*BOOM!*

The Mantis scythe plummeted toward Damien's chest.

VWIP.

The blade struck nothing but empty air and dissipating black smoke.

Ten meters away, Damien re-materialised from the shadows, skidding to a halt. He clutched his ribs, feeling a fracture knitting itself back together thanks to his physique.

Fortunately, thanks to his Hollow Kings Authority, he could use something akin to elementization.

'Physical attacks bounce off the scales and Magic is absorbed by the alchemy in his blood,' Damien analyzed, spitting a mouthful of blood.

'Is this really a fantasy world? Why is their biology so advanced!.'

The Corpse Collector roared, frustrated by the slippery prey. He turned his gaze back to the rib-cage prison at his waist.

"Stand still!" the Collector bellowed. He squeezed the cage harder. "Or the brat dies!"

Inside the cage, the goblin girl shrieked as the bones pressed against her. She looked through the gaps, seeing her father bleeding on the ground near the railing.

"Father!" she screamed, her voice piercing the chaos.

"Run! Don't let him hurt you! Run!"

Rax, who was trembling on the ground, looked up. He heard his daughter telling him to abandon her.

Something inside the old, broken guard snapped.

He didn't run.

"NO!"

Rax screamed a war cry that sounded more like a sob.

He scrambled to his feet, ready to risk it all, and charged the twenty-foot monster.

He was an ant charging a mountain.

"Let her go!"

Rax leaped, driving the rusty blade into the Collector's massive calf.

TINK.

The blade broke. It didn't even scratch the thick, grey skin.

However, what he did do was succeding in making the corpse collector annoyed.

"Pest."

WHACK.

He didn't even use a weapon. He simply backhanded Rax with his massive Ogre fist.

There was a sickening crunch. Rax flew across the bridge like a ragdoll, slamming into the bone railing with enough force to shatter his chest.

He slumped to the ground, blood pooling instantly beneath him.

The goblin girl screamed.

Damien went still.

Even Isabelle who had been waiting for an opportunity to strike was silent

Seeing this Damien looked at Rax's broken body and then at the Collector, who was laughing.

The air on the bridge dropped twenty degrees.

"You shouldn't have done that," Damien whispered.

His left eye went pitch black. His right eye burned gold. The cross-shaped pupils dilated until they consumed his irises.

[Hollow King's Authority: Unleashed].

The shadows on the bridge began to rise rose. Countless black hands erupted from the floor, grabbing the Collector's legs, his torso, and his four grafted Mantis arms.

"What is this?!" The Collector struggled, but the shadows were solid. It was as if they were weighing down his soul.

Damien walked forward. Yes, he didn't run, he just walked.

The Pantheon Sword glowed, not with the hungry white light, but with a transparent, distorting haze.

"I knew it, someone like me is not fit for saving people" Damien said, his voice echoing from everywhere at once.

"Im much better at killinh"

He looked at the stitches holding the Mantis arms to the Ogre body. He looked at the mana fusing the Drake scales to the skin.

"Stitched flesh," Damien raised his sword, "however, all that is usless"

He slashed.

For others, since neither mana or physicall attacks had much of an effect they might have struggled

Unfortunately for him, Damien had a third power

Will!

SHHHHK.

A single, silent cut passed through the Collector.

The Collector blinked. "You missed..."

SPLAT.

His four Mantis arms fell off.

There was no blood, no wound. They simply detached, as if they had never been attached in the first place.

"My arms!"

CLATTER.

The Rock Drake scales peeled off his chest like dead skin, falling to the floor.

"My armor!"

The magic holding the abomination together unraveled.

The Collector screamed as his body rejected itself. His grafted muscles tore apart. His mismatched eyes popped out.

"NO! I AM ETERNAL! I AM—"

Damien swung the sword one last time, decapitating the Ogre head.

"Ugh~ what is with my enemies these days and calling themselves eternal." Talking to himself, Damien looked at the corpse collector one last time as the thought of the second prince

The massive body collapsed into a pile of disjointed, bloody parts.

A quick discive battle, one that shocked everyone around

The silence returned to the bridge.

Isabelle rushed forward and smashed the bone cage, catching the goblin girl as she fell.

"Father!" However, the girl didn't care about her, instead she scrambled out of Isabelle's arms and ran to the railing.

Rax was slumped against the bone fence. His chest was caved in, his breathing a wet, rattling wheeze.

"Lira..." Rax smiled, blood coating his teeth. He reached up with a trembling hand to wipe a tear from her cheek.

"You're safe."

"Don't talk!" The girl sobbed, pressing her small hands against his massive wound. "I'll find you a potion! I'll get some help! Just don't talk!"

She looked at Damien with pleading eyes.

Damien walked over. He looked at Rax. The damage was catastrophic. His lungs were crushed, his heart failing. A potion would only prolong the agony.

Rax met Damien's eyes. He shook his head slightly. 'I'm sorry'.

"The lever..." Rax wheezed, pointing a shaking finger under the railing, hidden in a crevice of the bone bridge.

"Pull it... the mist will clear."

Damien knelt beside him. "We'll find it."

Rax grabbed Damien's hand. His grip was weak, fading fast.

"Thank you..." Rax whispered, his insect eye going dull.

"For letting me be a father... one last time."

His hand went limp.

Rax was gone.

Damien closed the old guard's eyes. He stood up, his face impassive, but his grip on his sword was white-knuckled.

He reached down and harvested the Corpse Collector's Core (Tier 6) from the pile of gore.

He tossed a heavy pouch to the weeping girl. It contained gold, food, and a token.

"Go to Abysshaven," Damien said softly. "Find a tavern called the Rust Bucket. Show this to the dwarf bartender, Gorim. Tell him Zero sent you."

"But..." the girl clutched her father's cold hand.

"Go," Damien ordered gently. "Your father died so you could live. Don't waste his choice."

Isabelle gently guided the girl away, pointing her back toward the city.

….............

Time soon passed and after waiting for Isabell to return, Damien walked to the hidden lever Rax had pointed out and pulled it.

GRIND... CLANK.

The massive gears beneath the bridge groaned.

At the far end of the chasm, the thick, impenetrable fog began to swirl.

It parted like a curtain, revealing a massive, spiraling vortex of wind and gravity leading down into the darkness.

BZZZT.

Suddenly, the air in front of the vortex shimmered. A magical projection appeared, the white mask of the Sanctuary Lord.

"You..." The Lord's voice was distorted with rage.

"You the Collector? I guess you're not that bad?"

Damien didn't stop walking. He stood at the edge of the drop, Isabelle at his side.

"Indeed" Damien said flatly. "And so what?."

"Don't get cocky! Hand over the veil or-!"

Before he could finsh talking Damien grabbed the projection device, a floating skull and crushed it in his hand.

The Lord's voice cut off.

Pausing for a bit, he looked down into the swirling vortex of Layer 2.

"Hospitality in the Abyss really needs work," Damien sighed.

He looked at Isabelle. "Ready?"

"Always, Master."

Damien stepped off the ledge.

"Layer 2. Here we come."

They fell into the dark.

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