Chapter 79: Level 48
The massive claw came down first.
It swept across the black stone floor in a horizontal arc that would have flattened a fortress wall. Leon stepped aside at the last moment, the Aura of the End-Game flaring hard enough to blacken the edge of the claw as it passed. Stone cracked. Dust exploded upward. The force of the swing still sent a shockwave through the chamber.
The entity finished pulling itself free of the cocoon.
It stood nearly twenty meters tall, a towering construct of yellowed bone plates and dark iron joints. Four long arms ended in curved claws. A second pair of smaller limbs folded against its torso, each holding a dense core of compressed crimson light. The skull was elongated, featureless except for the two burning sockets that never left Leon.
No name appeared.
No level.
Only the raw pressure of something that had been sealed here long before the Concord ever claimed Floor 8.
Leon called his status once, briefly.
[STATUS MENU]
Name: Leon Graves
Class: Sovereign of Finality: Apocalypse Monarch (Rank: SSS)
Level: 45
Health: 14,620 / 14,620
Mana: 8,890 / 8,890
[ATTRIBUTES]
Strength: 612
Agility: 432
Constitution: 622
Mana: 517
Perception: 124
He closed it. The numbers were solid. They would need to be.
The entity moved again.
Both lower claws struck at once, one high, one low. Leon slipped between them, the domain pressing outward to blunt the edges. He closed the distance in three rapid steps and drove the Abyssal Stinger toward a joint in the nearest knee. The blade sank in, but the resistance was heavier than any previous bone guardian. Necrotic Injection flooded the wound. The limb locked for half a second—enough time for Leon to twist away as a third claw slammed down where he had been standing.
Crimson light flared from the cores held in the smaller arms. Two dense beams of pure destructive energy lanced toward him. Leon raised one hand and released a focused Calamity Tide. The violet wave met the beams in mid-air. For a moment the two forces warred, then Finality won. The crimson beams unraveled into gray ash that drifted harmlessly to the floor.
The entity recoiled half a step—the first sign of caution.
Leon did not give it time to recover.
He expanded the Aura of the End-Game to its limit. Absolute darkness flooded the center of the chamber. The crimson veins in the walls dimmed. The light in the entity’s sockets flickered. Where the domain touched the yellowed bone plates, fine cracks began to spread.
The buried sovereign answered with raw power.
It dropped both massive claws into the floor and ripped upward, tearing free two long slabs of black stone. It hurled them like siege projectiles. Leon activated Abyssal Step, vanishing into the shadow dimension for the full six seconds. The slabs crashed through the space he had occupied and shattered against the far wall. When he reappeared, he was already behind the entity’s left leg.
Finality Eclipse.
The concentrated concept of decay punched straight through the joint. Bone and iron screamed as the knee collapsed. The towering form staggered, one leg folding beneath it. Leon was already moving up the falling limb, the Stinger finding every seam and gap. Each successful strike fed another pulse of Absolute Extraction into his core.
The entity tried to crush him with its remaining claws. He stayed inside its reach, too close for the large limbs to strike cleanly. The smaller arms swung the crimson cores like clubs. One grazed his shoulder; the Void Monarch Set absorbed the impact, though the force still drove him to one knee for a fraction of a second.
He rose and kept cutting.
When the second leg joint failed, the buried sovereign finally fell.
It crashed onto its side with a sound like a collapsing tower. Leon did not hesitate. He ran up the torso, drove the Abyssal Stinger into the center of the elongated skull, and released every remaining drop of focused Finality he could channel through the blade.
The crimson light in the sockets flared once—bright enough to cast sharp shadows across the entire chamber—then died.
The massive body locked in place. Gray cracks raced outward from the skull wound, spreading across every plate and joint. Within seconds the entire form began to break apart, collapsing into a mountain of ash, dark metal fragments, and fading crimson embers.
Silence returned, broken only by the soft settling of dust.
[Unique Entity Destroyed – Ancient Floor Bound Sovereign]
[Experience gained: 285,000.]
[Level Up! You are now Level 46.]
[Level Up! You are now Level 47.]
[Level Up! You are now Level 48.]
[Absolute Extraction Activated...]
Strength +31
Agility +24
Constitution +31
Mana +28
Maximum Mana permanently increased by +520.
The torrent of power this time was immense—denser and more refined than anything the Concord commanders had provided. Leon stood amid the ash and let it integrate fully into his frame before he moved.
At the center of the remains lay a single object: a large, incomplete core of yellowed bone and black iron, still faintly warm. The shard he already carried resonated with it in a clear, rising tone.
Leon picked up the core.
The moment his fingers closed around it, the remaining crimson veins in the chamber walls flared once and then went permanently dark. The heavy presence that had filled the space vanished completely.
Whatever had been buried under the Bleached Expanse was gone.
He turned toward the far side of the chamber. A new passage had opened in the wall—smooth, deliberate, and leading upward at a gentle slope. The system’s spatial framework was already rewriting itself around the absence of the sealed sovereign.
Leon slid the core into his inventory beside the shard, adjusted his coat, and started toward the new path.
Floor 8’s true depth had been cleared.
What lay beyond it would have to answer next.