[Thank you thevoidfox for your generous gift]
Everything around the monster began to disintegrate into ashes. The trees, the ground, and even the monster itself began to turn into particles as its existence dissipated very slowly.
However, in a moment of quick thinking, the monster flipped mid-air, using the momentum of the attack to shift its body slightly.
*ZHOOOOM*
Everything in a 30-meter radius turned into ashes before Lloyd's silhouette dropped to the ground, his eyes glowing purple. At the same time, his body was covered in purple energy that protected him from his own attack.
Felix's body was also covered in Lloyd's purple energy, yet he was still hurt by the attack since it destroyed everything on a molecular level.
'Null didn't lie. If I break down the void element, not only do I get three elements, but I also get variations of the element. Space manipulation can be broken down further into gravity manipulation.' Lloyd thought to himself before looking at his blade, which was also turning into ashes.
'I guess the strain was too much on such a weak blade. I guess, I'll have to use the other one then.'
Taking his other short-sword out, Lloyd's violet eyes darted around for a moment. He knew that the monarch of the autumn forest was still alive; he just needed to find where he was.
Closing his eyes, Lloyd let out a pulse of violet energies that encapsulated everything in a large area around Lloyd. Opening his eyes again, Lloyd pointed his blade toward the north before a disgusted smirk tugged on the corner of his lips.
"Found you."
*Zip*
Appearing before the monster, Lloyd swung his blade at it, this time simply covering it in blue flames rather than the purple ones he used before since they were much more draining than he would like to admit.
*Clang*
However, the monster simply deflected the attack with his claw, pushing Lloyd back a few meters before jumping away.
"Tsk*
[Void Step]
Teleporting above the monster, Lloyd swung again, this time aiming for the monster's left arm to severe it, yet the monster was quick to grab the blade mid-attack before using it as a lever to send a devastating kick Lloyd's way.
[Void Step]
Letting go of his blade, Lloyd appeared behind the monster with his hands covered in shadows, but the monster expected this, something that was clear to Lloyd since the kick seemed to have never been aimed toward his previous position.
Yet, even in a situation like this, Lloyd continued to grin at the monster since before it knew what was happening, it felt its foot sink into the ground, lowering its height and making its attack come inches short of Lloyd's face.
Without thinking twice, Lloyd cut the tendons off its leg before dropping back and entering his shadow.
"You putent insolent child. You think this shadow realm of yours can hold my mighty being?" The monster roared while Lloyd simply watched it while slowly circling it like a tiger around its prey.
"I was quite disappointed when I saw that I hadn't turned you into atoms, but now that I look at you..." Lloyd paused and looked at the monster's right arm, or to be specific, the lack thereof an arm.
"I enjoy the fact that you are suffering." Lloyd chuckled before looking at the monster's tendon, which had already mostly healed.
"And the fact that you can't regenerate from my attack only makes it even more enjoyable to watch."
*ROOOAAAR*
Letting out a deafening roar, the monster shot forward with everything it had, quickly attacking Lloyd with attacks of immense speed, yet without its other arm, one could say that the attack rate was only half as great as before.
On the other hand, his kicks, while being slightly off-balance due to the lack of a second arm, were still as powerful as ever. So when Lloyd tried to block one of them, all he got in exchange was a powerful kick that sent cracks all over his arms before shooting him out of his shadow 'realm.'
According to Lachlan, may the universe have mercy on his soul; Lloyd's shadow could be considered as a completely different realm called the shadow realm. It was the reason why the shadow owl could enter it, and it is the reason why Lloyd could force others into it as well
*BOOM*
Shooting out of the shadow, the monster took into the skies before its eyes glowed bright orange, and its body zoomed toward Lloyd.
[Void Step]
Barely teleporting in time, Lloyd avoided the attack by a mere inch as he quickly appeared in an area without many trees.
'Shit.'
Looking around, Lloyd realized that the monster was forcing him back with the rest of the team so he could pick them off again, but that's where he was mistaken.
"Hime... Rex... Tina... I need you to trust me." Lloyd spoke.
"We trusted you, but you lied to us..." Hime gritted her teeth with tears in her eyes. In her eyes, Roderick's sacrifice only extended the life of a monster.
"I thought of you as one of us... I thought of you as a brother!" Rex roared.
However, Tina remained silent. Lloyd could feel her heart wrench every time she breathed out, while her eyes looked at Lloyd in a way that made him feel his non-existent heart drop to his stomach. They were filled with betrayal, but he couldn't do anything about that now.
"I know, but if we don't work together, Roderick and Lachlan's deaths will be for nothing." Lloyd reasoned as he pointed his blade toward the direction the monster was coming from.
"And I'm not gonna let that happen." Lloyd'seyes narrowed dangerously.
"Also, where the fuck is Veronica?" Lloyd asked, causing everyone to widen their eyes.
"Nevermind her, the thing is nearly here." Hime replied as a figure shot into the sky, uprooting several trees instantly and kicking up an enormous dust cloud.
"Tina." Lloyd shouted, causing Tina to immediately begin weaving runes into the air before creating several arcane barriers between the group and the monster.
However, like a bullet through butter, the monster shot right through the barriers easily, but of course, that was part of the plan.
The team was shocked to see that the monster only had one arm, but since they were feeling so many emotions at that moment, they didn't even take any time to openly acknowledge the fact that Lloyd did more damage to the monster in less than 4 minutes than they did in 7.
It had been 4 minutes since Lachlan's death, yet no one really had a moment to process it. Of course, Hime was still trying to fully process Roderick's death, but everyone else threw the grief to the back of their mind.
They knew that they would have to kill the monster before them, even if it meant they would have to team up with a void walker to do so.
[Racial Ability: Berserker]
A torrent of blood-red energy surged from Hime's body and shot in every direction. The sheer malice and rage she felt materialized within the energy that escaped every pore on her skin.
Her inner screams howled through the skies as they continued to rumble, this time even more intensely than they did when Lloyd broke through.
Despite this bloodlust making it easy for her to be tracked, Lloyd still lost sight of her as she instantly disappeared, her body turning into a blur before it appeared below the last barrier.
*ROOOAR*
An animalistic roar left her mouth as he arms extended toward the barrier, and the moment the barrier broke, the fields were equalized.
*Swoosh*
Her claws moved at lightning-fast speeds, unleashing a powerful flurry of attacks at the monster, however, he was not unprepared, yet at the same time, he was far from omnipotent.
The monster tried its best to block the flurry of slashes, and while no attacks landed on any of the lethal areas on its body, it was covered in so many scratches that it was quite literally dyed head to toe with blood.
'Damnit! If I only had my other arm. This is what I get for underestimating that child. What was I thinking turning my back to a void walker!' The monster gritted its teeth before it created a yellow energy burst underneath its feet, using it to quickly dodge an incoming claw before spinning on its heel mid-air and unleashing a devastating punch toward Hime.
Of course, Hime felt the threat from the attack, yet instead of moving away from the attack-
*Swoosh*
*Fwoohm*
*BOom*
*Pitui*
The punch landed squarely onto her forehead, yet despite shooting into the ground like a broken kite, Hime had dealt more damage than the monster had to her.
In the moment between the fist touching her forehead and the conversion of energy from the arm to her head, her hands he moved on their own as they swiftly ripped out a gaping hole within the monster's stomach.
Since the monster was already quite skinny, the hole in its stomach didn't look as lethal as it would have looked on anyone else. The fact that it immediately began healing did not help argue the lethality of Hime's attack.
*ROOOOOAAR*
Letting out another deafening roar, Hime shot toward the monster with blood dripping down her forehead. On the other hand, the monster gritted its teeth and cocked back its arm, yet before it could punch forward-
[Hades' Chains]
[Rune Prison]
Black and blue chains shot out of the ground and wrapped themselves around the monster while blue and white runes appeared all over its body, causing its movements to dramatically slow down. At the same time, the power behind the movements also diminished.
Landing on the monster's chest with tremendous force, Hime grabbed the monster's remaining arm and violently tore it off before reeling her head back and landing an earth-shaking head butt onto the monster without a shred of hesitation in her blood-red eyes.
The monster immediately flew towards the ground, yet before it could even touch it-
"Let's end this!"
[Sky Dragon Technique - Lightning Dragon Fist]
With lightning speed, Rex appeared before the monster with a lightning dragon-covered fist that immediately shot out of a dragon serpent, grabbed the monster in its maw, and shot it into the distance with immense speed.
"That's enough!" The monster roared in rage as it quickly regrew its arm and broke away from the dragon's maw before sliding several meters back.
With glowing orange eyes, the monster turned its pale face to the sky before it reached upwards with its only remaining arm and grasped the sky with everything it had.
"I, the monarch of the autumn forest, declare this dungeon my domain and my words absolute." The monarch of the autumn forest roared into the sky as the clouds began to form above him.
"Time dilation--null. Monster activity, maximum." The monster grinned as it brought its thumb and middle finger together.
*Pitiu*
A blade with purple runes shot right through the monster's chest, instantly destroying its heart before it could do anything else.
"Did you really think that I would let you use your trump card?" Lloyd's laughed with rage laced within every breath he took.
Taking out his blade, Lloyd circled to the front of the monster to look it in its eyes, yet all he was met with was a merciless smile that sent shivers down his back.
"Digusting." Lloyd spat before slicing the monster's legs off. Lloyd was certain that the monster was dead since it couldn't regenerate from his void attacks, yet if there was even the smallest semblance of consciousnesses inside it, Lloyd wanted it to suff-
"You..."
"Hmm?" Lloyd raised a brow.
"You should have aimed for my other heart."
Lloyd's eyes widened as he tried to slash toward the monster's throat.
[Dungeon Master Ability]
[Induce: Dungeon Break]
*Snap*
But before he could, a finger snap thundered through the entire dungeon as a shockwave shot through the skies above.
"What did you do!" Lloyd asked, yet it was as if he already knew the answer.
His face showed a horrified expression he had never shown in his life.
"Hahahahahaha... HAHAHAHAHAHAHAAH." The monster cackled as it slowly regenerated, using the plant life around it to create new limbs and organs. Yet despite seeing the monster regenerate right before him, Lloyd didn't move a muscle.
No... He couldn't move a muscle.
A moment's decision might have cost him everything.
He didn't just fail Roderick and Lachlan but also everyone in the outside world.
'If this dungeon spills into the outside... Deroxa will be flooded. My family...' Lloyd's realized.
And it was all because he made the wrong decision.
All because he hit the wrong heart.
Of course, there was no way for him to know that the monster even had two or more hearts, but it didn't stop his mind from derailing in such a direction.
"Void walker child, I must thank you." The monster cackled.
"If only you had aimed for the right side, cut off my head or even my hand." The monster's smile widened as it cocked its arm back and extended its claws.
Its other arm wrapped around Lloyd's neck as the feeling of powerlessness hung over Lloyd's body.
Every hair on his body stood up; mentally, he knew it was the end.
"You've done well." A feminine voice spoke as a pair of red eyes stared into Lloyd's from the depths of the forest's shadows.
Of course, Lloyd had no problem seeing her due to his [Night Vision], yet he could not help but feel an unsurmountable amount of hope fill him to the brim when the figure stepped out of the shadow.
"Veronica?" Lloyd asked while the monster simply narrowed its eyes.
On the other hand, Veronica's stare became a light and warm smile before a calm yet astonishingly dense wind enveloped the area.
"Let go of him." Veronica commanded.
"Miss. Vampire? How about we share him, huh? I get half; you get half. Its a good deal, right?" The monster laughed, yet it did not back down.
"I wasn't asking."
A cold, merciless voice shivers down both Lloyd's and the monster's spines.
However, unlike Lloyd, who only shuddered for a moment, the shiver continued to shoot through the monster's body before it concentrated itself around the center of its torso. When the monster finally looked down, it realized why.
Using the word 'gaping' would have been an understatement since everything below the monster's neck had disappeared into thin air as a blood mist coated everything behind the monster red.
As its head slowly fell to the ground, Veronica's voice was the last thing it heard.
"I have no need to keep you around anymore."
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