Dorian
Dorian looked down at Bloodprice. The curse was active, yes. The hemotoxin pulsed through the blade. But it wasn't enough. He'd activated it with his blood, but Max was too fast. Too elusive. If Dorian couldn't cut him, the curse was worthless.
I need more.
His jaw clenched. He raised his left hand—the one already bleeding from gripping the blade—and pressed it flat against Bloodprice's edge. Then he dragged it down the length of the steel, opening a deep gash from palm to wrist.
Blood poured out, soaking the weapon completely.
"I offer my blood," Dorian growled through gritted teeth, his voice echoing with something darker than rage. "Grant me power."
He didn't care about the cost. His comrades were gone. The price didn't matter anymore.
Bloodprice responded.
The dark red energy exploded into crimson flames that wreathed the entire blade. The curse didn't just activate—it evolved. The hemotoxin aura expanded, thickening the air around Dorian with lethal intent. The very atmosphere grew heavy, toxic, poisonous. This wasn't the Level 3 curse anymore. This was something that could kill even Level 4 or Level 5 adventurers with a single cut.
Dorian's eyes burned with cold determination as he raised the fully awakened Bloodprice.
"No more running," he growled, his voice low and deadly. "No more tricks. Just you. And me."
Max's expression was unreadable behind the PoD Armor, but his rapier was raised, ready.
-◈ -
Max
Dorian moved.
One moment he was thirty feet away. The next, he was directly in front of Max, greatsword raised high for a devastating downward slash.
Max's eyes widened. That speed—
It wasn't Level 3 anymore. This was closer to Alfrigg's Level 4 stats during Max's final day of baptism—the kind of raw speed that had pushed him to his absolute limits. The curse hadn't just enhanced the blade's lethality. It had enhanced Dorian. Before, Max had been able to comfortably keep up with his movements, even play with him. Not anymore.
The crimson-wreathed greatsword descended like a guillotine.
Can't block. Can't risk contact. That blade feeds on blood—I don't want to know what happens if it gets a taste of mine.
Which was ironic, considering he hadn't bled once since entering the Dungeon. He'd taken hits, sure—bruises, impacts, the occasional burn—but no cuts. No open wounds. And he liked it that way.
Shunshin.
Max vanished, reappearing twenty feet to the left.
But Dorian didn't stop. With single-minded fury and sheer raw speed, he caught up. Not with a technique. Not with magic. Just pure physical speed honed by the curse's power boost. He appeared directly in front of Max mid-slash, the greatsword still descending from its original arc as if the distance between them had never existed.
Shit!
No time to dodge again. No space to evade. Max's only option was to meet steel with steel. He raised his rapier, layering the blade with PoD, and angled it to deflect the incoming strike.
CLANG.
The greatsword met the rapier and cut through the PoD. Max felt the resistance give way like tissue paper. Bloodprice's cursed edge carved through his defensive coating as if it didn't exist, and the impact sent a shockwave up Max's arm. Worse—the edge of his rapier chipped, a jagged notch appearing where the two blades met.
It cut through my PoD. How—?!
But he didn't have time to process it. Dorian pressed his advantage immediately, pivoting into a brutal horizontal slash aimed at Max's midsection. The crimson flames trailing Bloodprice painted the air red.
Max tried to counterattack, but his timing was off—still reeling from the shock of his PoD being penetrated. He wouldn't be able to strike in time.
He knew he only had two options: Block or die.
He condensed the PoD coating around his torso where the blade would hit, layering it thick and dense, focused entirely on not getting cut.
The greatsword connected.
Max didn't get cut. But the sheer force of the impact was catastrophic.
A thin line appeared across his shirt where the cursed blade met PoD—the fabric sliced cleanly through, revealing pale skin beneath. But no blood welled up. His PoD held just enough to prevent the hemotoxin from reaching flesh.
Wait—
Max's eyes widened as the realization hit him like a thunderbolt. His armor. The protective gear he wore for the Dungeon—it was gone. When he activated PoD Armor, the black-red coating must have erased his equipment to make direct contact with his skin. No padding. No barrier between him and the world except the PoD itself.
And Bloodprice had cut through it.
The cursed blade had reached his skin. Only the dense layering had prevented it from drawing blood, but the gap between safety and injury had been measured in fractions of a millimeter. If he'd been even slightly slower, if the PoD had been even marginally thinner—
I would be close to death.
He couldn't think more as the sheer force lifted Max clean off his feet and launched him backward like a ragdoll. He flew through the air, arms flailing, and slammed into the cavern wall with a deafening BANG that echoed through the corridor.
Pain exploded across his back and ribs—raw pain, unfiltered by protective layers. His vision swam. The impact rattled his bones and drove the air from his lungs in a single violent gasp. —ow. Ow. OW.
Max's thoughts fragmented for a split second, disorientation clouding his awareness. The world tilted. His ears rang.
And that split second was all Dorian needed.
THUD.
Dorian appeared directly in front of Max—greatsword raised, eyes blazing with predatory hunger. The cursed blade descended toward Max's throat like divine judgment, crimson flames trailing behind it. Victory was mere inches away. Dorian could taste it.
The blade closed in on Max's neck—
—and Max's body moved.
Not consciously. Not by choice. Auto-Evade seized control, overriding his disoriented state, and yanked him to the side. Not far. Just one foot. But one foot was enough.
The blade missed his throat by inches, carving through empty air where his neck had been a heartbeat ago. The cursed flames licked harmlessly past his cheek.
Max's survival instincts kicked in immediately. Using the momentum from the dodge, he twisted mid-air, planted one foot against the wall, and pushed. He flipped backward, landed in a crouch, and skidded to a halt fifteen feet away.
His breathing was ragged. His back throbbed. His rapier had a notch in it. But he was alive.
That was too close. Way too close.
Max's mind snapped back into focus, adrenaline sharpening his thoughts to razor edges. He's faster than me now. Stronger too. And that blade cuts through PoD like it's nothing. I can't afford to trade blows. Can't afford to block again.
Which meant he needed to change tactics. Immediately.
He dialed Auto-Evade down—from fifty feet to fifteen feet. The sphere of awareness contracted violently, shrinking to a tight bubble around his body. The strain on his mana reserves eased instantly, freeing up a massive reservoir of magical energy.
And Max channeled all of it into his PoD Armor.
The black-red coating that had wrapped around his body like a second skin darkened. The energy grew thicker, denser, more solid. It stopped shimmering and started pulsing—a living shell of erasure that clung to him like liquid shadow hardened into plate. Max's silhouette became almost entirely black, wreathed in crimson highlights where the PoD's energy bled through. He looked less like a fighter and more like a demon forged from void and violence.
His breathing steadied. His grip on the chipped rapier tightened.
Dorian stood across from him, Bloodprice raised, chest heaving with exertion and rage. Blood still dripped from his self-inflicted wounds, feeding the curse. Neither moved. The corridor was silent except for the crackling hum of Max's reinforced PoD Armor and the low, hungry pulse of Bloodprice's hemotoxin aura.
Then Dorian smiled—a cold, vicious thing. "Good. You're finally taking this seriously."
Max didn't respond. His eyes tracked every micro-movement—the shift of Dorian's weight, the angle of his blade, the tension in his muscles.
Dorian charged.
Max met him head-on, rapier raised, PoD Armor pulsing with dark energy. Their blades clashed in a storm of steel and sparks. Bloodprice's crimson flames met Max's black-red erasure in explosive bursts of light. The corridor filled with the screaming ring of metal on metal.
Dorian pressed forward with relentless aggression—overhead slash, horizontal cut, upward sweep. Each strike was calculated to corner Max, forcing him into a defensive position where escape was impossible.
Max dodged. And dodged. And dodged again.
Auto-Evade screamed warnings constantly, painting threat vectors in his mind a split second before they materialized. His body moved on pure instinct—ducking under a decapitating slash by inches, twisting away from a thrust aimed at his heart, sidestepping a pommel strike that would have shattered his jaw. Every dodge was measured in millimeters. Hairbreadth margins between life and death.
Not good. The gap is decreasing.
Max tried to counterattack—a quick thrust toward Dorian's exposed flank. His PoD-coated rapier shot forward, aimed at the ribs—
Dorian twisted, but not quite fast enough. The rapier grazed his side, carving a shallow line across his torso through the gap in his armor. Blood welled up immediately, crimson against tanned skin.
Got him!
But instead of retreating or showing pain, Dorian's smile widened. He pressed forward even harder, forcing Max to abort his follow-up and retreat. PoD Armor flared as Max channeled more energy into defense.
That should have made him more cautious. Why is he—?
Max didn't have time to finish the thought. Bloodprice swept in a wide horizontal arc. Max ducked, the cursed blade passing inches over his head, and immediately had to roll left to avoid the follow-up thrust.
"What's wrong, mage?" Dorian taunted, his voice dripping with mockery despite the fresh wound on his side. "All that power and you can't even hit me properly?"
I just did hit you, you bastard.
"Saving your breath?" Max shot back between gasps, buying himself a second to think. "Smart. You'll need it."
Dorian laughed—cold and sharp. "You're the one slowing down. I can feel it."
An overhead slash. Max sidestepped. The greatsword slammed into the stone floor, cracking it. Dorian ripped it free without pause, momentum carrying into another strike.
Max saw another opening—Dorian's guard was too wide on the left. He lunged, rapier aimed for the exposed shoulder.
The blade connected. Another shallow cut, this time on Dorian's upper arm. Blood flowed freely, dripping down to his elbow.
Two hits. Why isn't he defending better?
"Or maybe—" Max twisted away from a horizontal sweep, "—you're just getting predictable."
It was a lie and they both knew it.
Dorian lunged with a thrust. The blade scraped against Max's PoD Armor, leaving a thin trail of sparks but no penetration. The pressure behind it sent Max stumbling backward anyway.
"Predictable?" Dorian's eyes gleamed with dark amusement, blood still dripping from his arm. "You haven't landed a meaningful hit. What does that make you?"
He's right. Shallow cuts aren't stopping him. I can't keep this up forever.
"Dead man talking," Max retorted, but his voice lacked conviction. He was buying time, trying to find an angle, any opening—
Another slash. Max barely evaded, the flames licking past his ribs. His breathing was getting heavier. His movements a fraction slower.
A feint high, then a brutal low sweep. Max jumped, the sword passing beneath his feet. He landed and immediately counterattacked—a thrust aimed at Dorian's thigh.
The rapier bit into flesh. Another cut. More blood.
Three hits now. But he's not slowing down. If anything, he's getting MORE aggressive.
Max's back nearly hit the corridor wall. Shit. I'm running out of space.
There was a moment of silence as they circled each other, both breathing hard, weapons raised. Max's mind raced, trying to process what was happening.
Blood dripped from Dorian's side, arm, and thigh—three separate wounds, all bleeding freely. His fighting style was too refined, too practiced for this many successful hits. Someone with his enhanced speed should be untouchable.
This doesn't make sense. His speed—it wasn't like this before. How the hell did he jump from Level 3 to Level 4 all of a sudden?
"How?" Max finally asked, his voice raw with exhaustion and genuine confusion. "How the hell are you this fast? You weren't—this isn't Level 3 speed."
Dorian's smile turned savage, almost grateful for the opening. "Finally asking the right question." He raised Bloodprice slightly, the crimson flames pulsing brighter. Blood from his wounds dripped down, spattering on the stone. "The curse doesn't just poison. It enhances. My blood for power. The more I bleed, the stronger I get. Faster. Deadlier."
Fuck. So those cuts I landed—they're making him STRONGER?
Max's jaw clenched. They continued circling, neither willing to commit to the next exchange yet.
Can't let him bleed more. Need to end this without giving him ammunition. Vital strikes only. Heart, throat, brain—instant kills.
"You know what's funny?" Dorian continued, his voice taking on a different edge as if he didn't just reveal critical info—not mocking, but something colder. Accusatory. "You light familia types are all the same. It's righteous when you hunt us down. Justice when you slaughter my men."
Bloodprice swept in a testing arc. Max parried, the impact sending vibrations up his arm. As their blades connected, Max disengaged and lunged—not for an easy target, but for Dorian's throat. A killing blow.
Dorian twisted at the last instant. The rapier that should have pierced his carotid instead carved a shallow line across his ribs. More blood.
Damn it. He redirected it.
"But the moment we do the same?" Dorian pressed forward with two quick strikes, seemingly unbothered by the fresh wound. "Suddenly we're the monsters. Suddenly it's evil."
Max dodged the first, deflected the second, and created distance. "That's—"
"Hypocrisy," Dorian finished, his eyes boring into Max's. "That's what it is. We're all killers here. The only difference is you get to feel good about it."
Max's teeth ground together. Part of him wanted to reject it outright, but the accusation landed harder than he wanted to admit. Twenty-three bodies. Twenty-three lives he'd ended in the span of minutes.
"No," Max said finally, his voice low and hard. He was speaking more for himself than any light familia ideology. "I'm killing you knowing what you are. Worst of the worst. You wouldn't bat an eye to save anyone—you're more interested in meaningless slaughter."
An overhead slash. Max sidestepped, and as Dorian recovered, Max lunged forward—rapier aimed directly at Dorian's heart. A finishing strike.
Dorian shifted his weight, angling his body. The thrust that should have pierced his heart instead carved a deep gash across his forearm. Blood flowed freely.
He's doing it on purpose. Turning fatal strikes into wounds.
"What will you get if you got rid of the light familias?" Max continued, breathing hard, frustration mounting. "Are you sure you can cull the dungeon better than a Level 5 or 6 could?" His eyes locked onto Dorian's. "Without them, this city falls. Monsters pour out. People die. And for what? What's your grand plan after you've murdered everyone standing between Orario and extinction?"
Dorian went silent.
His blade didn't stop moving—a horizontal sweep that forced Max to duck. As Max came up from the dodge, he saw an opening and committed—rapier thrust aimed at Dorian's exposed spine. Instant paralysis if it connected.
Dorian arched his back, the movement fluid. The rapier slashed across his shoulder blade instead—deep, but not crippling. More blood dripping down Dorian's back.
Six wounds now. All because he's redirecting my killing blows into bleeds.
"That—" Dorian started, then stopped. His jaw clenched. Blood now flowed from six separate wounds: side, arm, thigh, ribs, forearm, shoulder. "That's not—"
He clearly didn't want to talk about it.
"That can be easily answered with this battle," Dorian said finally, his voice forcibly steady as he changed the subject. "Whoever's left standing achieves victory in the end. If you're so confident in your cause, prove it."
The words hung in the air between them.
Blood dripped steadily from Dorian's wounds, forming small puddles on the stone floor. Max's instincts screamed that something was off. He was aiming for vitals, going for instant kills—but every strike was being manipulated into something non-lethal.
He's controlling the battle. Making me hit him exactly where he wants.
Then Dorian's expression hardened further. "But before we get philosophical about the greater good—" his voice dripped with venom now, "—let's talk about how you killed them. My people. You didn't give them a chance to surrender. Didn't offer terms. Just... butchered them like animals."
Max's jaw clenched. Something cold and vicious rose in his chest—exhaustion burning away any filter he might have had.
"Your people?" Max's voice came out low, dangerous. "You mean the ones who walked into my trap? The ones who followed you to their deaths?" He took a step forward despite the danger. "The very same people who were hunting me since I arrived in this city?"
Dorian's grip on Bloodprice tightened, knuckles going white.
"And where were you when they needed you?" Max continued, his words like daggers. "Hiding behind their bodies while I cut them down. Some leadership that was. Some protector you were." His eyes locked onto Dorian's, cold and merciless. "They didn't die to me. They died because you failed them."
The silence that followed was deafening.
Then Dorian's expression shattered. The cold calculation vanished, replaced by incandescent rage. His eyes blazed with murderous fury, veins standing out on his neck, his entire body trembling with barely contained violence.
"You BASTARD—!"
Bloodprice came down in a brutal overhead strike—not calculated, not controlled, just raw violence. Max raised his rapier to deflect, PoD flaring—but the impact was devastating. The force behind it was insane, driven by pure rage and grief. Max's arms screamed as he was sent skidding backward, boots scraping stone, nearly losing his grip on his weapon.
Dorian didn't relent. He pressed forward like a berserker, strikes coming faster, harder, angrier. Each blow carried the weight of twenty-three dead comrades behind it.
"They were MINE to protect!" Dorian roared, punctuating each word with a strike. "Garron! Marcus! Elena! All of them!"
Max could barely defend—but when openings appeared, he took them. Not for shallow cuts. For kills.
His rapier flashed toward Dorian's throat—Dorian ducked, and the blade carved his shoulder instead.
A thrust aimed at Dorian's heart—Dorian twisted, and it became a deep gash across his hip.
A desperate slash at Dorian's femoral artery—Dorian angled his leg, and the cut carved his calf muscle instead.
He's STILL doing it. Even in rage, he's controlling where I hit him!
"And you—" CLANG "—just—" CLANG "—slaughtered them!"
The greatsword came in a horizontal sweep aimed at taking Max's head off. Max ducked, felt the wind of its passing—and lunged upward with his rapier aimed at the underside of Dorian's jaw. A brain strike.
Dorian jerked his head back. The rapier carved across his lower back instead—deep, painful, bleeding profusely.
Ten wounds. All of them deep. None of them fatal.
But Dorian was faster now than he'd been at the start. The rage, the blood loss, the curse—they were all feeding into something. He closed the gap before Max could create distance, forcing Max into pure defense.
"I'm going to make you pay," Dorian snarled.
Then, suddenly, his voice became steady again—cold, focused, lethal. The rage was still there, but now it was controlled. Weaponized. His breathing evened out. His stance tightened despite the blood flowing from ten separate wounds.
Max's eyes widened as realization crashed into him like a tidal wave.
Oh no. Oh fuck. He's been baiting me. Every "opening" was controlled. He's been collecting blood the entire time.
"You want to know what makes me dangerous?" Dorian said quietly, raising Bloodprice high. Blood dripped from his arms, his torso, his legs—painting the stone floor crimson beneath him. The flames wreathing the blade pulsed brighter, hungry, as if feeding on the blood. "It's not just that I kill mages."
He looked directly at Max, and his smile was triumphant.
"It's how I kill them. You aimed for vitals. Smart. But I decided where you'd actually hit. Every. Single. Time."
And then he began to chant.
"Crimson path where life is spent,"
Max's eyes widened in horror. Magic. He's casting. And all that blood—
He charged forward immediately, trying to disrupt the chant, close the distance before—
But Dorian didn't stop moving. He met Max's charge with a sweeping arc that forced Max to abort and dodge left. Concurrent chanting.
"Hunter's blade through veins is rent,"
Max feinted right, then tried to dart in low—aiming for Dorian's kidney, a killing strike—but Dorian's combat style had changed. He fought tighter now, keeping Max at greatsword range, never letting him inside where the rapier would have an advantage. Blood still dripped from his wounds, but his movements were faster, more precise than ever.
Shit. He's done this before. This is exactly what he does. He baits them into trying to kill him, controls where they land hits, builds up blood, then—
"It's that I kill them while they're casting," Dorian finished his earlier statement, his voice steady despite the ongoing chant. Despite bleeding from ten wounds.
"Blood to blood, the trail ignites,"
Another slash. Max dodged, but barely. The cursed flames scorched his PoD Armor, leaving a thin scorch mark. I need to stop him. NOW.
Max gathered mana for a Sokatsui blast, anything to break his rhythm—
"Hunt the prey through endless nights."
—but Dorian anticipated it. Max feinted left, then Shunshined right, trying to appear at Dorian's blind spot and unleash the spell point-blank—
Dorian spun mid-chant, greatsword already sweeping through the space where Max materialized. Max was forced to abort the spell entirely and leap backward, the gathered mana dissipating uselessly.
He's reading me. Damn it. And all that blood—it wasn't weakness. It was ammunition. I gave it to him trying to end the fight quickly.
Dorian's eyes blazed with cold triumph as he completed the final line, his voice rising to a crescendo:
"BLOOD HUNT!"
The crimson flames wreathing Bloodprice exploded outward in a pulse of dark energy. Dorian's blood—the droplets still falling from his ten wounds, the puddles forming on the floor, the smears across his skin—all of it ignited in midair.
The blood transformed into dozens of razor-thin crimson blades that hovered around him like a swarm of predatory insects. Thirty of them.
Each blade glowed with the same hemotoxin curse that coated Bloodprice, pulsing with lethal intent as they tracked Max's position with eerie precision.
Dorian grinned, savage and victorious. "The conditions are met. I'm injured. My blood is spilled."
He thrust Bloodprice forward, the gesture almost ceremonial.
"This is for them. And this—" his grin widened, "—is why you never let a blood mage control the engagement. You wanted to finish it fast. I made sure every attempt fed my spell instead."
The blood blades launched. All thirty of them. At once.
Max's Auto-Evade screamed. MOVE.
Max knew he had to move, but where became the real question. Back? Forward? Up? Down? The blood blades were already streaking toward him—thirty razor-thin projectiles glowing with crimson malice, each one tracking his position with unnatural precision.
Only one way to find out if he has control after release.
Max made his decision in a heartbeat. He jumped. Not backward. Not to the side. Up.
He launched himself skyward with every ounce of strength his legs could muster, rocketing toward the cavern ceiling fifteen meters above. The blood blades converged on the spot where he'd been standing, several slamming into the stone floor with wet thunks that left scorch marks.
Five down.
But the remaining twenty-five adjusted mid-flight, curving upward like heat-seeking missiles, still locked onto him. Shit. They're still tracking.
Max reached the apex of his jump—and unfurled his wings.
The black-red membranes snapped open with a sound like tearing silk, catching the air and arresting his fall. He beat them once, twice, stabilizing his altitude with relative ease.
Dorian's eyes widened in shock from below. "What the—?!"
Max didn't have time to appreciate the look on his face. The blades were already adjusting their trajectory, spiraling upward in pursuit. Better maneuverability in the air. I can work with this.
He banked hard to the left, wings tilting sharply. The blades followed, their paths curving through the air like crimson contrails. Max dove, pulling up at the last second, and three more blades overshot, embedding themselves in the cavern ceiling. Eight down. Twenty-two to go.
He tried to swat at one with his PoD-coated rapier as it streaked past—the blade dodged. They have their own evasion?! What the hell kind of magic is this?!
No time to analyze. He folded his wings and dropped into a dive, then snapped them open again, banking hard right. Two more blades crashed into the walls, unable to correct in time. Ten down. Twenty left.
Max wove through the air in tight spirals, using the confined space of the corridor to his advantage. Every sharp turn, every sudden dive forced the blades to adjust—and not all of them could keep up. One by one, he lured them into collisions with the dungeon walls. Eleven. Twelve. Thirteen. Fourteen.
The fifteenth blade streaked toward his face. Max twisted mid-flight, the projectile missing by inches, and it slammed into the wall behind him with a wet crack.
Fifteen down!
Max allowed himself a split second of grim satisfaction—
That split second was a mistake.
He'd flown too far. In his focus on evading the blades, he'd drifted beyond the barrier he'd erected at the corridor's entrance—outside his controlled perimeter, into the open dungeon tunnels beyond.
And the dungeon noticed.
SCREEEEEEE!
A swarm of Bad Bats descended from the shadows above—at least a dozen of them, wings beating in cacophonous chorus. They ambushed him from above, fangs bared, wings creating disorienting turbulence.
—danger ABOVE—
Auto-Evade screamed.
Max's body moved before his conscious mind registered the threat. He blinked forward in a short-range Shunshin, reappearing directly behind the descending swarm. The Bad Bats shrieked in confusion, their coordinated dive finding empty air.
Max's rapier flashed in rapid succession—twelve strikes in three seconds. PoD-coated steel carved through leathery wings and small bodies. Most of the swarm dropped, dead or dying.
But a handful escaped, pulling up and circling at a distance. Their mouths opened wide—
SCREEEEEEE!
Sonic waves rippled through the air, invisible but devastating. Auto-Evade triggered, but slower this time. Sound didn't travel like a blade—it spread omnidirectionally, filling space rather than cutting through it. By the time Max's body reacted, the edge of the sonic blast had already grazed him.
His ears ringed.
Max cursed and poured on speed, wings beating frantically as he shot back toward the corridor entrance. He crossed back through the crimson barrier just as another sonic screech tore through the air behind him.
He touched down inside the safe zone, breathing hard, wings folding back against his shoulders. His ears were faintly reddened—not bleeding, but irritated from the sonic attack's glancing blow.
Stupid. Stay focused.
-◈ -
Dorian
He stood rooted to the spot, staring at the impossibility before him.
Wings?
Not the crude, jerky things he'd seen on Basram's artificial monsters. These were real. Functional. The mage flew with grace and precision, banking through the air like a predator born to it.
What the hell IS he?
Dorian watched helplessly as his Blood Hunt projectiles were systematically dismantled. Max lured them into walls, outmaneuvered them, turned the confined corridor into a deadly obstacle course his blades couldn't navigate.
Fifteen down. Half gone.
Then the Bad Bats attacked, and Dorian's heart leapt. Yes. This is it.
But the bastard dodged that too. It was like he'd been unaware one second, then suddenly his body moved before the attack could land.
That's not normal reflexes. Some kind of danger sense?
Max returned to the barrier, and Dorian's hope sank.
He's not a mage. He's a monster.
An anomaly. Something that defied classification. And maybe that's why he wanted Max.
His thoughts were interrupted by a sudden shift.
The remaining fifteen blades—still circling Max—seemed to reach some collective decision.
They converged.
All fifteen attacked simultaneously from different angles, forming a perfect cage of trajectories that left only one escape vector:
Toward him.
Max screamed as Auto-Evade seized control, shoving him forward—the only direction that avoided all fifteen blades at once.
They understood. The blades understood his defense mechanism.
Max was launched through the air, flipping mid-flight, and landed fifteen feet from Dorian in a combat crouch.
Their eyes met.
For one heartbeat, the world stood still.
Then both the blood blades and Dorian charged.
-◈ -
Max
He had enough.
I'm a fucking Devil. I have PoD. Why am I playing defense?
Fifteen blood blades screamed toward him from behind. Dorian charged from the front, Bloodprice raised high, crimson flames blazing. The cursed blade was coming down in a killing blow meant to cleave Max in half.
Max didn't dodge.
He planted his feet, rapier raised, and focused everything on his PoD Armor. The black-red coating darkened further, thickening into something beyond defense. It stopped being armor and started being annihilation—a shell of erasure so dense that reality itself seemed to bend around him.
Let's see what breaks first. Your curse or my erasure.
Dorian closed in. Five feet. Three feet.
The blood blades converged from behind.
"Come on, then."
Both attacks hit simultaneously.
Max channeled every ounce of remaining mana into his PoD Armor, compressing it, condensing it into a single point at his core. The energy became unstable, volatile—a black star of erasure ready to detonate.
"PoD Pulse: Radial Burst!"
Max released.
BOOOOOOM!
A sphere of black-red energy erupted outward from Max's position, expanding in all directions with devastating force. The shockwave tore through the corridor like a god's fist, obliterating everything in its path.
The fifteen blood blades disintegrated on contact, their hemotoxin curse overwhelmed by pure erasure. They didn't shatter—they simply ceased to exist.
Dorian's Bloodprice met the expanding wave head-on. For a fraction of a second, the cursed blade held—crimson flames pushing back against the darkness—
—but then PoD won.
The wave passed through Dorian.
The force of the blast kicked up a massive cloud of dust and debris. The pressure was so immense that the crimson barrier wards shattered, the magic circles cracking like glass and dissolving into motes of light.
The entrance corridor unsealed with a groaning rumble of stone.
Silence fell.
The dust began to settle, revealing the aftermath.
-◈ -
Dorian stood perfectly still, his body frozen mid-step.
Bloodprice was still raised in his hands, the cursed flames guttering weakly. His eyes stared forward, wide and unseeing.
He'd passed Max by three feet. Momentum had carried him forward even as the attack landed.
His midsection was gone. Not cut. Not burned. Erased. From just below his ribcage to his pelvis, there was simply... nothing. A perfectly smooth void where flesh, bone, and organs had been.
Then gravity remembered him.
Dorian's top half toppled forward. He hit the ground face-first, but his eyes were still open—barely.
The curse held him for three more seconds. Just enough for one final thought.
Garron, everyone, I'm coming.
Then the light faded from his eyes.
Dorian Kess died.
-◈ -
Max
He stood in his release stance, rapier extended, chest heaving. The PoD Armor was gone—completely depleted. His mana reserves were nearly empty. His body ached.
But he was alive.
It's over.
Max let out a shuddering breath, the tension draining from his shoulders. His hands were trembling—not from fear, but from the adrenaline crash. He'd won. Against a Level 3 opponent enhanced by a blood curse, he'd survived and won.
For a few seconds, Max allowed himself to feel the relief.
Then every instinct he possessed screamed.
Not Auto-Evade. Something deeper. Primal. The sensation prey feels when a hawk's shadow crosses the grass—recognizing a predator so far above it that survival isn't a question of skill.
It's a question of luck.
Max's head snapped toward the far corridor—the passage leading deeper into Floor 14.
A figure emerged from the darkness.
They weren't running. Weren't charging. They simply... moved. Each step covered impossible distance, as if space itself contracted beneath their feet. Sword raised—grip reversed, wielding it in an unusual stance. Eyes locked on Max. No hesitation. No wasted motion.
Just killing intent, pure and absolute.
Max's body tried to react—
But he was too slow.
The figure closed thirty feet in less than an instant. Their weapon was already descending toward Max's throat, moving at a speed his eyes couldn't track, his body couldn't evade, his Auto-Evade couldn't register.
This is how I die.
Was his last thought when the world shifted.
WHAM!
A second figure materialized—erupting from the corridor Max had used to enter. They moved faster than the first, a black-cloaked blur that intercepted the assassin mid-strike.
The tackle was brutal. The second figure slammed into the assassin's ribs with bone-crushing force, redirecting their momentum entirely.
But they were a fraction too late.
The assassin's blade—already in motion—grazed Max's cheek as it passed. The edge kissed his skin with surgical precision, carving a thin, clean line from cheekbone to jaw.
Blood welled up immediately. Hot. Stinging. Real.
The first time he'd bled in the Dungeon.
Max's rapier—still raised in a desperate, futile block—met nothing but air. His weapon hadn't even been touched. He'd been too slow to intercept, too slow to matter.
That blade could have taken my head. They redirected it at the last instant.
The second figure twisted with terrifying strength, using the assassin's momentum against them, and hurled them back toward the Floor 14 depths. The assassin tumbled through the air, recovered mid-flight with impossible grace, and landed in a combat stance thirty feet away.
For one heartbeat, Max caught a clear glimpse of the second figure as they landed between him and the assassin:
Tanned skin. Black combat outfit beneath a billowing black cloak. The blade in their hands was elegant, deadly—a long double-sided curved weapon, each edge catching the dim light like captured moonlight.
Their eyes flicked toward Max. Just once. A single assessing glance that took in the blood trickling down his face, the rapier in his hand, his frozen stance.
Then they turned back to the assassin and charged.
The two figures collided in a blur of motion. The sound of clashing steel echoed through the corridor—sharp, rapid, vicious. Then they disengaged, and the assassin retreated deeper into Floor 14. The second figure gave chase immediately.
The sounds of combat faded, growing distant as the combatants moved deeper into the labyrinth.
Silence fell.
Max stood frozen, rapier still raised uselessly, blood trickling down his cheek and dripping from his jaw.
Two people. Both faster than anything I've faced. Both beyond my ability to counter.
And one of them just saved my life.
Why?
Kairu emerged from the shadows, pseudopods extended protectively, positioning himself between Max and the corridor. The slime's surface rippled with unusual agitation—not the excited curiosity he showed around strong monsters, but something closer to fear.
Even Kairu recognized: those two were apex predators.
Max lowered his rapier slowly, his hand trembling. He touched his bleeding cheek, fingers coming away red.
I bled.
Not from the dungeon. Not from monsters. From a person. Someone so fast, so skilled, that even Auto-Evade couldn't save him. Someone who could have killed him but chose—at the last possible instant—to let him live with just a warning.
A message written in his own blood: You're still weak.
He stared at the corridor entrance where the two figures had vanished, then down at the blood on his fingers.
But the message remained.
Who were they?
Why did one try to kill me—or did they?
Why did the other stop them?
Max's jaw clenched, adrenaline slowly giving way to cold, focused thought.
—what the fuck's going on?
--> Devil in a Dungeon <--
AN:
Hot damn, that's an intense chapter. We get to see what Dorian's sword and magic does and Max being pushed to his limit and in just few hours, he was exhausted again. Not to mention the ending Assassination attempt. Who do you think they were? And he was saved as well. I'm sure you can figure who that was ;)
Poor Max's victory didn't last long, eh. I'm curious to know your thoughts on whether he should continue the dive or go back and rest? I mean at this point he is in the dungeon for 7 Chaps. Obviously we can do deeper to Rivira as planned as well. As I said, I'm just curious to know what your thoughts are.
As always, don't forget to share your thoughts on the story and any suggestions you have on what else Max could try in a review/comment.
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Next update will be on Friday.
Ben, Out.
Disclaimer: I don't own anything.