My eyes were locked on the chaotic battle, gripped by despair.
Fredrinn’s seemingly invincible Dark Knight armor was now riddled with cracks under the relentless assault of the seven ruin bosses, and blood was seeping from the gaps.
Zagna was a complete wreck; it had lost two of its four arms, and there was a massive hole in the center of its chest, opened by the dark elf.
Despite this, it was trying to repel the massive ice golem and the silverback gorilla with its remaining two arms. They would not last much longer. The moment they fell...
My gaze shifted to Sethrak, lying on the ground.
She slept with a calm expression, unaware of the apocalypse raging around her. I knew that the moment Fredrinn and Zagna fell, she and I would be completely defenseless. This meant certain death for both of us.
I did not have the luxury of a choice. But I was still afraid.
I remembered the humiliating death, the nightmarish memories I experienced the last time I used this ability, the Sovereign Form.
My enemy, Prince Charles, had defeated me effortlessly, even when I was at my strongest.
On top of that, he had destroyed everything I believed in, my hope. He had taken my life, my Dragon Heart.
If I used the Sovereign Form now, I might relive one of those nightmare scenarios, the same fate.
And if I did not? Could we escape this sealed dimension? Impossible. No... Maybe... maybe there was a way.
"System! I want to use Serene’s Grace!" I screamed in my mind.
[System Perception: What is the user requesting?]
[Warning: The System will demand a price appropriate to the user’s request!]
"I want to prevent our presence from leaking out of this area! Stop the power that will emerge when I use the Sovereign Form from being detected externally! A barrier... I want a seal that will sever all communication between this area and the outside world!"
[Request understood.]
[All conceptual and magical connections will be severed. No one will be able to perceive your location.]
[Creating ’Isolated Reality’ Barrier...]
[System is assessing the value for the request...]
[Warning: The request encompasses the fate of multiple lives and potential futures!]
[Assessment complete!]
[Price Demanded:]
• 2 years of your memories
• 1 year of your lifespan
Note: The value of sacrificed memories may vary based on the importance of the memories.
"Are you kidding me?" I hissed. I have only lived for 13 years, and you want to take nearly 20% of my memories? Without my memories, how will I remember who I am... or why I fight?
But just then, in front of my eyes, I saw Fredrinn get knocked back by a blow. I was bitterly reminded that I had no choice.
"Damn it! I accept!"
[Deleting your memories...]
[Deleted memories: Selected from your life in the laboratory.]
[Lifespan shortened.]
[’Isolated Reality’ Barrier successfully created.]
For a moment, I felt an indescribable emptiness in my mind. Those white, sterile rooms from my childhood... were gone. But I had no time to dwell on it.
[Question: Activate Sovereign Form?] [Yes / No]
I answered without hesitation: "YES!"
And my body began to change. I had not experienced this feeling in a long time. I could feel that ancient, primitive, and overwhelming power flooding my veins, swelling my muscles, reshaping my bones.
Two curved, obsidian black horns sprouted from my head. My fingers elongated, turning into claws.
My eyes became two bottomless dark pits; at their centers, two red dots glowed like burning embers. I grew taller, my muscles becoming more defined.
An absolute calm, a cold indifference, settled over my mind. It was as if everything else living in this dimension, friend or foe... was nothing more than a worthless insect.
All beings in the room froze before my suddenly overwhelming presence. The battle stopped. No one dared to even breathe, to move.
I fixed my red eyes on the seven Ruin Bosses in the room.
Fredrinn stared at me in shock, his supposedly impenetrable black armor now full of cracks, with blood flowing from some places.
Zagna, having lost two arms, was barely standing, a gaping hole in the middle of its chest.
In an instant, in the blink of an eye, I vanished from my spot.
The next moment, I appeared behind the massive two headed ice golem that was suppressing Zagna.
I placed my clawed hand on the golem’s icy back and instantly unleashed the Chaos Flames.
For a moment, the golem glowed like a black sphere of light from within. The next moment... it exploded with a massive detonation. Sharp ice fragments scattered throughout the room. The golem was gone.
The archer elf woman tried to collect herself, tried to nock an arrow to her bow. But it was too late.
I did not even move from my spot. I just extended my hand toward her and snapped my fingers. "Zzz."
A massive Lightning Spear fell from the sky, hurtling toward the elf woman. Before she could even react, the spear impaled her.
The destruction it left behind caused the woman’s corpse to be torn to pieces. The lightning did not stop; it struck the ruin wall and shook the entire room.
I scanned the remaining five terrified Bosses. Their ancient minds, having forgotten fear, seemed to be feeling pure terror for the first time in centuries. They involuntarily took a step back.
The first to react was the purple eyed, coffin carrying ruin boss. Hundreds of ghostly arms extended from his coffin toward me.
I allowed the arms to catch me. The moment the arms wrapped around me, I pulled them toward me with all my strength. The purple eyed man tried to resist this sudden force, but it was useless.
No one here was my equal. The moment I transformed into this form, the deaths of all the ruin bosses were inevitable.
The Boss lost his balance and was hurled toward me. At that exact moment, I grabbed his weapon, that massive runed coffin, and slammed it onto the man’s head with all my might.
His head shattered like a ripe fruit, splattering purple, disgusting fluids onto the ground.
The blindfolded man with the book tried to mutter something.
He was probably trying to heal the golem I had just killed, or the others. But he could do nothing. His friends were already dead. He could not bring them back.
The moment he realized I was looking at him, it was already too late. He frantically tried to turn the page of his book, to cast another spell.
I appeared instantly in front of him. I placed my clawed hand on the book.
The book instantly burned to ash from my Chaos Flames, and as it did, the bloody bandage over the man’s eyes fell away.
Surprisingly, the man had eyes. And... emerald green, very beautiful eyes. I did not know why he hid them, but it no longer mattered to me.
With my bare hand, I tore open the man’s chest, ripped out his heart, and tossed it indifferently to the ground.
And I lunged at the next opponent.
The remaining three bosses had gathered together in fear. They had taken a defensive stance.
But it was useless.
As the spider woman scanned the area with her multiple eyes, all eight of her spider limbs were suddenly torn from her body before she could even notice, and were impaled into her own chest.
The last two bosses, the tree man and the silverback gorilla, immediately tried to put distance between us.
But the gorilla like one, with foolish courage, lunged at me. At the same time, the tree man tried to wrap his vines around me and impale me.
But the moment the vines reached for me, my Chaos Flames enveloped them, consumed them, and reduced them to nothingness. The tree man vanished into nothingness within seconds.
The large gorilla, before it could even reach me, was impaled in mid air by a massive ice spear I created.
That seemingly unbreakable, rocky hide... was pierced without any difficulty.
There was... no one left.
The battle was over. No... it would be wrong to even call it a battle. This was my one sided slaughter.
A voice inside me said that there were 4 minutes and 7 seconds left before the Sovereign Form ended.
I approached the wounded Fredrinn and Zagna.
"Return, Zagna."
Zagna, with its battered body, turned back into that small, black sphere, and I quickly put it back into my dimensional bag.
I fixed my eyes on Fredrinn, who was still on his knees. He was wounded and gasping for breath.
From behind his helm, his eyes were warily locked onto my new, terrifying form. But I did not care. What we had to do had not changed, and we might not get another chance.
"Fredrinn," I said, my voice not sounding like my own; it was deeper, more resonant, and commanding. "Teleport us to Julian."
"But... how?" he said, in pain. "I only have the power of two stones... We still don’t have the other stones..."
"The stones don’t matter anymore," I cut him off. "Nerath is waiting for us."
"Nerath... is waiting for us? What does that mean?"
"There is no time to explain. Just do as I say. I cannot maintain this form for long. Try to feel where the other stones are... and imagine yourself being pulled there. Use your power!"
"Alright... I’ll try," he said, his voice suppressed by pain. He knew what I was doing was not logical.
I had just told him that a god, the very god we were trying to conquer, was waiting for us. And now, of our own free will, we were going to him, wounded and exhausted.
But I was confident. Nerath had sent all his Bosses, all his pawns, upon us at once to destroy us. He had expected to trap us at our weakest, just after we had finished a ruin. And he had succeeded.
He had forced me to make this choice, sacrificing a piece of my memories and my life.
I was going to make him pay for this. No matter what!
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