I Ascend Alone-Chapter 90: SSS-Rank Dungeon Part XII

Alexander steadied himself, his knees nearly buckling. The golden glow of Titanform sputtered, but he forced it to hold, even as blood leaked from the corner of his mouth. "We make our own inevitabilities," he rasped.

"Leon!" he barked. "Now!"

Leon didn't hesitate. He raised his blade—Twilight Fang—and poured everything into it. His aura exploded, shadow and fire coiling around his body in a vortex of raw will. "Twilight Sever – Twin Eclipse!"

Two arcs of darkness and flame screamed through the air, cleaving down at Korthar in a cross-shaped slash.

Korthar raised an arm to block—too late.

The strikes hit true, carving deep gashes across his torso and shoulder, eliciting an unearthly shriek from the Dread Sentinel. Obsidian flesh cracked wide, voidlight gushing like corrupted blood.

But Korthar did not fall. Instead, he laughed in mad and thunderous manner.

"I was forged in entropy!" he roared. "Your strikes are blades of paper against the storm!"

Before anyone could react, he moved—faster than before.

In a blur of darkness, he slammed into Leon, sending the warrior flying into a nearby wall with a boom that collapsed half the ridge.

Ji Seong-Ho and Raiden moved at once.

"Celestial Cut: Divine Sky Rend!" Seong-Ho's blade flashed with starlight, cleaving a rift in the air that streaked toward Korthar like a comet.

Raiden raised both hands, lightning swirling into a focused lance. "Stormbind Spear!" he cried, hurling the weapon with thunderous force.

Both attacks struck simultaneously, engulfing Korthar in light and lightning. The air shook. The dungeon quaked.

For a moment, the silhouette of the Dread Sentinel vanished in the explosion.

Alexander dropped to a knee, coughing blood, his Titanform finally fracturing—fragments of glowing energy scattering around him like shattered glass.

Gabriel descended beside him, placing a hand on his shoulder, radiant power flooding his body in a desperate effort to stabilize him.

After a few moment, the smoke parted, and Korthar was still standing unscathed.

"I will show you..." Korthar said, his voice now resonating from every direction at once. "...the final evolution of despair."

A wave of abyssal energy exploded outward, shredding the Radiant Domain, and sending shockwaves that turned the air to screaming wind. Even the strongest were blown back like rag dolls.

The dungeon screamed while darkness consumed the chamber. And at its center, Korthar began to change.

Unfurling wings of obsidian and shadow; Four arms grew, longer, each ending in claws dripping with anti-light.

Eyes—dozens of them—opened across his torso, his back, his arms, blinking in disjointed rhythm. Tentacles of void writhed and coiled behind him like a storm of serpents.

And Alexander, kneeling amid crumbling stone and fading light, looked up at the towering god-beast before him.

He whispered, "We need a miracle to fight ths monster."

-

Outside the gate, stationed at the frontlines of the emergency containment zone, I stood motionless—my arms crossed, eyes fixed on the drone feed flickering across the holo-projection from Ezekiel's relay.

I had already seen part of the chaos through the shadows I hid inside Leon, Gabriel, and the other national-level hunters, but this? This was different.

Now everyone could see it.

A hush spread like a wave across the assembled A-rank forces as Ezekiel's high-altitude drone finally stabilized, its visuals zooming in—crackling slightly with static from the dungeon's unstable wavelength. Then came the image that no one could ignore.

Alexander Graves, the "Titan of Calamity," the strongest man on earth was on one knee, his Titanform fractured and flickering like a dying sun. Blood smeared his lips, and beneath him, the stone was cratered from the force of his impact.

And in front of him is Korthar.

No longer the Dread Sentinel we thought he was. No longer something that could be defined by conventional rank or tier.

The monster now stood like some abominable god, its wings of void stretching wide, four arms twitching and cracking with abyssal energy. The serpent-like tendrils at its back writhed as though tasting the fear in the air, and its dozens of eyes blinked in chaotic rhythm, focused only on destruction.

Even through the screen, the pressure was suffocating.

Gasps and murmurs rippled among the A-rank hunters. Christa Vaughn stood next to me, her fists clenched at her sides, jaw tight. Even she who had always worn composure like a second skin looked shaken.

"This... this is what they're facing in there?" someone whispered behind me.

I didn't answer because I couldn't lie to myself. This wasn't just a dungeon.

It was a warzone. One where even the best of us could die.

Gabriel's radiant magic flared in bursts from the edge of the screen as he tried to stabilize Alexander, divine light desperately trying to keep the Titan on his feet. Leon was barely visible through the smoke, bleeding but standing—his sword arm trembling slightly as he prepared for another round.

And still, Korthar laughed.

"He's evolved beyond a Sovereign-class threat..." I muttered under my breath, voice too low for most to hear. "This thing really is a part of the abyss.."

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Christa turned her eyes toward me, and for a moment, her walls lowered.

"...Do you think they can win?"

I didn't answer right away.

Instead, I opened the system interface mentally, dragging my awareness to my shadow network. The ones I left inside the dungeon. The ones moving undetected through every crevice.

I could feel the wrongness, the pressure, and the way the dungeon itself had bent to Korthar's transformation. Even the shadows trembled.

"...If they can't," I said slowly, eyes never leaving the screen, "then maybe it's time for the Abyss to fight the Abyss."

She stared at me. "What do you mean?"