Then the No-end monster looked at the Knight surrounded by the corpses of the fallen, then something happened, they all rose from the ground, their heads rearranging themselves in a twisted manner, the guts flowing in reverse manner, the neck craning back.
"Now which one between us is the vile one?"
The Knight looked at them, "your guardian has a skill that can always revive you now? 'No-end,' the 'Ender's,' makes sense. Good, that was too quick of a death, I still have to fine tune this strength."
Then the Knight killed them a bunch more times, but then realised that the second time around, the grain of darkness did not announce their deaths, meaning that this thing was splitting its soul and putting it in these things.
"Level 150 skills are something. I wonder what will happen to teleport if it reaches there."
The Knight used them as practice dummies, until it got bored and killed the leader. The skill was boring; it lost bits of its soul every time its puppets were killed. The Knight moved its hand for a clobbering punch and then teleported to the monster and put itself exactly at the point of impact, destroying its whole body, and plastering its innards on the wall. The hand did not even have a drop of blood on it, the blood defied gravity and moved around the glove in fear of the concentrated terror field all around the Knight. After the rain of blood finished the Knight moved further in.
The Knight massacred the whole floor, then moved deeper, collecting souls. After thirty years it was still not done. The whole thing was strange really; it was more like the Knight was scouting now. It was just judging the skills of the monsters then if they qualified, use the followers to turn them into vessels, only possible because the Knight was strong enough to hold back. Luckily there was another Nared hunter at level 150, this one could teleport itself and other beings, and objects to use as projectiles. Then the Knight had gotten ten once more. The butchering became more like a chore after the followers got vessels. They were a whole 10 levels below their targets and could not be augmented by the void, but with the Knight leading the charge, it all became possible.
The Knight was just concerned about how much time it was all taking. The followers had full armour to compliment the Knight, some were in forms of beasts, others elemental form. The ghost was hard to make armour for, but with the pace at which the Knight was collecting souls, there was armour the Knight could craft but not adorn, but not as jealous anymore, ever since the armour responded to the Knights plea, it could make it for the followers. The army was now looking better, even the humanoid ones had a sword and shield, or even a bow. If they could not fight with the Knight, they could serve as support. The Knight still wanted to get the reward but there were just too many monsters, each at level 150 for the Knight to be able to kill them all by the deadline. The Knight had started to assassinate some, direct encounters were only when the monster has a peculiar skill.
About thirty-five more years passed. The Knight had looked at the baby soul, unnamed, and consumed it.
Soul has been eradicated. Cycle reset.
The Knight could have waited for thirty more years before the consumption of souls felt once again debilitating, but with the whole void augmentation thing, the hunger was slowing it down, and the Knight did not have that much time left before the reward disappears, about seventy years, which would mean one more soul might be consumed before leaving the dungeon, at the rate the augmentation was draining the Knight. Now, back to the slaughter.
The Knight dutifully cleaned the dungeon of vermin. The Knight was so close to the bottom of the dungeon. And the Knight could even feel the armour responding to the dungeon core at the centre, only a couple of hundred monsters left, that statement made the Knight feel like the world was not well. A hundred level 150 monsters were no joke, they were a disaster, too bad the Knight is a calamity. The only worry plaguing its mind was the fact that it had twenty years left, this many was bound to take longer, especially with the fact that there might be a boss at the centre.
Speed running any dungeon was a bad idea, the Knight would make mistakes and get some of the vessels damaged, and they did not heal as quickly as the Knight would have liked. It was because the deeper the Knight went the harder it became to face the monster. It was already strange that the weakest is thriving in this dungeon, which makes beings stronger. The Knights sense of time had waned after the first fifty years; thus, the twenty remaining years were like a blur.
Only the first fifty were truly memorably. They taught the Knight many things. How to use visage of terror, its own skills, the follower's power, a bit about the world outside, the trick with using the void was using it as cover, as senses did not penetrate it. All of these lessons culminated and allowed the Knight to activate its armour to channel its soul, then release its powers through the armour and condense them.
The armour was not responding to the Knights commands until it had no choice. The thing is that it did not recognise its wielder, probably because the Knight once had a human soul, which was made into a dreaded soul. So, the Knight brought itself close to death as conceivably possible, then the armour realised that if the Knight dies then it will have no soul, thus it finally decided to open up and allow the soul to be channelled into it.
The Knight might have discovered this if it had used a couple of years to prepare for the dungeon, but then this would have waisted not only the other valuable lessons, but it would have wasted years. Then the Knight would have completed the dungeon but not gotten the reward.
The Knight was not going to make it, so it had started fighting larger groups, and using the army to try and bait the stronger ones away from the ones that are dependent on their skill. The Knight had cut it close, only a year was remaining. It was about to descend into the largest cavern, but it was hesitant because it only sensed one monster was left.
'What does a monster even need this much space, about fifty monsters could use this space without bumping into each other, meaning they wanted to stay away from the demented being currently ruling this dungeon.'
The Knight clenched its fists to see if it could still feel the power, every weapon in its arsenal shattered when the Knight held them, they could not handle the power surge.
This made a random thought surface in the Knight, 'Will the sword refuse to accept me as master until I almost die too? Better not get too hard to kill then.'
Then the Knight took a mediation pose. This was to go through the plan of fighting the being in there. This was because the Knight had realised while level 150's shared the same amount of power they were not equal. After all the Knight had killed 700 of them to attest for this inequality. Some had a skill that was hard to get around, others possessed enough awareness to lead the flow of battles. the thing is that each had found a way to establish themselves amongst their brethren. Even though this was the highest level of power any of them could have in this dungeon due to its restrictions, after the thousands of years passed before the Knight came, they had found ways to make each other subserve the other without growing their overall power. This is similar to what the Knight is doing by channelling the dreaded soul. The Knight had found a way to grow stronger without rising in level.
This itself explained why those from the void did not believe the Knight when it said it had a dreaded soul; it was even easier to believe a spawn created at level 104/5. This was because even though the Knight possessed a dreaded power which was the Visage of Terror, it was not channelling its soul into its body, which for the Knight was the armour, to give off the aura of dread that came with having a dreaded soul. The Knight also understood their confusion. If the Knight had walked in with the same dread as it has now, it would have not even been a question but a statement. It might have been a declaration of war to the void lord of that town. This dread was even augmented by the void itself.
The Knight understood too that this strength made it far more dangerous than any ordinary spawn. Arduo could not see the Knights full soul, because the Knight had just been sloppily letting it spread outwards like how it used the other power. It was too vast to be fully observed. It's not like there was a manual, and the Knight left its soul like that because it was natural, it was easier. These past 135 years have been draining on the Knight; it was even starting to feel tired somehow. Keeping the dreaded soul, the void, and the power of terror, all compressed into a human sized figure was draining.
'How is the armour even handling all this channelling? Must be fine craftsmanship. I sure am one good smith. Even if some other force helped.'
Now this got the Knight wondering, how strong was the other person in history who managed to conqueror an abysmal dungeon. The Knight was close to this feat, but it was not going to become conceited, until the being inside the cavern is dead.
'I need to duel that void being once I make it out. It must be a void lord by now.'