The silver blade of the Necromancer's scythe didn't just cut; it erased. When my right arm fell into the dust of the Tenth Floor, my first instinct wasn't pain—it was pure, cold terror. I hit the wall with a bone-shattering thud, the obsidian stones cracking under the weight of my broken ribs.
"I'm not dying here," I wheezed, my voice a wet rattle.
The Necromancer stood still, his tattered black robes swaying in a spectral wind. He raised a hand, and the bones scattered across the arena began to click and clatter, knitting together into a wall of skeletal henchmen. My tamed Ogre, the Warlord I had worked so hard to break, lunged forward to defend me. In a single, casual sweep of the scythe, the Reaper sliced him in half.
I roared in agony, but my Taming Grimoire acted on its own. Twenty spectral chains lashed out from the book, snagging the two halves of the Ogre's massive body.
[NOTICE: TAMED UNIT 'OGRE' DEFEATED. EMERGENCY RETRIEVAL COMMENCED. HEALING PROTOCOL ACTIVE WITHIN GRIMOIRE.]
He was gone, but he was safe. I, however, was bleeding out in a locked arena. I reached for my Teleportation Grimoire, desperate to blink back to the ninth-floor safety zone.
[ERROR: ARENA LOCKDOWN IN EFFECT. ESCAPE TELEPORTATION DISABLED DURING BOSS ENCOUNTER.]
The message was clear: there was no exit. Only the victor would leave this room.
The Puppet's Limb
My vision was tunneling. I was losing too much blood. With my remaining left hand, I opened the Slime Grimoire. I didn't have time for complex spells, so I used Strong Mucus like a tourniquet, winding a thick, translucent thread around the stump of my shoulder until the flow of blood slowed to a drip.
Then, I did something insane. I used Slime Clone to manifest a mass of jelly where my arm used to be. It hung limp and useless. I opened the Spider Grimoire and shot high-tensile Spider Silk into the center of the slime. I wove the webbing into the nerves of my shoulder, creating an artificial skeletal structure.
I flexed my mind. The slime fingers curled. It was a crude, twitching puppet of an arm, but it could hold a weapon. I grabbed my severed physical arm from the floor and threw it into my Inventory. "I'm coming back for you," I whispered to the limb.
The Battle of Wills
I activated Split Mind. My brain felt like it was being scorched by lightning as I processed two separate realities. I opened the Mage Grimoire and the Goblin Grimoire simultaneously.
"Assistant! Switch to the Dummy Fleet!"
Dozens of Dummy Goblins erupted from my shadows, swarming the skeleton henchmen to create a screen of noise and distraction. Through the chaos, I looked the Necromancer in his hollow, purple eyes.
"Now," I hissed, "it's just you and me."
I used Split Mind to manifest five circles of Dark Magic and two layers of Barrier Magic. If one shield shattered, the second would give me a heartbeat to react. I teleported behind him, swinging the Minotaur's Axe with my slime-web arm. He parried it effortlessly, his scythe glowing with an unholy light.
Every time I landed a blow, he would dissolve into the floor. Every time I fired a blast, he would reappear from a different pile of bones across the arena.
"Assistant! Analysis! How is he moving?"
[ANALYSIS: BOSS IS UTILIZING 'BONE NODES.' TOTAL NODES: 3,535. HE CAN TELEPORT THROUGH ANY SKELETAL REMAINS IN THE ARENA.]
He wasn't just fast—the entire floor was his transit system. As long as there were bones in this room, I could never catch him.
The Final Sixty Seconds
"Assistant, prepare the Fireball Cycle. Target: Every single bone node in the war-room. Ceiling, walls, and floor."
[WARNING: CHARGE TIME 60 SECONDS. LIFE-FORCE WILL BE USED AS MANA CATALYST.]
"Do it!"
For one minute, I had to survive without magic. I had to rely on the raw skills of the creatures I had defeated. I fell back on a frantic, beautiful dance of death. I used Slime Dash to slide under his scythe, Minotaur Dash to shoulder-check his skeletal frame, and Rabbit Double-Jump to leap over the waves of bone-horrors.
I activated Double Eyes and pushed my perception through Split Mind. Everything slowed down. I could see the Reaper's movements five times faster than a normal human. I closed my physical eyes and relied on the Search Wave I had learned from the Chameleon.
The Reaper was everywhere. His scythe whistled past my neck, taking a lock of my hair. He kicked me, sending me tumbling across the skulls.
"How long?" I screamed.
"10 seconds," the Assistant replied.
I used Minotaur Stomp, sending a shockwave through the floor that staggered the skeletons. The Necromancer appeared directly at my back, his scythe raised for a final decapitation. I could feel the cold edge of the blade against my skin.
"Time's up," I whispered.
"ACTIVATE!"
The ceiling exploded. Hundreds of pre-set fireballs rained down in a perfect grid, obliterating every bone node in the room. The Necromancer let out a silent, psychic shriek as his teleportation network was reduced to ash. He was grounded. He was mortal.
The Fatal Gambit
My mana bar was at zero. My life-force was flickering.
"One more teleport," the Assistant's voice echoed in my head, sounding distant. "I am pulling from your core. You have one chance."
I blinked into the air, falling toward the Necromancer like a meteor. He looked up, his scythe ready to skewer my chest. I threw my Minotaur's Axe with everything my slime arm could give. He swerved, dodging the heavy weapon with a mocking tilt of his head. I was mid-air, weaponless, and falling directly onto his blade.
The silver scythe plunged through my stomach.
I coughed, a spray of hot, dark blood hitting the Necromancer's hood. I reached out and grabbed his skeletal neck with my one real hand.
"Gotcha..." I wheezed.
I hadn't thrown the axe to hit him. I had attached Spider Strings to the handle. As I was impaled, I yanked the strings with my slime arm. The axe, which had flown behind him, came whistling back like a lethal boomerang. I infused the return flight with the last of my Water Slash and Point Dash logic.
The axe blade buried itself into the back of the Necromancer's skull with a sickening crack.
The purple glow in his eyes shattered. The dark energy that held him together began to leak out like black smoke. We both fell to the floor. I hit the stone with the scythe still buried in my gut, the cold metal draining the last of my warmth.
The Necromancer collapsed beside me, his bones turning to gray dust. I was dying. I could feel the darkness closing in, heavier than any dungeon floor.
I crawled toward the pile of dust that used to be a god. I dragged my shattered body, inch by agonizing inch, until my hand touched the remains of his skull.
"You lose... you son of a bitch," I rasped. "I'm not... a bookworm... anymore. I'm the one... who writes... the ending."
I pressed my palm against the fading core of the Necromancer.
"LEARN!"
A blinding, violet light erupted from the Grimoire, swallowing the arena, the bones, and my fading consciousness.