Neo tried to inspect the guardian standing in his path. Before the skill could finish, the man spoke in a calm, almost bored voice.
"Useless, kid. My level is too high for that. More importantly, you made it all the way here. I must say, I’m impressed."
The guardian shifted his weight and lifted both swords into a ready stance. The blades caught the dim light of the castle corridor.
"My name is Zoro. Swordsmaster of the Zynin clan."
He vanished.
Neo and Tara triggered their speed skills at the same instant. The three of them became blurs of motion that filled the hallway with afterimages and the sharp crack of displaced air. Neo’s eyes widened as Zoro stayed with them, matching every acceleration and still finding openings to attack. Steel flashed. Pain exploded through Neo’s left ankle. His Achilles tendon parted cleanly. He crashed to one knee, unable to push off the floor. Zoro ignored Tara completely and left her free to run.
Tara skidded to a stop, bewildered.
"Why didn’t you attack me?"
Zoro answered without looking at her. Whatever he said made Tara’s face flush dark with anger. She glared at him and shouted,
"You dare to disrespect me!"
She turned toward Neo.
"Watch this, clothes."
Tara settled into a low stance and murmured under her breath. Electricity raced across her skin in bright, branching lines. Two horns of pure yellow lightning rose from her head. Her body shone like a living storm. Then she vanished again.
Zoro’s eyes widened. He crossed both swords in a desperate block, but Tara’s hand punched straight through his guard. She tore his heart free in one clean motion. Blood sprayed across the stone.
Zoro staggered, staring at the organ in her grip.
"Wait... isn’t this the racial skill of the royal leopard family? Why is a demon using it?"
Tara gave him no time to finish. She launched into a barrage of high-intensity strikes, each one faster than the last. Lightning cracked with every impact. Zoro’s body was battered from every angle until he looked more like a broken doll than a swordsman.
He roared through the pain.
"Do you think I’m scared of you? I’ve already caught many of your people and cooked them for my dinner!"
He muttered a short phrase. A thick red aura erupted around him, coiling like living fire.
Neo had not been standing still. The moment Tara’s transformation began, he had already slipped into Dark Monarch mode. He pulled the three dark crystals from his inventory and inspected them. The system window floated in front of his eyes.
Crystal of End. Each one multiplies output by two.
Three crystals. Eight times his strength.
He swallowed them one after another. Power slammed through his body like a tidal wave. His Dark Monarch form changed. Black armor plated itself over his skin, dense and seamless. A crown of black horns grew from his head. His eyes glowed with purple light that mixed the pull of an incubus with the absolute presence of a king. Muscles thickened across his arms, chest, and legs. Broad shoulders filled the armor. Every line of his body looked carved for war.
He checked his level. Peak Star Level 2.
Neo grinned, locked eyes on the red-aura Zoro, and charged.
He drew a normal sword. The instant his fingers closed around the hilt the metal crumbled to dust. In its place an aura blade of pure darkness formed, longer and denser than any steel. Zoro was still chasing Tara. His swords were out of position, his back fully exposed.
Neo swung.
The floor of the castle shook. A massive dark energy blade screamed outward, carving a deep trench through stone and walls. A good chunk of the castle simply vanished in the blast. Zoro was sliced cleanly in two. The halves hit the ground with wet, heavy sounds. Neo let the form drop at once and grabbed his chest. The burden of that power was crushing. Another second and his heart might have given out. Yet something inside him had shifted. He felt absurdly powerful, as if a door had opened that would never fully close again.
He shook his head to clear the haze. Tara stared at him, still in her lightning form. She bit her lower lip hard. The sight of Neo’s broad shoulders, the heavy muscle in his arms and legs, the residual black aura clinging to his body like smoke, kept sending the same unwanted thought through her mind. Heat pooled low in her stomach. She shook her head sharply, forcing the feeling down.
Together they moved past the ruined corridor and entered the basement. Rows of iron cells stretched into the gloom. The air smelled of damp stone and old blood. They walked the long hallway toward Pyra’s cell at the far end.
A portal tore open directly in front of them. A man in a perfect tuxedo stepped through. Fly wings snapped open behind his back with a dry, leathery sound.
Neo checked his level. Beelzebub. Star Level 1.
Neo went silent. This was the demon who ruled the castle? Why were his minions stronger than him?
Beelzebub looked at Neo and raised both hands into a boxing guard.
"Do you think I would let you take my money like this?"
Neo frowned at the strange wording. Tara leaned close and whispered that "money" meant Pyra.
Neo met her eyes.
"Run. Distract him. I’ll kill him."
Tara nodded and vanished in a yellow arc of electricity. Beelzebub did not move. He simply closed his eyes, grinned, and calculated the exact moment Tara would reappear. His fist shot out and caught her cleanly in the side. She slammed into a cell wall and dropped.
Neo went cold. This one was the smart type—the most dangerous kind. He needed a different approach.
Then the idea hit him. His eyes widened. He forced Dark Monarch mode on again, crushed the three crystals once more, and opened his palm toward Beelzebub. The demon tilted his head, curious.
Neo activated his favorite skill—Steal—but not on the man himself.
Beelzebub felt nothing at first. Neo’s grin widened.
"I’m not stealing you. I’m stealing the space around you."
Beelzebub’s eyes snapped open in understanding, but it was already too late. Neo’s voice was calm and sharp.
"Sure, Beelzebub is smart. But can he overcome a million years of human intelligence from my previous world? The answer is no."
Beelzebub tried to run. Space itself slowed around him. Time stretched. A black hole bloomed in the exact volume Neo had stolen, and Beelzebub was sucked inside. His body stretched, tore, and vanished into the singularity.
Neo cursed. The black hole kept expanding. He could not shut it down. The only plan left was the hydro mana blocks. He poured every drop of them into white holy power and hurled the mass into the swirling void. Anti-nature energy clashed with pure destruction. The black hole shuddered, contracted, and finally collapsed.
The corridor returned to silence. Tara walked toward Neo as he finally released Dark Monarch mode. And they both kept walking towards Pyra cell.
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