A young man—maybe twenty years old, branded and beaten but still defiant—spat blood and screamed:
"GO TO HELL!"
Don's expression didn't change.
He raised his hand.
Seventy humans detonated in rapid sequence.
Boom-boom-boom-boom like a string of firecrackers, each explosion sending fragments into nearby captives, killing them through shrapnel and shockwave.
The first detonation sent a spine shooting through three people like a spear. It punched through the first person's stomach, the second person's chest, and embedded in the third person's skull.
The second explosion's ribcage fragments became a spinning sawblade of bone that decapitated two humans and scalped a third.
The third detonation's pelvis separated at the joint and became two separate projectiles. One half took a woman's leg off at the knee. The other half hit a man in the face, shattering his jaw, tearing his lower face completely off.
The overlapping blasts created a storm of bone shrapnel. Hundreds of fragments moving at lethal velocity in every direction.
One man took a femur through the chest—it punched completely through his torso and out his back, and he stood there for three seconds, looking down at the bone protruding from his chest, before his legs gave out.
A woman caught a cluster of finger bones in the throat—they tore her windpipe open, and she collapsed clutching her neck, blood pumping between her fingers with each failed breath.
A child—no older than ten—took a fragment of skull to the temple. It embedded like a thrown knife, and the child dropped instantly, dead before hitting the ground.
Within ten seconds, three hundred humans were dead.
[+12,000 XP]
The remaining hundred and fifty were dying—wounded by debris, bleeding out from wounds that wouldn't close, lungs collapsed from pressure waves, minds broken from watching their fellow captives explode like overripe fruit.
Don's blood golem finished the goblins.
The last thirty elites died to blade-fingers and crystal teeth. The golem grabbed one by the head and squeezed until the skull popped, eyeballs shooting out of sockets like corks from champagne bottles.
[+40 XP]
It tore another in half vertically, pulling the body apart at the sternum, creating two symmetrical halves that fell away from each other.
[+40 XP]
It bit a third's arm off and beat him to death with his own severed limb.
[+40 XP]
The remaining goblins and dying humans—those still clinging to life—were executed systematically. Blood weapons descended like rain, each strike precise and final.
[+6,000 XP]
Then silence.
Don stood in the center of the courtyard—now a lake of blood ankle-deep across three hundred meters. One thousand two hundred corpses. Every human. Every goblin. Total extinction in less than ten minutes.
[BATTLE COMPLETE]
[TOTAL EXPERIENCE GAINED: +23,842 XP]
[LEVEL UP! 15 → 16]
[EXPERIENCE: 11,884/18,000]
[+10 PHYSICAL STATS TO ALL]
[+15 MENTAL STATS TO ALL]
[FREE POINTS: +5]
[KILL POINTS: +12,000 KP]
[CURRENT TOTAL: 71,990 KP]
The blood lake began moving.
All of it—hundreds of liters, possibly thousands—flowed toward Don like iron to a magnet. But instead of touching him, it formed a sphere around him, a floating orb of liquid death three meters in diameter.
Controlling over a thousand liters of weaponized blood.
Don allocated his free points without conscious thought.
[5 POINTS → AGILITY]
[UPDATED BASE STATISTICS:]
Strength: 645
Agility: 625
Vitality: 645
Dexterity: 545
Stamina: 500
Wisdom: 618
Magic Power: 650
Intelligence: 600
Sense: 130
Luck: 50
[WITH VALDRIS'S OATH EQUIPPED:]
Strength: 1,245 (+500 sword, +100 King's Blessing)
Agility: 975 (+300 sword, +50 King's Blessing)
[WITH KING'S WRATH ACTIVE (VS GOBLINS):]
Strength: 1,743 (+40% vs goblins)
Agility: 1,365 (+40% vs goblins)
Don looked toward the castle's main entrance—those massive doors of bone and iron.
Beyond them—
The throne room.
Uzgoth.
His eight Executioner's Edge blades reformed into attack positions. The blood sphere compressed, solidified into one hundred and twenty blood weapons—swords, spears, chains, all autonomous.
Valdris's Oath burned with corrupted holy flames that had grown brighter, more intense, fed by the slaughter.
Don walked toward the doors.
They opened before he reached them.
Not pushed—they opened themselves, as if the castle itself was inviting him in.
And from the darkness beyond—
Laughter.
Deep. Resonant. Amused.
"Well done. VERY well done."
The voice was like mountains grinding together.
"I was wondering if you'd have the STOMACH for it. Most humans hesitate. Cry. Beg. Try to save the 'innocent.' But you?"
The laugh grew darker, more pleased.
"You just KILLED them. Efficient. Cold. PERFECT. I think I'm going to ENJOY eating you."
Don crossed the threshold.
The throne room was massive—two hundred meters long, one hundred wide, ceiling lost in shadow. Pillars made from fused human bones rose at intervals. The floor was polished obsidian reflecting crimson torchlight.
And at the far end—
The throne.
Built from melted crowns and hero weapons, sitting on a dais made from compressed skulls.
On it sat—
Uzgoth the Devourer King.
Seven feet tall even seated. Four arms, each ending in clawed hands. Dark green skin covered in glowing ritual scars that pulsed with power. Eyes like burning coals. Tusks like daggers, each one carved with kill-count tallies.
And fused to his skull—
The Crown.
Melted gold and fragments of King Aldric's bones, grown into Uzgoth's very being, inseparable.
The Sovereign was eating when Don entered.
A human corpse lay across his lap—recent kill, still warm. He tore chunks away with his teeth casually, never breaking eye contact with Don.
He swallowed.
Smiled.
"I was hungry. You don't mind, do you? It's been a busy day—six Generals dead, twelve hundred lives ended in my courtyard. You've been VERY productive."
He tossed the corpse aside like trash. It hit the obsidian floor with a wet slap, bones breaking from impact.
"I should thank you. Those Generals were getting weak. Complacent. And those humans? Just CATTLE anyway. You culled both herds for me."
Uzgoth stood.
The movement was casual, but the presence was crushing. The air became heavy. Reality compressed. The temperature dropped. The torches flickered.
[ENEMY DETECTED]
[UZGOTH THE DEVOURER KING]
[STAGE 3-5]
[THREAT: EXTREME]
[POWER EXCEEDS YOURS BY 2 STAGES]
[VICTORY PROBABILITY: 31%]
[CRITICAL WEAKNESS: CROWN (DESTROY FOR -40% POWER)]
Uzgoth's four arms spread wide.
"So. Don Valdruun. The red-haired demon. The Executioner. The boy who killed KINGS."
His burning eyes fixed on Don with intensity that could melt steel.
"Show me if you're worthy of joining them."
Don said nothing.
Just stood there, covered in the blood of twelve hundred victims, surrounded by weapons forged from their suffering, his mismatched eyes glowing with cold certainty.
His eight Executioner's Edge blades spread into a circle around him.
His one hundred twenty blood weapons formed a second ring, outer layer of crimson death.
Valdris's Oath burned with flames that were both holy and corrupt, sacred and profane.
And behind all of that—
The promise of execution.
Inevitable. Absolute. Final.
Uzgoth grinned, showing filed teeth.
"Good. No words. No speeches. No honor. Just MURDER."
He took one step forward.
The obsidian floor cracked beneath his weight.
"I'm going to enjoy this."
Don raised Valdris's Oath.
The final battle was about to begin.