"BOOM!"

The trap sprung with the force of a collapsing star.

Four massive pillars of light erupted from the perimeter of the Thunderdome, shooting upward to form a cage of solid, crackling energy. The water inside the dome turned heavy, viscous. The spatial coordinates locked down instantly.

[System Warning: High-Level Spatial Interference Detected.]

[Skill Disabled: Void Step.]

[Skill Disabled: Shadow Step.]

[Movement Speed Reduced by 90%.]

Alvian felt the weight settle on his shoulders. It was like swimming through drying concrete. The [God-Lock Array] was designed to ground speedsters, to strip away their greatest asset and leave them helpless against heavy artillery.

Ideally, this was where the victim would panic. They would struggle, waste stamina, and scream.

Alvian just hovered there. He didn't try to move. He didn't try to cast a teleport spell. He simply crossed his arms.

"Inefficient," Alvian critiqued. "You use four pylons to create a suppression field, but the mana distribution is uneven. The north pylon is drawing too much power."

Ida stared at him from outside the barrier's kill zone. The Naga King looked confused, then enraged.

"You speak of efficiency while you die?" Ida roared. "This array crushed the Leviathan of the West! It will crush you!"

Ida raised his four maces. The army of Naga, hidden in the cliffs above, raised their staves.

"FIRE!"

The sky—or rather, the ocean roof—lit up. A bombardment of lightning bolts, each thick as a tree trunk, rained down on Alvian. It was a curtain of destruction, enough voltage to boil the sea for miles.

Valeria, watching from the ridge, flinched. "Alvian!"

Inside the array, Alvian didn't blink.

"System. Activate [Runic Aegis +2]. Shield Mode. Max Output."

"DING!"

Fourteen ancient runes materialized around him. Usually, they orbited. But under the pressure of the God-Lock, they couldn't spin. Instead, they interlocked, forming a solid, tessellated sphere of purple energy around him.

The lightning struck.

"KA-BOOM! ZZZZT! CRACK!"

The sound was deafening. The water outside the shield boiled instantly, creating a cloud of superheated steam bubbles. The entire Thunderdome shook.

Inside the sphere, Alvian checked his mana bar.

[Mana: 45,000 / 45,000]

[Regeneration: 4,500 MP/sec]

[Shield Integrity: 100%]

The [Tear of the Infinite] hummed in his chest. It was pumping mana into the runes faster than the lightning could drain it. The attacks were powerful, yes. Ida was a Level 54 boss. But Alvian had the resources of a god.

The bombardment continued for a full minute. A constant, blinding stream of electricity.

When the smoke finally cleared, Ida expected to see a charred corpse. Or at least a broken, weeping human.

Instead, the purple sphere dissolved. Alvian floated there, dusting off a non-existent speck of dirt from his shoulder.

"Is that it?" Alvian asked, his voice bored.

Ida's jaw dropped. "Impossible... No shield can withstand that output! You should be ash!"

"Your understanding of mana is primitive," Alvian stated. "You throw energy like a child throwing rocks. You don't compress it. You don't focus it."

Alvian pointed his lance at the northern pylon—the one he had identified as unstable.

"My turn to throw a rock."

Ida growled. "Focus fire! All units! Burn him until the ocean dries up!"

The Naga army reloaded. They began to chant, weaving a collective spell of massive proportions. The water began to heat up. A ball of plasma formed above the arena, growing larger and larger.

"He's going to nuke the whole dome," Seraphina whispered over the comms. "Alvian, get out of there!"

"I'm exactly where I need to be," Alvian replied.

He re-cast [Runic Aegis +2]. But this time, he tweaked the parameters.

"System. Enable [Reactive Force]. Set reflection threshold to 100%."

[Warning: Full reflection requires sustained mana channeling. Mobility will be reduced to 0.]

"I wasn't planning on dancing," Alvian said.

The plasma ball dropped. It was a miniature sun, a sphere of compressed lightning and heat. It descended slowly, inevitably, designed to obliterate everything within the array.

Alvian looked up at the descending apocalypse. He gripped his lance. He poured his infinite mana into the runes.

"Come on," Alvian whispered. "Hit me."

--------

The plasma sphere made contact with Alvian's runic shield.

"CRACK-DOOM!"

The sound didn't travel through the water; it shattered the water. A shockwave of pure thermal and kinetic energy expanded outward, slamming against the walls of the [God-Lock Array]. The barrier held, containing the explosion, amplifying the pressure inside to crushing levels.

Alvian stood at the epicenter.

His mana bar flickered wildly.

[Mana: 30,000... 15,000... 45,000... 20,000...]

The damage was immense. The plasma sphere was dealing tens of thousands of damage per second. Even with the [Tear of the Infinite], Alvian's regeneration was struggling to keep the shield active. Sweat broke out on his brow, instantly washed away by the sea. His bones creaked under the pressure.

"HOLD!" Ida screamed, watching the sphere grind against the purple shield. "HE IS BREAKING! POUR MORE MANA INTO IT!"

The Naga sorcerers chanted louder, blood leaking from their gills as they overexerted themselves. The plasma sphere grew brighter, heavier.

"He's trying to crush me with raw weight," Alvian gritted his teeth. "Inefficient."

The [Runic Aegis +2] had a special property: [Reactive Force]. It reflected damage. Usually, it reflected it back at the attacker. But in a containment field, the reflection had nowhere to go. It bounced off the shield, hit the array wall, bounced back, and hit the shield again.

It was a feedback loop. A pressure cooker.

"System," Alvian strained, his veins bulging against his skin. "Direct the reflection. Target: The North Pylon."

[Calculating trajectory...]

[Target Locked.]

The runes shifted. They angled themselves like mirrors.

"Release."

Alvian didn't drop the shield. He pulsed it. He pushed outward with a massive surge of mana.

"BOOM!"

The reflected energy of the plasma sphere—multiplied by the reactive force—shot out in a concentrated beam of violet and blue light. It didn't aim at Ida. It aimed at the one weak point Alvian had identified at the start.

The North Pylon.

The beam hit the crystal structure.

"CRACK!"

The pylon didn't just break. It detonated. The magical feedback screamed through the connection lines, traveling instantly to the other three pylons.

"NO!" Ida realized what was happening too late. "CUT THE LINK!"

But mana travels faster than a command.

The feedback loop overloaded the array. The invisible walls of the [God-Lock] shattered like glass. The pressure inside the dome was released in a single, catastrophic explosion of water and light.

"WHOOSH!"

The shockwave blasted the Naga army off the cliffs. Ida was thrown backward, his heavy throne tumbling through the water.

The dust settled. The array was gone. The pylons were rubble.

And floating in the center, untouched, was Alvian.

His mana was full. His cooldowns were reset. The [God-Lock] status effect was gone.

[System Notification: Spatial Lock Removed.]

[Mobility Restored.]

Alvian cracked his neck. He looked at Ida, who was struggling to rise from the debris.

"You took away my movement," Alvian said, his voice cold and terrifyingly calm. "You forced me to stand still. You made me a target."

He disappeared.

"[Void Step]."

He reappeared directly in front of Ida.

"Now," Alvian whispered, the [Lance of the Void Winter] materializing in his hand. "Let's see how you handle a moving target."

Ida roared, swinging his four maces in a defensive whirlwind. "I AM THE LIGHTNING KING! I AM..."

Alvian vanished again.

He appeared behind Ida. He didn't strike. He just tapped the King's shoulder.

Ida spun around, smashing the water where Alvian had been.

Alvian was already above him.

"Too slow," Alvian said.

----

The battle that followed was not a fight. It was a dissection.

Ida, the King of the Lightning Naga, was a powerhouse. His swings shattered the seabed. His lightning aura boiled the ocean. But he was fighting a ghost.

Alvian utilized [Void Step] to its absolute limit. With no cooldown and infinite mana, he didn't just teleport; he existed everywhere at once.

"Left."

Alvian appeared on Ida's left, slashing with [Voidpiercer]. The dagger cut through the heavy iron scale armor like it was wet paper.

"Right."

Before Ida could scream, Alvian was on his right, driving the [Lance] into a joint.

"Above."

Alvian dropped from the water column, kicking Ida in the face with a gravity-enhanced stomp.

"Below."

He uppercut the Naga King, sending the massive creature floating upward, stunned.

It was the "Omnislash" of teleportation. Seventeen strikes? No. Alvian struck fifty times in ten seconds. He was a blur of violet light, stitching a web of pain around the helpless boss.

Ida flailed blindly, firing lightning in every direction. "STAND STILL! FIGHT ME LIKE A WARRIOR!"

"I am a Mage," Alvian replied, appearing sitting on Ida's back for a fleeting second. "I fight with intelligence. And right now? You look very stupid."

Valeria and Seraphina watched from the ridge, mouths agape.

"He's playing with him," Seraphina whispered. "That's a Level 54 Boss. And Alvian is... he's humiliating him."

"He's angry," Valeria noted. "Alvian hates wasting time. This trap wasted his time."

Inside the arena, Ida was bleeding from a hundred wounds. The Void corruption from Alvian's weapons was spreading, turning the Naga's blue scales grey and brittle. His regeneration was halted. His lightning was sputtering.

Ida fell to the sand, exhausted, his four arms trembling. He looked up at Alvian, who hovered above him, perfectly untouched.

"What... are you?" Ida wheezed.

Alvian descended slowly. He aimed his lance at Ida's heart.

"I am the inevitable result of your poor planning," Alvian said.

"WAIT!" Ida screamed, holding up a hand. "I surrender! I have treasures! I have the [Thundergod Bracers]! I have the vault keys! Take them! Just let me live!"

Alvian paused. The [Thundergod Bracers]. Those were a Legendary item. Part of the set he needed for his endgame build.

"You have the Bracers?" Alvian asked.

"Yes! Yes!" Ida scrambled, ripping a pair of glowing, golden bracers from his lower arms. They hummed with contained storms. "Here! Take them!"

Alvian took the bracers with his off-hand. He inspected them.

[Item: Thundergod Bracers (Legendary)]

[Effect: Adds Lightning damage to all attacks. Grants passive [Flash Step].]

"Good item," Alvian nodded. He stored them in his inventory.

Ida sighed in relief. "So... we have a deal?"

Alvian looked at him. His violet eyes were void of mercy.

"I don't make deals with variables," Alvian said. "You tried to trap me. You tried to kill me. If I let you live, you'll just try again later. That is inefficient."

"[Glacial Void Pierce]: Execution."

"NO—"

Alvian thrust the lance. The blade punched through Ida's chest, severing the Naga's mana core. The King stiffened, then dissolved into particles of blue light and ash.

[You have slain Ida, the Lightning Naga King!]

[Experience Gained: 2,500,000!]

[Level Up!]

[Level 53.]

Silence returned to the Thunderdome. The remaining Naga army, seeing their invincible King dismantled and executed, dropped their weapons and fled into the deep ocean. They didn't want to fight the demon in the black robes.

Alvian cleaned his lance. He turned to the ridge where his team was waiting.

"Trap neutralized," Alvian said over the comms. "Loot secured."

Valeria and Seraphina swam down. They looked at the crater where Ida had died.

"You got the bracers?" Valeria asked.

"And a level," Alvian confirmed. "And the path to the Second Guardian is clear."

He looked at the map Thorne had given him. The path led deeper, past the reef, into the open, crushed-depth plains.

"Kaelen wanted his trident," Alvian said, pulling the [Storm Trident] from his inventory. "Let's go return it. I have a skill to master."

He turned and swam back toward Azureus. He didn't look back at the ruin he had left behind. He was already calculating the next step. The next upgrade. The next god to kill.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.