"I finally have you in my grasp." Lucius smiled serenely, a drop of blood dripping from his mouth. The Mana Mark on his hand—golden with red lines—was the fruit of his labor. His long-cherished desire had been fulfilled after a fierce battle.
Before him lay the colossal body of a silver dragon with black scales, sprawled on the ground; its head severed from its body. It was so large that one of its claws measured two meters.
All around, mountains displaced from their natural positions threatened to crash to the ground; they floated like armored Floating Islands in one of the most dangerous regions on the planet.
Two people walked behind Lucius.
"Kael, Seraphina, we did it." Lucius smiled and looked behind him at the two people he trusted most.
His best friend and his girlfriend, his future wife.
Suddenly, a beam of light pierced his chest from behind. Lucius looked behind him and saw his best friend's Star Spear piercing him; the sight left him stunned. He coughed up golden blood that stained the floor and stared intently at the spear.
"You… Why?"
"Lucius, you're too naive," Kael said with a faint smile and abruptly turned his spear around. "If you get that, not only will you be able to surpass me, but you'll be one step away from becoming a god; we can't allow that, Lucius."
Blood gushed from his mouth. Lucius stared blankly at the figure before him.
Above Kael's head floated an interface displaying his rank in the Global Ranking: [Ranking #4].
A sudden wave of dizziness hit him. His body swayed as he struggled to regain his balance. Uncertainty, bewilderment, and the fear of death engulfed him.
He turned his head and looked at the woman beside him, whose Ranking was #9.
"Seraphina… H-help me…" Lucius couldn't finish speaking; his body felt deathly cold. His wounds were suddenly frozen.
Seraphina looked at him with an icy coldness; her gaze was as cold as the ice that had frozen his wounds. This wasn't the ice that could help him; he knew her very well. He knew her tactics, her Mana Marks…
This wasn't the ice that would save him!
Everything inside him froze. His limbs, his blood, his mana… His body fell to the ground like a block of ice.
"I'm sorry, Lucius," she whispered. "The #1 spot only has room for one… And you're too moralistic; you're not qualified to take it."
Crack-
Crack-
The sound of the ice cracking as it fell mingled with Seraphina's boisterous voice. Lucius tried to fight back. He clenched his teeth with all his might; he didn't care about the fatal wounds or the ice killing him from the inside.
Crack-
The sound of the ice cracking in his mouth came out as a loud roar: "You… damned traitors…"
Suddenly, Kael pulled the Star Spear from Lucius's body.
"Agh."
Lucius watched helplessly as the Spear that had pierced his heart pulled something else from his body.
Lucius's Divine Mana Core.
He tried to raise his arms to reach for it. He couldn't afford to lose the source of his power. But his hand wouldn't move; an intense weakness struck him and made him tremble.
The Divine Mana Core fell into Kael's hands, who gazed at it with admiration.
"We always knew you were special, Lucius. To be nearly a god without having obtained all the required Mana Marks, you must be an anomaly. But this is even more impressive than we expected." Kael praised him sincerely.
"From now on, watch my rise from the afterlife. I'll put your legacy to good use."
At his side, Seraphina held the Golden Mana Mark of the golden dragon with black scales.
"I'll put your hunt to good use, Lucius. I'll take it as the wedding gift you gave me before you died fighting the most powerful ability of the Legendary Primordial Gravity Dragon." She laughed mockingly.
Lucius felt an icy pain that pierced his bones and reached his very marrow. It wasn't magic that struck him; it was the mockery of his two loved ones.
His journey to the summit had been filled with adventures with these two people… and his descent into death would be at the hands of those same two people.
The pain in his bone marrow was more terrifying than the pain of death.
Suddenly, his body began to shatter from within. He could feel his bones disappearing, before the freezing ice of his fiancée.
Though his insides screamed in agony, he looked at Kael and Seraphina with intense hatred.
"If I get another chance, I swear I'll take my revenge, you damned traitors!" he roared in a voice that echoed throughout the region; the inverted gravity posed no obstacle to this. A tremor shook the dungeon to its core.
CRACK-
A massive chasm opened up in the middle of it, creating muffled groans of a powerful being in agony. But the world's groaning and trembling were immediately drowned out by a cold system announcement.
[Global System Announcement]
Entity Status: Lucius, (Ranking #5) – Confirmed: Deceased.
Vacancy Notice: The #5 position in the Global Ranking is now vacant. The race for the #1 spot continues.
["He who challenged the very foundations has returned to dust."]
The announcement was stained with Lucius's blood, but in an instant, it was wiped clean by the cold system; even the death of such a powerful being, in the face of an existence that transcends the ages, was merely a cold, impersonal announcement.