Chapter 148 ‒ The Dimming Eclipse
Chapter 148 ‒ The Dimming Eclipse
Tyler’s fingers trembled, the last shreds of his strength clawing at his bones. He checked his status, eyes darting desperately to his PE gauge — only enough for one final, decisive attack.
He swallowed hard, feeling his heartbeat in his teeth.
Above him, Yandeon loomed like a nightmare reborn — a tangled sculpture of alien flesh and divine hubris. Tyler’s crimson eye scanned every contorted edge until it fixed on the final cluster: a swirling lattice of nerve cores glowing in the centre of Yandeon’s grotesque forehead, nestled between the twitching mosaic of shifting eyes.
That’s it. The true core.
Beside him, Shindeon roared, stumbling forward like a wounded volcano.
[Shindeon HP: 291/5000]
Shindeon’s molten breath steamed from cracked fangs, his blade trembling in his clawed hand.
Yandeon lurched, his remaining appendages convulsing and converging on Shindeon like a ravenous swarm. Each limb twitched and snapped, claw-tipped and slime-slick, ready to rip the Warden to pieces.
Tyler’s heart thundered. “Now… or never!”
He surged forward, aura erupting outward in a violent halo of red and gold. The air cracked and shrieked around him as power roared through his veins.
[Activated Skill: Berserk]
His muscles tore and reformed, each tendon blazing with searing light. His eyes burned — one shimmering gold, the other a furious, bloody crimson. His breath came like a dragon’s roar, hot and ragged, leaving scorch marks in the air itself.
Shindeon, now barely standing, glanced sideways at Tyler. Despite the torn armour, the gaping wounds, and the rivulets of molten blood streaming down his scaled torso, he bared his fangs in a thunderous, feral laugh.
“DO IT, MORTAL!”
Tyler launched upward, the ground beneath him cratering from the sheer force of his leap. His swords gleamed like twin meteors in the moonlight.
He twisted midair, eyes locked on the core — the trembling, pulsating lattice that held Yandeon’s impossible, contorted soul.
“THIS ENDS NOW!”
His twin blades plunged forward, slicing past the roiling tentacles, past the snapping mandibles and spined jaws, and stabbed straight into the core between Yandeon’s writhing eyes.
The world fell still for a single, infinite heartbeat.
Then came the sound: a tearing, cosmic shriek that split the night open. Blinding, searing light exploded from Yandeon’s skull, a column of brilliance so intense it painted the entire plateau in white flame.
Yandeon’s monstrous form convulsed violently. Wings snapped and fell away like burning paper, scattering black, putrid ichor across the cratered battlefield. His grotesque scorpion tail spasmed and shattered at the base, crashing into the ground in a steaming heap before dissolving into swirling black mist.
Appendages writhed and splintered, each claw and spike flailing in mad, dying spasms. Segments of his twisted armour peeled away, revealing layers of weeping flesh that sizzled and disintegrated in flashes of black sparks.
Through the shrieking din, Yandeon’s voice echoed, choked and ragged.
“My… my perfect form… no… no! This… cannot be!”
His head contorted wildly, splitting open as fangs cracked and fell like brittle shards. The forest of eyes across his face dimmed one by one, snuffing out like dying stars.
The grotesque, shifting mass slowly retracted, collapsing inward. Bones snapped like dry twigs, and limbs shrank, curling back toward a central, trembling shape. As the luminous mist consumed him, his silhouette twisted and squirmed, fighting to maintain any shape at all.
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Tyler watched, panting, as the monstrous shell finally sloughed away. What remained was the ragged outline of Yandeon’s original form — the thin, skeletal figure wrapped in charred tatters, a face half-gone, eyes empty and wild.
On his knees now, Yandeon clawed at his own chest with crumbling fingers.
“My perfect form… my evolution… my immortality…”
Black ichor spilled from his sunken eye sockets as he sobbed. His voice thinned, dissolving into high, broken whimpers.
“No… I cannot die… I am eternal… I—”
Before he could finish, the last scraps of flesh dissolved, his final cry echoing as a faint wisp before the whole figure disintegrated into a swirling black mist. The haze drifted upward, breaking into faint sparks that vanished into the starlit sky.
Silence crashed down, heavier than any weapon.
Tyler landed heavily on one knee, the swords slipping from his blood-soaked hands and clattering across the shattered stone. His shoulders slumped as he gasped, every muscle shivering from the final surge of power.
A flickering notification bloomed before his strained eyes:
[+999 XP]
[Level Up! Tyler Level 204 → 223]
[Attribute Points: +19]
[Acquired Item: White Wizard Hat (+100% PE)]
[Acquired Item: Divine Key (5/5)]
[Acquired Runestone — Soul Bind]
[Skill: Soul Bind]
[Binds the target, rendering them immobile for 10 seconds. Target loses 50 HP every second. PE Cost: 15]
Tyler glanced up, blinking through the haze.
Shindeon stood before him, every breath a rumbling furnace. His blade dragged at his side, leaving small rivers of molten blood. Deep gashes split his scales, and trails of lava-like ichor leaked into the cracks beneath his claws.
For a moment, neither of them moved. Only their ragged breathing broke the eerie hush, echoing across the smouldering ruins like the last gasps of a dying world.
Finally, Tyler raised his head, his left eye still smouldering faintly crimson, a shaky grin crawling across his face.
“We… did it,” he whispered, voice breaking into a rasp.
Shindeon snorted, a puff of steam curling from his jaws. Slowly, his molten eyes narrowed into a begrudging glare.
“Hmph… you foolish mortal…” He took one unsteady step forward, his massive sword sinking slightly into the ash. “Perhaps… you are not entirely worthless after all.”
A dry, hoarse laugh escaped Tyler’s lips — a laugh so fragile it nearly shattered in the air.
They stood together under the fractured moonlight, two battered silhouettes on a field of broken stone and fading embers — one human, one god, both scarred and smoking, yet still standing.
Above them, the wind carried the last scraps of black mist away into the stars, leaving only the quiet, tremulous promise of dawn.
---
Tyler collapsed onto the scorched earth, the last echoes of battle still pulsing faintly beneath his skin. He let out a shaky exhale, fingers drifting to the left side of his head — the aftershocks of [Raven’s Eye] still stinging like needles threaded with flame.
Thank you… Emo-Tyler, he thought, his palm pressing lightly against the throbbing ache. We really did it.
He rolled onto his back, staring up at the moonlit sky above. The bruised clouds drifted across the silver disk like slow-moving phantoms. As his breathing steadied, a familiar, mischievous silhouette shimmered into view above him, almost like an apparition projected onto the stars.
“Heya, [Player]!” Cupcake Crab called, his voice dripping with its usual sly amusement. “So… you finally managed to find Yandeon, huh? See? I wasn’t lying.”
Tyler stared up, a small, exhausted smile tugging at his lips. Beyond that careless grin, he could almost sense a flicker of genuine relief — or perhaps even pride — in the crab’s glimmering eyes.
“Thank you,” Tyler whispered, his voice hoarse. “Thank you, Cupcake Crab… for showing me the truth.”
Cupcake Crab tilted his head, scratching under one of his claws with exaggerated confusion. “Huh? What truth? Did I sell you something you actually liked for once?!”
Tyler laughed softly, the sound scraping his throat raw. He pushed himself to a half-sitting position, dust and ash sliding from his battered armour. “Do you… perhaps know how to contact the Creator God?”
Cupcake Crab’s eyes bulged comically, his entire body jerking backward as though he’d been slapped by a phantom wave. “Creator God?! How would I — a humble, totally legitimate traveling merchant — know something like that?!”
Tyler lowered his head, his bangs shadowing his eyes as he exhaled. “I see…”
The crab clicked his claws together thoughtfully, glancing side to side. “Hmm… don’t you have some old paper or a weird relic somewhere? Something cryptic and vague that only a true protagonist would think to read after a life-or-death boss fight?”
Tyler blinked, the words sparking a sudden cascade of memories. He rummaged through his inventory, each flicker of his interface echoing like ghostly pages turning.
First, his gaze fell on three ancient bones — a soft thought passed that perhaps he should commission Vitamin Ape to forge another scythe someday. Next, a strange, shimmering elixir with a name he still couldn’t read, pulsing faintly in its vial like a trapped spirit.
And then, buried at the very bottom, two items he hadn’t touched in ages.
A tiny, glossy bean — the one Cupcake Crab had given him after rescuing the stranded climbers — and an old, brittle parchment.
[Item: Message in a Bottle]
His hand hovered over it, his breath catching. Slowly, he unrolled the parchment.
The text shimmered faintly in the moonlight, each letter seeming to shift and breathe between each blink.
[Sometimes the answers we seek are hidden in plain sight — revealed only to those who look deeper.]
Tyler lowered the parchment, a quiet resolve gleaming in his crimson-tinted eyes. He let out a long, slow breath — and for the first time in what felt like eons, the night around him felt less suffocating.
“Yeah,” he murmured, eyes lifting back to the pale moon. “I’ll find the answer. No matter how deep I have to look.”