Chapter 90 Beating the Dark King (Bonus)

“To resolve the Dark King, you must enter the spiritual realm and duel it directly,” the Emperor communicated, projecting his psychic voice directly into Vane’s mind.

“Only by defeating the Dark King can I finally break free from its grip and rise from the Golden Throne.”

“The spiritual realm? What the hell is that?” Vane rubbed his chin, looking genuinely confused.

“The spiritual realm is an extension of the Warp; within it, only pure willpower is real. I will aid you to the absolute best of my ability to defeat it.”

Having explained the premise, the Emperor manifested his raw willpower, forging a glowing portal of psychic light right in front of Vane.

“Step through, and you will enter the spiritual domain. The Dark King is currently dormant. Once you are prepared, I will forcefully awaken it.”

“I will suppress its power as much as possible, giving you the opening to destroy it. Only then can I shed my reliance on the Golden Throne.”

“Hold on, before we start throwing hands, we need to get our accounts straight.” Vane took half a step toward the portal before abruptly slamming on the brakes.

“You still owe me the compensation payout! You’ve been constantly freeloading off me, and now I’m here curing your fatal wounds and trying to pry you out of that damn chair.”

“So, here’s my final offer: Five hundred billion star systems. Take it or leave it.”

“Five hundred billion?!” Hearing Vane’s extortionate quote, the Emperor was so profoundly shocked he almost jumped out of the Golden Throne on sheer reflex.

Standing nearby, both Sanguinius and Guilliman sharply inhaled, completely stunned by the astronomical price tag.

The massive crowd gathered at the base of the Throne was too far away to hear the exchange clearly; they were still craning their necks, eagerly waiting for the Forefather to finish miraculously curing the Emperor.

“Could we perhaps negotiate a lower price?” the Emperor asked, his psychic voice sounding distinctly deflated.

“Negotiate? Please. I wouldn’t give you a discount even if you were a cute little loli!” Vane crossed his arms, staring the Emperor down with absolute zero sympathy. “Don’t even try to weasel out of this tab. You’re the one who dug all these massive holes, and I’m the one who constantly has to clean up your spectacular messes!”

“Alright,” Big E compromised, letting out a psychic sigh. “Five hundred billion it is. I’ll just pay it off in installments.”

“Just remember, if you try to stiff me, I’m locking your ass in a Bedrock prison.”

With the negotiations settled, Vane stepped through the portal of light and immediately found himself standing in a magnificent, lost city.

The sprawling streets, towering pillars, and archaic architecture were all massively scaled. It didn’t look like a place meant for regular humans to live; it felt like a metropolis built specifically for giants.

Suspended high in the sky directly above the city was a pitch-black sphere radiating an intensely harsh white light—the dormant form of the Dark King.

Vane casually opened his inventory, intending to swap into his Reaper of Souls Suit, only to freeze in surprise. His Administrator privileges were completely unlocked.

That absurdly long string of EMC points had reappeared at the top of his inventory screen, and all the overpowered endgame items he hadn’t been able to bring into the Warhammer universe were now sitting neatly in his item slots.

“Wait a second. I can use my Admin privileges inside this domain?”

Rifling through his inventory, Vane’s eyes landed on the Sword of Endless Chaos.

The moment he equipped it, a god-tier blade practically vibrating with limitless, cosmic power materialized right in his hand.

“It really is the Sword of Endless Chaos?!”

Vane stared at the weapon, a look of genuine, pleasant surprise spreading across his face. He quickly reached back into his inventory and pulled out the accompanying Endless Chaos Armor Set, throwing it on in seconds.

Taking in his fully geared-up state, Vane cracked a wildly arrogant grin.

“Now, I’ve got absolutely everything I need.”

Right at that moment, a pale-skinned loli materialized right next to Vane. She was stunningly exquisite, despite her petite frame.

“Forefather,” the pale loli spoke up. This was clearly one of Big E’s holy manifestations.

As the fated Master of Mankind, the Emperor had existed as humanity’s guardian from the exact moment of his birth. Strictly speaking, he didn’t actually have a fixed gender. In ancient times, the male form simply represented power and protection, so he had typically chosen to manifest as a man.

Vane: …

Bro, are you really okay with looking this incredibly cute?

Honestly, if you had shown off this female form to Horus back in the day, maybe that ‘filial’ son of yours wouldn’t have been so relentlessly obsessed with burning down the galaxy to start his own Empire.

“Are you ready? Once you are, I will awaken the Dark King.”

Seeing Vane completely spacing out, the loli Emperor waved a small hand in front of his face.

Vane snapped out of his daze. “Hold on.”

“What’s wrong?” the loli Emperor asked, looking genuinely confused. “Are you backing out of the challenge?”

“No,” Vane shook his head. “I just changed my mind. I don’t want you to suppress the Dark King’s power. Actually, I want you to completely let go and help it unleash its absolute, unrestricted strength.”

Bro, are you out of your mind?!

Why are you voluntarily cranking up the difficulty on a literal cosmic horror?!

“Are you absolutely certain?”

Vane looked right at the loli Emperor and nodded with absolute seriousness. “Yeah, I’m sure.”

“Alright then, your call.”

Seeing Vane insist, the loli Emperor didn’t bother arguing further.

Her petite figure dissipated into the air. High above, the pitch-black sun suddenly erupted with an unbelievably terrifying wave of apocalyptic energy.

Immediately after, a peerless, unfathomable will awakened from its slumber.

The Dark King morphed into the Emperor’s ancient barbarian warlord form, hovering high in the air and glaring down at Vane on the ground. Its eyes were like twin supernovas, radiating an incomprehensible, blinding brilliance.

The Dark King reached out a hand, and a rune-carved broadsword materialized out of thin air, while its other hand armed itself with a vicious set of crackling lightning claws.

“Ignorant mortal. Embrace your absolute doom.”

“I bet you can’t even leave a scratch,” Vane smirked, his tone radiating total confidence.

The Dark King didn’t bother engaging in banter. Swinging its broadsword with enough raw, kinetic power to shatter a star, it unleashed a wave of sword aura capable of incinerating all of creation, hacking straight down onto Vane’s head.

However, the defensive stats provided by the Endless Chaos Armor Set were nothing short of astronomically absurd.

An apocalyptic strike capable of wiping out matter and glassing entire planets couldn’t even leave a scuff mark on the armor’s surface.

The sheer impossibility of the sight caused genuine bewilderment to flash across the Dark King’s face.

Even Horus, completely jacked up on the combined juice of all four Chaos Gods, could only barely tank the base-form Emperor’s attacks. When the Master of Mankind made the choice to ascend into the Dark King, every single entity in the Warp—including the Chaos Gods—knew exactly what would happen: they would be completely and utterly annihilated.

It went without saying just how horrifyingly powerful the Dark King was; it was the literal embodiment of absolute ruin and death.

And yet, Vane was just standing there, face-tanking a direct hit without a single scratch on him.

The Dark King furiously escalated its assault. It conjured up entire stars, hurling them down at Vane like apocalyptic dodgeballs. It ripped apart space and dimensions, using the violent dislocation of reality itself to try and shred him to pieces. It even manipulated the very fabric of time, attempting to use chronological forces to erase Vane from existence completely.

Finally, it teleported directly in front of him, unleashing a frantic, point-blank melee barrage with its runic blade and lightning claws.

Unfortunately for the Dark King, absolutely nothing worked.

Vane just stood there casually. No matter what reality-breaking tricks the Dark King pulled out of its arsenal, it couldn’t inflict a single point of damage.

When Minecraft players joked that ‘failing to blow up the galaxy in a single day meant you weren’t trying hard enough’ with the Avaritia mod, they weren’t just blowing smoke. And out of that single day, you’d probably spend half of it just looking for the enemy and commuting to the fight.

“This is impossible!”

Staring at the completely unharmed Vane, absolute despair finally crept onto the Dark King’s face.

Even the Chaos Gods aren’t this unbelievably broken! Where the hell did this guy even come from?!

“As the Dark King who’s supposed to permanently end the Chaos Gods, is this seriously the best you can do?” Vane sighed. “I genuinely thought you’d be an opponent worth going all-out for. But looking at it now, you’re just way too weak.”

Vane casually raised the Sword of Endless Chaos. “You’ve been wailing on me for quite a while now. I’d say it’s my turn.”

The Sword of Endless Chaos was fundamentally different from the Sword of the Cosmos. While the latter relied on astronomically absurd numerical damage, the former operated on a hard-coded ‘instant death’ mechanism.

Faced with a direct strike from the Sword of Endless Chaos, the Dark King couldn’t withstand it at all.

It didn’t take long before Vane literally hacked the cosmic entity to pieces, causing it to violently explode into pixelated loot.

[You have acquired the crafting recipe for the Dark King’s Core]

Following the Dark King’s unceremonious defeat, a system prompt popped up in front of Vane’s eyes.

“Scored another god’s authority. Not bad, not bad at all.”

Vane’s eyes held only the simple joy of looting a good drop; there wasn’t a single shred of actual desire for the Dark King’s absolute authority. Honestly, to him, these divine authorities held about the same exact value as a random dirt block on the side of the road.

To a normal mortal, such a mindset would be utterly incomprehensible. We were talking about the authority to literally ascend to godhood! How could anyone possibly treat it like worthless weeds?

But to Vane, that was just the reality of the situation. While these things were infinitely precious to the masses, to him, they were just handy crafting materials.

“You won already?!”

The loli Emperor reappeared, her eyes bugging out at the sight of the thoroughly devastated, ruined city that served as their battlefield.

I knew he was completely broken, but I never imagined he was THIS broken!

“What did you expect? An epic three-hundred-round slugfest?” Vane replied casually, unequipping the Sword of Endless Chaos and swapping out of his armor set. “Now that the Dark King is dealt with, hurry up and get your ass off the Golden Throne. I’ve still got a bunch of other errands to run.”

The loli Emperor nodded numbly, opening a portal of light for Vane to leave the spiritual domain.

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