NOVGO.NET Chapter 224: The Price of Defeat
Chapter 224: The Price of Defeat
’You don’t get to leave yet.’
The message carried no words, yet its meaning was unmistakable.
This was wrong. This was not how will clashes worked. This was not how reality functioned. He was supposed to dominate, to crush, to erase. Instead, he was shrinking, diminishing, being reduced.
“No… stop…!” Zorvak raged, unleashing one final, uncontrolled explosion of will.
It achieved nothing.
Bruce’s will swallowed it whole.
The last remnants of Zorvak’s arrogance vanished with it, stripped away and replaced by something raw and unfamiliar, fear. His consciousness thinned as fragments of his will peeled away and disappeared into Bruce’s expanding presence. His authority faltered. His sense of self wavered as he realized he was losing something far more fundamental than strength or mana.
He was losing himself.
“This can’t be happening…” Zorvak whispered internally, despair seeping through the gaps where pride once stood.
Bruce’s will closed in.
The lake had become something else now, vast, deep, impossibly still, and Zorvak’s remaining will was nothing more than a struggling ripple on its surface. There was no resistance left. No leverage. No escape.
One final pull.
One final absorption.
Zorvak’s will was gone.
The darkness convulsed as his consciousness was violently expelled, ripped from the Labyrinth’s core and hurled back into his physical body like debris from an explosion. His form jerked violently where it stood, aura collapsing inward as his connection to the dungeon world was severed completely.
The Labyrinth’s consciousness fell silent.
Back in the void, Bruce stood alone. His will settled, expanded, satisfied. He exhaled softly.
“…Done.”
And somewhere far away, a demon lord who had once believed himself untouchable collapsed to one knee, staring into nothingness with wide eyes filled with shock, disbelief, and the first true despair he had ever known.
Vexor noticed it immediately.
The instant Zorvak’s consciousness slammed back into his body, the air within the boss region changed. Not violently. Not explosively. It simply became wrong.
The oppressive calm that had once surrounded Zorvak, heavy, absolute, unchallenged, was gone, replaced by something unstable and jagged, seething just beneath the surface. His aura no longer felt like an immovable mountain pressing down on the world. It felt like a fractured blade, sharp and erratic, dangerous not only to enemies, but to everything unfortunate enough to exist nearby.
Vexor stepped forward without hesitation and dropped to one knee, head lowered in practiced reverence. A faint, habitual smile touched his lips as he spoke, voice smooth and deferential. “Congratulations on your win, Lord Zorv.”
He never finished the sentence.
A killing intent unlike anything Vexor had ever experienced erupted outward.
It was not merely aura. It was pure, unrestrained malice, humiliation, rage, and something far more corrosive than hatred fused together and unleashed all at once. It exploded from Zorvak’s body like a collapsing star, expanding in every direction without restraint, tearing through the boss region and surging across the world-sized Labyrinth in a single, catastrophic instant.
The labyrinth trembled.
Entire regions shook as though struck by an unseen calamity. Skeletal giants scattered throughout the Labyrinth froze mid-motion, bones rattling violently as the pressure crushed down upon them. Some collapsed instantly, joints snapping apart under the overwhelming weight. Others shattered outright, reduced to scattered fragments as Zorvak’s fury erased them without intent or mercy.
Far away. Very far away. Bane felt it.
For the first time since entering the Labyrinth, his stride slowed. Red eyes narrowed as the oppressive killing intent washed over him like a tidal wave, heavy enough to distort the mana around his body. His coat fluttered violently as the pressure rolled past, carrying with it unmistakable authority.
“…interesting,” he murmured quietly.
Closer to the source, Vexor took the full brunt of it.
The faint smile vanished from his face instantly.
The pressure slammed into him like a mountain falling from the sky. His knees dug into the cracked ground, stone shattering beneath them as his body trembled violently. His breath hitched, lungs screaming for air as his vision blurred. Blood surged through his veins like molten iron, the overwhelming suppression of a superior demonic bloodline crushing down on him without mercy.
Vexor gritted his teeth, veins bulging along his neck and temples as he fought desperately just to remain conscious.
“L-Lord Zorvak…” he forced out, each word dragged painfully from his throat. “W-What… happened…?”
It wasn’t just aura pressing down on him.
It was pain. It was rage. It was despair.
Zorvak’s emotions bled directly into him through their bloodline connection, raw, violent, and completely unfiltered. The anguish of losing his will. The fury of humiliation. The disbelief that refused to settle. The fracture in pride that no amount of rage could mend.
It was too much.
Vexor had no resistance to it. None at all. The hierarchy of bloodlines was absolute. A superior suppressing an inferior was as natural as breathing, and if Zorvak didn’t rein himself in soon, Vexor would die here, not to an enemy’s attack, but simply from standing too close to his lord’s wrath.
And Zorvak didn’t even notice.
“I lost, Vexor,” Zorvak said hoarsely, his voice low and cracked, heavy with something dangerously close to madness. “I lost.”
The words struck Vexor harder than the pressure itself.
“…Impossible,” he whispered, eyes widening as shock tore through him even deeper than Zorvak’s own disbelief. His mind rejected it outright. “That… that cannot be—”
Zorvak continued, his voice rising, trembling with barely restrained fury. “We have to destroy them, Vexor. We have to destroy them all.”
The killing intent surged again.
Vexor’s body jerked violently. Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth as his vision dimmed, consciousness slipping toward the edge. “Yes… Lord…” he replied through clenched teeth, forcing the words out despite the agony ripping through every fiber of his being. “I-I’ll make sure… your will… comes to pass…”
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A/N:
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