Chapter 49: Don’t Celebrate Yet

"Looks like the real fight starts now."

Evren’s words had barely left his lips when the twelve-foot Void-Shadow Sovereign let out a screech from the depths of its chest.

SKRRRR-BOOM!

A pulse of purple-black energy erupted from the Sovereign’s body, sweeping across the entire cavern in a split second.

The air in the cavern instantly turned thick.

Evren felt a crushing weight press down against his shoulders, as if an invisible boulder had been dropped onto his back. The stone under his boots cracked, and every breath felt heavier than before.

Beside him, Amber let out a gasp.

She flapped her golden mana wings, trying to lift off the ground, but the dense gravity dragged her back down immediately. She managed to rise only two feet into the air before her boots hit the stone bridge again.

"The gravity..." she gritted her teeth as she steadied her balance. "The monster’s mana is warping the area around us. It’s an innate domain field... flying takes three times as much effort!"

"The air feels like lead," Evren said, gripping his cleaver as he adjusted to the heavy downward drag. "It’s trying to pin our feet to the floor."

Hovering behind the monster’s dark obsidian armor, six large scythe blades made of pure void energy began to rotate in a slow circle.

The monster didn’t wait for them to adjust to the heavy air.

With terrifying speed that defied its massive size, it lunged forward. Two of its scythe arms swung downward in a crushing cross-slash aimed straight at Evren’s chest.

"Watch out!" Amber warned.

Evren planted both feet firmly into the cracked stone, pushed hard against the heavy gravity, and raised the Frost-Bane Cleaver horizontally with both hands to block.

BOOM!

The collision sounded like a cannon firing inside the enclosed cavern.

A blast of cold wind and dark mana swept across the bridge, scattering loose pebbles over the edge and into the purple void below.

The impact pushed Evren back three feet, his boots sliding against the solid rock. His forearms stung from the vibration, but his body absorbed the raw kinetic force without taking damage.

’Its physical power is at least five times higher than the axe guardian,’ Evren noted, analyzing the monster’s stance.

Before the boss could pull its upper blades back, two more scythe arms extended from its sides, thrusting forward like dark spears aimed directly at Evren’s ribs.

Evren twisted his torso, letting the left spear-blade scrape harmlessly across the steel spine of his cleaver, but the right blade was heading straight for his side.

"Over here, ugly!" Amber’s voice rang out from the flank.

Unable to take flight, Amber used a low, high-speed mana dash across the stone floor.

She dropped into a low slide, sliding cleanly beneath the monster’s thrusting spear-arms, and swung her right dragon-bone saber upward with all the strength in her core. Her blade flashed, cutting cleanly through the elbow joint of the monster’s lower right scythe arm.

The severed scythe blade spun into the air before dissolving into a cloud of purple mist.

The monster let out a furious screech, its eight glowing red eyes flaring with rage. For the first time, its dark aura flickered as it registered the loss of an arm.

"Nice hit!" Evren called out.

"Don’t celebrate yet, it’s mad!" Amber warned, kicking off the stone to leap back as the monster’s upper arm swept across the space where her head had been a fraction of a second earlier.

The boss, enraged by the damage, flared its dark mana and unleashed a wave of dark gravity pulses across the bridge that made the stone beneath them tremble, threatening to throw them off balance.

The monster swung its remaining five scythes in wide, overlapping arcs, creating a whirlwind of dark blades that forced Amber to backpedal across the bridge.

Evren saw his opening.

While the boss was focused on driving Amber back, Evren channeled his mana into his legs, pushed through the gravity drag, and sprinted forward.

He closed the distance in two explosive strides, ducked under a whistling scythe blade, and stepped directly into the monster’s chest guard.

Evren gripped the Frost-Bane Cleaver with both hands, channeled his mana into the weapon’s wyvern core, and drove the frost blade straight into the center of its obsidian chest plate.

[FROST BURST!]

A concentrated explosion of freezing mana erupted from the cleaver’s core directly into the monster’s chest.

White frost spread across the dark armor, freezing its internal shadow pathways solid. The extreme temperature drop shattered the outer armour, cracking them open to reveal the glowing violet core pulsing inside.

The monster shrieked in agony, stumbling backward two steps as black blood hissed against the frozen rock.

"Amber, the chest!" Evren shouted, stepping forward to follow up. "Its core is exposed!"

"I see it!" Amber shouted, dashing in from the monster’s left side with both blades raised.

Evren gripped the frost blade with both hands, raised it high, and brought it down in a crushing overhead strike aimed straight at the exposed violet core to finish the fight.

Just before the frost blade could hit the core, the two remaining front scythe arms snapped shut like massive iron clamps, locking Evren’s cleaver firmly in place inches from the crack.

Evren yanked with all his strength, but the monster’s grip held tight.

From behind the locked blades, its two upper scythe limbs rose high into the air.

Dense, pitch-black gravity mana began to swirl at the tips of both blades, spinning faster and faster as it compressed into a small sphere of pure energy.

The air around the sphere warped, emitting high-pitched static and dark lightning.

[WARNING: POINT-BLANK VOID LANCE DETECTED!]

Evren’s eyes narrowed sharply.

At a distance of barely two feet, the monster was preparing to fire a concentrated piercing beam straight through his heart.

His cleaver was locked tight in the monster’s scythe clamp, and the intense gravity field kept his boots anchored into the stone. There was no time to pull the blade free, and no room to dodge.

Evren tightened his abdominal muscles, planted his feet, and braced his entire body, fully prepared to take the hit with his S-Rank physical density.

But suddenly, a bright flash of golden-crimson light sliced through the darkness between them.

Amber forced her way through the gravity suppression, burning through a massive surge of her core mana to execute an instant burst dash directly into the narrow space between Evren and the monster.

"Amber, no! Get back!" Evren yelled.

Amber didn’t hesitate for a single second.

She stepped directly in front of Evren’s chest, crossed her twin dragon-bone sabers in a tight X-guard, and pulled her golden wings forward around her body to form a protective barrier.

"I won’t let it hurt you!" Amber shouted.

In the next microsecond, the monster fired, and the compressed void energy detonated directly against Amber’s crossed blades at point-blank range.

A loud explosion of dark purple shockwaves tore through the center of the bridge, ripping large chunks of stone from the floor and sending them flying into the void.

The destructive force was catastrophic.

The impact shattered Amber’s defense in an instant. Both dragon-bone sabers were ripped from her grip, flying backward into the darkness before clattering loudly onto the distant stone floor.

Amber’s golden mana wings took the full brunt of the void explosion.

The brilliant golden light fractured like thin glass, turning dull and dark as the wings dissolved completely into thin smoke.

Amber’s body was thrown backward through the air like a ragdoll.

She slammed hard into the base of a massive broken obsidian pillar thirty feet away, collapsing onto the cold stone floor.

Her head slumped sideways against the rock, and her eyes closed as unconsciousness took over.

"Amber!" Evren roared.