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"Hmm, yes...!" Atrokus laughed. "YES! THIS POWER...! KUAHAHAHAHAH!"
FLUOSH!
A trendous surge of power erupted from Atrokus as he laughed, divine power he had never felt before, drawn straight from the living world! He raised his arms, and the energy manifested: black, withered trees burst from the ground around him.
"I HAVE BECO SO STRONG! I-I CAN BECO A DEATH APOSTLE NOW...! I AM INVINCIBLEEEEEE!"
Mark and the others watched in horror as the bone chira cackled, slowly advancing toward them with a grotesque, pleased smile stretching across his bony mandibles.
"And you’re next... but I’ll be patient with you. I want to see you suffer a little longer... yes, cry. It makes the soul taste so much sweeter~"
Atrokus laughed again as despair crushed Mark and everyone else. Tears stread down their faces; they could no longer hold them back. Everything was truly gone.
Elayne was dead. All hope had vanished.
Leaving them to burn in their agony, Atrokus turned and floated back toward the battlefield. The White Ghost Soldiers stared in awe as he hovered in midair.
His Spiritual Power and the surging Divine Power spread outward, conjuring vast forests of twisted trees and withered wood. Red eyes glead like fruits on the branches, attacking his enemies while nourishing his own army.
"Kuahahahaha!"
He released clouds of spores against his foes, infecting dozens of White Ghosts and transforming them into his Sporeborns. The new thralls roared and imdiately turned on their forr allies.
The barrier protecting the city cracked and shattered. Undead poured through the breaches, smashing into the first houses and setting everything ablaze.
Chalk and Blank felt it deep inside.
"E-Elayne...?"
Blank’s face drained of color as her presence echoed within him. His heart plumted; his soul went cold. Franken, battered nearly to death in front of him, stared at Atrokus in utter disbelief.
"A-Atrokus, that bastard...! What kind of power is that?"
In the distance, Chalk—locked in even combat with Bellarine—gasped as she sensed Elayne’s power within Atrokus too. The brutal truth hit her like a blade.
"N-No...!" she whispered. "Elayne...! Brother, is she...?"
"KUKU... KUAHAHAHAHAHA!"
Atrokus’ laughter bood across the battlefield. Each step sent ripples through the ground. The Undead trembled in instinctive terror before him. Twilight Power and spores swirled around his form, igniting massive explosions of fla for his dramatic entrance.
For the first ti since descending into the Netherworld as a lowly bandit, Atrokus felt like the true "main character." He was now the strongest. With this boundless potential, he would rise higher and higher.
Perhaps—with this power—even reaching the level of Demon Kings was no longer impossible. Yes, he could feel it: he was already practically Tier 6 without evolving.
If he evolved, he could push to Tier 7 and fully assimilate this strength, becoming completely unstoppable!
"Face my might! Admire my power! Cower in fear, maggots! For your true king has arrived—Atrokus, the Demon King of Twilight!"
As he laughed, armor forged from twilight—light and darkness fused—clad his enormous humanoid body. A massive crown hovered above his head, and forests of spores and withered trees rose before him.
With a re thought, a long sword materialized: bone trees and withered wood wrapped in gold and black steel, blazing with golden light and phantasmal flas.
His overwhelming presence filled Blank and Chalk with raw horror.
He was... soone they could not face.
But that pales beside the deeper, more unbearable truth.
Elayne was gone.
"Y-You killed her...!" Blank muttered, voice shaking. "YOU KILLED HER!!!"
Fury and anguish erupted through him. Blank roared, his body transforming into a towering titan of white void and ghostly energy. Hundreds of white void weapons materialized as he charged Atrokus.
"Heh!"
Atrokus laughed and t the assault. Explosions of white void clashed against twilight. White void weapons shattered uselessly against his unbreakable armor.
"Hahahaha! I am invincible, noble among nobles!" Atrokus seized Blank’s core form, ripped him free from the ghostly titan, slamd him to the ground, and crushed him repeatedly.
"Kuuaaaahhh!" Blank scread in tornt. His body shattered over and over.
"ELAYNE...! GIVE HER BACK!!!" Blank howled through tears, fighting with desperate, monstrous strength. He regenerated endlessly, pushing himself past every limit. "YOU MONSTER! YOU FILTHY, MONSTROUS DEMON!!!"
"She’s gone! Forever dead and never returning!" Atrokus cackled. "She is now part of my power. She flows through , feeds her strength. Mine combines with hers—she completes ...!"
"NNNGGH...! BASTARD!!!" Blank roared in rage at the vile words spilling from the bone monster. His physical body twisted again, becoming a vast, formless mass of white mist that assaulted Atrokus. "ELAYNE...! ELAYNE, WAKE UP! ELAYNEEEEEE!"
As Blank desperately called for her, Atrokus swung his sword, slicing through the ghostly form. Blank scread in agony, forced to compress his body to avoid fatal damage. Then—
"GO DIE SOWHERE ELSE, USELESS NOBLE!"
Atrokus laughed and delivered a devastating punch with a massive bony fist infused with twilight. A colossal explosion of twilight flas engulfed Blank, hurling him skyward until he crashed into White Tooth Mountain.
BOOOMMM!!!
"BLANK!"
Chalk abandoned her opponent and flew to rescue her brother. anwhile, Bellarine and Franken slowly approached Atrokus, heads bowed before his terrifying aura.
The hierarchy of the Undead was absolute: the weak obeyed the strong.
"Atrokus...! You damn bastard...! Just how strong...?" Franken muttered.
"You ate the traitor? Was she really this powerful?!" Bellarine asked.
"She was," Atrokus replied. "Don’t worry—I have no intention of harming you, my foolish friends. Once we seize the city, we return to the capital. There we will et our King and deliver the glorious news... Once I ascend, perhaps I can spare so scraps and make you my subordinates... Hah."
"Nngh... T-Thank you..." Franken burned with suppressed fury and humiliation.
"Hahah... t-thank you so much..." Bellarine forced a smile, her eyebrows twitching violently.
Atrokus gazed at the destruction his Undead army spread across the land and smiled with satisfaction. He raised his sword high, then suddenly drove it straight through Franken’s heart.
"Gaaaahhh?! A-Atrokus?!"
"Huh?!"
Atrokus’ eyes widened in shock as he stared at his own hand. The sword dropped from his grasp. Even though he called them fools and they had always hated each other, this trio had been inseparable since their weakest days as Undead, always together. Atrokus might relish his superiority now, but he would never carelessly kill such an old companion.
And yet... he had pierced Franken’s heart, straight through his Nether Core.
Out of... seemingly nowhere?
"Eh? No...! Franken!" Bellarine cried, rushing to his side as he convulsed and vomited blood. "W-Wha...! What have you done?!"
"I didn’t do it! I...!" Atrokus stared at his trembling hand, as if...
As if sothing—or soone—was trying to seize control.
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