Thump! Thump! Thump!
The frantic, desperate rhythm of a racing heartbeat echoed off the walls of the 49th floor.
Accompanying it was the pathetic, rattling whimpers of the female body type caught in Draco's claw.
Though briefly jolted by the suffocating, predatory aura that had suddenly invaded the boss room, Draco quickly shed his surprise, like a snake shedding skin.
Soon, his nerves settled into an icy calm.
His crimson gaze remained locked on the obscured female silhouette standing quietly at the opposite end of the vast, cavernous room.
Through the settling cloud of reddish brown dust, it looked like a ghost.
His body was wound as tight as a steel spring, coiled and ready to burst into violent motion at a microsecond's notice.
He did not dare blink.
He certainly could not afford to look away.
Yellow arcs of lethal lightning still danced across his obsidian horns, snapping and crackling in the cold air, tracing the length of his spine all the way down to the tip of his heavy, scaly tail as it lazily swayed back and forth against the floor.
Even with the arrival of this terrifying new apex intruder, Draco had not forgotten the threat of the entity beneath his claws.
A residual fraction of the electrical currents still coursing over his hide was being systematically siphoned off, pumped directly into the body of the female body type.
His razor-sharp obsidian claws tightened around its stretched throat, biting deep.
The pressure drew a fresh, bubbling geyser of thick green blood.
The moment the fluid made contact with his smoking, superheated scales, it hissed violently, releasing an acrid, sulfurous stench that turned the stomach.
The female-type monster, meanwhile, was paralyzed by a catastrophic cascade of conflicting commands.
It was just as stunned by the new arrival as Draco, recognizing on an instinctive level that the new arrival was a nightmare far worse than the one holding its windpipe shut.
Yet, its body refused to obey.
None of its four arms were moving in coordination, and even when one managed a pitiful twitch, it utterly lacked the sheer physical leverage required to budge Draco, whose raw strength far exceeded its own.
To compound its misery, a maddening instinct screamed at it to devour Draco...a being who was emitting a rather irresistible spirit essence....while its rational survival instinct shrieked at it to flee in terror.
The two opposing drives tore at its neural pathways, worsening its paralysis.
Worse still, the wild, untamed lightning pulsing through its veins was actively destabilizing and damaging the magic stone which was its heart.
It was caught in an inescapable trap of assured destruction.
Either Draco crushed its skull, the newly arrived threat obliterated it, or the runaway current would shatter its magic stone within mere minutes.
Every available outcome spelled absolute, agonizing death.
Yet, all the wretched thing could do was flail helplessly, a dying monster wishing its tragically short existence had not culminated in this nightmare on the 49th floor.
Draco, entirely oblivious to the monster's internal crisis, was miles away in thought.
Now that his adrenaline had leveled off into cold focus, he possessed a grim, terrifyingly accurate idea of who...or what...this intruder was.
It ranked almost dead last among the catastrophic scenarios he had contemplated after accepting Ouranos request.
'Sigh... just what kind of horrible luck do I have?' Draco's internal monologue drifted, coming to an abrupt halt as the shadow across the room finally broke its stillness.
The sharp, deliberate click of high heels echoed off the floor, cutting through the silence like a scalpel as the silhouette advanced.
Step by measured step, she drew closer, until she finally stepped out of the shadow, and stood mere meters away.
She wore an oversized black cloak that swallowed her entire frame, paired with a gothic-themed dark dress that brushed the floor.
Her skin was unnaturally fair, bordering on a spectral, bloodless white...resembling nothing less than a high-born vampire out for an evening stroll.
Long, luminous strands of silver hair spilled over her shoulders, framing a face frozen in a terrifyingly bored, neutral expression.
And her eyes...those instantly recognizable, deeply unsettling heterochromatic eyes.
The right was a vivid, emerald green; the left, a slate, dead gray.
There was no mistaking those eyes.
It was a face the world had mourned, feared, and ultimately tried to forget.
"Although a part of me desperately wishes my eyes are deceiving me... I have to ask. How in the hell are you still walking around breathing... Alfia?" Draco asked, his voice a low, rumbling tone that vibrated in the chests of everyone…..and everything…..in the room.
Alfia did not reply immediately.
She tilted her head slightly, her gaze drifting over his form as though she were calmly evaluating the cut of a new garment, contemplating the most precise, efficient way to answer a troublesome child.
After a heavy, suffocating silence that stretched out for several long seconds, her lips parted.
"You aren't going to like the answer," Alfia replied, her voice smooth, crystalline, and completely devoid of inflection.
"...But I assure you, it was not by my own choice."
'Sigh...then that leaves zero room for doubt,' Draco raged internally, a cold knot forming in his gut.
'She is one of them. Aaaaaaah, shit. This is going to be an absolute hassle.'
"Not quite the fairy-tale answer I was hoping for, I admit," Draco countered, narrowing his eyes.
"Which brings me to the second, far more important question. Are you in full control of your mind?"
It was a loaded question, one that would completely define his approach to this nightmare scenario, though he already knew the grim reality buried beneath her stoic facade.
Alfia's expression twitched.
It was a microscopic micro-expression…..a momentary tightening around the corners of her pale lips…..gone as fast as it appeared.
But to a Draco, it was glaringly obvious.
"Not completely," Alfia answered honestly, her gaze locking dead onto his.
"...Though I fail to see what difference it makes now. By her orders, I have to capture you here. Regardless of the cost."
'So that cements it beyond a shadow of a doubt...Alfia has been turned into a creature.'
Draco cataloged the grim confirmation, even though his mind had already reached that conclusion the moment he first heard her body had vanished five years ago.
During the devastating war that had torn Orario apart half a decade ago, Alfia had been officially confirmed dead…..incinerated and consumed by the special flames of the monster Delphyne.
But unlike her comrade Zald, or the fallen members of the Evilus faction, her body had been the only one never recovered from the ashes.
What did it mean for someone of Alfia's caliber to be resurrected as a dungeon-born creature by the corrupted spirit?
It meant an extinction-level disaster for Orario.
Alfia had been an absolute monster of talent during her brief time as a mortal human.
Despite dying at the tragically young age of twenty-four, she had accomplished insane, gravity-defying feats that shook the foundations of the mortal world.
If not for her congenital illness....Alfia possessed the potential to reach Level 9, or perhaps Level 10.
In terms of pure talent and intuition, Draco privately believed she surpassed even Zald, who had been forty-five at the height of his power.
It was solely her terminal illness that had placed a hard ceiling on her growth, and ultimately served as the fatal chink in her armor during the final battle.
No, 'defeat' wasn't even the right word.
Looking back, anyone with eyes could see that Alfia had practically let herself be defeated.
She and Zald had shouldered the horrific burden of playing the villains, sacrificing their reputations, their souls, and their lives to harden Orario against the apocalyptic threats looming in the dark future.
And now? Stripped of her mortal coil, forcefully clawed back from the grave and reborn as a creature, her terminal illness was likely gone, or at least most of its negative debuff's, mitigated.
The shackles that held back this monster was mostly gone.
'All of that happened five years ago,' Draco mused, his mind working at lightning speed.
'In the half-decade she's spent living as a creature....just how unimaginably strong has she become? From what I can sense bleeding through her suppression, she's hovering around a solid Level Nine. Then again, I've never stood face-to-face with a Level Nine before today. She could easily be a ten.'
It was a terrifying reality.
Creatures created by the corrupted spirit retained every single skill, magic, and developmental ability they possessed in life.
Worse still, they possessed the capacity to grow stronger simply by consuming the magic stones of other dungeon denizens.
Five years ago, Alfia had been a peak-level Seven.
Combine that baseline strength, coupled with the horrific evolutionary stat-boost granted by rebirth as a creature...
It was easy for Alfia to hunt down and slaughter monsters on the 60th floor and beyond to consume their magic stones.
It was a staggering, nightmare-inducing realization, especially considering that no mortal adventurer had managed to break past the 60th floor in decades.
'Hahaha...' Draco's thoughts twisted into a dark, self-deprecating irony.
'The corrupted spirit wants me captured alive. Meaning it genuinely wants to devour my existence. Now, I suppose I could tuck my tail between my legs and sprint back to the surface... but then what? Alfia would hunt my trail, slaughter the surface world, and turn Orario into a smoking crater. And even if she didn't, my familia or friends could encounter her in the dungeon would be easily slaughtered. Who else on this continent could possibly match the current Alfia?'
To make matters worse, a deeply buried, sentimental part of Draco actually wanted to save her.
It was already sickening enough that she was brought to life against her will, but was also being used as a biological weapon to execute the corrupted spirit's bidding.
Probably freed from the very illness that tortured her entire life, granted a second chance at existence, only to be reduced to an eternal slave to a monster.
She and Zald had suffered in absolute silence, dying as hated villains while the ignorant masses slept peacefully, completely unaware of the sacrifices made to prepare them for the end days.
Of course, Draco was well aware that many people across Orario had lost parents, children, and lovers to Zald and Alfia's brutal rampage.
The public would never, ever accept her redemption...especially now that she wore the mantle of a monster.
But to Draco, who had stared into the abyss of true death and clawed his way back, living...even in chains...was always preferable to permanent oblivion.
As someone who had also walked the lonely, agonizing path of rebirth, Draco felt some sympathy for the silver-haired witch standing before him.
Unfortunately, sympathy wouldn't stop a decapitating blow.
Defeating the current Alfia was already a monumental task, a battle that would likely push him past his absolute limits.
And waiting in the dark shadows behind her was the true mastermind…..the corrupted spirit itself.
Right now, if he wanted to save anyone, he had to figure out how to walk out of this cursed room alive.
'I have to go at least eighty percent all out just to properly gauge her combat power,' Draco mused, a familiar, terrifying thrill of combat rearing its head in his chest, chasing away the last remnants of hesitation.
'No holding back. If I hesitate for even a fraction of a second, I die here.'