The Achievement Junkie

"DEATH IS TOO MERCIFUL!!!"

Skaryn rushed forward again, ignoring the nearby crowd of challengers surrounding them on the ground floor. He led with both of his greatswords and held back nothing. The Dark God was fully intent on slaying Halmut in the most brutal way imaginable.

"FOOL!" Halmut roared back, retrieving his scepter and Naparn's old flaming saber.

Both top-tier gods collided, forcing each other back a few meters. Halmut laughed, "You still forgot?! Your darkness is--"

But the Dark God only replied with a follow-up attack. Skaryn didn't want to mince words, he wanted to mince meat. He then demonized to match Halmut's hybrid form. Growing a pair of bony, black wings and dark claws, Skaryn showed how mighty a human could become. The transformation continued as he grew a tail and black, skeletal spikes emerged along Skaryn's spine to the tip of his tail.

Dark energy overwhelmed everything as Skaryn lunged back toward halmut, who lowered his scepter and tanked the attack with a greedy grin. However, that grin was wiped away as a look of panic came over Halmut's face.

"What?! But I--"

A massive amount of loose energy was now leaking from Halmut's body, uncontrolled and unexplained. Yet Skaryn suddenly stored one of his greatswords and thrust his hand into Halmut's unguarded chest. The Dark God gripped Halmut's scales as if trying to break them with his fingers alone and carefully poured a sliver of his own energy into the unprotected Sun Dragon.

The great dragon was then slapped across the face by the blunt side of Halmut's greatsword. He was too shocked to put up a defense and was thrown into a nearby wall, ricocheting brutally off of the unforgiving walls of refined roxite.

But Halmut began to smile and laugh. "Wha-what just happened…"

"I've given you another few moments to live," commented Skaryn, walking toward the fallen dragon as he dragged his greatsword across the floor behind him. "I told you, death is too merciful… I don't want Jewel interfering in my revenge and ruining the sweet taste of your spilled blood…"

"Y-you… No! That--"

"You're the fool for trusting such a shady organization, Halmut. I can't believe you fell so low and embraced the cruelty you hated… You're even worse than your father--"

"I AM NOT!!"

Skaryn lunged forward with a powerful step, attacking while Halmut was still emotionally compromised. Fighting fair didn't matter to the Dark God, not now of all times against the man who always stacked the deck in his favor.

"AHHHH!!!" Roaring in pain, Halmut came to his senses a little too late. Glancing down at his hand, Halmut was horrified to find it lying on the ground. "Y-YOU! HOW--"

Explaining by demonstration, Skaryn swung his greatsword again but failed to evade the aware Sun Dragon.

Halmut was shaken. His arm was already beginning to heal but regrowing limbs wasn't his specialty, that was Lunara's. The Sun Dragons were able to heal faster than multi-headed hydras like Lunara but replacing a missing limb was different than resealing and repairing an open wound. Though Halmut was regrowing his missing hand, it was too slow to let him recover from the new disadvantage.

Also, Halmut was startled by something he had only just realized.

"You… have spatial energy?"

Not replying with a nod nor a word, Skaryn swung his greatsword again. A hundred-meter arc of spatial energy was thrown at the evading dragon, mimicking Moranti's scythe attacks to a tee.

Though it failed to touch Halmut and injure him, the attack was more than powerful enough to revoke the dragon's confidence.

"I KNEW IT!" a shout sounded out from high up in the air. "How dare you lie to me?!"

"Sorry, Moranti, but Jack and I had to handle things carefully. Otherwise, I would've never gotten rid of those blasted contracts…" Skaryn stated, sharing his reply with every challenger present. "And Kylon… Just wait a bit longer. I'll make sure he suffers enough for the both of us…"

No one else spoke to Skaryn but both Moranti and Kylon nodded, one with tears streaming down her eyes.

"I give." Torian immediately threw his card to Moranti, accepting defeat with confidence. "Grixor, I think--"

"Yeah, I know…" Grixor groaned, snapping his own card in two.

Lunara was a bit surprised to see Grixor give up, the man who never backed down from a challenge. But her doubts were put aside when Grixor smiled back at her and added, "We'll continue this after we're allies… I won't be bested that easily!"

Grixor was the first to vanish after Tralbok's retreat, followed by Torian who was expelled as Moratni claimed the Thundering God's keys.

Tyres was left with mixed feelings. He had no clue what was in store for him. While most gods would be welcomed by the leisure gods, how could he? After everything he had done to denounce and kill Jin, what would the leisure gods offer him?

The Sword God eventually retreated like Torian and Grixor, fleeing to the waiting area to at least avoid the cruelty that Skaryn had in store for Halmut.

As Halmut roared and tried to show that he wasn't scared, Skaryn didn't flinch or hesitate to pick up the dragon's lost hand. He then carefully plucked the storage rings from the severed hand's fingers. The Dark God only smiled after finding what he was looking for. "Jack guessed right… Good thing I didn't cut off your left hand…"

Everyone was startled to see Skaryn then retrieve Halmut's card, which had been carefully stored away during Halmut's earlier clash with Jack. But Skaryn immediately placed Halmut's card in his own storage.

"Now you can't run away, like the cowardly runt you are…" scowled Skaryn, stepping forward slowly as he gathered a blend of dark and spatial energy around him. The bullying demon brandished a smile that could terrorize the devil as he cackled, "If you thought facing the power of a Dusk Dragon was hard, how about I show you what a Spectral Dusk Dragon can do…"