The throne room became a battlefield of impossible violence.
Don's eight Executioner's Edge blades wove through the air like living guillotines, each one targeting the Crown from different angles. His blood weapons—now reformed to two hundred after the last destruction—attacked in coordinated waves, trying to create openings.
But Uzgoth was experienced.
Two centuries of warfare. Thousands of battles. Hundreds of opponents who'd thought they could win.
All dead now.
His four arms moved with practiced efficiency—upper right blocking two Executioner's Edge blades, upper left deflecting three more, lower right (the wounded one now regenerating) batting away blood weapons, lower left swinging the hammer in wide arcs that cleared entire sections of the battlefield.
Every hammer swing created craters. Every blocked blade sent shockwaves through the air. The throne room was coming apart at the seams—walls cracking, ceiling beginning to collapse, the floor now more crater than surface.
Don activated Shadow Step.
[SHADOW STEP: ACTIVATED]
[COST: 50 MANA]
[MANA: 39,483 → 39,433]
He stepped through a shadow cast by a fallen pillar and emerged behind Uzgoth, Valdris's Oath aimed at the Crown's vulnerable back connection where it fused with the Sovereign's skull.
Uzgoth didn't turn.
His lower left arm swung backward blindly.
The hammer hit Don's left side.
CRACK!
Don's entire left side caved in. Ribs shattered. Hip fractured. Left arm torn from its socket. Half his torso became pulp.
He flew sideways, tumbling across the floor, leaving a trail of blood and bone fragments.
[HP: CRITICAL DAMAGE - LEFT SIDE DESTROYED]
[IMMORTALITY: EMERGENCY MODE]
[MANA: 39,433 → 38,433 → 37,433 → 36,433]
Three seconds of regeneration. His left side reformed—ribs growing back, hip fusing, arm reattaching, organs regrowing from essence.
He stood again.
And again.
And again.
[COMBAT ANALYSIS: 60 SECONDS ELAPSED]
[WEAKNESS DETECTION: 30%]
[ADVANCED PATTERNS IDENTIFIED:]
• Recovery window after hammer swings: 0.8 seconds
• Blind spot: 15 degrees behind lower right shoulder
• Crown connection point: Back of skull, protected by thick bone
• CRITICAL: Uzgoth's regeneration focused on wounded left arm—other injuries healing 40% slower during this time
Don's tactical mind processed the information with cold precision.
He needed to force Uzgoth to divide his attention. Make him choose between protecting the Crown and protecting himself.
But how?
His current power wasn't enough. Even with Berserker's Fury active, even with all his abilities combined, he was losing.
The power gap was too wide. Stage 3-3 versus Stage 3-5 wasn't just numbers—it was a fundamental difference in existence.
Don needed more.
[Little seed...]
Madness's voice whispered through his mind, different than usual. Not mocking. Not playful.
Serious.
[You have a weapon you haven't used yet. A skill you've been IGNORING.]
Don dodged another hammer swing, the shockwave still sending him tumbling. "Not now—"
[YES NOW! Your Phantom Clone! Use it! But don't just create a copy—INFUSE it with ME. Let me CONTROL it. Give me ten seconds of manifestation, and I'll give you the opening you NEED.]
Don's eyes narrowed. "You want me to give you direct control?"
[Just the CLONE. Not you. The clone can only last five minutes anyway—let me use it for ten SECONDS. That's all I need. Ten seconds of FREEDOM, and I'll freeze that bastard in place long enough for you to destroy his Crown.]
Don's Combat Analysis processed the offer.
Risk: Madness controlling a body, even temporarily, could be catastrophic.
Reward: An opening to destroy the Crown, reducing Uzgoth's power by 40%.
Probability of success without the gamble: 12%
Probability of success with the gamble: 58%
The math was clear.
[Time's running OUT, little seed! He's going to crush you if you don't do SOMETHING!]
Don's left leg was torn off by another hammer strike. He hit the ground, regenerating, burning mana, dying by degrees.
[MANA: 36,433 → 33,433]
Three thousand mana spent in two minutes of combat. His reserves were dropping fast.
He made his decision.
"Fine."
Don activated Phantom Clone while Uzgoth was recovering from his last swing.
[PHANTOM CLONE: ACTIVATED]
[COST: 425 MANA + 42 MANA/MINUTE]
[MANA: 33,433 → 33,008]
The clone materialized beside Don—identical in appearance, equipped with a copy of Valdris's Oath, capable of expert sword techniques.
But Don didn't stop there.
He opened a channel in his essence structure—specifically through Layer 4, where the silver Madness corruption lived at 31% concentration.
He flooded the clone with it.
All of it.
[WARNING: TRANSFERRING MADNESS CORRUPTION TO CLONE]
[WARNING: CLONE WILL BE UNDER MADNESS'S DIRECT CONTROL]
[WARNING: THIS CANNOT BE UNDONE]
The clone's eyes changed.
Both eyes—not just one—turned pure silver with gold cracks spreading from the pupils like shattered glass. The clone's expression shifted from blank neutrality to something wrong. Something that didn't belong in a human face.
It smiled.
And when it spoke, the voice was Madness—no longer whispering, but manifest.
"Finally."
The clone's body erupted with silver energy—raw, chaotic power that shouldn't exist in physical form. The air around it screamed. Reality itself seemed to recoil from the manifestation.
Uzgoth stopped mid-attack, his four arms lowering slightly, his burning coal eyes narrowing.
"What... is that?"
The Madness-clone laughed—a sound like breaking glass and children's screams woven together into something beautiful and horrifying.
"Death."
It moved.
Not running. Not even walking.
Existing in one place, then existing in another, like the space between didn't matter. Teleportation without technique, movement without motion.
The clone appeared directly in front of Uzgoth—inside his guard, past his defenses, impossible to have gotten there but there anyway.
And it raised both hands.
Silver energy exploded outward—not as an attack, but as a concept made real.
STOP.
The universe obeyed.
Uzgoth froze mid-motion. All four arms locked in place. His eyes could still move—wide with shock and something that might have been fear—but his body was paralyzed.
Not by physical force. Not by magic.
By the raw will of something that existed outside conventional reality.
[TIME REMAINING: 10 SECONDS]
Don didn't hesitate.
His eight Executioner's Edge blades shot forward—all of them converging on a single point.
The Crown.
Specifically, the back connection where it fused to Uzgoth's skull, the weakest structural point his Combat Analysis had identified.
[EXECUTIONER'S JUDGMENT: ACTIVATED - ALL CHARGES]
[COST: 50 MANA]
[CHARGES USED: 2/2]
[COOLDOWN: 30 MINUTES]
Two of his blades became ghostly—phasing between reality and concept, capable of ignoring physical defenses entirely.
They struck first, phasing through Uzgoth's thick skull bone, targeting the Crown's fusion points from inside.
CRACK!
The first internal fusion point shattered.
The remaining six blades hit from outside—three targeting the left connection, three targeting the right, all enhanced by Executioner's Judgment's armor-ignoring properties.
CRACK! CRACK! CRACK!
Gold metal screamed. Ancient runes flickered and died. The Crown—that artifact of accumulated souls, two centuries of stolen essence, Uzgoth's primary power source—began to break.
[CROWN INTEGRITY: 73% → 45% → 28%]
[TIME REMAINING: 5 SECONDS]
Uzgoth's eyes blazed with pure rage. His mouth opened in a roar that Don couldn't hear—the paralysis extended even to sound, freezing the scream before it could emerge.
Don raised Valdris's Oath—the blade burning with corrupted holy flames amplified by King's Wrath, empowered by his Strength of 2,789.
He swung with everything he had.
The blade struck the Crown's center—the skull fragment of King Aldric that formed the artifact's core.
BOOOOOOM!
The Crown exploded.
Not shattered. Not cracked.
Disintegrated.
Two hundred years of accumulated power released in a single catastrophic burst. Souls trapped in the metal—thousands of them, maybe tens of thousands—erupted outward as screaming ghosts before dissipating into nothing.
Gold fragments flew in every direction, each piece dissolving into golden mist before hitting the ground.
The shockwave knocked Don backward twenty meters, his enhanced Vitality the only reason he wasn't vaporized by the essence backlash.
[TIME REMAINING: 0 SECONDS]
The Madness-clone's silver eyes dimmed.
Its body began to dissolve—not gradually, but rapidly, like sugar in water. The silver energy retracted, flowing back toward Don through the essence channel he'd opened.
The clone's final words, in Madness's voice:
"You owe me one, little seed."
Then it was gone.
The paralysis broke.
Uzgoth screamed.
The sound was physical force—windows in the throne room shattered, bone pillars exploded into powder, the floor cracked in concentric circles spreading from his position.
"MY CROWN! MY POWER! MY—"
His voice cut off as he collapsed to one knee.
Not from weakness. From shock.
His body was still Stage 3-5. Still massively powerful. Still capable of crushing Don with casual effort.
But the Crown had been his amplifier. His connection to accumulated essence. His link to two centuries of stolen power.
And now it was gone.
[UZGOTH'S STATS RECALCULATED]
[CROWN DESTROYED: -40% ALL STATS]
[NEW POWER LEVEL:]
[STRENGTH: 2,000 → 1,200]
[AGILITY: 1,400 → 840]
[VITALITY: 1,800 → 1,080]
[ESTIMATED STAGE: 3-5 → 3-3 (TEMPORARY REDUCTION)]
Don landed in a crouch thirty meters away, breathing hard, his mana reserves critically low.
[MANA: 33,008 → 32,958/45,000]
[STAMINA: 320/500]
[HP: REGENERATING FROM MULTIPLE INJURIES]
The Madness corruption flowed back into him through the closed channel, settling into Layer 4 where it belonged. But he could feel it—heavier now, more aware, more present after tasting manifestation.
[MADNESS: 31% → 32%]
[Worth it, little seed?] Madness whispered, back to its normal position. [Ten seconds of freedom for THAT result? I'd call it a fair trade~]
Don didn't respond.
He just watched Uzgoth rise—slowly, unsteadily, his burning coal eyes now fixed on Don with absolute hatred.
"You..." The Sovereign's voice was low, deadly quiet. "You destroyed... my Crown... the accumulation of TWO HUNDRED YEARS..."
All four arms clenched into fists.
Dark energy began radiating from Uzgoth's body—not his Devourer's Aura, but something deeper. More primal. The pure rage of a being who'd just lost everything that defined them.
"I was going to eat you. Make your death last DAYS. But now?"
The dark energy intensified, creating pressure that made the air itself feel heavy.
"Now I'm going to OBLITERATE you."
[WARNING: UZGOTH ENTERING BERSERK STATE]
[STATS TEMPORARILY INCREASING]
[STRENGTH: 1,200 → 1,560 (+30%)]
[AGILITY: 840 → 1,092 (+30%)]
[VITALITY: 1,080 → 1,404 (+30%)]
[PAIN IMMUNITY: ACTIVE]
[TACTICAL THINKING: REDUCED]
[DURATION: UNKNOWN]
Don's Combat Analysis registered the change immediately.
Uzgoth was now stronger than before—berserker rage compensating partially for the Crown's loss.
But there was a difference.
He was also predictable now.
Rage made patterns. Rage made mistakes. Rage meant Don's Combat Analysis would work faster.
[COMBAT ANALYSIS: 90 SECONDS ELAPSED]
[WEAKNESS DETECTION: 35%]
[BERSERKER PATTERN DETECTED: Favor overwhelming power over technique, reduced defense, increased attack frequency]
Don raised Valdris's Oath, his eight Executioner's Edge blades reforming into attack positions.
His blood weapons—reduced to seventy after the last exchange—reformed and spread into defensive patterns.
[MANA: 32,958/45,000]
[STAMINA: 320/500]
[BERSERKER'S FURY: 3 MINUTES REMAINING]
The numbers weren't good. He was running low on resources. His Berserker's Fury would end soon, dropping his stats significantly. His two Executioner's Judgment charges were spent.
But Uzgoth had lost 40% of his power.
The gap had closed from impossible to merely desperate.
Don's mismatched eyes—amber-gold and crimson-gold, silver threads pulsing with his heartbeat—met Uzgoth's burning coal gaze.
Neither spoke.
Words were irrelevant now.
This was execution.
Just a question of who would execute whom.
Uzgoth charged with a roar that shook the fortress.
Don activated Titan Form.
[TITAN FORM: ACTIVATED]
[COST: 100 MANA + 50 STAMINA]
[DURATION: 3 MINUTES]
[SIZE INCREASE: +50%]
[STATS INCREASE: +30% STR/VIT]
[MANA: 32,858/45,000]
[STAMINA: 270/500]
Don's body expanded.
From twelve-year-old size to something approaching Uzgoth's seven feet. His muscles swelled, his bones thickened, his entire physical structure becoming denser.
[STRENGTH: 2,789 → 3,626 (+30%)]
[VITALITY: 795 → 1,034 (+30%)]
Now they were equal in size.
Nearly equal in power.
The final exchange was about to begin.