[Warning: Soul Integrity Falling Below 70%]
Leon forced himself to his feet, panting, barely able to stay upright. Golden light pulsed dimly in his pupils—his Miracle Eyes trying to predict, react, survive.
His thoughts raced.
"Only 0.1% True Intent… It's not enough to pierce his soul threads... I'm barely scratching him."
The Keeper tilted his head, like a reaper observing a dying fla.
"Your soul burns dimly, outsider. You ca bearing pride—but brought no resolve. Let this be your tomb."
He lifted his sword high, gathering dozens of soul orbs that fused into the blade. The void scread with energy as the final strike began.
Leon gritted his teeth, legs trembling.
He was at his limit.
His vision was red.
Ravina scread sothing from the sanctuary edge—but her voice was drowned out by the storm forming around the Keeper.
Leon stood tall.
"...No."
A faint crackle of red lightning trailed down his arm.
"...I'm not dying here."
His blood—his soul—began to boil. The scar across his chest flared with light. His Destruction Magic surged wildly, laced now with traces of Blood Magic and Aether.
And deeper still…
Sowhere within the shattered fragnts of his being… that flicker of True Intent pulsed.
Weak.
But real.
The final blow fell.
Leon roared, raising both hands—and pushed everything into one desperate strike.
Both attacks collided—Destruction and Soulfire clashing in a blinding storm of light and force. The impact created a shockwave that shook the very foundation of the Void Sanctuary. As the energies canceled each other out, Leon stumbled back, pale and breathless.
"Haaah…" he exhaled, blood dripping from his mouth. His knees buckled slightly as he prepared to activate his mana one more ti.
The Keeper's sword ca down again—an executioner's strike, fast and rciless.
But before it could reach him—
Clang!
It was blocked.
A tallic sound rang out, followed by an unnatural stillness. The blade hovered mid-air, held in place by a tendril of darkness.
Leon's eyes widened as the tendril curled away, revealing a delicate, cloaked woman standing between him and the Keeper. She wore a long, flowing violet dress, a sheer veil over her face. Her bleeding red eyes glowed softly through the fabric.
Darkness blood around her feet like liquid shadows. The hem of her skirt dragged across the void as she stepped forward, tendrils slithering beneath her. Dozens of blinking eyes opened along the mass of shadow at her back, watching the Keeper like silent judges.
"To think… once again I'll create such dangerous and—ugly… I an powerful—creatures," Leon muttered, smirking weakly as he looked at her.
"Welco to the world, Shub-Niggurath."
The woman tilted her head gently, and from behind the veil, a faint smile ford—jagged, inhuman jade teeth glinting as her shadow shifted into a nightmarish smile of its own. The tendrils twitched, and the blinking eyes narrowed, locking onto the Keeper of Souls.
Leon's breath steadied.
He wasn't alone anymore.
"Kill him," Leon commanded, his voice cold despite his labored breaths.
The woman's soft smile twisted into sothing far more sinister.
"As you wish, my beautiful master," she whispered.
Shadows around her surged violently, slithering like serpents with jagged tips. A razor-edged tendril lashed out at the Keeper of Souls, slamming into his barrier with a deafening shockwave of Void and Soul energy.
The Keeper stumbled back, his voice laced with both fury and confusion. "What… are you?"
Shub-Niggurath's veil fluttered, her jade teeth gleaming from behind it like a smiling maw of nightmares. Crimson threads danced around her fingertips, moving with eerie grace. Her voice was calm, yet it echoed with the weight of sothing ancient.
"Why do you exist in this scarred realm?" the Keeper demanded, recoiling from the aura she exuded.
"I am my master's creation," she replied, her tone dark and reverent. "I walk his will. I carry his word. Therefore, I exist."
Leon watched in silence, breathing heavily as his wounds throbbed. Even now, part of him couldn't fully understand what she was. Even when he first created a Cthulhu , which at that ti he thought was just an summon from higher floor.
But the truth slowly unraveled in the higher floors.
He scoured all the libraries of each floor he visited so that he can have the knowledge of all creatures, so that he can create at later, but he also found out no records of Cthulhu . He even asked Angelica, the angelic wife from the tower's apex—his supposed soulmate and the highest-ranked ascender he'd ever t.
Her answer had surprised him.
"There is no Shub-Niggurath or what even Cthulhu you described to in this universe. No Cthulhu entities. I've reached realms you haven't even glimpsed, Leon. I would have known."
And yet, here she stood. Breathing. Moving. Obeying.
Not summoned.
Created.
She was not born from an ancient abyss—she was born from him.
From a subconscious mind dancing too close to the edge of forgotten truths. From a brief collision of his 0.1% True Intent and the raw chaotic nature of Destruction magic. He hadn't pulled her from another plane.
He had written her into existence.
A myth born real.
And now that myth was attacking one of the universe's oldest guardians… and winning.
The Keeper's face twisted in disbelief as the tendrils struck again, tearing through layers of protective soul matter. "This is… blasphemy! Reality doesn't allow this!"
Shub's many hidden eyes opened at once beneath her flowing gown.
"No," she whispered. "Reality did not allow . But he did."
"And that's all I need," Shub-Niggurath whispered, her many eyes gleaming as she lood over the dying Keeper of Souls.
The once-proud guardian was now impaled, suspended in mid-air by her twisting tendrils of shadow and blood. His once-bright form was dimming, withering as the void gnawed at him.
"You… monster," the Keeper rasped, his voice fading.
Shub tilted her head, amused. "Not a monster. Just an extension of my master's will."
Her tendrils squeezed tighter, slowly, cruelly. Each second dragged his soul closer to collapse, agony painted across every inch of his fading essence.
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