With his primary weapon disabled and himself forced onto the back foot, it was time to call on his Ascendant's Core. Dane had been holding back. If he could avoid killing people, he would, but where he stood now, that was no longer an option.

  He drew a slow breath and spun up the core, carefully pulling Dragon Essence from its depths. The power flooded into his demon form, and the scales tore free from his leather as his body reshaped around it.

  Dane summoned the spectral axe, and it flickered, unstable. He couldn't maintain the form. Instead, he shifted it into something more familiar. The weapon elongated, narrowing into a sharp point as it stabilized.

  He looked down at the pickaxe in his palm.

  Once, it had symbolized servitude. Everything he had hated. Everything he had wanted to destroy.

  Now, it felt… comforting.

  A pickaxe was just a tool. One he knew so well that he no longer had to maintain its shape consciously.

  "You can't afford to be distracted," Ryn said, hurling a butcher's cleaver toward him.

  Dane reacted before the blade even left Ryn's hand. He swung hard, punching a clean hole straight through the cleaver's center.

  He lunged.

  It was subtle, but Dane had the advantage—until Ryn's old cunning resurfaced. Sand exploded a heartbeat before impact upward. By the time Dane's vision cleared, pain bloomed between his ribs.

  A short blade protruded from his stomach, jammed between his scales.

  Blood traced its way along the metal, dripping into Ryn's waiting hand. The blade twisted.

  Dane yelped.

  "You know the problem with people who get to choose," Ryn said, his smile twisting, sour and unstable, "is that they always overestimate themselves."

  Dane grabbed the blade and shoved it deeper, the hilt grinding against his scales. It was counterintuitive, but he was already impaled. His HP could handle a few more inches.

  With most of the weapon now under his control, he cinched down his core and twisted, wrenching the blade free from Ryn's grip.

  The expression on Ryn's face wasn't shock.

  It was rage.

  "WHY WON'T YOU JUST DIE?!"

  "Listen," Dane said, breath tight but steady. "It doesn't have to end like this. Yield now, and I can help you get out of here."

  "NO!" Ryn screamed. "There is no going back!"

  His voice cracked as the words spilled out.

  "You don't know what they did to me. They resurrected me hundreds of times. Changed me on a molecular level. Cut out everything that made me me." His hands shook as he raised them. "This doesn't end until you're dead."

  Ryn vanished.

  It wasn't a skill or spell. Dane's mana sight registered no cosmic displacement.

  He was… gone.

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  It didn't matter. Dane's next strike would end this.

  He activated Huntsmen. With how strong he had become, he didn't often need to use the skill, but it was still his best tracking skill. He saw a faint glow in the sands. It led to the middle of the ring. He looked down, and he could see the sands start to shift where Ryn had hidden in the ground. He reacted moments before Ryn sprang his trap. Dane grabbed him by the wrists like a child who wouldn't listen.

  "YIELD NOW." Dane pleaded, cycling his transcendent mana as he imposed his will on the man. He had a high charisma stat, and if he wouldn't listen to reason, perhaps he could force it.

  Ryn spat in his face. "Just get it over with."

  Dane had turned his back on the Demon, the Survivor, and the Ruler. This was not what a hero did.

  But when he looked at the Slayer, he no longer saw himself.

  The spectral pickaxe moved in a clean, lateral arc. It struck with a sound like splitting stone, punching through the Slayer's chest as bone and muscle failed beneath the blow.

  The Slayer's skin crackled, peeling away in brittle sheets. Beneath it, cybernetic components glinted as sickly green serum spilled from the wound.

  It had been a long time since Dane had taken pleasure in this feeling, and the added strength only made him feel worse. Why wouldn't you let me save you?

  The answer never came.

  Instead, something else did.

  Power rushed into him, not the familiar, measured surge he'd felt after clearing dungeon floors, not the clean accounting of experience tallied and rewarded. This was abrupt, invasive, like something being poured into him that had never been meant to fit.

  Dane staggered as his Ascendant's Core flared on instinct, spinning faster than he allowed, faster than it ever should have. Dragon Essence surged reflexively, bracing his body for the influx of Cosmic Energy.

  The sensation was wrong.

  Not like climbing higher, but like the ground beneath him had subtly shifted, gravity increasing. His breath came shallow as pressure folded inward around his chest, compressing rather than expanding.

  For the briefest moment, Dane felt his awareness stretch outward, farther than before, brushing against something distant and vast. Not present. Not watching.

  Noticing.

  The sensation vanished as abruptly as it came, leaving behind a weight that settled deep into his bones.

  Dane looked down at Ryn's ruined body and finally understood why the power tasted wrong. It hadn't been earned. It had been left behind.

  "That settles it, folks. The Demon King has toppled our hero, Ryn. Looks like old Tormund gets to eat Dragon meat today."

  Dane hadn't noticed the noise of the crowd, not while fighting and not when he delivered the finishing blow. He looked out at the masses; maybe it was chance, or perhaps the karma that linked them, but his eyes were drawn to the middle section.

  His eyes met with Zeph's, and he saw it. There was no judgment for what he had done. No guilty look that echoed his feelings. He just saw his friend there, supporting him. This world was wrong. The killing. The stealing cosmic experience. Everything turned people into monsters, just killing to gain experience. It was normalized.

  He broke eye contact and walked back towards the competitor gate.

  A large collective gasp rippled through the crowd, a mix of excitement and awe.

  "Where do you think you are going, Little Demon?" Tormund said his voice dripping with power.

  Dane didn't turn back. "You can have the crown. My crucible is finished, and I have proven my innocence."

  He had nearly exited the arena when he felt the hair on his neck stand up. He ducked his head, narrowly dodging what Tormund had thrown at him. It was a brown cloth sack that had been stained darker towards the bottom. Don't open it. The voice he heard wasn't his own inner monologue but Daedala's. She said the words with sorrow.

  It was only ten paces away. Despite the warning, despite the twist in his stomach, he walked towards it. He reached slowly towards the sack and opened it. The light was gone from the eyes. And the face had been twisted in horror. She had been bruised and cut up in a way that told Dane she had become someone's play toy.

  "I lost her twice...." Dane placed Amelia's head lovingly on the ground.

  Turning to face the man, he felt the knot that had been in his stomach loosen. And a fire takes its place.

  "She died a warrior's death. They all did. If they had spent more time training instead of playing host, some may have survived." Tormund was not cold but spoke in a respectful tone.

  "Why?" Dane croaked out, shaking with grief, anger, and disbelief.

  "That is simple. They were holding you back. You divided the power that was rightfully yours. You nurtured weaklings. Had you continued down that path, it would have only dulled your senses."

  Dane wanted to argue, but the words spoke to the darkness he had inside. Deep down, some of that had mirrored his own thoughts. Still, Tormund was everything wrong in this world.

  Dane opened his system screen and confirmed what Tormund had said. Every name under his faction had disappeared. Tomas, Jason, Murphy, Amelia. He didn't know most of the names, and once he vowed to memorize every one. He hadn't done that. When he started, he always told himself that there was more time. Now they were frozen forever, and most would be forgotten.