*Boom*
Without a second of Thought, Null used all the power in his legs to launch himself toward the fiery drake.
His eyes glowed more violet than ever, and despite the stoic expression under his mask, killing intent seemed to spew out of him like water out of a broken dam.
He hadn't even realized it, but he had triggered the passive ability, [Monarch's Aura].
Purple and black ethereal energies left his body, flooded the surroundings, and began encapsulating the lava lake.
'I need to get close without burning to death; to do that, I need to have a way of traveling above the lava without touching it...' Null thought to himself, yet despite not knowing the answer yet, he did not stop moving at full speed.
But it was about time he started to think at full speed too-
[4-Dimensional thought]
In an instant, everything around Null seemed to slow down, as he was in a camera that was putting a piece of footage into slow motion.
The once-vibrant colors of the magma bubbling and rocks sizzling all seemed to dull down even more than when he put the mask in.
Everything became black and white at that moment, while grid-like patterns appeared all over his vision, sectioning the entire area into chunks as if he was looking at schematics rather than real objects and beings.
From his perspective, everything changed... Everything except the one thing he had his concentration on this whole time.
'The drake looks the same...' He inwardly thought, yet the rest of his brain was working on something else.
[Conservation+efficiency+precision]
Stepping onto the lava, Null surprisingly didn't sink and seemed to have stepped on solid ground instead. The fumes and heat also seemed to completely avoid Null, traveling around him as if he had a bubble that encapsulated him inside, making any heat unable to enter this bubble.
'Gotcha...'
*Boom*
With another deafening explosion, Null stepped forward once again before disappearing from where he stood while uplifting hundreds of gallons of lava into the air.
The scene of lava flying into the air could be seen for several miles, causing many to go green in envy and green before shooting off in the direction of whoever's fighting the boss.
"I can't believe someone found the boss already!" A bald man with a goatee shouted while fixing his glasses. He wore a yellow fully-body hazmat suit, excluding the helmet.
The man held several of what seemed to be recently concocted potions on his belt.
"C'mon, Mr. Black! Do you actually think that a person has actually found the boss?" A younger boy, no older than 23, asked perplexingly.
"Listen here, Jamie! We need those scales to cook! You understand that, Jamie! We have to cook!" The man replied before gulping down a cyan potion tagged 'Blue Sky.'
The man's speed tripled in an instant, allowing him to far outpace the boy behind him.
"Mr. Black! Wait!"
Scenes like these happened all over the dungeon. However, at the same time as this, Null was fighting with everything he had.
Taking a step back, Null closed his eyes and flipped several times, allowing him to completely avoid the incoming lava spikes, followed by a giant red tail that slammed right in front of him, sending him flying several meters back.
Skidding and sliding on the lava below him, Null waved his hand and created 20 fire bullets made purely out of pale blue flames.
Without skipping a beat, Null shot every one of them toward the drake, hitting it in several spots and creating several explosions.
As the smoke began to disappear, Null narrowed his eyes to see for any damage, yet-
'Completely unscathed... But that's what I was hoping for...'
[Void Step]
Within a moment, Null's body shone purple before it disappeared, yet not a second passed before it appeared again as he could be seen floating right above the drake's open maw, ready to consume him the moment he came to close...
And he didn't resist.
Instead, it looked like he was welcoming to the fact he was being consumed, yet just when the drake thought it had him, the unexpected happened.
*Crack*
*Crack Crack*
*Crack Crack Crack*
Without warning, fiery red cracks began to appear on Null's skin.
For the first time in a long time, the drake not only felt danger but also danger from an element it thought it was the king of.
Flames burst out of the cracks in Null's skin, while the eye holes in Null's mask shone brighter than ever as.
In an instant, the flames seemed to freeze at the moment, yet in the next-
*BOOOOOOOOOM*
The entirety of the lake's center disappeared in a mushroom cloud of an explosion. Lava rained out of the sky and scorched the earth around the lake, destroying all the nearby trees while turning a lot of the rocks into grey sand.
"Aww! Is it over already?" A man who had gotten there on time to barely see the explosion wined, yet everyone else was too preoccupied with the scene before them to care about what he was saying.
"That's one hell of an explosion, though. It's something you would probably see from a peak first commandment mage." A girl thought out loud.
"Hey. I've seen artificers of the same level create an explosion twice as big." Another girl smugly replied.
Seconds felt like minutes as everyone waited for the lava to fall down and reveal the creature in the middle, yet after a while, instead of seeing a dead creature...
"Hey, I think I see movement in there..." A man pointed out with his boy aimed towards the area just in case he would have to finish the creature off.
"Hahaha! I think you're going senile, Robin. No way in hell anyone can survive a blast like that, especially not anyone from the excursion team nor that dungeon boss you keep yapping about. Unless its a peak first commandment-"
*Boom*
Cut off in the middle of his sentence, the man was forced to watch as a person cloaked in shadows blasted out of the magma pillar before skidding along lava and slamming into several trees to stop his momentum.
At the same time, a loud, ear-shredding roar entered their ears, causing them to look back at the source just to see a drake with fiery red scales and a burnt face look at the person covered in shadows with pure hate in its topaz eyes glaring daggers at him.
"Oi! Over here" A void sounded from behind it, causing it to look back just to see-
"You hit the wrong one... Clearly..." Null sighed before shaking his head in disappointment.
On the other hand, the drake did not waste a second as it instantly gathered flame into its maw before shooting it toward Null, but instead of dodging like a normal person would have, Null extended his hand forward and simply waited as the fireball came even closer.
*Snap*
*Boom*
With a snap of his fingers, Null caused the fireball to instantly explode just a few meters in front of him.
Null quickly activated [Presence Concealment] before disappearing into the smoke that had covered him as if he was never there in the first place.
*ROAR*
The drake waited a few seconds as it frantically looked around, yet just when it was about to give up and try to escape, it felt danger surround it... As if it had been doomed to death, unable to move, its bones and muscles frozen stiff out of pure fear.
"Over here." Null muttered.
*Clang!*
Just as Null swung, the drake gathered all its courage and whipped its tail toward his blade, deflecting it in the process.
Gritting his teeth, Null slid back a few meters before concealing himself again, attacking another spot on its body to kill it, just to be blocked again.
This scene carried on for minutes as the spectators recorded everything.
*Clang* *Clang* *Clang*
Null looked like he was a phantom... A literal shadow appearing and disappearing. There, but also not there.
*Clang* *Clang* *Clang*
It was as if the human eye did not register his existence until he attacked.
*Clang* *Clang* *Clang*
It was like he was the perfect assassin.
'Enough with this.' Null finally thought, and in the last act of determination, Null jumped back several meters, allowing the creature to look at him head-on.
[Shadow Enhancement]
Covering himself in shadows, Lloyd quickly put two fingers on the base of his katana before tracing up it until he reached the tip.
Purple runes slowly engraved themselves into it, and before anyone could understand what was happening, the once silver blade became completely black, to the point where even light could not be reflected onto it anymore.
[Aspect of Void]
On the other hand, the drake gathered a flame in its mouth. It began as a deep red flame before slowly becoming orange. After orange came bright orange, orange and blue, and then white before the flame finally became a beautiful pale blue.
"A drake huh?" Null spoke aloud for the first time ever since fighting the drake.
This caused it to freeze up for a moment, yet instead of waiting for him to finish his sentence, it simply blasted its attack and waited for its prey to cry out in pain.
Yet, that cry would never reach its ears since its fate had already been sealed.
"...How disappointing"
*Swoosh*
Appearing before the ball of flames in an instant, Null sliced at it, yet instead of it exploding into his face, something else happened.
"Is that sword..." A man pointed with an agape mouth.
"It is isn't it..." another cried out.
"It-"
[Aspect of Void - Elemental Absorbtion]
The flames slowly seeped into the blade while the rest followed it like a light trail, illuminating everything in sight as it moved.
[Void + Flames]
The flames burst into a bright purple before a shadow cast over it to make it seem like it had turned black.
[Void Walker Style-]
And as if a black hole had appeared in the middle of the dungeon, it happened.
Just like that, the lights disappeared, and everything turned black.
[Black Hole Eclipse]