The Obsidian Labyrinth had become a suffocating, blood-soaked tomb.

For three agonizing hours, the elite Vanguard of the Silver Crusade wandered blindly through the shifting black corridors of the 9th Floor.

Their heavy platinum armor, once a symbol of absolute invincibility, was now a rusted, dented liability. The Level 30 Shadow-Stalkers had bled them flawlessly—never staying for a protracted fight, merely swiping at unprotected joints, destroying their supply packs, and melting back into the solid stone.

Out of the three hundred heavily warded knights that had charged into the darkness, barely fifty remained. The subterranean drakes had all been slaughtered, mostly by their own panicked crossfire in the claustrophobic maze.

High Inquisitor Malakor stood at the center of a dead-end corridor, his pristine white robes stained with the ash and blood of his own men. His cold, blue eyes twitched with unadulterated, fanatical fury.

"Enough of these rat games," Malakor hissed, his voice vibrating with terrifying, Level 88 holy pressure.

He didn’t care about the shifting maze anymore. He was an Arch-Inquisitor of the Goddess; he bent reality to his will. He slammed the base of his golden staff against the obsidian floor. "Divine Annihilation."

A blinding, localized pillar of hyper-dense holy fire erupted from his core. It completely vaporized the subterranean architecture. The shifting obsidian walls melted into slag, and the floor violently collapsed inward. The sheer force of the blast ripped a massive, gaping hole straight through the labyrinth’s foundation, revealing the sweeping staircase Kaelen had hidden.

Lord Arric Valerius, his crimson drake-scale armor heavily scorched, stepped up to the edge of the crater. "There. I can smell the Heretic’s rotting aura. Let us end this."

Malakor led the surviving fifty elites down the stairs. As they crossed the threshold into the 10th-floor Sanctuary, the oppressive, suffocating weight of the Dungeon Domain crashed onto their shoulders. The ambient void mana was so impossibly dense that the knights’ glowing broadswords instantly flickered and died.

The Sanctuary was massive. Roaring Abyssal furnaces cast long shadows against the walls, and in the exact center of the cavern pulsed the Primordial Core—a jagged, god-like crystal of corrupted energy.

Seated leisurely upon a throne of black glass directly in front of the Core was the Heretic. Kaelen didn’t look like a rat hiding in a cave; he looked like a primordial emperor holding court. Standing flawlessly at attention at the base of his throne were his three generals.

Lord Arric’s furious gaze swept across the room, locking onto the slender, pale woman standing beside the roaring furnaces. He stopped in his tracks.

"Elara?" Arric bellowed, his voice echoing with sheer disbelief. "You? The disgraced, exiled whore of Valoria is standing beside a Heretic? You murdered my brother?!"

Elara didn’t cower. The trauma that had once chained her to the slums had been completely burned away by Kaelen’s void mana. She looked at the Patriarch of her former family and smiled a dark, wicked smile.

"Commander Viego’s holy wards melted like cheap wax, Uncle," she replied, her voice echoing clearly. "Your family’s monopoly on wyvern bone-ash is a pathetic crutch. I designed the Wyrm-Blight specifically to eat your bloodline alive. And looking at your surviving knights... I see the Labyrinth has already broken your spirit."

"Traitorous bitch!" he roared. "I will skin you alive and feed your curse to the hounds!"

Before Arric could charge, Malakor stepped forward. His cold blue eyes were fixed entirely on the tall, golden-haired woman standing at the right side of Kaelen’s throne.

"Seraphina," Malakor said, his voice dangerously quiet. "The Grand Diviner swore your soul vanished in the dungeon. Yet here you stand... your holy core completely polluted by the Abyss. Why have you fallen to this filth?"

Seraphina raised her chin, her corrupted golden eyes meeting the High Inquisitor’s gaze with unwavering conviction.

"I didn’t fall, Malakor. I was elevated," Seraphina declared coldly. "The Goddess you worship is a parasite that feeds on blind devotion. My Master has shown me the true peak of strength. I am the Vanguard of the Eclipse, and I will be the one to sever your head."

Malakor’s expression twisted into a mask of pure, fanatical hatred. "Then you shall both burn. Knights of the Crusade! Purge this cavern!"

The surviving fifty Vanguard Knights let out a desperate battle cry and charged across the obsidian floor.

Kaelen didn’t even stand up from his throne. He simply rested his chin on his fist and looked down at them with absolute boredom.

"Lyriel. Seraphina. Elara," he commanded smoothly. "Take out the trash."

Lyriel melted instantly into the shadows. She slipped directly through the two-dimensional shadows cast by the roaring furnaces, materializing perfectly in the center of the charging Vanguard formation. With twin flashes of silver, her poison-coated daggers danced. She didn’t aim for warded chest plates; she slashed hamstrings and severed wrists. Men collapsed screaming as the Wyrm-Blight Toxin instantly dissolved their internal organs into corrosive black ash.

[Party Kill: Vanguard Knight (Level 54) x4. +32,000 EXP.]

"Formation! Shield wall!" a Captain screamed.

But a suffocating wave of void mana crashed into their front line. Seraphina charged into the fray like a dark meteor. She swung her two-handed broadsword in a devastating, horizontal arc. CRASH. The raw kinetic impact of her Level 85 Paladin strength shattered five heavy Platinum shields simultaneously, cleaving the knights completely in half.

From the rear, Elara hurled a massive glass vial filled with a volatile green liquid high into the air. It shattered against the ceiling, raining a highly concentrated acidic mist directly over the remaining knights. The moment it touched their wyvern-bone armor, it began to aggressively eat through the metal. The knights fell to their knees, desperately trying to claw off their melting helmets.

"Cowards!" Lord Arric roared, watching his elite forces being slaughtered.

Channeling his massive wind mana, Arric launched himself entirely over the chaotic melee. He completely ignored the generals, his bloodshot eyes locked squarely on the man sitting on the throne.

"Die, Heretic!" Arric screamed, bringing his jagged greatsword down in a massive overhead strike designed to cleave the throne cleanly in two.

Kaelen finally moved.

He didn’t draw a weapon. He simply stood up, his Level 61 void aura violently erupting from his core. He raised his bare hand and caught the razor-sharp edge of the greatsword perfectly in his palm. The wind mana violently exploded outward, but the blade didn’t move a single inch further. It hadn’t even broken his skin.

Arric’s eyes widened in sheer horror. He desperately tried to pull his sword back, but Kaelen’s grip was an iron vice.

"You call yourself a Dragon-Blood Patriarch," he whispered. "But you strike like a crippled dog."

He squeezed his hand. The massive greatsword shattered into dozens of useless shards. Before Arric could process the destruction, Kaelen stepped perfectly into his guard and gripped the Patriarch entirely by the throat. With a casual flex of his muscular arm, he lifted the three-hundred-pound noble completely off the ground.

"Look at your family’s executioner, Elara," he commanded. "Does he look like a ruler to you?"

"He looks like a rat, Master," Elara replied, her voice thick with dark vindication.

"Exactly." he channeled a concentrated surge of pure void mana directly into his grip. The dark energy violently invaded Arric’s body, crushing his wind mana core. With a sickening, brutal CRUNCH, Kaelen crushed the Patriarch’s throat completely.

[Kill: Lord Arric Valerius (Level 68). +35,000 EXP.]

[System Notification: Significant Threat Eliminated. Dungeon Master gains Title: ’Bane of Valoria’.]

He casually tossed the lifeless corpse onto the bloody stone floor. He slowly turned his dominant gaze toward the only man left standing.

High Inquisitor Malakor stood perfectly still amidst the slaughtered remains of his Vanguard. The golden holy aura surrounding his body was so intense it was physically scorching the obsidian floor beneath his feet.

"You have committed a sin that cannot be forgiven, Heretic," Malakor stated, his voice devoid of fury, replaced by an icy resolve. He raised his golden staff, and the air began to warp under the pressure of his Level 88 mana pool.

Kaelen slowly cracked his neck, a dark, wicked smirk spreading across his face as he felt the intense heat of a true challenge.

"I don’t want your forgiveness, Inquisitor..." Kaelen replied smoothly, dark void energy swirling around his fists. "I just want your EXP."