccated corpse.
[LIFE STOLEN: 50% HP + 300 STAMINA]
[TARGET DEBUFFED: N/A (DEAD)]
Don felt rejuvenated. The drain had given him more than passive Life Steal ever could.
He repeated the process on three more elite shamans during the battle.
Total extinction.
[+3,200 XP]
[CURRENT EXPERIENCE: 4,992/12,000]
[KILL POINTS: +3,800 KP]
[CURRENT TOTAL: 30,070 KP]
When silence fell, Don stood alone in the throne room. His body was at peak condition despite forty minutes of continuous combat.
Life Steal had kept him healthy. Stamina overflow had kept him energized. Combat Analysis had made every kill efficient.
He was becoming a perpetual motion machine of death.
[SCAN COMPLETE]
[SCORCHED VALE: POPULATION 0]
[MORGASH'S FORCES: ELIMINATED]
[Little seed... you're not just STRONG anymore. You're SELF-SUSTAINING. You can fight FOREVER as long as there are enemies to kill~]
Don didn't respond, but he understood the truth in Madness's words.
His new abilities had created a feedback loop.
Kill enemies → Life Steal restores HP/Stamina → Fight longer → Kill more enemies → Repeat.
Against weaker foes, he was unstoppable.
Against stronger enemies like the remaining Generals, he'd need to be more strategic. But the foundation was there.
Don began searching the citadel systematically. If Kragg had kept maps and intelligence, Morgash would too.
He found the General's personal chambers on the citadel's highest level—a room that was somehow cooler than the rest of the structure. Protection against Morgash's own flames.
A desk made from cooled lava held scrolls and documents. Don scanned them with his Auto-Translate feature. Most were routine—patrol schedules, supply reports, communications with other Generals.
But one scroll was different.
Older. The parchment yellowed and brittle. Written in human script, not goblin.
Don unrolled it carefully.
ROYAL CAPITAL - VALDRIS - EMERGENCY EVACUATION ROUTES
A map. Detailed. Showing the capital's street layout, castle structure, and—most importantly—underground passages.
One location was marked with a royal seal—a five-pointed crown.
"THE KING'S FINAL REFUGE - FOR USE ONLY IN TOTAL DEFEAT"
The marking pointed to a location beneath the castle's dungeons. Deep underground. Coordinates provided.
Don's eyes narrowed as he read the notation scrawled in the margin:
"Searched. Found nothing. Sealed chambers. Magic locks unbreakable. Abandoned."
The goblins had found the sanctuary but couldn't enter it.
Which meant whatever was inside remained untouched.
For 200 years.
Don carefully rolled the map and stored it in his Spatial Storage Ring.
[Little seed... you're thinking of LEAVING, aren't you?]
"Strategic repositioning," Don said quietly, checking his status one final time before leaving
Level: 15
Mana: 8,820/15,000
Stamina: 194/242
Madness: 29%
He pulled one of his C-Rank mana potions and drank it.
[MANA: 15,000/15,000]
"Three Generals dead. Three remain, plus the Sovereign. I'm strong, but Zyx is Stage 2, Level 5. Skarr has extreme defense. Rathka's blood magic could counter my Life Steal."
Don looked at the map.
"I need S-Rank equipment. Better understanding of Stage 2. And the Sovereign's weaknesses."
[And you think this sanctuary will provide that?]
"Yes."