WAAAAAAH!

A cry akin to a primordial resonance vibrated through the entire forest.

It was the first breath of a being destined to rule, a pure, unfiltered shockwave of Life Mana that acted like a physical hammer against anything unholy.

HISS!

Charron the Undying, the monster who had just tanked a gravity singularity and a dragon's roar without a scratch, suddenly screamed.

It wasn't a scream of anger. It was a scream of genuine, searing pain.

The blinding white light radiating from the Queen's bedchamber washed over him like acid. His tattered grey robes, woven from the threads of the abyss, began to smoke and disintegrate. T

he green flames in his eye sockets flickered violently, dimming to mere pinpricks as the "absolute darkness" he had gathered at the tip of his staff shattered into harmless, dissolving mist.

"The… Seed…" Charron stumbled back in the air, shielding his skeletal face with his arm. Smoke poured from his joints.

"It burns! The purity… it burns!"

He retreated, floating away from the balcony as if the light were physical fire, his composure completely broken.

Damien, leaning heavily against the shattered wall, felt the light wash over him too. He flinched,

However, unlike Charon, he felt quite comfortable.

It felt… warm.

It felt like the first ray of sun after a hundred years of winter.

It soaked into his cracked ribs, his torn muscles, and his exhausted mana veins, stabilizing his crumbling life force just enough to keep his heart beating.

Ding!

A sound clearer than the baby's cry rang in Damien's mind.

A translucent blue screen materialized in front of his eyes, bright and eager.

[System Alert!] [Major Plot Point Achieved: The Birth of the High Elf Princess.] [Condition Met: You have successfully protected the Timeline's 'Hope' from corruption.] [Calculation Complete… Impact: S-Tier.] [Reward: 1,000 DP.]

Damien's eyes snapped open.

1,000 DP.

The number hovered in his vision, golden and beautiful.

He went from broke to rich in a single second. The gamble, the reckless, suicidal gamble to use every point of mana and DP he had paid off!

He had held the line just long enough for the "Heroine" to arrive.

He then looked up. Charron was stabilizing fifty meters away.

The green fire in the Lich's eyes was growing again, fueled by humiliation and rage. The Life Pulse had stunned him, but it wouldn't kill him.

'He's weakened. The Life Mana disrupted his connection to the Void. His invulnerable shield is down.'

Damien tried to push himself off the wall, but his legs gave out. He slid back down, coughing blood. His body was done. He had nothing left to give.

'Unless…'

He stared at the 1,000 DP balance.

"System," Damien commanded, his voice raspy but filled with a terrifying new energy. "Spend 500 DP. Full Restoration."

[Confirming…] [500 DP Consumed.] [Restoring HP/Mana/Aura to 100%.]

WHOOSH.

A golden light, separate from the baby's aura, erupted from Damien's chest.

It was a sensation of absolute euphoria.

The purple bruises on his chest vanished instantly. The broken ribs snapped back into place with a sickening crack that felt good. His mana core and aura heart, which had been wrung dry like old sponges, were instantly flooded with a torrential river of power.

Damien took a deep breath, tasting the ozone, blood, and ash in the air. He stood up. He cracked his neck.

"Hey! Skeleton!"

Charron froze. He turned back, his eye sockets narrowing as he saw the boy he had just broken standing tall on the edge of the balcony, radiating peak condition.

"You…" Charron hissed, his voice vibrating with confusion

. "How? You were empty. You were dead. I sensed your soul fading."

Damien walked forward to the edge of the railing. He didn't pick up his sword. He didn't need it.

"I told you," Damien said, his eyes igniting.

His left eye turned a deep, abyssal Black. His right eye turned a glowing, reptilian Gold.

"I'm Greedy. I don't die until I've taken everything!"

He clenched his fists.

"Dual-Core: Reactivate!"

BOOM!

The pressure in the room spiked. The Golden Dragon Aura and the Voss Shadow Magic swirled around him, no longer fighting for dominance but moving in a stable, violent vortex. The floorboards beneath his feet cracked under the sheer density of his presence.

"You think a little healing will save you?" Charron roared, regaining his composure. He slammed his staff down, forcing the green necrotic mana to flare up, fighting back the white light of the baby.

"I am a General of the Void! I am Eternal!"

"Bone Spear!"

Charron thrust his hand forward. The air twisted, and a massive, spinning lance made of compressed white bone materialized. It shot toward Damien's head faster than sound.

Damien didn't dodge.

He raised his right hand. The Golden Aura solidified, forming the spectral image of a dragon's claw over his own fingers.

CRACK!

He caught the bone spear in mid-air, inches from his face.

The momentum slid him back a few inches, digging deep furrows in the wooden floor, but his grip didn't waver.

The spear spun and ground against his golden palm, screeching like metal on metal, but it couldn't pierce the Dragon Aura.

"Is that all you got?"

Damien squeezed.

CRUNCH.

The massive bone spear shattered into dust.

He vanished.

Shadow Step.

He reappeared in the air, right in front of Charron's floating form, occupying the space where the Lich felt safest.

"Dual-Art: Eclipse Hammer!"

Damien clasped his hands together above his head. He combined the crushing physical weight of the Dragon with the cutting, erosive power of the Shadow.

He swung down like a sledgehammer.

Charron raised his dragon-spine staff to block, his green shield flickering back to life.

BANG!

The impact created a shockwave that blew out the remaining windows of the palace. The sound was deafening.

Charron was smashed out of the air. He plummeted like a meteor, crashing into the balcony floor with enough force to crater the stone.

But he didn't stay down. The Lich dissolved into green mist before Damien could follow up, reappearing ten meters away on top of a stone gargoyle.

"Insolent brat!" Charron screamed, his voice distorting into a demonic screech.

He waved his hands, and twelve green magic circles appeared in the air behind him.

"Death Ray!"

Twelve beams of concentrated necrosis, each one capable of rotting a hole through a mountain, fired at once. There was no pattern. It was a wall of death.

Damien smirked.

He looked at his remaining balance. 500 DP.

'I have one shot. I need speed.'

"System! Spend it!"

[Waiting for command.]

"Edit Skill: Shadow Step. Remove cooldown. Remove range limit. Max Output."

[Processing… Done.]

The world seemed to slow down. Damien felt the restriction on his space-movement skill vanish.

Zip. Zip. Zip.

Damien became a phantom.

He teleported twelve times in a single second. He appeared on the wall, dodging the first beam.

He appeared on the ceiling, dodging the second.

He appeared in the air, spinning through the gap between the third and fourth.

To Charron, it looked like Damien had cloned himself.

He appeared behind the Lich.

"Peekaboo."

Charron spun around, swinging his staff in a panic.

Damien ducked under the swing and delivered an uppercut wreathed in golden fire.

POW!

Charron's jaw shattered. Fragments of skull flew into the air. The Lich was launched backwards, tumbling over the edge of the balcony and falling toward the plaza below.

Damien walked to the edge. He looked down.

The undead army in the plaza had paused, confused by the Life Mana pulse. Charron crashed into the middle of his own army, crushing a dozen zombies into paste.

"I'm not done with you," Damien growled.

He jumped off the balcony, diving straight down toward the fallen General.

As he fell, the wind whipping past his face, Damien focused his Dual-Core. He pulled the shadows of the entire city toward him. He pulled the golden light of the dawn.

He was going to end this with one hit.

But as Charron stood up in the crater below, the green fire in his eyes turned a dark, abyssal purple. The air around him began to warp and decay.

"Enough," Charron's voice echoed, shaking the foundations of the World Tree. "You want to see a General's true power? Fine."

The Lich slammed his hands into the ground.

"Domain Expansion: Graveyard of the Forgotten."

The world turned grey.

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