Chapter 69: The Weeping Specters of the Ash (2)

The right specter shrieked in sudden, isolated rage. Seeing its twin incapacitated, it abandoned the psychic bombardment and phased completely out of reality, turning into a barely visible blur of heat-distortion and white ash. It dove directly at Leon, attempting to use Ethereal Intangibility to bypass his physical strikes and end his life.

Leon didn’t retreat. He raised the Blade of the Dragon God, the ethereal golden flames roaring to life along the edge of the weapon, and swung in a tight, defensive arc.

The blade passed cleanly through the specter’s neck. There was no resistance, no impact, no Severance Effect trigger. The greatsword simply cleaved empty air.

Before Leon could recover his stance, the specter lunged into his guard. It didn’t punch or scratch; it simply thrust its incorporeal, ash-white hand directly into the center of Leon’s chest, bypassing the Sovereign’s Mantle and his Obsidian Carapace as if they didn’t exist.

A wave of absolute, agonizing necrosis erupted inside Leon’s heart. It felt as though a block of dry ice had been violently shoved into his ribcage, freezing his blood and rotting his lungs simultaneously.

"Ghh—" Leon grunted, his teeth clenching as his HP bar took a sudden, violent hit.

Aura of the Undying immediately went to war, the SS-Rank passive talent flooding his chest with life-force, violently scrubbing the necrotic rot from his organs faster than the ghost could inflict it.

Leon didn’t panic. He analyzed the attack data in real-time. He triggered Storm-Strider, sliding thirty feet backward across the dirt in a frictionless glide, pulling himself free of the specter’s hand.

He placed a hand over his chest, feeling his heartbeat stabilize as the SS-Rank talent finished repairing the internal damage.

"Fascinating," Leon said calmly, his gaze fixed on the hovering ghost. "Your physical immunity is absolute. Even my weapon forged from a soul-bond cannot interact with your hit-box so long as you remain phased. And your offensive strikes ignore all physical mitigation, dealing direct, percentage-based damage to the life-force of your target."

The specter raised its hands, the white ash swirling violently as it prepared to dive again.

"You are the perfect counter to a heavy, armor-reliant Vanguard," Leon acknowledged, adjusting his grip on his greatsword. "If I were just a brute with a big sword, you would slowly rot my organs until I collapsed, and there would be absolutely nothing I could do to stop you."

The specter lunged again, moving with terrifying, silent speed.

Leon’s dual-colored eyes flared. "Sovereign’s Edict!"

He projected the tyrannical, draconic authority directly at the incoming ghost.

"HALT!"

The A-Rank authority talent didn’t care about physical tangibility. It was a command directed at the soul. The Level 88 boss slammed into the invisible wall of Leon’s willpower, its ethereal form shuddering violently as it failed the resistance check. The specter staggered in mid-air, its dive completely arrested, paralyzed by the overwhelming psychological suppression of the Vanguard’s stats.

"Physical immunity is an incredible defense mechanism," Leon stated coldly, stepping forward until he was mere feet from the paralyzed, hovering entity. "But physical immunity doesn’t mean much when I can burn your soul."

He didn’t swing his sword. He didn’t cast a standard elemental spell.

He inhaled deeply, drawing upon the mutated A-Rank talent housed within his core, and unleashed Hellfire Howl.

The cone of superheated, toxic ash and corrupted fire erupted from his mouth. Because the talent was fused with Hellfire Breath, it had fundamentally changed. It wasn’t just physical fire; the flames possessed a conceptual burning property designed to incinerate the very essence of a target, ignoring physical tangibility entirely.

The specter was caught directly in the point-blank blast.

It shrieked in genuine, unadulterated terror as the ethereal flames caught onto its void-ash body. The fire didn’t pass through it; the conceptual heat locked onto the ghost’s soul-signature, rapidly incinerating the void energy that held its consciousness together. The white ash began to turn a sickly, charred black.

"You rely on untouchability to win battles of attrition," Leon said, his voice hard, watching the boss’s health bar absolutely melt under the conceptual burn. "But you lack the raw defensive stats to survive when an attack actually connects."

Leon didn’t wait for the fire to finish the job. He followed up instantly to secure the execution. He raised his left hand, aiming directly at the burning, shrieking specter, and cast Arcane Requiem.

The Gold-Rank spell, fueled by his massive, rapidly regenerating mana pool, blasted forward. The concentrated beam of poison, black decay, and erratic blue lightning slammed into the specter. The decay immediately latched onto the charred void energy, completely destabilizing the boss’s internal core.

With a final, broken wail that dissolved into static, the Level 88 specter shattered, its form reducing to absolute nothingness, leaving only a few glowing drops of loot falling to the dirt.

Leon let out a short breath, instantly pivoting on his heel. He raised his massive greatsword, triggering Storm-Strider to close the distance to the left banshee that Auris was still keeping locked down in the block of absolute-zero ice.

The trapped ghost stared at him through the thick, unbreakable frost, its eyes wide with silent panic.

"Your sister had a flawless defense," Leon said, coming to a halt before the frozen block. "But you’re anchored to the physical plane now."

He triggered Grave-Crusher, dumping a surge of mana into the newly acquired talent. The kinetic mass of his upcoming strike multiplied exponentially.

He swung the Blade of the Dragon God horizontally, the massive force of the Grave-Crusher impact combining with the Mythic sword’s inherent power.

The blade slammed into the absolute-zero ice.

The block shattered instantly, exploding into a million glowing, harmless ice cubes. The frozen specter inside, unable to phase or mitigate the catastrophic physical impact, shattered right along with it, reducing the second Level 88 boss to a pile of glittering, snowy dust.

Leon rested the greatsword against his shoulder, letting the residual heat from the Hellfire Howl dissipate from his throat. He looked at Auris, offering the dragon a brief, approving nod, before turning his attention to the cascading wall of golden notifications that immediately flooded his vision.

Ding!

[You have killed "The Weeping Specters of the Ash (Level 88, Boss)"]

[Experience Multiplier: 35X Applied. 5,100,000 EXP gained.]

[Congratulations, you have leveled up to Level 68!]

[Congratulations, you have leveled up to Level 69!]