Too Stubborn to Die

Book 4: Chapter 23

Third floor of the Randorian Sector

Her massive, scaled wings stretched out, casting shadows over the platform as she descended, and with a heavy thud, Casryn the Red Landed. Slowly, she rose, reveling in making them wait.

As the huge drakaran scion straightened and took in her surroundings, her reptilian eyes glanced across those who stood in wait for her arrival.

Before her were seven top rankers from her world. Great warriors in their own right, but in her presence, they were all shaking in their boots.

They represented the last major powerhouses yet to bow to the great drakaran, and now, here, on the third floor of the dungeon, they had agreed to meet.

In truth, she had half a mind to betray her promises and slay them all where they stood. It would wrap up the last of the wars on her world and give dominion of it all to her.

And she would have too, if not for her divine patron warning against it. She groaned internally, reminding herself of the warning she had been given, but knew better than to defy a god. At least for now.

“Welcome, Casryn the Red,” said an entirely hairless, pale man with an elongated head as he gestured politely. “Shall we start?”

The man before her might have been the second-ranked person on their world, but only because she had already killed the previous second and third, gifting him the position. And to hear him speak as if they were near equals was insulting.

She gritted her maw and nodded. It took all of her patience, but her patron god had insisted that she refrain from killing them. He had told her that she might need the assistance. That their world would need all the elites they could get if they wanted to ensure that they won the dungeon.

And so, instead of cementing her ironfisted rule over her world, she humbled herself and let them speak.

“For the sake of the universal tournaments, we shall make this alliance official,” said the bald man.

“What of outside the tournaments?” Grunted a heavily armored dwarf.

All seven turned to Casryn, waiting for her response.

“Eleven years,” she hissed. “A truce for eleven years, that is what my patron god has asked of me. After that, anyone who stands between me and the dominion of our world will be my enemy.”

The other seven glanced across at one another and slowly began to nod.

“Then let it be so!” The bald man said, extending a hand. “Let us all swear to it. Any who betray the truce shall become the enemy of all others.”

Casryn nodded and extended her scaled hand. The terms mattered little. She already considered herself the enemy of anybody who stood in her way.

But for now, she would do as she was told. Her patron god had made the stakes of doing so very clear. The dungeon was but the first step among many. The first round of their universe’s integration tournament.

In a year after the dungeon, they would have to fight against one another in the second stage of the tournament, and ten years after that, they would be faced with the third stage.

Winning or failing a single stage would not secure one’s victory, nor failure. But every win brought them closer to the grand prize, one that her god had insisted on winning.

It had better be worth it, she thought.

Integration only happened once for each universe, and there could only be one winner. Her patron god had told her that the grand prize was so coveted that even gods themselves fought over it.

Casyn glanced around at her lessers once more. She supposed she could stomach her pride for a few years if it increased her chances of winning such a prize.

After all, her ambitions were directed straight to the top of the food chain, and nothing less would suffice.

***Aaron***

Aaron quickly dismissed the chat notifications. He wasn’t exactly in a position to stop and yap as several beast-headed warriors pounced out from the darkness from all around.

In an instant, he sprang into action, using the combination of his new Skill and techniques to counter and dodge with deadly efficiency as he was attacked from all angles.

The battle was short, and he found the mark effortlessly as he beat his enemies down with perfect precision. But all things considered, the low D-grades put up a fairly valiant fight. He had to admit, they were skilled. They blocked well, timed their Skills effectively, and attacked when they spotted openings. But ultimately, they met their doom against a superior foe. Not that Aaron was complaining. And a smile came over him as he looted their remains. There were plenty of staffs and shields to grab, and he was eager to see what could be made from them back in Dober.

Although he left the corpses. These ones looked far too human-like. And he cringed at the thought of dicing them up.

However, once down and dusted his hands off, he was rather surprised that he didn’t find a boss down by the power core. It seemed the perfect place for one.

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Then again, he wasn’t going to mull over it and marched straight over to the generator.

As he reached the alien machine, he realized that the global chat was still pinging away in the background, and he opened it out of curiosity.

Terry Cadillac: @Ernest Sheridan, Good to speak with another top ranker with some sense, and the balls to back it up! Looking forward to catching up, brother! And when we do, we’ll teach these pissy squids a lesson.”

Ernest Sheridan: @Terry Cadillac, Yes, sir. But remember, there’s other important details that require seeing to. Best we speak in private when we can. And any other humans listening, the same goes for y’all.

Aaron raised a brow. He vaguely remembered Ernest from the trials. He remembered the man looking like a cowboy, with a dark hat and a long jacket. He had revolvers at his sides and a sharp, piercing glare.

Ernest had reached the trials early enough to join the little group of Earth’s strongest that had formed. Although Aaron hadn’t spoken directly to the man.

The fact that Terry was here meant that he likely arrived at some point, too. And the fact that he was in the top ten ranks supported that theory. But since Aaron had no memory of the man, he assumed that he must have arrived close to the end of the trials.

Either way, both were ranked high enough to be important individuals in whatever world followed the chaos that was currently gripping their planet.

Should I say something?

Just as Aaron was considering a response, the generator in front of him beeped, and he looked down at the console.

“Generator in standby mode.”

“All non-vital systems offline.”

“So, I guess that’s the problem,” Aaron mused as he reached down and fiddled with the buttons.

He decided to leave the chat unanswered for now. He wanted to ask Talia and Soohyun what they thought anyway, and if his job here was already completed, he could head straight back up.

Tapping away at the console, Aaron kind of just winged it. He didn’t figure the alien machine out immediately, but luckily, the device was rather intuitive, and within several minutes, he had the main source of power of the temple reactivated.

“Hopefully the elevator works now,” he grunted and turned for the exit.

He made his way back through the passage and quickly climbed back up the chute. Luckily, it was just a regular chute, with no special slickness preventing him from getting back up. And before long, he had climbed back through the way he came.

And the moment he stepped back out through the chute, a System message appeared.

Dungeon Announcement!

The first boss of the Eighth Temple has spawned!

10 additional auction points are rewarded to whoever gets the kill!

Aaron groaned the moment he saw the notification. He didn’t need any further explanation as explosions rocked the temple, and his companions were nowhere to be seen.

He had a pretty good idea what was going on, and the System was inviting the rest of the people on the floor to come and gate crash.

Aaron immediately sprinted in the direction that the explosions and energy signals were, and within seconds, he shot out through the passageway and into a massive chamber.

He found exactly what he expected to find. Talia, Soohyun, and Zero engaged in a battle with the same defenders as before, but unlike the previous battles, they saw a glowing figure advancing behind the lines of enemy combatants.

Lightning blasted out from a gray cloud as the figure neared, and his gaze narrowed on the small man riding the cloud.

Ramesses the Reincarnator [ Level 150 ]

Titles: [ Reincarnator ] [ Endless One ]

A smile creased Aaron’s face. This was better. Someone who actually looked fairly strong. And he was fairly confident that this was the mentioned boss fight. However, that also meant that the System had given away their location to everyone in the dungeon.

Not only that, but Aaron suddenly realized there was a big flashing red dot on his mini map right where they were.

It hadn’t just told everyone it was happening in the eighth temple, which didn’t mean that much, since the temples weren’t marked, but it had provided anyone with the map Skill a massive, flashing target.

Immediately, he flung himself forward, aiming for the boss as he weaved through a line of staff wielding shieldsmen. He wasn’t too worried about the boss itself.

Sure, this boss was a big step up from the trash lord, but he doubted it was too much for himself to deal with. However, he did not need to be stuck in a boss fight with a mid D-grade when an ambush came looking for them.

But his enemies weren’t about to just roll over and let him have his way. Beams of energy shot out from their staffs, and a barrier that seemed to be fueled by the army of shieldsmen flickered into existence around them and their boss.

Aaron's fists pummeled against the barrier, and for the first time in a while, his attacks did nothing.

Soohyun landed a strike against it less than a second later, and it too was repelled, followed by Talia’s most powerful attack.

Individually, these enemies weren’t anything that he was too worried about, but if they had Skills that could somehow work together, becoming a whole that was greater than the sum of its parts, then that was worrying.

He flashed against the barrier again fruitlessly, and beams of energy shot out that forced him to dodge and phase.

But Aaron wasn’t done, and he attempted to phase straight through the barrier. Unfortunately, they noticed and concentrated their powers directly where he was attempting to pass through.

The result was a powerful flood of energy that struck Aaron even while having [ Wraith Phase ] activated. It didn’t do any damage, though. But it didn’t need to, as he had knocked him back and kept the integrity of the barrier intact.

Aaron grunted. That was annoying. This enemy didn’t have to beat them to be a problem. It just needed to keep them pinned down long enough, and their situation could quickly turn south.

Spotting one of the shieldbearers close to the barrier, Aaron hastily funneled energy into his arm and phased it through alone, grabbing the beast-headed man and yanking him out of the barrier.

They had attempted to stop him, but when only passing his hand through, Aaron could concentrate his energy into a small area, making it harder for his enemy to resist him.

It only took a single strike to end the beast-head man’s life, and he could feel the energy of the barrier weaken ever so slightly.

But it was still a shit position to be in. If he was forced to trick several more of their enemies to weaken the barrier enough to blast through it, that would take some time, and who knew who might be answering the call of the System’s announcement?

“Fuck!”

Aaron slammed desperately against the barrier, striking out at it with a blinding array of strikes as he searched for a weakness, hoping to catch one of the shieldbearers of guard.

He knew he could overcome this defense eventually, but just how long would that take?

Aron snorted and continued his assault. If there was a faster way to get through the barrier, he would find it, and he activated [ Gorgon’s Soul Vortex ] to slow time as he relied on his targeting overlay to find a weakness.