With more than 70% manapool recovered, Damian and Sulthar cleaved their way to the key point of level 98 and entered level 99. bnb

It was a surprise. For a second, too much light reflection blinded them, but slowly their eyes adjusted to the change of scenery before them.

A vast open dungeon floor covered with nothing but white snow. Not a single tree, stone, or anything at all. Just knee-deep heavy, undisturbed snow. And there he was.. at the end of it all.

Seated atop a dark throne. A singular darkness in the land of purity.

The Demon Lord.

From 40 km away, Damian could see him. And from the way the gray-skinned, black-crowned head lifted, the dark, pupilless eyes could see them as well.

He was a monster now. Damian had sensed the guy's mana signature once, which made the difference clear to him. Unlike a fourth-ranker body that had every single cell working for mana absorbing and expelling, an Unfathomable monster constantly leaked the mana from its pores and absorbed it all back in between, like natural breathing.

The internal mana core of an Unfathomable monster, compared to a fourth ranker, channelled a much greater raw quantity of environment mana and converted it into the monster's unique mana. A fourth-ranker's mana core produced much lower quantity, but it was much purer, while the Unfathomable monster's mana core was like a raw composter that was built to produce as much as possible.

With the difference in size, that was the best system for both beings.

All beings with mana had two natural paths of evolution, Damian had noticed. One favoured control of mana, like a humanoid species. The other was raw power and held a monstrous presence.

The ultimate end-form, however, like the fifth ranker gods, must be the combination of both.

'A creature not consumed by its primal instincts, capable of planning great things and tough enough to be able to even wander off in the vastness of unknown space.'

Does the space have mana? Landbreaker's short outer-space experience said there wasn't any mana off-planet.

"What's that?" Sulthar asked.

Confused by the appearance of a man, but containing an unfathomable level of mana, not to forget a calm and calculating, unhurried attitude that boasted a high level of intelligence.

"That's the guy who ended your world. The pretend demon lord." Damian replied and observed a flinch in the monster's body.

Damian activated all three of his mana cubes and weaved multiple spells. Dozens of colorful runic circles created a hollow dome around him. All connected to his body with mana threads.

Damian filled Sulthar in on all the abilities and moves of the real dark esper as they flew straight at their target. There was no time to waste. Already twelve plus hours must have passed since he entered the dungeon.

Today was the last day of his faith-choice deadline. The Sun-God believers would also try one last time to convert him by offering something or threatening him. The Faerunians, if their new ruler had taken his or her place, would also be interested in knowing which side he chose.

The dark esper was coming towards them as well. But there were runic circles slowly surrounding him as he moved forward. The esper was.. now able to chant spells as well?

The original dark-esper lord only had two elements: chaos and dark. This one had light, space-time, and even water in addition to dark and chaos for some reason.

While flying, the dark esper moved his two arms in a sweeping arc from left to right, activating one of the spells. A wave of dark liquid materialized out of the blue and black runic circle, then disappeared inside the snow land. Seconds later, Damian sensed the dark mana-containing wave about to erupt from under the snow meters ahead of them.

The timing was perfectly matched with their flying path and speed.

No runic circle at the end point, a spell guided by what? Damian copied it, which was given, but the guiding method for the attack was a unique one that he did not recognize. Without his mana sense, it would have been too late for a challenger on the receiving end. The weird polished darkness in the dark wave was a familiar one though. That's what the original used to trap people in their minds, invading their astral planes.

Second spell activated soon after, producing thousands of pitch-black flying blades that were similar to the earlier wave, disappearing in thin air at times, and traveling great distances in the blink of an eye.

Damian pulled Sulthar aside before the wave could reach them. There were signs of dark swords materializing near them before the attacks actually arrived.

Once Sulthar got used to them, it was easier to dodge and did not require help. It kept him on his toes though; high reflexes and mana sense were needed to face these things.

Damian chained multiple wormholes and used dozens of spells, confusing the dark-esper lord to reach the key point without wasting time in fighting. Over fifty mini-sun spheres, two dozen lasers, lava sky, and water jets created enough steam to hide from plain sight. The monster could easily sense them, but Damian could leave multiple life-size replicas of himself filled with his own liquid mana to fuck with opponents' senses briefly.

"WHO ARE YOU? TELL ME WHO AM I!?"

The monster shouted. Damian ignored him. As weird and fascinating as this dungeon was, he was short on time.

Sulthar remained back, adding more to the distraction. Just one of them had to reach the key point.

But.. when Damian reached the dark throne made of polished dark solid substance, there was no trace of the key point sphere anywhere. It had to be inside the throne.

The throne was the same polished abyssal darkness, entering which trapped people in a memory-trap. Damian used a coat of seven and pushed a hand inside. The hand could still use mana; it was the same as the past one. Damian entered fully and cut through the rubbery darkness left and right in search of the glowing blue sphere.

His sword finally found it, and Damian didn't hesitate a single second in proceeding to the next floor. Sulthar was running and fighting for his life, but the guy just needed to hold on for a few seconds.

The second Damian's eyes opened in the level 100 covered in a coat of seven, he activated a waygate spell connecting Sulthar. The temperature was indeed high, but it was better than facing an abnormal abomination of nature.

The level 100 was of the lava again.

But this one was different. Not a gigantic lake of lava filled with monsters. It was like a calm lake upon which a massive city was built. The streets of the city were canals of lava. The buildings were made of red and black stones. Weirdly, there was even some greenery in the backyards of some of the stone houses.

At the heart of a sprawling ten-kilometre-wide city lay a pitch-black plateau. Atop which was an enormous red and gold polished metal castle. It was ten times bigger than the Sanctum building itself. Not a single palace Damian had seen before this that could match the thing in size, except that enormous stone temple dedicated to Heiryul.

However..

'Where is the Sun God?'

Sulthar jumped inside the blue portal, dodging the dark flying swords, sticky black vines, and avoiding the death waves of dark water.

Damian sensed the demon lord following right behind Sulthar and blocked the entrance with a wall made of a coat of seven. The seven-feet-tall guy with gray skin and flaming black hair slammed on it and remained stuck.

Damian could not place the wall inside the portal, so it was outside. Even though the space between the wall and portal could not fit such a big figure, the monster turned half its body into rubbery darkness and stayed clinging to the wall.

"Kick him," Sulthar said hurriedly, catching his breath.

"The second I remove the invisible wall, the bastard will use that weird skill of his to teleport away from here," Damian explained.

He kept the waygate open, or he would have to create another coat of seven wall. Making a whole square of it to trap the fake demon lord will cost more mana than an active waygate.

Just to force the guy to leave, Damian used fire spells, water spells, laser spells, and even god-killer spells. But the bastard absorbed all of that inside his polished darkness and kept attached to the coat of seven.

Even the invisible wall was slowly being corrupted by the impossible guy who was oozing liquid chaos and darkness from his body.

"Go away!" Damian tapped repeatedly on the wall, annoyed by the guy's stubbornness.

"Where is my lord? My father?" Sulthar asked, finally catching his breath and realizing he couldn't sense him.

Sulthar glared at Damian with not-so-friendly eyes.

"What!?" Damian narrowed his eyes, "I just came here a second ago!"

"You must have done something to him! You greedy insect!"

"Wanna fight, huh? Ugly lizard?" Damian was ready to throw hands.

Suddenly, the white orb increased the speed of its rotation around Damian, continuously coming between the two, as if trying desperately to get noticed.

"What?" Both barked at the thing in unison.

As if offended, the orb of light slowly descended to the ground, lifeless. Then, forgetting all that, it excitedly rose and flew superfast towards the massive golden palace in the distance. Damian and Sulthar exchanged glances and followed behind.

Damian could power the waygate and the wall through a wormhole.

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