Chapter 76: Descent [ I ]
The next descent was steeper.
Leon followed the spiral gallery downward, the yellowed bone shard pulsing in steady rhythm against his side. Each pulse matched the slow throb of the dark veins running through the walls. The air grew colder and heavier the farther he went. Crimson light no longer leaked from distant openings; it now clung to the bone itself in thin, moving threads, as though the structure was beginning to remember it was alive.
The Aura of the End-Game stayed tight around him. Where it touched the glowing veins, the crimson light died and turned gray. The buried presence noticed. A low, continuous vibration began to rise from far below, not strong enough to shake the galleries, but constant enough to feel in the teeth.
Leon did not slow.
The third major gallery opened into a wide, circular chamber whose ceiling disappeared into darkness. In the center stood a raised platform of black iron and fused bone. Around it, six more incomplete guardians waited in a loose ring. These were larger than the previous three, their plates better fitted, their glaives longer and less cracked. The crimson lights in their sockets burned hotter.
They moved the moment he stepped into the chamber.
Leon met them without ceremony.
The first two came together. He stepped between their converging blades, the domain pressing outward hard enough to slow both swings. The Abyssal Stinger found the gap beneath the first guardian’s collarbone; a short burst of Calamity Tide took the legs from the second. The remaining four tried to surround him. He did not let them. Each time a glaive came close, the Aura of the End-Game dulled its edge and the Stinger finished the work. Necrotic Injection kept every kill silent and final.
When the last guardian collapsed into ash, the chamber fell quiet again except for the deeper vibration.
[Six Incomplete Bone Guardians destroyed.]
[Experience gained: 94,000.]
[Absolute Extraction Activated...]
Strength +11
Agility +8
Constitution +11
Mana +12
Maximum Mana permanently increased by +120.
Leon stood in the center of the platform and checked his state.
[STATUS MENU]
Name: Leon Graves
Class: Sovereign of Finality: Apocalypse Monarch (Rank: SSS)
Level: 44
Health: 13,480 / 13,480
Mana: 8,210 / 8,210
[ATTRIBUTES]
Strength: 584
Agility: 412
Constitution: 594
Mana: 487
Perception: 119
Still Level 44. The gains were steady but not yet enough to push the next threshold. He closed the panel.
The bone shard in his inventory flared hard enough that he felt the heat through the fabric of his coat. The vibration from below intensified. Dust drifted down from the unseen ceiling. Somewhere deeper, stone ground against stone.
A new opening had appeared on the far side of the chamber—an archway that had not been there a moment before. The dark veins in the walls all leaned toward it, pulsing faster.
Leon walked to the archway and looked through.
Beyond it the gallery continued, but the bone here was different—older, denser, and scored with deep grooves that looked almost like claw marks left by something vast. The crimson light no longer clung to the surface. It ran inside the bone like blood.
He stepped through.
The temperature dropped another degree. The Aura of the End-Game spread a little farther ahead of him, testing the air. Whatever slept at the bottom of the sinkhole was no longer merely stirring. It was beginning to focus.
Leon adjusted his grip on the Abyssal Stinger and continued downward.
The buried thing under Floor 8 had decided he was worth waking for.