Chapter 93: Boss – High Priest Dilas (6)

【Now then…】

Dilas sneered, tossing the silver shards of my broken dagger carelessly to the ground.

【Let us continue, Zhou Yuhong.】

“Tch!”

I switched grips, the Lustrous Core dagger steady in my right hand and the pistol with three rounds left clenched in my left.

Blade in the right. Gun in the left.

I’d used the runic dagger for so long that its weight and feel had become second nature. The Lustrous Core dagger had a different touch, a different heft, a different length. I couldn’t adjust instantly.

But right now, this was my most vital weapon.

“Aether Infusion!”

Dilas reversed his ritual dagger in his right hand, lowering his stance. For the first time, I saw him take up a fighting posture.

I mirrored his stance, feet planted, as Aether flowed silently along the Lustrous Core dagger and gathered into a cold, waiting killing intent.

Grievously wounded and with his life already ebbing away, Dilas could no longer unleash vast Dark Arts like before. From here on, it would be blade-to-blade, with smaller Dark Arts used as support.

【Be ready.】

The moment his whisper fell—

Clang!

“Gh!”

His Shadow’s Touch flared from the left hand. But I’d been ready. I slipped aside as he struck—one more disarm, and I was finished. The shadowy hand swept past me—wait. Why didn’t it stop!?

A chill shot through me. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the shadow-hand seize hold of the great stones piled behind me.

Snap!

And in that same instant, Dilas vanished from before me, appearing behind with near-teleport speed. The ritual dagger’s black edge slashed for my back, and I whirled, catching it with my dagger.

Clang!

The force drove me stumbling back. At the same time, I fired an Aether Arrow—not behind me, but above.

Dilas sneered, claws of Darkness raking from his left hand toward my chest.

Boom!

The stones overhead came crashing down. That arrow had been aimed at them from the start.

The sudden rain of rock broke his motion, forcing him to retreat. I leveled the Lustrous Core at him, firing a volley of Aether Arrows. But each shaft caught only empty air—his left hand flashed dark, and his form dissolved, vanishing into shadow like ink.

Pure instinct saved me. Battle intuition alone swung me to my right, dagger braced. Dilas reappeared, blade-first, and our weapons crashed together. And this—this was the moment I’d been waiting for.

“Release!”

The last of the Darkness stored in the Lustrous Core burst point-blank. His ritual dagger nearly flew from his grip, but at the same instant, he drove his palm into my gut.

【Dark Surge!】

“Gaaaaahhh!”

It was like a steel fist smashed into my stomach. My organs convulsed, my body launched backward. Before I even hit the ground, his left hand splayed wide, fingers aimed at me. Shadow’s Touch lashed out. My body wrenched violently forward. The world was a blur, and in the blink of an eye, I was in his grasp.

“What!?”

【Ha!】

Rip! Bang!

The sound of flesh being torn and a gunshot split the air. White-hot pain seared my left arm. Dilas’s abdomen spattered blood.

He released me, staggering back, clutching his side, panting hard. I crashed to the ground, clutching my mangled left arm with my right, forcing myself to breathe. The ritual dagger had gouged a deep wound into my arm. My pistol, now with only two rounds, slipped from my grip into the dirt. Blood gushed from me in torrents, my gut still churning from the earlier blow, and every muscle in my body was close to giving out.

No… no, no, no… Calm down!

“Cough… cough!”

Bracing myself on the ground with the Lustrous Core dagger in my right hand, I staggered upright, spitting blood and gasping for breath.

【What a pitiful sight.】

A few paces away, Dilas slid two fingers into the bullet hole in his abdomen. Darkness flickered. With a wet squelch, he drew out the blood-soaked slug. Even with the bullet gone, blood gushed freely until the Darkness welled from his hand, plugging the wound.

【I was careless again. Firearms really are convenient tools. Even the feeblest man can tear flesh apart with just a twitch of the finger.】

“You’re one to talk. That Shadow’s Touch of yours—what the hell is it? It doesn’t just snatch objects into your hand. You can move yourself with it, can’t you?”

【Correct.】

“Cheh… tsk!”

I stepped toward him, but barely two steps in, my knees buckled, and I nearly went down.

Damn it. My consciousness, it’s blurring. I’ve been fighting too long—Manson, Dilas, forcing down the Tree of Life’s Fruit. My body is past its limit. The fact I’m even standing is a miracle. This dagger feels like lead in my grip; just holding it drains every ounce of strength. There’s no way I can swing it with the same force as the rune dagger. It isn’t as sharp, either.

In that case…

I tightened my grip, pulling the Aether back, sealing it within the Lustrous Core instead of letting it flare outward.

【Look at you. You can’t even be called a broken bow. You’re nothing.】

Dilas advanced, voice low, but then he stumbled. His chest heaved, the Branch of Loving Kindness still gleaming from his sternum. The flesh exposed at his collar and sleeves was visibly withering.

“Nothing left in the bowstring, huh? You’re no better.”

【Don’t tell me you still won’t surrender?】

“Tch… if you gave up, this would be a lot easier on me too.”

【I, Dilas, despise those three words most of all: I surrender.】

“Then I’ll tell you, I’m the same!”

With a guttural snarl, I charged. He lowered himself and rushed in to meet me—

—

—

—

What followed was nothing more than two dying dogs brawling in the mud.

No elegance. No art.

My ruined left arm dangled as I struck, blocked, struck back. Blocked, lashed out with scraps of spellcraft, dodged, dodged again. He slashed, I countered. He slashed again, I returned.

Repetition. Repetition. Repetition. Over and over and over.

Two broken men, wringing the dregs of life from their bodies. Neither strike could change the outcome, and yet we forced ourselves on, pushing bloodless muscles into motion, delivering wound for wound.

How many cuts crisscrossed my body by now?

How much blood had I lost?

Over fifteen hundred milliliters, and a man will black out. At two thousand, severe shock, death looming. I… must already be past that line.

His ritual dagger had carved me who knows how many times. I dodged, I parried, but shallow cuts piled one atop the next, herding me step by step closer to death.

And yet Dilas was no different.

I could only fight a desperate defense. If I dragged him down first—that would be my victory.

His movements dulled further. The Darkness around him thinned. His swings lost power.

If he relaxed his focus for even a moment, he would die instantly—that must have been his state.

And me? If I let go for even a breath, I’d collapse into unconsciousness, never to wake again.

Dilas would never surrender. Even with death certain, he would never surrender.

“Raaahhhh!”

【Haaahhhhh!】

The gleaming Lustrous Core clashed against the Darkness-wreathed ritual dagger. In that instant, I ducked low and spat a mouthful of blood straight into his eyes. With his vision blurred, his movements slowed. I slammed into him, reversed my dagger, and drove it upward.

But tendrils of Darkness coiled around my arm. His knee rammed into my side, and then a strip of Darkness cracked across my face. His left hand stretched the shadow outward, shaping it into a whip. Blow after blow lashed down, forcing me to break away. He tightened his grip on the ritual blade, the Darkness thickening along its edge—no, not just coating it. I could see it clearly: runes of black flame, a magic pattern carved into the darkness itself.

Damn it.

【It ends here!】

As his blade fell, I raised the Lustrous Core to block.

Crack!

I knew.

I knew exactly what he was doing.

But I had no choice. If I didn’t block, the blade would go straight through my skull.

The ritual knife struck the Lustrous Core—and the writhing black rune crawled across the surface. I knew this trick: just like when he shattered my runic dagger. Reverse analysis, inner breakdown, destruction from within.

But this time the devastation was far more violent.

“Ughhhh!”

Blood sprayed from my right hand.

The Lustrous Core didn’t just fracture—it exploded.

Crystal shards burst apart, ripping through my palm like a grenade. The sharpest fragments buried themselves deep into flesh and bone, splitting skin open, blood splattering everywhere.

【It’s over, Zhou Yuhong. Victory is mine!】

Dilas roared. His left hand spread again, reaching for me.

【Shadow’s Touch!】

In my slowed vision, the black hand crept toward me as though moving through molasses. It seized my throat and squeezed tight.

And then yanked.

The world twisted. In the blink of an eye, space folded, and I was in his grasp.

【I’ve got you.】

He clamped my face, Darkness pulsing along the ritual dagger in his right hand. The black light surged as he stabbed straight for my chest.

Crack!

【What!?】

Flesh was pierced, but not my chest.

My left hand.

The ritual dagger had punched clean through, from palm to the back of my hand, driven all the way to the hilt.

“That’s right, Dilas.”

My left hand was long past feeling. But driven by sheer will, my fingers curled and clenched, locking around his right hand, binding both blade and arm in place.

His left hand still gripped my face. If he let go, I would break free again.

For the first time, both of his hands were occupied. He was completely defenseless.

And I still had my right hand.

The Lustrous Core had already stored more than enough Aether. Even shattered, its power would not dissipate so easily. Shards of the crystal were still embedded in my ruined palm, glowing faintly.

I pressed that blood-soaked, mutilated right hand against his chest—overlapping the glow of the Branch of Loving Kindness.

“I’ve… got you!”

【Tch!】

Panic jolted him. He tried to recoil, to summon what Darkness he had left to shield himself, to ward off my hand.

“Amber Blade-Spear!”

Crash!

Amber—solidified Aether, speared outward in the form of a blade and a spear, bursting from the shards embedded in my right hand. A point-blank strike, all force condensed into one piercing thrust. His hasty defense crumpled. Nothing could withstand it.

【Ah…】

Time seemed to freeze.

I locked eyes with Dilas.

A storm of emotions flickered in those black-and-white reversed pupils.

He looked as if he still wanted to act, but in the end, he did nothing.

The strength clamped on my face ebbed away. His grip on the ritual dagger loosened. His legs buckled, and with a dull thud, he collapsed to his knees.

I stood.

He knelt.

At the very last moment, the one left standing was the victor.

【I… lost…?】

He stared at the Aether slowly dissipating from the lance that had pierced through his chest.

“Yes… you lost. I won.”

【Lost? Lost… I… actually…】

His muttering grew faint. I could feel his presence wither all at once. The Darkness cloaking him scattered into nothing; the robe woven of shadow vanished. His body was shriveled, skeletal. His chest had been run through by both the Branch of Loving Kindness and the Amber Blade-Spear. Foul blood dripped down and soon, not even blood would flow.

My own consciousness slid into darkness. My vision tilted ninety degrees, and by the time I realized it, I was already on the ground. Putrid blood seeped slowly from every wound across my body.

Cold.

So cold.

So cold.

So cold…

【No… no… not… yet…】

Somewhere in the haze, I heard Dilas, on the brink of death, muttering. And then—he moved.

Grab!

Agonizing pain shot up from my left hand, snapping me half awake. I forced my eyes to turn. He should have been dead already, yet his skeletal fingers clutched my hand. The hand that should have been numb flared with torment, as if it were being flayed alive.

Darkness—thick, boundless Darkness—was pouring from Dilas. Not the external force, but the raw essence of his very soul.

【I cannot… let it all… end here… My creation… my legacy… must… continue!】

“Wait—what the hell are you—stop—!”

【Victory demands reward… Defeat demands punishment… Zhou Yuhong… since you are the one who bested me… you have the duty… the ability… Show me… show me how far you can carry it!】

Dilas’s roar. The ground’s convulsions. The thunder that shook the soul itself. Pain like the rending of flesh and spirit alike. Something entered me. Something was carved away. Something changed. Something was lost.

Endless Darkness swallowed my body, drowned my consciousness, my mind, my heart, my very soul—dragging me down into the abyss.

Down—

Down—

Down—

=====The Mist King has been slain===== =====FOG-PURIFIED=====

~~~~~

Zhou Yuhong vs. Mist King · High Priest Dilas Zhou Yuhong, WIN Achievement unlocked: Heir of Darkness

Zhou Yuhong Enemies defeated: 75 Allies rescued: 20 Players killed: 0 Total Score: 4340 Rank: 3 / 96,798