Umbra didn't walk. He flowed. He raised a hand, and the shadows of the bookshelves turned into spikes.
"Dodge!" Kaelen yelled.
Spikes erupted from the floor. Kaelen used Fluidity to slip between them. Rix used her boosters to fly up.
"You are small," Umbra whispered. "Your souls are dim."
Umbra cast [Eternal Night]. The room went pitch black. Even Rix's flashlight couldn't cut it.
Kaelen was blind. "Guide! Analysis!"
[Guide: Optical sensors useless. Use your Aspect. You bound 'Night Vision' from the rat. Amplify it.]
Kaelen focused on the Aspect in his eyes. [Overclocking Night Vision.]
The darkness turned grey. He could see outlines. He saw Umbra floating toward Rix, ready to consume her.
"Hey! Ugly!" Kaelen shouted.
He threw the Black Box at Umbra. Umbra caught it. The Monarch paused. He looked at the box.
"The Key..." Umbra's voice trembled. "The Key to the Surface... to the Ancestor..."
For a second, the Boss was distracted by his desire for freedom.
"Rix! Now!"
Rix activated her Overcharge. Her mechanical arm glowed blue. She fired a concentrated plasma beam directly at Umbra's chest.
ZZZT.
The beam hit Umbra. He screamed. But he didn't die. He was a Monarch. The shadow healed instantly.
"Foolish," Umbra roared. "I am Shadow! You cannot kill a shadow with a flashlight!"
He grabbed Rix with a tendril of darkness and threw her against the wall. CRACK. Rix slumped, her armor shattered.
Kaelen stood alone. He checked his options. Decay? Umbra has no flesh to rot. Fluidity? Umbra is already fluid. Spores? Umbra doesn't breathe.
He had no counters.
[Guide: There is one way. Umbra is a creature of pure Aspect. He has no physical body. To kill him... you must Eat him.]
"Eat a Monarch?" Kaelen thought. "I'll explode."
[Guide: You are a Glitch. You are a bottomless pit. Open your soul, Kaelen. Be the Void.]
Kaelen dropped his knife. He ran at Umbra. Umbra laughed. "You come to die?"
Umbra impaled Kaelen with a shadow spike. The spike went through Kaelen's stomach. Kaelen coughed blood. But he didn't stop. He slid down the spike, pulling himself closer to Umbra.
He grabbed Umbra's faceless head.
"Binding..." Kaelen gritted his teeth, blood pouring from his mouth. "...Sequence... Start."
He activated Ambition. He didn't try to rot Umbra. He tried to Absorb him.
Umbra panicked. "What? What are you? get off!"
He tried to shake Kaelen off, but Kaelen was locked on. Kaelen's soul became a vacuum. He sucked the shadow essence out of the Monarch.
It was agony. It felt like drinking liquid nitrogen. Kaelen's veins turned black. His eyes turned black.
"NOOO!" Umbra shrieked. "I am Eternal! I am—"
SLURP.
The Monarch collapsed. He funneled into Kaelen's chest like water down a drain.
The room fell silent. The darkness lifted.
Kaelen fell to the floor. The spike wound in his stomach was already closing, stitched together by black threads of shadow.