Kael had experienced many battlefields.
He had fought in the ruined streets of Eredhyn, where the cries of the dying mingled with the hymns of the faithful. He had walked across ashen wastelands, where the corpses of men, elves, and dwarves piled higher than the walls of fallen cities.
He had felt the presence of gods, both divine and malevolent.
But this?
This was something else.
There was no ground beneath him.
No sky above.
No scent of blood. No sound of war.
Only emptiness.
Kael floated within a vast abyss, an infinite darkness that seemed neither alive nor dead.
There was no wind, no air, no warmth. Even time itself felt… irrelevant.
For the first time in centuries, Kael felt nothing.
His heartbeat did not echo.
His breath did not stir.
He reached out—and felt the weight of the void press back against him.
'This is not a place I should be.'
He frowned.
Not a thought of panic. Not a question of how or why.
Only analysis.
---
The last thing he remembered was the altar chamber.
The Abyssal Knight had unleashed a pulse of magic, golden chains erupting from the ground, ensnaring him before he could react.
The spell had been foreign, unlike anything he had encountered in battle. It was not divine magic, nor was it a mere dungeon construct.
It had been something else.
Something designed to remove him.
And it had succeeded.
For now.
Kael closed his eyes, expanding his awareness.
His soul—the very core of his existence, the source of his divine authority—was still intact.
But there was a force here. Something anchoring him in place.
His fingers flexed.
It felt like chains, not physical, but conceptual. A binding of intent rather than metal.
It did not restrain his body. It restrained his will.
Kael exhaled.
His faith, his soul, his strength—none of these were easily broken.
Slowly, he pressed against the magic holding him.
It resisted.
A strange pressure built against him, like unseen hands pressing him down, trying to suppress his existence.
A lesser being would have submitted, suffocated under the weight of this formless abyss.
Kael only pushed harder.
The magic trembled.
And then—
Something stirred in the darkness.
A whisper, just at the edge of his awareness.
Not a voice.
Not words.
Something watching.
Kael's eyes snapped open.
His instincts, honed by centuries of battle, told him the truth.
He was not alone here.
---
He did not move.
There was nothing to move toward, nothing to fight.
And yet, the sensation grew stronger.
An unseen presence, lurking just beyond sight, its form hidden in the abyss.
Kael did not flinch.
If it was waiting for fear, for hesitation, for weakness—
It would not find it here.
The unseen force pressed against him.
Testing. Measuring.
A lesser being might have collapsed under the scrutiny, crushed under the weight of something unknowable.
Kael's gaze remained steady.
His will did not waver.
And that was when the magic began to break.
The binding around him cracked.
A fissure split through the abyss, a thin, jagged tear of golden light—his divine essence rejecting the foreign magic.
The unseen presence recoiled.
And for the first time, Kael felt something resembling hostility.
Not a monster.
Not a god.
Something in between.
Something that did not belong.
Kael exhaled.
With a final exertion of his will, the void shattered.
Light rushed in, blinding and absolute.
The world snapped back into place.
Kael reappeared in the chamber.
The acrid scent of blood, steel, and death filled his lungs.
The bodies of the fallen littered the ground.
Mirae lay on her back, gasping, barely able to raise her sword.
The Abyssal Knight stood over her, its blade descending.
Kael moved.
Steel clashed against steel.
And for the first time, the Abyssal Knight stepped back.
---
The chamber was deathly silent.
Blood stained the floor. The bodies of fallen Hunters lay scattered across the room, their lifeless eyes staring into the void.
And yet, the moment Kael intercepted the Abyssal Knight's blade, the slaughter stopped.
For the first time, the monster that had effortlessly butchered an elite raid team had been forced back.
Not by numbers.
Not by magic.
But by a single man.
Mirae gasped, barely able to push herself up. Her ribs screamed in protest, her arms weak from exhaustion, but she couldn't tear her eyes away from the scene before her.
Kael stood between her and the Abyssal Knight, his posture unshaken, his grip steady.
He held his blade in one hand.
A normal Hunter would need both arms to withstand the sheer weight of the Abyssal Knight's attacks.
Yet Kael had deflected it without effort.
Mirae had always known he was not normal.
But this was something else.
The Abyssal Knight tilted its head.
For the first time, it took a single step back.
It was acknowledging Kael.
And then—it attacked.
---
The first clash came like a thunderclap.
The Abyssal Knight moved with inhuman speed, its massive runeblade cleaving through the air.
Kael met the strike head-on.
Their blades collided in an explosion of sparks, the impact shaking the chamber.
Mirae felt the force of the clash even from a distance.
The sheer power behind the Knight's swing was enough to cleave an armored Tank in half.
Yet Kael did not budge.
He held his ground, his sword absorbing the force with perfect control.
The knight's follow-up came immediately.
A diagonal cut, faster than before. A feint—its blade stopping mid-swing, redirecting into a sudden thrust aimed for Kael's throat.
Kael sidestepped at the last moment.
The tip of the Abyssal Knight's sword grazed his cheek, cutting the air where his head had been an instant before.
Fluid. Efficient. Calculated.
And then Kael countered.
He moved like a ghost.
His sword cut through the air in a series of precise, devastating strikes, each one aimed at the knight's weak points.
The Abyssal Knight's blade intercepted every single one.
The battle became a deadly dance of steel and instinct.
They moved across the battlefield like two phantoms locked in an eternal war, neither yielding, neither making a mistake.
The Hunters could barely follow their movements.
They had never seen combat like this.
---
Jin-Woo, still conscious despite the pain of his severed arm, stared in awe.
Kael wasn't fighting like a Hunter.
He wasn't even fighting like a human.
His movements were flawless, his footwork near inhuman in its efficiency.
The Abyssal Knight fought like a beast of war—relentless, brutal, unyielding.
Kael fought like a king who had spent centuries mastering the art of battle.
Not a single step was wasted.
Not a single attack was reckless.
Every movement had purpose.
And despite his weakened state—
Kael was winning.
But then—something changed.
Kael was about to launch a decisive counterattack when the Abyssal Knight's stance shifted.
Its movements, once structured and refined, suddenly became erratic.
Unnatural.
Its sword swings lost all conventional rhythm, becoming unpredictable, as if bending reality itself.
Kael's blade barely intercepted an attack that should not have been possible.
A slash from an angle that defied logic.
A step that covered too much distance.
It was as if the Knight was moving through something other than space itself.
Kael's eyes narrowed.
This was no longer a battle between swordsmen.
This was something far more dangerous.
And then—the Abyssal Knight whispered.
Not a voice.
Not a word.
Something crawled into Kael's mind, an echo of something ancient.
The runes across the Knight's armor flared to life.
And then—
A pulse of darkness erupted from its blade.
Kael barely had time to react before the world twisted.
A blackened void formed around the Knight, consuming all light within the chamber.
The battle was no longer just physical.
The Abyssal Knight had revealed its true power.
And the duel was only just beginning.
---
The world twisted.
A dark pulse erupted from the Abyssal Knight's sword, swallowing the light within the chamber.
The Hunters watched in silent horror as reality itself seemed to bend, distort, collapse inward.
The room no longer felt like a dungeon.
It felt like a battlefield pulled from the depths of some forgotten nightmare.
Kael exhaled, his fingers tightening around his sword.
"This again."
The unnatural shift did not faze him.
He had fought in places where reality shattered under the weight of divine and infernal forces.
This was simply another battlefield.
And like all battlefields—he would conquer it.
The Abyssal Knight moved.
Not forward. Not back.
It blinked.
One moment, it stood before Kael.
The next—
A blade slashed toward his flank from an impossible angle.
Kael barely turned in time, his sword intercepting the strike. Sparks erupted, steel scraping against steel.
The impact rattled through his arms, heavier than before.
The Knight was stronger now. Faster.
Its movements defied physics, as if it no longer followed the same rules of space and time.
Kael countered with a precise thrust to its exposed chest.
The Abyssal Knight leaned back unnaturally, its torso bending at an impossible angle.
Kael adjusted instantly, shifting his footwork, following through with a second strike aimed lower.
The Knight's shadow moved before its body.
A fraction of a second before the real motion, as if the darkness itself was guiding its defense.
Kael's eyes narrowed.
'It's not just moving. It's anticipating.'
---
The Abyssal Knight pressed forward, its attacks coming faster, sharper, wilder.
Each strike forced Kael to adjust, adapt, react with increasing precision.
Its swordplay was no longer structured, nor entirely random.
It was a hybrid of controlled chaos.
Blades clashed in a deadly rhythm, sparks raining down like falling stars.
To the watching Hunters, it was inhuman.
They could no longer see where one attack ended and the next began.
Kael fought with centuries of discipline and mastery.
The Abyssal Knight fought with something older, something beyond human comprehension.
And the longer the battle continued—the more Kael began to feel the strain.
Then, the Knight shifted again.
A new trick.
Kael stepped in for a counterattack—only for the Abyssal Knight's armor to ripple.
Its chestplate separated into writhing shadows, revealing a gaping void beneath the metal.
Kael's blade sank into nothingness.
His instincts screamed.
He immediately disengaged, twisting away before the shadows could consume him.
But the moment his foot touched the ground—chains erupted from the abyss beneath him.
They wrapped around his legs, pulsing with cursed energy, trying to pull him into the void.
Kael's divine aura flared in response, his body rejecting the unnatural binding.
Golden embers burned away the chains before they could take hold.
But it was enough of a distraction.
The Abyssal Knight struck.
A devastating downward cleave that ripped through the air like a guillotine.
Kael barely brought his sword up in time—
The impact sent him crashing backward.
Kael's back hit the dungeon wall, cracks spreading from the force of the impact.
A sharp pain pulsed through his ribs—his body was still weakened.
The Knight's stance lowered, preparing to charge.
Kael didn't wait.
His sword hand tightened.
Then, for the first time—he unleashed his power.
A golden sigil flared beneath his feet, searing into the dungeon floor.
The Hunters felt the air shift, the pressure of something divine filling the chamber.
Kael launched forward with explosive force, his speed suddenly tripling.
The Abyssal Knight barely managed to parry in time.
But Kael was already gone.
He reappeared behind it, his sword slicing through the air faster than before.
The Abyssal Knight turned—too slow.
Kael's blade bit deep into its shoulder, carving through cursed metal.
A screeching sound echoed as dark energy bled from the wound.
The Hunters stared in disbelief.
They had thrown everything at this monster.
Magic, blades, tactics—nothing had worked.
But Kael?
Kael had wounded it.
---
The Abyssal Knight paused.
Not in pain.
But in acknowledgment.
Then, for the first time—
It spoke.
A voice like cracked stone and distant echoes.
A whisper that should not exist.
"…King."
Kael's eyes narrowed.
He did not know what this creature was.
But it knew him.
The Knight raised its sword.
And the final phase of the battle began.
.
.
Kael tightened his grip on his sword.
The Abyssal Knight stood before him, blade raised, its tattered cloak fluttering in an unseen wind.
Their battle had escalated beyond mortal combat.
The dungeon itself had warped around them, space twisting, the air thick with the remnants of divine and void energies clashing.
The Hunters had long since fallen silent.
They couldn't interfere.
They couldn't even comprehend.
This was a duel beyond their understanding.
A battle of monsters in human skin.
---
The Abyssal Knight charged first.
A single step forward—and the distance between them vanished.
Kael barely had time to react before the Knight's blade came down, a crushing vertical strike.
He stepped to the side, narrowly avoiding the cut—
But the Knight's sword bent mid-swing.
As if time had rewound itself, the blade reversed direction, swinging back at an impossible angle.
Kael ducked, rolling to the side.
The ground where he had stood ruptured, the force of the impact splitting the stone.
This wasn't just speed.
The Knight was bending its own movements, distorting its attacks to be unpredictable.
Kael's expression remained calm.
He had already begun analyzing.
They clashed again.
Steel met steel, their movements blurring into one another.
Kael's strikes were perfect, executed with centuries of training—calculated, efficient, unstoppable.
Yet, the Abyssal Knight mirrored him.
Not by skill.
But by corrupting the flow of battle itself.
It twisted its own footwork, stepping in places it had not yet moved.
It countered attacks before they had fully been launched.
A style that should not exist.
And still—
Kael adapted.
A flash of golden energy burst around him as he activated Divine Reflex.
His movements became sharper, his senses expanded—
A second ahead, then two, then three.
He saw it.
The pattern within the chaos.
---
The Abyssal Knight swung.
Kael did not block.
He turned his body at the exact moment the Knight's attack warped, letting the blade graze past his shoulder instead of striking true.
A lesser warrior would have tried to parry.
Kael did not waste time fighting inevitability.
Instead, he exploited it.
The moment the Knight's attack missed, Kael countered.
His sword sliced clean through the Knight's left side.
Dark ichor sprayed from the wound.
For the first time, the Abyssal Knight staggered.
---
The dungeon shook violently.
The Hunters felt a shift in the air.
For the first time since the battle began, the Abyssal Knight had been wounded twice. And this time, it was bleeding.
Kael didn't stop.
He pressed forward, his sword moving faster than before.
The Abyssal Knight stepped back. Its movements, once perfectly unreadable, now held fragments of hesitation. It could no longer distort freely.
Kael had forced it into a pattern.
Now, it was just a skilled opponent. No longer invincible.
The Abyssal Knight tilted its head.
Then, its armor cracked.
Dark mist seeped from the wound, twisting, warping—
Its broken shoulder reformed.
A deep, inhuman voice echoed through the chamber.
"King..."
Kael remained silent.
The Abyssal Knight raised its sword—
And space itself twisted.
Kael tensed.
This was it.
The final phase was beginning.
.
.
The dungeon trembled.
The air was thick with static energy, a collision of divine radiance and abyssal void.
Kael and the Abyssal Knight stood motionless for a single breath.
Then—
They moved at the same time.
---
The Abyssal Knight vanished from sight.
Kael's instincts screamed—he turned, blade flashing.
Steel met steel in a cataclysmic impact.
The shockwave ruptured the ground beneath them, sending broken stone flying.
They clashed again.
And again.
Blades blurred through the air, faster than human sight could track.
Each strike was deadlier than the last.
The Abyssal Knight's movements had changed.
It was no longer testing him.
No longer distorting space at random.
Every step, every slash, every movement was now refined, honed, focused.
Kael grinned slightly.
'Good.'
This was no longer a battle against the unknown.
This was a duel.
The Abyssal Knight's blade twisted unnaturally mid-swing, warping reality around it.
Kael anticipated it.
He stepped in, pivoted his stance, and—his sword struck first.
A golden arc carved through the darkness.
The Abyssal Knight staggered.
Kael pressed forward, his footwork precise, his attacks relentless.
The creature could no longer match him.
The warping distortions were no longer unpredictable.
Kael had memorized their patterns.
And now, he was exploiting them.
---
The Abyssal Knight let out a distorted growl.
Its gauntleted hand opened, and chains of void energy erupted toward Kael.
He did not move.
He let them come.
And then, as the cursed chains wrapped around him—
His golden aura exploded outward.
The divine radiance shattered the bindings instantly.
Kael stepped forward, completely unfazed.
"Enough."
The Abyssal Knight raised its blade one last time.
A final all-or-nothing attack.
Kael exhaled.
He lowered his stance.
His grip tightened.
For the first time since the fight began, he called upon more of his divine strength.
Golden light surged through his body, his blade glowing with radiant power.
The Abyssal Knight charged.
Kael met it head-on.
The world shook as they clashed.
A single, perfect strike.
One side would fall.
The impact split the chamber apart.
The stone floor cracked, pillars collapsed, the walls ruptured outward.
For a long moment, nothing moved.
Then—
A low, metallic groan.
The Abyssal Knight stood frozen, its massive blade still raised.
A single crack spread across its helmet.
Then another.
Its entire body fractured, dark mist seeping from the gaps.
Kael lowered his sword.
"Rest."
The Abyssal Knight's body collapsed into dust.
---
The battle was over.
The dungeon was silent.
Mirae, barely able to lift her head, stared in absolute disbelief.
Jin-Woo, still alive despite his severed arm, let out a shuddering breath.
They had just watched the impossible.
A single man had fought—and won.
Kael exhaled, rolling his shoulder.
His body was exhausted.
He had pushed himself too far.
But he could not rest yet.
There was something… wrong.
The dungeon should have been collapsing.
The Gate should be closing.
And yet—it wasn't.
A flicker of golden light caught Kael's eye.
The altar behind them was still active.
In its center, a single, floating crystal pulsated softly.
Kael frowned.
The battle was over.
But the mystery had only just begun.