The golden light died as suddenly as it had come.
Tap.
Nael dropped to the stone floor, his boots scraping against rock. The last of the system messages faded from his vision, but their impact remained. A torrent of refined essence and knowledge had already been force-fed into his core, triggering a chain reaction of advancement he could feel in his soul.
[ Level Up!]
[ Level Up!]
[ Level Up!]
[You have reached Level 8! ]
Power, raw and immense, flooded his veins with each notification. His muscles tightened with new density. His senses sharpened to a razor's edge. The world snapped into hyper-clarity. The pain from his wounds faded to a distant memory beneath the overwhelming surge of strength.
"Hr..."
The Gloom Predator had also recovered from its shock. Its hunger returned, now mixed with a new, sharper rage and curiosity. It had come here in search of a stronger opponent, a stronger prey to play with before heading toward that annoying presence of an enemy. And now it had presented itself before him. There's no way it would.
"HR!"
Without any thought, it lunged.
Nael met the charge head-on.
'!'
The world slowed down.
Swoosh-!
He sidestepped the bladed limb, the air screaming where it passed. He could see the shifting texture of its shadowy form, the points where it coalesced into solidity to strike.
Swoosh-!
"HA!"
His fist, empowered by his new strength, shot out and slammed into the creature's side as its limb extended.
Boom!
"HRA!"
The impact was solid. A satisfying crack of something brittle echoed in the chamber. The predator screeched, a sound of real pain and surprise, and stumbled back.
Clearly, it wasn't used to being hit.
So, it retaliated instantly. Another limb, sharp and cold, materialized from a shadow at his feet, aiming for Nael's thigh. But he was already leaping back, the tip grazing his armor and leaving a frosty tear.
'Not good, I'm still no match for it!' Nael gritted his teeth. He needed to end this. Now.
Thankfully, he already thought of a plan.
'...'
His entire being focused on the new skill burning in his soul.
[Nova Execution].
He raised his hand, and with a thought, he invested everything. He channeled his remaining massive Aether pool—every last drop—into [Aetheric Infusion], targeting the [Nova Execution].
"..."
The world dissolved into pure, furious gold. Light didn't just spill from him; he was the light. The cavern walls ceased to exist, burned away in his perception. He was a nexus of incandescent fury.
"HR!?"
The Gloom Predator's shriek was a pathetic, tiny thing against the roaring inferno. But it did not flee. Recognizing an existential threat and a power far stronger than anyone it has encountered so far, it committed to a mutual kill.
It stopped holding back and unleashed its own strongest power, its unique skill - the [Void Rend].
Nael spoke a single word, his voice the sound of a star going supernova.
"Execute."
"HRE!"
Darkness met light. The creature unleashed its silent tide of nothingness.
Nael's body screamed as the Nova Execution tore through him. His veins felt like molten gold, his bones like white-hot iron. The skill was too powerful for his mortal frame. Blood trickled from his eyes, his nose, the corners of his mouth. But he held on.
The Gloom Predator's form condensed into a single point of absolute negation. Reality warped around it. The stone beneath its mass cracked and aged a thousand years in seconds. The air itself died, becoming a void that hurt to perceive.
"HRAAAAA!"
The creature's final shriek was the sound of existence being murdered.
Two forces launched simultaneously.
A spear of concentrated sunlight erupted from Nael's outstretched hand, so brilliant it left afterimages burned into the darkness. It was creation made manifest, the birth of a star compressed into a single deadly point.
From the Predator came nothingness given form—a sphere of pure void that devoured light, sound, hope itself as it carved through the air.
They met in the chamber's center.
The collision was soundless.
Light and darkness didn't clash—they annihilated each other on contact. Where they touched, reality simply ceased.
A perfect sphere of impossible nothingness expanded outward, erasing stone, air, existence itself.
Nael felt the feedback immediately. His spear of light fractured, its energy turning chaotic. The backlash hit him like a tsunami of molten agony. His scream was lost in the vacuum.
The Gloom Predator fared no better. Its void sphere shattered against the solar fury, sending ribbons of pure negation slicing back through its form. Chunks of shadow simply vanished, erased by their own reflected power.
But neither attack died.
The broken energies, light and void, destabilized. They began consuming everything around them. The chamber walls aged and crumbled where the void touched them. Stone melted to slag where light caressed it. The ceiling groaned under impossible forces.
Nael's body was coming apart. His enhanced constitution meant nothing against energies that existed beyond mortal comprehension. His left arm hung uselessly. His chest felt caved in. Each breath was agony.
The Gloom Predator was worse. Half its mass had been devoured by its own reflected attack. It flickered between solid and incorporeal, its form struggling to maintain cohesion.
The chaotic energies reached critical mass.
BOOM.
The explosion was both silent and deafening. A wave of destructive force that was neither light nor darkness but something far worse—the screaming death cry of reality itself.
Nael was lifted off his feet and hurled across the chamber like a broken doll. His back struck the stone wall with a sickening crack. He felt ribs snap, his spine compress. He collapsed in a heap of shattered bone and torn flesh.
The Gloom Predator was blasted in the opposite direction, its remaining form scattered like smoke in a hurricane. But the core of its being, that kernel of absolute hunger, remained intact. It dragged itself across the ruined floor, leaving a trail of dissipating shadow.
The chamber was a wasteland.
Where the energies had met, a perfect sphere of nothingness hung in the air—a wound in reality that would never heal.
Molten stone dripped from the walls.
Nael lay broken against the wall, his vision swimming. The vast reservoir of essence within him remained untouched, but his body was a shattered vessel. He couldn't move. Could barely breathe. Blood pooled beneath him, dark and warm.
A wry smile touched his bloodied lips.
'Heh... E-even all that... wasn't enough.'
The Gloom Predator's approach was agonizingly slow but inevitable. Its form flickered and wavered, barely holding together, but its hatred and hunger remained absolute.
It would use its dying strength to finish what it started.
'...Huff...'
Nael watched through slitted eyes, his vision swimming in and out of focus. Each ragged breath was a knife twisting in his shattered chest. The world had narrowed to the agonizing rise and fall of his own broken body and the thing dragging itself toward him.
The Gloom Predator was even in a worse shape. Half its form had been erased, flickering like a dying ember.
But it continued to pull itself forward with its one remaining limb. It wasn't trying fight anymore. It was moving to eat. To consume what was left of him before his own wounds finished the job.
'Huf...'
Nael couldn't move. Couldn't lift a finger. The immense power he'd gained was still there, a vast ocean of essence locked inside a ruined dam. But it was useless now.
His vision darkened at the edges, the world fading to a narrow tunnel focused on the approaching shadow. The cold of the stone beneath him seeped into his bones, a welcome numbness compared to the fire in his ribs.
It was over. He had pushed beyond every limit, and it still wasn't enough.
A profound weariness settled over him, heavier than any fear. His eyelids felt like lead.
'Sorry...'
The obscured faces came to him. He didn't have clear memories of them; he'd been too young when they died. Just shadows, really. A woman's gentle hands and voice. A man's deep laugh and big hand. Fragments of warmth from a life he'd barely known.
'Sorry, father, mother...'
The thought was his last. A quiet apology to parents he could barely remember. His eyes closed. The world narrowed to the sound of stone scraping against darkness, growing fainter.
Then.
Light.
Pure radiance washed over stone and shadow alike. The light spread out everywhere at once, leaving no corner untouched. Under its touch, the Gloom Predator's final hiss cut short. The creature's presence vanished, erased completely.
A voice pierced the silence, urgent in a way he'd never heard before.
"NAEL!"
Through his barely cracked eyelids, he glimpsed a figure rushing toward him. Golden hair caught the light. A face he knew but had never seen filled with such raw panic.
'Mother...?'
The thought made no sense. His mother was dead, had been since he was small. But something about the desperate way this person ran to him, the fear in that voice...
'...'
Consciousness slipped away like water through his fingers.