Chapter – 36 – Valgos
The Beast Sovereign egg is about to hatch... Perfect, Lucien thought, a grim sense of satisfaction cutting through the exhaustion of battle. I'm glad I dumped so many soul points into shaving fifty percent off the hatching time. It's finally here. This could be exactly what I need to tip the scales.
He reached out to the mental interface. System, upgrade the Sovereign Beast before it emerges from the hatching cycle.
[Sovereign Beast – Upgrade Available][Cost: 12,000 Soul Points. Do you wish to proceed?]
Lucien winced internally at the figure. 12,000? That's astronomical. I hope this is worth it, because I won't have enough left to buy so much as a spirit-restoring pill after this. This is the final upgrade. It's my last shot at surviving and breaking this damned stalemate.
He clenched his remaining hand, the World Root Executioner Halberd vibrating with ancient malice as he locked eyes with Zarah. Do it. Upgrade.
The egg, situated within Lucien's Shadow World dimension, began to pulse violently, spiderweb cracks appearing across its mottled surface. Lucien didn't wait for the process to complete; he immediately summoned the entity into the real world.
It materialized on the platform, barely half a meter in diameter at first. Then, it began to grow. The size increased exponentially—2 meters, then 5, 10, 20. It swirled through 25, 45, finally stopping at a gargantuan 50 meters in height. The sheer, colossal weight of the shell cracked the stone platform, sending shockwaves through the air.
Everyone on the battlefield—Gwenra's group at the bottom, and Rosra's group at the top—stared in absolute awe and terror. Even Zarah paused her next attack, her eyes narrowed. She had intended to crush Lucien in the next exchange, but she suddenly felt an energy signature that she hadn't encountered in millennia—the overwhelming, instinctual power of an Ancient Beast. It wasn't just any beast; it was a Sovereign-class Ancient Beast. These creatures had been extinct for thousands of years, a lost apex predator from a forgotten age.
How does this Lucien have an ancient beast egg? How? Zarah's calculated calmness shattered, replaced by a rising tide of disbelief.
The shell didn't just crack; it dissolved into a blinding sphere of pure white light, forcing everyone present to shield their eyes. When the light subsided, a monstrous roar ripped through the cylindrical tower, a sound that wasn't just heard, but felt in the marrow of their bones.
The beast was purely white, yet it radiated an unadulterated, primal evil. Its head was a nightmare, possessing large, overlapping teeth that remained visible even with its mouth closed. Crucially, there were no eyes on its head—not even an eye socket, just a continuous plate of white bone armor. Yet, its blind snout tracked the movements in the room with frightening precision. From its cranium erupted two massive, forward-curving bull horns. Beneath the horns, a tangle of ten thick, tentacle-like limbs whipped through the air, each one covered in bone-like spikes.
The creature's muscular structure was incredibly defined, its legs long and thick, designed for explosive force. It looked as though it could walk on two legs, but it remained on all fours, its muscles tensed like a coiled spring as it faced its master, Lucien Vale.
It roared again, a monstrous sound that shook the very foundation of the tower, towering 75 meters tall even on its haunches.
Zarah looked from the beast to Lucien, the shock fading into a sneer of amusement. "So this is what you're going to fight me with? A large pet? You think this brute can defeat me?"
"Oh, I know I can never defeat you," Lucien said, his voice flat, his gaze locked on hers. "At least, not now. Even if I fight you alongside my beast, I'll still be defeated. I know that because..." He activated his Divine Inspection skill one last time, meeting her eyes directly. "...you are not a Spirit Forge Realm Master. My inspection failed to see the depth of your power, but I saw enough. You are something much more than that."
The revelation caused a ripples of panic through the other realm masters listening from the floors below and above. Not a Spirit Forge Master? The woman in front of them was basically a god, a fourth- or fifth-realm cultivator, masquerading as a third-realm master.
"So you do realize you can never defeat me," Zarah said, tilting her head, a patronizing smile returning to her lips. "So why are you even trying, boy?"
Lucien's bloody lips curled into a smile, his eyes shining with a sudden, sharp clarity. "Because you cannot defeat me either."
Zarah stopped mid-stride. "What do you mean by that?"
"The only reason I'm still alive right now," Lucien said, stepping forward, the massive white beast lowering its blind head beside him, "is because you are being forced to use Peak Spirit Forge Realm strength. Our true power gap might be as deep as a chasm, but I'm still breathing. This entire dungeon was constructed with a single purpose: it's a farm made for Peak Spirit Forge Realm Masters, and that fact is also the limit for your strength. It's not that you don't want to kill me, Zarah . It's simply because you can't."
Zarah paused, her smile changing from patronizing to genuinely delighted. Then she threw her head back and laughed, a melodious, chilling sound. "I've been hunting Peak Spirit Forge Realm Masters for hundreds of years... and this is the very first time I've met someone so fascinating. You are right, Lucien Vale. I am completely unable to use my true strength here." She leveled a dark-nailed finger at him. "I am much, much higher than this measly Spirit Forge Realm. Can you guess what realm I'm truly on, boy?"
"If I had to guess," Lucien said, keeping his smile fixed, "you are higher than Spirit Forge, but still bounded by heavenly restrictions. You can use elemental manipulation like fire and lightning at will, which rules out the fourth realm, Abyss Core Realm. But you are higher than me. So that leaves the fifth realm, Heaven Pulse Realm. You can manipulate the elements but you cannot bend heavenly rules yet... that's reserved for much higher realms. Fifth Realm Heaven Pulse... and I'm just merely a third realm Spirit Forge Master." He chuckled softly, the white beast echoing him with a low growl. "I bet you never dreamed about this situation."
When the other realm masters heard this, their remaining hope evaporated. The entity they were fighting was two full realms higher than them. They never had a chance to begin with.
Down at the bottom of the pit, Gwenra stared up at Lucien, her expression a complex mask of envy and jealousy. He was a Peak Spirit Forge Master, just like her, yet the difference between them was like heaven and earth. But she wasn't jealous of his power; she was jealous of how he, who was only a Peak Spirit Forge Master, was cornering a god. If she had truly focused only on her own strength, instead of falling in love, trying to save her lover, gathering factions, and weaving treacherous schemes, perhaps she could have been like him. She had schemes, and she had plans, and in the end, she got nothing. If she had just focused on her strength, she could have saved him. She looked at Lucien with profound envy, recognizing that he focuses on nothing but himself, and that single-minded obsession is what allowed him to survive.
"True," Zarah said, her amusement hardening back into annoyance. "I cannot use my true strength here. But once the Warden has shattered this dungeon's reality and we reach the Ancient Breach once again, that restriction will lift instantly. It's only a matter of time before this place crumbles and the Ancient Breach reality connects... What will you do to stop me then, Lucien Vale?"
"That is true," Lucien said, his smile turning feral. "You are unable to kill me with your current power. So I just have to make sure I make that Warden disappear."
He turned to the towering white entity beside him and screamed, his voice resonant with soul authority, locking in the command. "I name you Valgos, and I order you, Valgos—destroy this tower called the Heart of the Death Pit immediately!"
Valgos screamed, a roar of primal, focused destruction. It pushed off with its muscular hind legs and jumped into the abyssal void, not down, but across. It unleashed a ball of compressed pure astral energy from its maw that traveled across the pit and slammed into the opposite side of the cylindrical structure, vaporizing 50 to 80 floors easily in a single, devastating explosion.
As soon as the beast attacked, all the other realm masters—Gwenra's group at the bottom and Rosra's at the top—scrambled further away from the impacts to let Valgos do the work. The ancient stonework, already protesting, groaned as massive structural failures spiderwebbed through the floors.
Zarah wanted to intercept the beast, her body glowing with black energy as she prepared a counter-spell. But as soon as she attempted to cast Hellfire Rain again, Lucien immediately interrupted her, lunging forward with his halberd. He simultaneously channeled his soul energy to hurl a condensed Black Sun Annihilation attack toward her.
"No, no, no," Lucien said, smiling broadly at her frustration. "I cannot let you get in the middle of my plans."
As the floors began to crumble under Valgos' relentless assaults, it was starting to affect the Warden outside. The entity hesitated, its focus wavering as its power source—the heart—began to fail. But the Warden was still outside, trying to break the reality barrier so Zarah could use her full power. It was a terrifying game of time now—who could stall the most time.
Lucien attacked Zarah relentlessly, the World Root Halberd cutting through the air in a blur of gold and green. She was able to deflect all of his attacks effortlessly; for a fifth-realm cultivator, even bounded, his moves were slow and predictable. She could see every strike easily.
Lucien saw her calm defense and immediately shifted tactics. He roared, invoking the World Cleaver skill, bringing the massive halberd down in a devastating vertical strike that wrapped the weapon in a devastating kinetic force. But at the last microsecond, he changed the direction of the swing away from her and toward the tower itself. World Cleaver cut everything in its path with absolute destructive energy; in that single, horizontal sweep, Lucien was able to cleave and destroy 100 to 200 floors, but even that wasn't enough to collapse the monumental structure.
Zarah frowned, staring at him as if he had just cheated at a game. "You bastard," she screamed. She could order the Warden to kill Lucien and the others, but it was a gamble. If the Warden immediately came inside the tower, it might force Lucien to unleash something out of desperation that she thought could also destroy the tower immediately. For that reason, she wasn't doing anything, waiting. Maybe that beast was his last trump card... I don't think he is hiding anything.
Zarah made her choice and immediately ordered the Warden, which was thousands of meters away in the outside void, to stop breaking the reality and start killing Lucien instead.
As soon as Lucien noticed the Warden shift its focus toward him, he realized that it was now or never.
Everyone else present—the survivors of the various teams—looked up and realized that the Warden was coming. The smile was returning, and this time, nothing would save them. They thought that it was truly over.
But Lucien did not run. He used his remaining hand to plunge the halberd into the stone platform as a brace. He reached deep within his spiritual core, gathering every single remaining drop of astral energy he possessed, channeling it into one final, absolute move that he had only used two times in his entire life since entering the Ancient Breach.
Lucien Vale used Celestial Monarch.
The air in the chamber froze. The sound of the crumbling tower ceased. Time seemed to slow as an blinding light materialized directly behind Lucien's battered body.
A divine, spectral figure began to emerge, formed from thousands of condensed threads of pure astral energy. This time, however, the manifestation was far more complete, far more perfect than ever before. The energy condensed with terrifying density, revealing the form of a woman. Her body stretched from head to knees, hovering above the pit. Golden wings, burning with a gentle, celestial light, unfurled from her back, stretching high into the open ceiling. A flawless white dress flowed around her divine form, the material seemingly made of pure light. Her bare thighs, sculpted from refined energy, gleamed beneath the shifting fabric. Her large chest, defined with silent majesty beneath the dress, rose and fell in a slow, rhythmic movement. Her face remained entirely emotionless, a serene mask of absolute power, and her eyes shone pure white, devoid of pupils but filled with a divine intelligence.
She was the most beautiful entity anyone present had ever seen, yet at the same time, the most terrifying, divine, and oppressive presence they had ever felt. Her height exceeded fifty meters.
Everyone could see her. Every single person present on the upper and lower levels, including Valgos the beast, froze instantly. Their minds simply stopped working. The ambient spiritual pressure was so immense that they couldn't so much as blink.
Even Zarah, the 5th realm master, stared up at the divine manifestation, her mouth hanging open, her entire composure shattered into a million pieces. The shock on her face was absolute.
"Wh... wh... what?" she gasped, her voice trembling with an underlying current of primitive terror. She pointed a shaking hand toward the spectral figure floating behind the battered man. "How can you summon her? How is this possible?"
Author Note:
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