The air on the 50th floor was thick, not with the usual dampness of the dungeon, but with the suffocating, copper scent of blood and a chilling, unnatural silence. As we crested the final stairs, our boots skidding on the stone, the horror of the scene laid out before us was enough to make my breath hitch in my throat. This was the floor where our classmates were supposed to be safe under the protection of the academy's strongest, but the reality was a nightmare.
We got into the 50th floor and we saw the rest of our classmates and ma'am cherha are unconscious and on the floor. They were scattered like broken dolls across the cold marble, their faces pale and their breathing shallow. In the center of the carnage stood Tokine, her expression devoid of the warmth we had once known. Aria was screaming, her voice raw with terror and betrayal as she reached out toward our teacher. But before she could utter another sound, Tokine moved with a speed that defied logic. With a sharp, precise strike, she got knocked out by Tokine. Aria's body went limp, joining the others on the floor in a heap of discarded potential.
My eyes darted toward the center of the room, where the most impossible sight was taking place. Sir Vael was getting sealed in an orb held by Tokine. Sir Vael, the man who could wipe out armies with a flick of his wrist, was being compressed, his form flickering as it was pulled into a small, pulsating sphere of dark violet energy. He looked at us, his eyes filled with a warning he couldn't speak, before the light swallowed him whole.
The rage inside me boiled over, fueled by the Archangel spirit still surging through my veins from the merger with Elphyete. I tried dashing forward, the green light of my aura leaving a trail in the air, my elf ears ringing with the sound of my own heartbeat. I swung the white gold sword with everything I had, but the moment I reached her, the world flickered. She disappeared and I got sent into the ground. The impact was bone-shaking, the stone beneath me cracking as my momentum was turned against me.
I pushed myself up, my hands trembling as I stared at the girl I thought was our friend. While I asked her why did she do this she ignored me. Her eyes were fixed on the shadows at the edge of the room. She didn't look like a student anymore; she looked like a soldier fulfilling a grim duty. She seemed to say something about "mission complete father."
The temperature in the room dropped to sub-zero. And then suddenly a guy with a black full mask suddenly appeared. He stepped out of the darkness as if he were part of it, his presence so heavy that it felt like gravity itself was doubling. He didn't look at us; he looked at the orb in Tokine's hand. Tokine handed him the orb. The movement was reverent, almost ritualistic. But weirdly she handed him a horn as well—a curved, ancient thing that pulsed with a sickening, grey light. She said to him that she got it from the town of the first hero and the masked man just laughed. His laughter was a hollow, grating sound that echoed through the chamber, filled with a terrifying sense of triumph.
Celdrich instantly dashed forward, his black katana drawn, his crowned spirit roaring with a fury that matched his own. He was a blur of black and white light, his blade aimed directly at the masked man's throat. Celdrich tried to slice the masked man but he disappeared and sent Celdrich flying into a wall. The collision was deafening, the stone shattering as Celdrich was embedded into the masonry, his black and white spirit flickering from the force of the counter-blow.
Seeing my friend fall again ignited a desperate fire in me. I charged forward and swung my sword, the white gold blade humming with Elphyete's creation magic. I put every ounce of my will into the strike, aiming to cleave the masked man in two. But the masked man just stopped it with one finger. The sound was like a hammer hitting an anvil. My sword, a powerful weapon from the 10,000th floor, was halted by a single digit covered in black fabric. The shock of the impact traveled up my arms, numbing my shoulders. Before I could even blink, he punched me and sent me flying next to Celdrich.
I hit the wall hard, the breath leaving my lungs in a painful wheeze. I slumped to the ground, my vision swimming. Next to me, Euphyne just laughed. He stood in the center of the room, his massive one-sided war axe resting on his shoulder, his golden aura glowing with an insufferable, divine ego. He didn't look at us with pity; he looked at the masked man with pure, unadulterated contempt.
Euphyne said that the masked man is just a pathetic ant compared to him. He stepped forward, his boots heavy on the stone. "I am a god," he spat, his voice echoing with an arrogance that shook the room. Euphyne suddenly swung his axe and sliced the masked man's arm. The movement was too fast for the eye to follow. The blade tore through the black fabric and flesh alike, sending a spray of dark blood onto the floor.
For a moment, I thought we had won. But the masked man just laughed and he instantly regenerated his arm. The flesh and bone knitted back together in a grotesque display of immortality, the black fabric reweaving itself as if the injury had never occurred. He looked at his hand, flexing his fingers with a casual indifference that chilled me to the bone.
Weirdly the masked man looks at me and he snapped his fingers.
The world didn't just change; it was overwritten. The 50th floor vanished, and all of us even our unconscious classmates teleported into a different universe dimension. There was no floor, no ceiling, and no sky. The surroundings are just reddish black, a swirling, chaotic expanse of dark energy and crimson mist that stretched into infinity. In the center of this void stood a massive, jagged throne made of bones and obsidian. The masked man just sat on his throne, leaning back as if he were the master of all existence.
He said to Tokine to have fun.
The command was a death sentence. Suddenly she disappeared and attacked Celdrich and they fought. The void was filled with the sounds of clashing steel and erupting mana as Tokine's shadows collided with Celdrich's crowned spirit. They were moving so fast they were nothing more than streaks of violet and white light against the reddish-black background.
While they're fighting, the masked man snapped his fingers again. Out of the shadows of the throne, a guy with a white full mask stepped forward. He carried dual daggers that seemed to drink the light around them. He looked at me and said that his name is Zarha and he's the strongest assassin.
The declaration was followed by an immediate disappearance. He disappeared and he attacked me from my back. I didn't see him move; I only felt the sudden, lethal chill of his daggers aimed at my spine. My instincts, sharpened by the merger and the nightmare of the 10,000th floor, screamed a warning. I instinctively dodged, twisting my body mid-air as the blades hissed through the space where my neck had been a millisecond before. I skidded across the invisible floor of the dimension, my white gold sword raised.
He says that I'm good, his voice muffled by the white mask but dripping with a predatory respect. He didn't follow up immediately, instead circling me like a shark in dark water.
The masked man just looked at Euphyne from his throne, his gaze mocking. He reached into his robe and he held the horn—the one Tokine had found from the Town of the First Hero. He raised it high, and the reddish-black sky seemed to pulse in rhythm with the artifact. He said, "Revive magic. I summon you the ancient Demonking who destroyed two continents and the first user and only master of the Death magic, I summon you Demonking Zaltraf!"
The words were an incantation of pure doom. And he threw the horn to Euphyne's direction. The artifact didn't fall; it hung in the air, glowing with a nauseating, necrotic light that began to warp the space around it. Suddenly the horn started regenerating into Demonking Zaltraf. Massive, leathery wings unfurled from the light, followed by a hulking frame covered in obsidian-like scales and four towering horns that pierced the dark sky. The pressure of his presence was so absolute that the very dimension seemed to groan under his weight. This was a being of legend, a master of Death magic whose very name was a curse.
Zaltraf looks down at Euphyne, his eyes glowing like dying embers in the dark. He raised a massive, clawed hand, and the smell of rot and endings filled the air. While Euphyne just looked at him, his golden aura intensifying as he gripped his war axe. He didn't flinch. He didn't move back. He just stared into the eyes of the Demonking with the same arrogant smile he had given the masked man.
The stage was set. In this reddish-black universe, surrounded by the unconscious bodies of our friends, we were fighting for our lives. I stood opposite Zarha, the strongest assassin; Celdrich was locked in a life-or-death struggle with Tokine; and Euphyne stood before the master of Death magic himself. I gripped my sword, and the name Sagha vain damuire burning in my mind. The masked man sat on his throne, watching our struggle as if it were nothing more than a play. I knew then that we weren't just in a fight; we were in the middle of a ritual, and the cost of failure was the end of everything we knew.
I looked at Zarha, my eyes narrowing as the green glow of Elphyete's spirit flared to life once more. "I don't care who you are," I whispered, though he likely couldn't hear me over the roar of the summoning. "I'm not dying here."
Euphyne let out a short, sharp laugh that cut through Zaltraf's oppressive aura. "A Demonking? You think a pile of old bones can stop a god?" He raised his axe, the golden light radiating from him like a bright supernova in the void. "Come then, Zaltraf. Let us see if your Death magic can even touch my divinity."
The Demonking roared, a sound that tore through the dimension, and the battle for the fate of our world truly began.