Might as Well

Sword met dagger in a deadly dance.

The sound of metal-on-metal echoing around the cave, lit by the ruby light of the bleeding moon, steps squelching because of the thin layer of almost coagulated blood slowly covering the entire surface of the location of the battle.

However, neither of the combatants cared.

Zephyr van Luyt's face was covered in a snarl of anger and malice, eyes glinting with promised pain and suffering as he used his superior strength and power to make every strike of his serrated dagger feel like a hammer launched by a cannon at Sam.

Every move was precisely thought out to inflict the most pain, staying as close to him as possible, making sure the monster's aura was always active.

Meanwhile, Sam could only focus on holding his sword for his dear life, making sure to deflect those strikes that were aimed at vital points and taking the hits with his shield where he couldn't move fast or strong enough.

Still, as the battle settled into an uncomfortable rhythm, both combatants focusing on each other exclusively, Sam noticed a bit of repetition in the monster's movement. Which, while a bit surprising, wasn't wholly unexpected. It was, after all, a boss monster, and even if it showed high intelligence, the game system still made it so that those who could notice the gaps would be able to defeat it. Of course, usually this was done by a raid party with tanks, healers, and damage dealers, but Sam felt optimistic.

While he tried to keep up with Zephyr in melee, he still found the time to fire off pulses of clean mana at the monster and himself, getting rid of the effect of the monster's aura and wounding it further.

The putrid pool in the hole in reality, had collected a rather sizeable number of gashes and holes, and every time the clean-attributed mana struck, the monster slowed down almost imperceptibly, giving Sam all the reason to continue with his invisible barrage.

Plus, the fact that every time he shot off his magic, the monster's face went through a bevy of emotions. Sam was pretty sure it could have dodged the magic, but he had a feeling that Zephyr didn't want to let up on him after seeing him cast void magic. Instead, it took the magic head-on and tried to skewer Sam with a flurry of blows and slashes.

"Thy may think to be clever, but Zephyr van Luyt never loses!" the monster snarled after a vicious exchange.

Sam was panting and drenched in sweat, but he found the required lung capacity to answer. "Say that after you killed me!" He punctuated his retort with a quick push with his hand, using the momentary lull in fighting, to fire off a pulse of void energy.

The monster pushed away from the ground, dodging the circular pulse of nothingness, but either thanks to Sam's sabotage or being tired of the battle, it didn't fully manage to clear the spell and it caught the edge of its arms, taking a chunk with it.

"AAARGH!" the monster roared in pain, as countless tiny vines emerged from the wound, refilling the missing parts and then smoothing out into skin, as if the attack never happened.

But Sam knew better.

With his mana senses, he saw the hole in reality where the monster was decreasing a little, as if recreating the flesh took up some portion of energy in it. It was a minimal decrease, but it told him that there was a way to kill the monster.

'Now…I just have to survive…' he mused dejectedly as the monster launched itself at him with renewed vigor and wanton aggression with the goal of taking his head.

Sam launched himself away from the wall where he was pushed just a second ago, just in time to avoid the heavy strike from the enraged monster that carved a gash big enough into the wall covered with black vines and rivulets of blood to fit his thigh into.

Using the momentum, he soared through the air for a moment, turning around and launching several more pulses of void, aiming to box Zephyr in as the monster wrenched the dagger out of the rapidly reconstructing wall.

Zephyr snarled, the voice being lost as the blood filled the room like a macabre waterfall, falling on the ground and slowly filling the middle of the cavern with a small pool of blood. However, the uneven footing, and already wounded both physically and magically, slowed him down enough to only manage to dodge two of the pulses.

The last one Sam fired managed to him the bloody monster right in the off-hand, taking the entire thing with it. The monster's shoulders basically exploded with tiny vines before it took the form of another arm, though this time it was bare.

Sam, making use of the pain and surprise, used the pause to charge up a bigger attack.

"FUCK YOU AND FUCK WHATEVER IS BEHIND YOU!" he roared as he let go of the giant beam of void mana at the monster. The beam was thick enough that it would need at least four people to stand hand to hand to circle it.

Zephyr van Luyt, befitting his station, simply raised his newly grown hand and crossed it with the other holding the dagger as the blood on the floor surged upwards into a half globe just in time to receive the attack Sam cast.

The beam of void energy met the shield of blood with cataclysmic noise, as if a heavy cast-iron bell had just been rung by smashing a towering pile of glass at highway speeds.

Sam could see more and more blood gathering around the monster's feet, sustaining the shield.

Grinning, he quickly sheathed his weapon and raised his other hand to help maintain the beam.

It took an incredible amount of mana, but so far, his regeneration was up to the task. On the other hand – and mentally – it was a rather simple spell, so he could focus on other things.

Like slowly but methodically summoning several globes of cleaning magic around him. One, two, four, eight…up to sixty-four, head-sized balls of magic, practically gleaming with cleanliness, floating around him.

Sweating out of every pore, he stopped summoning them as he felt reaching the lower ends of his limit. He could have gone further, but after the scare with the whole hospital and bleeding out of several orifices, he wanted to be safe.

Stepping forward, he heard the monster roar in pain as the pressure intensified on it.

This novel's true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.

Smiling maliciously, he looked around for the last time, noting that the waterfalls of blood seemed to be drying up, though the throne was still surrounded by a small pool of it.

With a flex of his well-used magical muscles simulated by the game's pod, and launched one of the balls of clean-attributed magic at the monster.

The ball of magic flew fast enough that Sam barely saw it elongate before the roar of the monster told him it had it.

Grinning, he started to send the rest of them over.

Every time one of the balls hit, the monster let out a roar or curse, but it still maintained the shield. Too bad Sam's magic wasn't aimed at that.

Instead, he focused on his beam of void and put an extra oomph of mana into it.

"CURSE YOU! THOU SHALL SUFFER ETERNALLY AFTER I GET MY CLAWS ON YOU!" came the roar from Zephyr after the twentieth ball of magic hit.

The beam was still going strong, and Sam could feel the resistance from the magic. However, glancing around, he could see that the upper parts of the walls were withering and turning to dust, not unlike the poor maid when he arrived.

"AARRGH!"

Returning his attention to the monster, he reached out with his senses and was glad to see that the pus-filled hole in reality was almost gone, the holes made by his cleaning magic, erasing almost all the disgusting mana.

'Well…how about we finish it…' he mused, and then with another flex of his magic muscle, he sent the remaining balls of nature-attributed magic at the monster.

One shot.

"UGH!"

Four shots.

"CURSE YOU!"

Eight shots.

Sam felt the shield holding him back waver and flicker, allowing his beam of void to push even further forward.

Sixteen shots!

He couldn't even understand the words coming out of the monster's mouth. It was just an incomprehensible stream of curses, roars, growls, and something that resembled pleas.

But Sam wasn't merciful…

Using the monster's pain, he momentarily let up with the balls of magic and refocused on the beam of void.

The darkness given form, nothingness about to devour whatever was in front of it, surged as Sam began to feed more and more magic into it steadily.

For a long moment, the two forces, shield and beam, fought against each other, but then…

CRACK

A wet crack sounded, and Sam felt the shield give and his beam of void surge forward without any obstacle.

There was no scream, no curses.

The beam was so fast and wide that the monster's body was fully enveloped in it within a breath, which in turn resulted in the monster being erased from existence.

As soon as the monster vanished, Sam cut off the magic, the void beam vanishing, leaving him standing in the cavern alone, still illuminated by the ruby light of the moon, panting heavily, wounded and tired, but hopefully victorious.

He even had to blink his eyes a few times to get used to the new light levels. The beam, while filled with nothingness, still somehow illuminated the area.

However, he didn't let his guard down. There was no notification of the monster's death.

'Phase…three?'

He began to turn around, looking to see where the monster fled, when a voice began echoing all around him.

"THOU THINK THAT THOU WOULD BE ABLE TO DEFEAT ME IN MY DOMAIN?" came Zephyr's voice from above.

Snapping his head up, he watched, somewhat mesmerized, as the moon seemed to be approaching the hole in the ceiling, Zephyr's face superimposed on, eyes shooting murder at him. As he stared up at his enemy, he was reminded of an old game…

"I AM THE MOON! I AM THE BLOOD! I AM DESTINY! DIE!"

The moon, fully filling the hole in the ceiling, roared, and blood started to fall from its entire surface.

Sam instantly crouched down, holding his hands over himself and summoning void magic to fully encompass his body.

The tidal wave of blood crashed into his shield with the force of what felt like the moon, but Sam held on for his dear life in the complete darkness, the only slight illumination coming from the void shield protecting him.

Grunting slightly under the strain, he mentally opened the system screen and began to see if he had enough mana.

Then after that, it was just waiting under the continuous assault and hoping that his finely and exhaustively built character would hold up under it.

He grunted again as he felt another wave crashing into his shield, the almost congealed blood swirling around him maliciously, while the mana in the air seemed to be filled with the same disgusting mana that surrounded most people from the blood guys.

He held.

Barely.

His mana regeneration on its last fumes, the mana bar practically empty, but he stood in the cavern, breathing hard, eyes squinting in the normal light of the moon. The surrounding area was covered in black pudding-like blood of whatever remained of the tidal wave of blood from the moon.

Zephyr van Luyt was back, in his original frail appearance, standing maybe a dozen feet away from him, breathing like an asthmatic in a coal mine explosion. His skin was pale and wrinkled, the hair matted, dry, and yellow with age. The 'suit' he wore was in tatters, basically hanging off his skeletal body.

"H-how…does…thou…survive…" the monster mumbled, eyes staring at Sam in disbelief.

Sam took a deep breath and spoke up. "That's the thing about life…nobody makes it out alive!"

Then, using the last of his mana, he fired off another void pulse.

"Wha–"

The monster had maybe a moment to try to figure out what he meant before the hastily cast pulse erased the upper part of his body, letting the emaciated legs sway there for a moment before they fell over with a quiet thud.

"Did I just say that?" he wondered out loud. "What the hell was I thinking…"

Shaking his head, he turned his attention toward the system. Sam was instantly bombarded with a deluge of notifications.

[Congratulations on defeating the Zephyr van Luyt, the secret boss of the Blood Maze!]

[Congratulations! You cleared a hidden realm on your own!]

[Congratulations! You have leveled up!]

[You are now Level 140!]

[Thanks to your ability to deal with exotic magics, you gained +3 to MAG!]

[Gained 6 unassigned attribute points!]

Snorting softly, he added all the points to Perception. He would need it soon…

[Congratulations! You gained the title Enemy of Blood!]

[Enemy of Blood: Monsters focused on blood magic will feel great enmity towards you.]

[Congratulations! Due to being partially submerged in the blood ocean, your Blood Magic Resistance has been upgraded to Blood Magic Immunity.]

[Blood Magic Immunity: Submerged into the blood of sacrifice, your body and mana managed to learn how to protect itself against it. Each level increases the immunity by 1%.]

Sam saw that the rest of the notifications were about skills, so he for now he dismissed them and called out.

"Lucky! Where are you?"

With a great and victorious howl, the giant wolf emerged from a nearby shadow and spat something in front of Sam.

Looking closer, it was a salive-covered, partially munched on, bone-white puppet body.

Or, at least the upper torso and right hand of a puppet body.

Then the silly wolf sat on his haunches and began wagging his tail proudly.

Sam just snorted, limped over, and began to scratch behind his ears. "Did you kill his minions? What a good boy!"

"Wuff!"

"Hehehehe…" Sam chuckled.

After a few minutes of well-earned ear, belly, and back scratching, he finally turned his attention back to the fracture.

"Now…if I were a megalomaniacal vampire-wannabe, where would I put the anchor?" he spoke out loud. Lucky let out a curious whine, but Sam just unsheathed his sword and used his slowly returning magic to cast one last crescent of void blade at the somehow still intact throne.

The spell met the black material of the throne, and for a long moment, it seemed that the spell wouldn't do anything, almost flexing against the foul artifact, but then with a quiet whisper, it cut through it, leaving it in two parts.

Sam's eyes spotted something falling out of the seat part of the throne, but then he was distracted by the entire fracture shaking and a notification screen blaring in front of his face.

[The dimensional anchor of the fracture was destroyed!]

[Please exit the fracture in an orderly and calm manner, unless you wish to die!]

[Time remaining: 00:01:27]

He rushed over, picked up the ancient-looking scroll, and then turned his eyes toward the hole in the ceiling.

The moon was in the process of breaking into pieces while the black sky churned with rainbow colors.

"I think it's time to run…"