Chapter 75: [YOU ARE NOW LEVEL 10!]

Chapter 75: [YOU ARE NOW LEVEL 10!] The silence in Sector 28 was a physical thing. It was heavy, pressing, broken only by the drip of viscous fluid from a ruptured pipe and the ragged, panting breaths of my victorious monsters. Alyssa’s army, the proud crystal soldiers and the elite silver-arrow archers, were a glittering carpet of shattered fragments and still forms. My trap had not just worked: it had been a masterpiece of overwhelming, brutal overkill. I stood up from my makeshift throne of rusted crates. The feigned panic was gone, replaced by the cold, predatory calm of a player who has just cornered the enemy king. In the center of the cavern, surrounded by the wreckage of her Royal Guard, Queen Alyssa stood alone. Her simple white dress was immaculate, untouched by the grime and violence around her. A shimmering, barely visible barrier of pure mana protected her, but her face was a mask of cold, furious disbelief. She, who had been the hunter, was now the prey. "Impressive," she said, her voice echoing in the sudden quiet. "A classic pincer movement. Brute-force tactics from a brute. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised." "I prefer ’elegantly simple’," I replied, taking a slow, deliberate step forward. The darkness of the cavern seemed to swirl around me, drawn to my new power. "You thought you were fighting a strategist. A coward hiding in the back. You were wrong. You’re fighting a monster." BOOM! I didn’t charge. I simply moved. The ground beneath my feet exploded, shattering into a spiderweb of cracks. The wind shrieked as I crossed the fifty feet between us in less than a heartbeat, a blur of black and pale white that her magic-attuned senses could barely track. She reacted instantly, her high-level instincts screaming. A wall of solid, razor-sharp crystal erupted from the floor in front of her. I didn’t even slow down. BOOM! My fist, wreathed in shadows, connected with the wall. CRACK! A massive shockwave of pure force erupted from my knuckles, and the thick crystal wall, a barrier that could have stopped a charging Ogre, vaporized into a fine, glittering powder. The force of the blast ripped through the air, and Alyssa was thrown backward, her protective aura flickering violently. "You can’t win like this, brute!" she shrieked, her composure finally breaking. She glided backward, her feet barely touching the ground, her hands weaving intricate patterns in the air. "I am a Queen of Magic! You are nothing but a beast in a fancy coat!" Dozens of spears made of pure, solidified light materialized in the air around her. With a flick of her wrist, they all shot toward me. The wind howled, a chorus of piercing shrieks as the holy spears tore through the air. I just smiled. BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! I moved, a phantom in the storm of light. I didn’t dodge. I weaved. I flowed around them. My new B-Rank Body wasn’t just about strength: it was about a level of speed and reflexes that turned her barrage into a slow, predictable light show. I slapped one spear aside with the back of my hand, the holy energy sizzling against my skin, a minor annoyance. I ducked under another. I sidestepped a third. I was in her face before she could even summon a second volley. Her eyes, the color of a winter sky, widened with genuine terror. She was a queen of magic. A ranged artillery cannon. And I had just closed the distance. The game was over. "I yield!" she cried out, her hands raised in a universal gesture of surrender. "I surrender! Take my Domain! I will serve you! Just spare my life!" I stopped, my fist inches from her face, the force of my halted momentum creating a small shockwave that made her silver hair fly back. I looked at her, at this proud, powerful queen, now brought low, begging for her life. A part of me, the part that was still a lonely university student, felt a flicker of something. Pity? Victory? "My Lord, it’s a trap!" Pixia’s voice, a frantic, high-pitched squeak, erupted in my mind. "Her mana signature is spiking! It’s not a surrender! She’s channeling a high-tier, point-blank annihilation spell! The statistical probability of her sincerity is zero percent!" I looked back at Alyssa. Her face was still a mask of desperate pleading, but her eyes... her eyes burned with a cold, hateful fire. She thought I was a fool. "Clever girl," I purred, my voice dropping to a deadly whisper. My smile returned, all fangs and no humor. Her eyes widened as she realized her trick had been seen through. The air around her began to glow with a blinding, white-hot light as she unleashed her final, desperate attack. Too late. I raised my hand, palm open, and spoke the words that had been itching at the back of my mind, a promise of beautiful, absolute destruction. "Dark Night Tempest." The world ended. The cavern plunged into an absolute, suffocating darkness. A low, terrible hum filled the space, the sound of reality itself being stretched to its breaking point. From my outstretched palm, a vortex of pure chaos erupted. It was a shrieking, swirling storm of shadow and raw, untamed energy, a miniature black hole of pure rage. BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! The ground bucked and tore itself apart. The wind shrieked, an insane, deafening howl as the vortex slammed into Queen Alyssa and her last, desperate shield of light. The light shattered. The shield dissolved. Her scream was swallowed by the storm. When the spell died down, a heavy, ringing silence fell over the chamber. Where the Queen of the Crystal Spire had stood, there was now nothing. Just a smoking, circular crater carved into the stone floor, the edges still glowing with faint, purple embers. Her True Core, a magnificent, fist-sized diamond, clattered to the floor, its light extinguished. A flood of triumphant, glorious notifications filled my vision. [You have defeated Demon Queen Alyssa!] [You have usurped the Domain: The Crystal Spire (11 Sectors)!] [You have absorbed all remaining subordinates of the defeated Demon King!] [You have gained 25,000 Experience Points!] [You have accumulated enough experience!] [You have Leveled Up!] [YOU ARE NOW LEVEL 10!] I stood in the silent, ruined cavern, the last echoes of the storm fading away. I had done it. I had defeated my greatest rival. I looked at the map on my phone. My territory now stretched across the entire northern half of the city. A sea of green, with only scattered, isolated pockets of red remaining. I was no longer just another Demon King, squabbling over scraps of land. I was the ruler of Aethelburg. And my reign was just beginning.