I didn't even register the words.

I didn't have time.

I didn't think.

I didn't breathe.

I simply acted.

Ok, maybe I wasn't the one who saved my wonderful ass, but it's basically the same thing.

The black fire was right there, just a breath away from turning me into a roasted corpse. My skin prickled. I could feel the heat building, boiling my blood even though it hadn't touched me yet. It was a searing wave of agony ready to engulf me, and yet, I wasn't afraid. I had better things to think about, like why the hell I hadn't teleported yet.

Then, in the blink of an eye, I felt a shift.

The space mana wrapped around me like a tightening coil, and before I knew it, I was no longer standing in front of the giant wolf. Instead, I was high in the air, aiming directly at the beast. The floor below me was a distant memory, and I had one goal now: take that wolf down.

The roar of the fire died down, replaced by the screeching howl of a wolf, not the massive one in front of me, but another. A packmate, perhaps. The confusion in the air was almost tangible, as if the wolf was too dumb to understand what had just happened.

Boss Bastard, the big one, froze for a moment.

I could almost hear its thoughts: Why isn't this very handsome and powerful human dead yet?

That's when you realize what had just happened.

Kent.

Well, it wasn't just him; Annalise helped out quite a bit as well. What did you really think I would put my entire body in the hands of that stupid human?

The hundreds of strings she had spread across the cavern were also wrapped around all of us, and as soon as the string came in contact with the black fire that Boss Bastard had spewed, she alerted Kent to teleport me, which was why I was now unscathed and heading towards revenge.

{Done talking to the imaginary audience in your head? I swear you did this before as well.}

As usual, I ignored the useless bastard.

I didn't waste any time.

I already knew my course of action.

Nyxian Dirge – Nekros Style – Sepulcher Thrust.

The world seemed to slow as I reached for the glass blade in my hand. Death mana enveloped the blade like an ethereal cloak, thick and suffocating, while a soft, white glow pulsed around my body, a shield of life mana to brace for the recoil.

The hybrid of the fourth and sixth stances in my sword art... it was going to be beautiful, violent, explosive and very, very painful.

But I didn't care.

I was already flying toward the wolf.

I wasn't sure if it even realized what was happening, but I knew this: one of us wasn't going to make it out of this alive...At least I hope so.

My feet touched the air as if it were a solid thing, and I launched off, focusing most of my will into my sword, into my body, into the moment. The wolf was enormous, but that was nothing to be worried about.

It was never about size; the enemy could be as large as a city, but an ascendant could still destroy them in a single strike. Size didn't matter much in a fight of this scale.

It wasn't about strength either.

It was about who had the superior will to fight.

And, well... I liked to think I had that in the bag.

I could feel the ground far beneath me shuddering, the shockwaves from my leap reverberating through the cavern.

The air itself seemed to flicker around me as the force of my attack built up. And then, without hesitation, without a single ounce of doubt, I changed my course midair, my body an arrow aimed at its throat.

The wolf, for all its size and power, barely had time to register my movement before my blade was aimed at its heart.

I was coming down fast, with a purpose. But just before I could land, I heard the howl of the wolf again, this time closer, more pained.

Something wasn't right, but I didn't care.

I wasn't going to care.

In that one moment, it was just me and my sword.

And then, just as I felt the power of my strike explode inside me, I realized this was going to hurt like hell.

The recoil of this hybrid strike was not something I was prepared for.

I dropped out of the sky like a very violent, very handsome meteor.

My blade lined up perfectly with the wolf's throat.

One clean thrust.

One perfect strike.

And then...

BOOM.

A beam of black shadow, darker than the night sky, darker than 'under the bed,' exploded out of my sword, shooting straight through the Boss Bastard's neck.

It didn't slice.

It didn't burn.

It phased.

Passed through like mist, like the wolf's body wasn't even there. It came out from the other side of its neck, and the wolf stopped its pained howl mid scream.

And I wasn't worried.

Not even a little.

Because that was the whole point.

As the beam faded, I remembered the part of the fourth stance that actually mattered:

[The first taste of death. A piercing thrust that leaves a conceptual void within the target...]

There was more after that, something dramatic and inspirational, probably about the eternal embrace of the grave—but I stopped reading there. The most important line in the entire description: it leaves a conceptual void.

And right on cue, the wolf screamed again.

A proper, echo-rattling, soul-shaking howl.

The wild, chaotic, blue-green waves of energy surrounding its body like a formless flaming shield shattered instantly, vanishing like glass dust in a sandstorm.

Then the creature collapsed like a marionette that had its strings cut.

One second towering above me like a mountain of fur and muscle and homicide.

The next?

Legs gone.

Body folding.

Big dramatic THUD.

The whole package

I hovered in the air a moment longer, blinking. 'Worked better than expected. Nice.'

The memory of the second half of my hybrid techniques slowly crawled up my memory lane, like an insey winsey spider climbing up the waterspout -the sixth stance:

[The stance manifests the sound of death itself. Every swing releases a wave of soul-crushing resonance, forcing enemies' bodies to believe they are already corpses.]

In simple terms?

A weaponized placebo. Or, well… nocebo.

It's a simple principle, really: a belief that something is wrong, and then it becomes wrong. The mind doesn't need much to start shutting down, and once it's convinced of its own demise, the body follows suit.

A cruel gimmick, one that fools the body into feeling the effects of death, without a single cut. A nocebo effect: the body's response to negative expectation, turning fear into physical reality.

Add a bunch of death mana into a sword art made for killing gods, and you get... this as a result.

A trick so cruel it should've come with a warning label, the sort of thing a magician warns the crowd about right before unveiling the grand prize.

The stance didn't break bones or cut nerves.

It just whispered into the victim's soul:

"Hey buddy, remember the big black beam of shadow and death that just hit your neck? It actually hit your legs, and now, they're gone."

And the body, being extremely stupid and extremely cooperative, goes:

"Oh. Guess we're collapsing now."

It was, in essence, the ultimate gaslighting technique in existence, something that would put even 'The Unparalleled Handsome Arcane Human' to shame.

So the Boss Bastard wasn't actually injured.

Not yet.

It just believed it was already dead from the waist down.

Which, honestly, was kind of hilarious.

And deeply satisfying.

You know the feeling of exhilaration you get when you complete a particularly hard boss that on one was able to complete before. I was feeling exactly that

I descended slowly toward the fallen wolf, the white light still coating my body, the black death aura swirling off my blade in lazy curls.

Each step I took echoed across the cavern.

Calm.

Casual.

Predatory.

'I swear,' I thought, 'for a monster the size of a house, you were surprisingly cooperative.'

The wolf's massive eye rolled up to stare at me wide, panicked, and very aware that I was coming to finish the job.

I grinned.

Cocky.

A little arrogant.

But humble enough to acknowledge that yes, I looked incredibly cool right now.

I raised my blade.

And then I walked forward, intent on killing it.

A/N: Hey everyone, I need your help. The novel hasn't been doing great these past few days, and honestly, it's been a bit discouraging. I'd really appreciate any support you can give, whether it's power stones, golden tickets, donations, or just a simple comment. Anything helps.

Thanks for listening to my ramblings, and as always...

Enjoy!

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