Becoming the Dark Lord [LitRPG]

The soldiers stared at Luke in silence, faces hollowed by defeat and the shadow of fear. A cold wind swept the field, carrying the metallic tang of blood and death. They looked at what was left of their group; only Luke remained. The others had succumbed.

The silence weighed heavier than any shout.

"It's over…" Eleanor whispered, voice trembling so softly the wind could have swallowed it.

Luke glanced at his right hand. Two fingers were broken, bent at impossible angles. Pain throbbed, constant.

"As long as I'm breathing, I don't give up," he said, steady, the words a promise to himself.

Quinn stepped forward, eyes dulled. "So what now? Ronan turned to stone—now you're all we've got."

Luke looked up at the high, sombre ceiling. At its center, wrapped in coils of blue energy, the throne stood out like a wound in the room.

"Listen," he said, voice low. "If I see this going to hell, I'll break that damn chain. Because we're from outside, I think we can. I've broken one like it before."

He turned to Eleanor. "When that happens, the throne will snap back here. You just need to activate its magic and the portal to the Earth will open."

The air bit like knives. Luke dropped to one knee, scooped up strips of cloth from among the wreckage, and tied them to the handles of his weapons, one on the kukri, another on Mason's dagger. He wrapped the rags around his hands, knots tight, as if sealing fate with the gesture.

"What are you going to do?" Eleanor asked. "Is there anything I can do to help?"

Luke met her gaze. His face was hard, but there was a tiredness in his eyes that spoke of everything he'd already lost. He drew a slow breath. "Just go back to Earth. If I don't make it to the meet-up… tell my family. Say goodbye."

He rose and started running, boots echoing through the broken columns.

"Wait!" she shouted after him. "If cutting the chain works, just run and get back here. You can still come home!"

"I have to save a friend… and kill the bastard. Now it's personal," Luke said, without turning.

***

Luke climbed the outer wall of the castle with the same focus someone uses to trace a map across hostile terrain. Every ledge, every loose tile, every uneven stone offered either one extra second of life, or one less. He vaulted from eave to eave, weaving between broken chimneys and shattered gargoyles, the cold biting into his bones. Up above, between towers and battlements, the creature's silhouette glowed faintly red against the storm-dark sky. The monster was under the effect of Predator's Mark.

Luke glanced at the countdown on his interface.

[Estimated Time Until the End: 01 hour : 07 minutes : 21 seconds]

The storm offered no mercy. Snow and wind blurred distance into a white curtain, turning depth into guesswork and every foothold into a gamble. Visibility worsened by the second. The Midnight King's presence seeped into the marrow of his bones. The archangel had taken Allison. Perhaps afraid that his vessel could be killed by one of them. He wouldn't risk losing her, not now. Deals no longer mattered. He had what he wanted.

He was strong. Strong enough to crush armies. And he knew it. But he was fragile too. Like the surface of a frozen lake cracking under its own weight. Perhaps that was why he had tried to negotiate earlier. To measure them. To stall. To avoid a direct fight against a full party. But then he saw. He saw their limits. Their weakness. Their insignificance. And now that almost all of them were dead, only now did he commit fully to whatever ritual or transfer he intended.

Spears materialized in the air, slicing through the snow in lethal arcs. Luke hurled himself behind a crumbling stone parapet. The impact shattered tiles into shards that clattered like hail. The archangel laughed, a cold, contemptuous sound. The same way he'd looked at the battlefield turned graveyard of stone statues, he looked at Allison—frozen mid-stance, katana still in hand—as if she were a trophy. Or a warning.

He is strong, but he is afraid.

Luke moved. Spears rained down, but he advanced, weaving through the barrage. The archangel rose higher, hurling projectiles faster and faster. The rooftop began to give under the assault, beams groaning and cracking like ribs. There was a rhythm to the destruction, and Luke ran within that rhythm. He sprinted directly toward the creature. Spears flew, roofs split, wind howled. The archangel ascended until he hovered at the edge of the storm, then hurled spears at full speed.

"I TOLD YOU NOT TO INTERFERE!"

The roof beneath Luke fractured with each impact, opening in widening splits as he ran. The king was fragile. Extremely fragile.

He's like a scorpion.

Small for his power. But deadly. Luke could hurt him, yes. But a single direct hit from the king would kill him. Just as a scorpion can be crushed under a boot… yet its stinger can kill long before it dies.

"Strong but brittle. Strong but brittle," Luke murmured to himself, as if repetition could solidify strategy.

Franky's voice stirred with its usual blend of disdain and calculation. "Run, human. Cut the chain, escape through the portal. Go live your life. You will not achieve what you think you will."

Luke did not slow.

He kept climbing.

"I will," Luke said, conviction louder than certainty.

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"Even dying, a Rank D is still a Rank D," Franky shot back.

"You run?" Luke asked.

"I am me, I am powerful, you are a weak little mouse," the serpent replied.

"Thanks for the vote of confidence," Luke muttered, without humor.

Luke dove behind a ruined tower, pressing himself flat as shards of stone and splinters rained down around him.

"If the bastard's a scorpion, I can be a scorpion too. Let's see whose venom wins in the end," he muttered, staring at the knives in his hands.

"No. You're a rat. The weakest kind of rat. Run," Franky spat.

Luke let out a breath, scrambled from cover, and sprinted across the broken rooftops.

"Why do you keep insisting?" the king's voice called, cold and amused.

Luke looked up at the creature hovering ahead, its wings beating sluggishly. Below it, Allison's statue sat motionless.

[Fallen Stone Archangel (Midnight King) - Lvl 137]

"How funny," Luke said. "I expected a real king in this castle. I didn't expect a dying wreck so wasted he makes me want to puke."

The archangel's ruined smile snapped. "Excuse me?"

"Exactly that," Luke went on. "Thanks for being someone so deplorable. So ruined you have to swap bodies to survive."

A brittle laugh escaped the archangel. "I won't be baited by your insults. Still, I'll enjoy watching you die."

"Is that so? Then come face me," Luke replied. "Or are you afraid of a mask?"

The archangel's face went flat; he lifted a hand skyward and spoke as if announcing a verdict. "I planned to kill you slowly and then take the others when I changed bodies. It would have been… entertaining. I would grow stronger by absorbing your experience into my new flesh. The rules that bind her to Rank E would have been meaningless thanks to me. An hour—enough time to slaughter as many humans as I could. But now… I think my plans might change regarding you."

More spears appeared overhead, dozens of them, larger and sharper than before. This time the archangel was not toying with them.

They dove toward Luke like falling stars, cleaving the rooftop as they fell.

He ran for Allison. The archangel plummeted, furious. The impact tore the roof apart; tiles exploded outward in a blizzard of splinters. Luke was thrown, rolling and sliding across the fractured tiles.

The knives snagged at his wrists, bound to his hands by strips of cloth. He ripped them free and swapped for the bow, pulling a single epic arrow from inventory. He held the shaft up, studying the tip.

One shot. One chance.

"No, run! Come!" the archangel shouted, raining spears down from above.

Luke pushed mana into the arrow as he ran, breath tearing from his chest. He leveled the bow and aimed at Allison.

"Oh, I see," the archangel said, hovering in front of her, amused. He drifted away from the castle, floating above the abyss while keeping Allison between them.

"You're bluffing," the archangel laughed. "You won't kill her."

Luke clicked his tongue and shifted his aim. The archangel's smile widened, certain of victory. "I knew it," he crowed. "You feel something…special, don't you? Imagine me in her body, killing you with your own friends' hands."

Luke didn't answer. He let the mana pour like molten metal into the shaft. He added stamina, forcing every spare scrap of power into that single point. Hairline cracks spidered along the arrowhead as it drank the energy; the tip began to glow white-hot.

"If I don't kill her, she'll die anyway, won't she?" Luke said, voice steady despite the scream in his chest. "At least this way I know she won't suffer whatever you plan. And since I'm probably dying too… it'll be fun to drag you down with me into this hell."

The archangel tensed. "You won't do it. You're bluffing."

"Me risk it for her?" Luke snorted. "No. I want to get out of this place like anyone else. But if I'm going to die, I won't hand you the win. You'd do the same in my position."

Mana flamed along the arrow until it was nearly unbearable. Luke felt the weight of every second like a hammer.

"In three seconds you and I will be damned forever!" he shouted, laughing with a mixture of defiance and something darker.

"Don't do this!" the archangel cried.

The glow peaked. The bowstring sung as the energy detonated along the shaft. The weapon itself ignited—wood and magic burning in a single, brilliant flare—and the arrow streaked out, a blaze flying straight for Allison.

"NO!" the archangel roared, teleporting. He appeared between the arrow and Allison, shoving her aside, and then at the last instant before impact he vanished.

The arrow passed clean through the empty space where they had stood and flew on, piercing the silence as it vanished into the distance.

Luke ran, watching Allison's statue tumble across the roof, rolling over shingles and stone as it slid away. Mason's dagger was clenched in his hand. He jumped, his mind plunging into a storm of instinct and calculation. Everything narrowed into a single moment. The world slowed. Assassin's Tracing let him see the ripples of mana in the storm. Predator's Mark burned at the center of his thoughts.

He was betting everything on one tiny opening. The instant the archangel reappeared. The exact fraction of reality where its body materialized again. He moved like a predator falling upon prey. The red outline flickered into existence. Luke was already descending. The archangel's body formed, and Luke plunged with the dagger aimed straight for the skull.

Charlie erupted from within him. They fell together, attacking as one. She wrapped her arms around the archangel's legs.

[Mark of Doom has been activated]

Luke held the knife poised for the finishing strike. One hit to the brain. One hit to end it. But he froze midair. A spear had already impaled him. The force of the blow drove him forward along the haft, blood spraying in a hot arc. His breath caught in a sharp, broken gasp.

"Did you really think I would fall for that pathetic little trick?" The archangel held the spear firm. With his other hand, he crushed Luke's fingers until the dagger slipped free and tumbled into the abyss below.

Charlie had already turned fully to stone, still clinging to the monster's legs.

Luke coughed blood, tasting iron and bitter cold. "You're right. I always play dirty."

With his one good hand, he grabbed his own face. The mask came free. His muscles screamed. He poured every drop of mana he had left into it and hurled it at the archangel's face.

"What? What did you just do?" The archangel reached up, startled.

The petrification hit Luke instantly. The proximity to the king's power surged through him. Stone crawled across his skin.

"I just leveled the field," Luke said, flipping him off as his arm stiffened.

The creature froze solid. Not gray like the others. A deep, heavy stone that seemed to swallow light.

The mask's enchantment had activated.

[Statue Form (Ancient)]: While wearing the mask, you take on the form of the Fallen Stone Angel, becoming indistinguishable from a statue.

"My power!" The archangel's voice cracked in fury.

With the mask suppressing the king's ability, Luke's petrification stopped. The stone receded from his skin.

[Magnetic Return activated]

A white flash streaked behind the archangel. The arrow he had fired earlier was coming back, dragged along by an invisible pull. Bound to it by fabric and force was his kukri. His companion blade. His answer.

"Where I come from, we have a phrase for this. Taste of your own medicine."

The kukri closed in on the monster's spine.

"No!"

A burst of white light swallowed the sky.

Luke had already wrenched himself free of the spear. He fell.

Charlie fell with him.

"Dammit, Luke!" Artemis's voice echoed from somewhere within the plunge.

Charlie locked her arms around Luke's waist. She reached upward. A spectral chain shot from her hand and coiled around a jagged edge of the castle wall. Their bodies snapped to a stop, the force slamming through their bones. They swung there, suspended over the abyss.

Above them, the white blast faded.

[You have slain the Fallen Stone Archangel (Midnight King) - Lvl 137]

[+100 Soul Fragments acquired]

[An item has been added to your inventory]

Another notification slowly unfurled in the air.

[Talent Awakened…]

[Your Second Class is being awakened…]