The Transcendent Godslayer

Yula's eyes narrowed as Kallen's headless body dissolved into smoke.

"I see you've improved your illusion technique," she said coldly.

"Help me take down Menelaus," a voice suddenly whispered beside her. Her pupils constricted into pinpricks when she saw Kallen again, standing not even two feet away.

His face was pointed forward, eyes fixed on the wall. His expression was stoic, and his gaze placid.

'He's dangerous', she thought.

"I know you must have contacted Zephyrus. Menelaus taking me away from prying eyes, and then retuning me unconscious, with a new... "appearance", is not something you keep from your superior" he continued.

"However, before he takes me away, I want Menelaus dead." He finally turned to look at her.

At the mention of killing Menelaus, a flash of suppressed anger stirred in his gaze.

"And if I don't?" she asked.

Kallen remained silent for a moment before sighing.

"Don't get me wrong. I could simply do it myself..." His voice suddenly sounded, right next to her ear, causing her heartbeat to spike.

A trickle of blood ran down her throat and into her cleavage, the short sword at her neck biting slightly into her skin.

"...Just like I could kill you myself."

Her eyes immediately turned frigid, and her aura erupted, blasting him away.

She dashed toward his body, kicking him and slamming him into the wall with the heel of her foot.

His apathetic gaze met hers as he dissolved into smoke once again.

"You can drop the childish act now, or I'll kill you right here."

Her eyes trembled in shock. Touching her neck, she still felt the cut he had made, and the pain was very real. Yet the body was an illusion?

How he had managed it, she didn't know.

"Fine," she muttered after taking a deep breath, a contemplative light flashing in her eyes.

---

"So… how long till he arrives?" Kallen asked.

Yula, however, did not reply, her eyes trained on Menelaus as he dropped to the floor.

She was still gripping the ends of her enchanted chain blades, which suspended the crucible Kallen had placed into the furnace.

It was looped over a spear lined with small cracks— the same spear Democles had attacked him with, now smoking hot after being used as an anchor to tip the crucible over, and empty its contents onto Menelaus.

"Hmm?" Kallen suddenly frowned.

He felt a foreign energy around him... something pulling at him or from him. The energy peculiar and somewhat familiar in a way though he couldn't tell what.

He instinctively distanced himself from both Yula and the "dead" Menelaus.

A black notification flashed in his mindscape:

[Providence: (—)]

"He's not dead," Yula said, pulling her chains back to her.

She moved in for the kill, but was suddenly blown backwards, streaking through the air like a bolt.

Menelaus slowly stood up, his face a grotesque skeleton with charred meat still clinging in patches, some pieces hanging by threads of sinew.

In his mindscape, notifications after the other, dropped one by one.

[You are in the presence of one marked with the stench of TABOO]

[All Attributes +100%]

[Your Core Skill has evolved and ascended]

[Fourth Ascension 'Hand of the Forge' (Active) has become Fifth Ascension 'Saint of the Forge' (Active)]

[Corruption: 89%]

ROAR!!

Menelaus let out a bone-rattling roar as he began to levitate, his empty eye sockets giving him the look of a lich king.

Kallen felt the ground tremble beneath him, and the hairs on his body stood upright at the feeling of danger. Without thinking, he dashed to the side.

The next moment, a spike jutted out of the floor, at the exact spot where he had just been standing.

His expression grew grim. He knew exactly what had happened.

Based on the notification about Providence, he realized the Existential Compendium had decided to screw him over.

Gripping the hammer in his hand tightly, he chose not to retreat but to accelerate toward Menelaus instead.

He weaved between stone spikes erupting from the ground, and metal spears shooting out from the forge equipment.

Yula seemed to have come to the same conclusion, just like with Kallen, there was no buying her way out of this. Menelaus knew they had both tried to kill him, and was thus, targeting both of them.

She couldn't leave without Kallen, and he wouldn't leave without killing Menelaus. Although she could easily overpower the little bastard, she wasn't confident in dealing with his illusions.

She almost called out to ask Kallen why he wasn't using his illusion technique, but quickly reconsidered.

If he did use it, wouldn't it mislead her too? And she was certain he couldn't defeat Menelaus on his own.

'Wait…' Her eyes suddenly lit up, then turned cold.

Kallen reached Menelaus just as the skeleton faced brute threw a punch that seemed to erase the distance between them in an instant.

Kallen barely twisted out of the trajectory, using the momentum to spin and slam his hammer into Menelaus' bony temple.

Menelaus staggered back but retaliated instantly, a stone spike bursting from the floor with violent speed.

Kallen was forced to dodge it, slowing his momentum.

He wasn't alone, though.

A series of rapid slashes tore into Menelaus as Yula appeared around him, moving like a phantom with two daggers in hand.

Her speed was so great, Kallen found himself momentarily alarmed.

'Second Ascension Ascendent?!!... Well played,' he thought solemnly.

Menelaus screeched like a banshee, and Yula retreated, frowning as she examined her daggers, now streaked with rust, which was rapidly spreading.

Kallen charged forward, raising his hammer for an upward strike.

Menelaus' head snapped toward him, and suddenly, the hammer became eight times heavier.

The unexpected shift in weight nearly snapped Kallen's wrists, throwing off his swing.

A punch slammed into his gut, blowing it open.

His body rocketed backward, trailing blood and entrails, his mind ravaged by pain.

He crashed onto an anvil, his eyes wide with agony, gasping for air that refused to come.

Yula appeared beside him in an instant, a flicker of panic flashing across her face.

She shoved him off the anvil before Menelaus could summon another spike from it.

Popping a pill from who-knew-where into his mouth, she snapped coldly:

"Don't you dare die."