The instant the health bar appeared, the battle began.
Without giving Lloyd even a heartbeat to react, the massive white wolf—its jaws clamped tightly around a greatsword—leapt toward him. With a fluid turn, the sword in its mouth traced a deadly arc, slashing straight at him.
Lloyd didn't dodge. He merely shifted his weight to the side, letting the blade graze the edge of his cloak without so much as a scratch.
"Still the same as ever…"
He shook his head as he watched Sif before him.
"First the arcing slash, then the double sweep with the head feint. Depending on the timing, it follows with an upward strike or a spinning combo…"
He stepped back to escape the reach of the two-hit swing, then slid sideways to avoid the rising strike. Taking advantage of the brief recovery window that followed, he drew the Golden Dragon Lightning Greatsword and began to charge. Just as Sif pulled back to reposition, Lloyd brought the fully charged sword down.
BOOM—
Flames burst forth, swallowing the white wolf whole. The blazing blade cleaved down on her skull with a thunderous impact.
THUD—
One strike was enough to stagger her.
As Sif reeled, shaking her head as if to clear her senses, Lloyd drew two Twinblades. He leapt twice, the blades crashing down with twin impacts. Blood sprayed, and Sif's health bar dropped to half.
"And now—backstep, wolf howl, finish the howl, then—"
Boom!
Lloyd slid left, narrowly dodging as the wolf barreled past like a spinning whirlwind, sword flashing in her jaws. He drew his Sacred Seal and hurled a Great Fireball before she could charge again.
After repeating this rhythm several times, Sif's relentless rush came to an end. Her health was down to a quarter. Just as she gripped her sword again, ready for one last desperate charge—
BOOM!
A colossal shield slammed into the ground before her, blocking Lloyd's fireball in an explosion of sparks and smoke.
A knight clad in silver-white armor descended from above, landing with a heavy crash beside the shield. One hand gripped it, the other reached to take the greatsword from Sif's jaws.
The wolf withdrew, and the knight—now holding both sword and shield—turned around. Above his head, a new health bar slowly appeared.
[Abyssal Knight • Artorias]
The instant the name appeared, Artorias leapt high into the air. His greatsword came crashing down where Lloyd had just been, shattering the ground. Then, after a brief pause to gather power, he wrenched the sword free, detonating a burst of roiling darkness that swept outward in a shockwave.
Lloyd, already familiar with the man's combat style, evaded easily. He knew every tell, every movement.
But unlike his fight with Sif, even with all that knowledge, facing Artorias wasn't something he could handle casually. It was troublesome—not because of his sheer power, but because of...
Thud!
Lloyd hurled another Fireball. It exploded brilliantly, yet Artorias emerged unscathed.
The reason became clear: the moment Lloyd had cast it, Artorias had raised his greatshield, blocking it completely.
Yes—a greatshield.
To most people, especially in the stories passed down through the ages, Artorias was remembered as the pure greatsword champion—an unstoppable warrior of unrelenting offense, his wolf-style swordsmanship unmatched, his strength overwhelming.
But those who truly knew him—Lloyd among them—understood the truth. Artorias wasn't just a master swordsman. He was also a shield specialist. His defensive skill was every bit as terrifying as his attack.
A perfect boss template: immense poise, high mobility, relentless aggression, frequent super-armor attacks—and when he wasn't attacking, he'd raise that shield.
Even with his intimate familiarity with Artorias's moves—more than even Sif's—it still took Lloyd considerable effort to wear him down, chipping away a third of his health through sheer melee combat.
Then, as his health dropped to that mark and Lloyd's charged heavy strike connected squarely, Artorias staggered back.
For an instant, a flicker of struggle crossed his eyes—like he had briefly regained his senses.
But the clarity vanished as quickly as it came. In the next second, a surge of darkness erupted from his body, devouring that fleeting consciousness and cloaking him in writhing humanity. His weapons ignited, black flames twisting along the blade.
Bad news—Artorias had entered his second phase, and it looked like he'd gotten several upgrades.
Good news—during that brief moment of struggle, Artorias had dropped his shield.
Which meant…
The instant the shield hit the ground, Lloyd switched to the White Dragon Sword and cast the covenant sorcery he'd learned from Sellen—Primeval Sphere.
A spell that massively increased his weight in exchange for a tremendous boost in magic power.
And then…
"Comet Azur!"
As Lloyd spoke, a torrent of pure sorcery roared forth, engulfing the Abyss-corrupted knight before him.
To be fair, the second-phase Abyss Knight reacted quickly. Though he hadn't dodged Lloyd's spell at first, the moment the blast struck, he'd already begun to move—trying to escape its path.
But just as he attempted to retreat, the inner struggle within him erupted. The great wolf that had withdrawn earlier suddenly reappeared, biting down on his body and pinning him in place.
Boom. Boom. Boom.
Under the combined assault, the surge of magic tore through his health bar before he could do anything. Another third of his life vanished in an instant, and the surrounding darkness dissolved into nothingness.
Thud.
The Wolf Knight, his health reduced to a fraction, knelt on one knee. His body, like the wolf beside him, was covered in deep wounds.
But at that moment, as their health dwindled to almost nothing, the black haze in their eyes slowly began to fade.
Yet it wasn't over.
Just as man and wolf regained clarity and lifted their heads, perhaps to speak to Lloyd—
The darkness around them surged again, forming a massive, gaping maw that swallowed them both whole.
Then, new figures appeared before Lloyd.
Four of them.
Cancellation, Half-Leaf, Little Scythe, and the one wielding the Greatbow.
But this time, what appeared before him weren't NPC-modeled duelists.
They were four colossal bosses.
[The Four Kings of New Londo]
"Stacking bosses now, huh?" Lloyd muttered.
As he sized up the four massive enemies and pondered how to deal with them, golden light began to shimmer beside him.
One... two... three...
Golden effigies flared to life, each representing a sworn ally bound to his Covenants—ready to answer his call when needed.
Without hesitation, as the Four Kings advanced, Lloyd activated three of them.
Millicent. Sellen. Trina.
The three appeared beside him as he quickly adjusted his active Covenants.
Since his list of bonded allies had grown, the system's latest upgrade now allowed him to maintain three Covenants at once—and he had set all of them to these three.
Then...
[Trina's Oathsworn King]
Once again manifested within the void of darkness.
With two powerful supports beside him—and bolstered by his own boss-tier enhancements—Lloyd and Millicent cut down the Four Kings after a fierce exchange, though not without shedding some blood of their own.
After that, they pressed on, tearing through battle after battle—defeating "Farron Undead Legion: Hawkwood," "Overlord Vornir," and "Abyss Lord Vornir."
By the time they had slain five consecutive bosses, the toll of constant combat—and the peculiar laws governing this place—had begun to weigh on them. Lloyd, sensing their exhaustion, gently tapped the three small flowers representing his allies, sending them back.
...
As soon as they vanished, the darkness surged again.
This time, the heavy blackness swallowed the golden light on the ground, severing his link to the Covenants. He could no longer summon his allies by touch.
And as the last glimmers of gold faded, a new presence emerged before him.
[Lord of the Abyss • Manus]
Manus—known to some as the Fist Emperor of Darkness—had once been human.
Though he carried within him a fragment of the Dark Soul, he had resisted it all his life, never allowing it to consume him.
Even after death, he took that darkness into his grave, sealing it within his corpse. He had hoped that by doing so, the darkness would die with him, never again to see the light of day.
But as everyone knows, a seal exists for one reason—to be broken.
And sure enough, under the temptation of a certain unnamed serpent, the people of Oolacile dug up Manus's tomb.
After that... there was no "after."
The long-sealed Dark Soul, having built up immense power, erupted on the spot. It devoured the grave robbers and swallowed the entire civilization of Oolacile in a wave of sentient darkness—the birth of the Abyss itself.
In response to the catastrophe, the Wolf Knight Artorias was dispatched to contain it. Seeking to stop the Abyss's expansion, Artorias resolved to confront the source of the corruption—the Lord of the Abyss, Manus.
The outcome was... well.
"According to the intelligence I received, Manus was a sorcerer," Artorias once said, recalling that battle with a chill down his spine.
The report was accurate. In life, Manus truly had been a sorcerer; the staff he wielded was proof enough.
However—
"When I closed in, thinking I'd gained the upper hand..."
"He used his fist."
"One punch shattered my shield."
No one knew whether Manus had always been a physical sorcerer, or if the raging darkness had simply strengthened him.
Either way, the resurrected, berserk Manus—though a sorcerer by nature and still holding his staff—was far more terrifying with his fists than with any spell. That was how he earned his infamous title: The Fist Emperor of Darkness.
And the Manus now standing before Lloyd was... not quite the same.
Towering in stature, vaguely humanoid, his entire form was covered in countless streams of pure, condensed blackness—far denser and purer than any Abyssal corruption seen before.
Or rather, the very essence of the Dark Soul itself.
He no longer held his great staff—because that massive scepter had already fused with him, swollen and warped by the Dark Souls flowing within it.
Before Lloyd could think further, Manus lifted the fused staff. With a roar that made the entire realm tremble, the weapon surged with darkness, shaping itself into a colossal blade formed from twisted humanity. Then, he brought it crashing down.
BOOM!
Like Moses parting the sea, the enormous dark blade split through the void, unleashing a tidal wave of corrupted humanity that shook the entire space to its core.
Before the shockwave even faded, a shadow streaked forward—moving so fast it was almost teleportation—closing the distance between them in an instant.
Then—
BOOM!
A fist came crashing down.
Yet that same punch, the one that had once shattered Artorias's shield, failed to even stagger the small armored figure before him.
Lloyd stood unmoving, clad in heavy armor, both arms raised to guard his body as a brief white light shimmered around him.
The Armguard Talisman.
And the Ash of War—Endure.
After absorbing the blow, Lloyd looked up at Manus.
"Getting soft, old man?"
"What's with the weak swings today?"
As the words left his mouth, Lloyd clenched his own fist and—
BOOM!
One punch sent Manus staggering backward. He barely regained his balance before Lloyd, now fully in his boss form, rushed in.
"Get slammed!"
Lloyd grabbed Manus by the waist and executed a perfect Earth Slam, driving him hard into the ground.
Caught off guard, Manus hit the floor with a thunderous crash—but he recovered almost instantly. As Lloyd moved in to follow up, Manus grabbed his leg. Using the fluid, shifting form granted by his Abyssal mutation, he twisted his half-buried torso into a pivot point and flung Lloyd through the air.
Not stopping there, Manus wrenched his scepter free, leapt skyward, and swung it down like a club.
"Seriously? That's not how you use a staff!"
Catching the descending weapon with one hand, Lloyd twisted aside and drove his elbow straight into Manus's ribs.
What followed was no longer magic—it was a brawl.
One, the Lord of the Abyss, master of Oolacile's sorceries.
The other, the Incarnation of the First Flame, a supreme sorcerer versed in every spell known to the Lands Between.
And here, in the depths of darkness, both abandoned spellcasting altogether—trading blows using the most ancient of techniques: the Fist Magic of the old world.
No dodging. No guarding. Magic surged faintly through their fists, enhancing each strike, but there were no tricks, no theatrics—just raw, brutal force.
The fight dragged on for an unknowable span of time. Then, finally, Manus faltered first. Lloyd's heavy punch sent him flying, crashing to the ground. After a brief struggle, the darkness coating his body began to dissipate, fading like smoke in the void.
But it wasn't over.
As the wrecked battlefield cracked and splintered around them, a familiar darkness swept in once more—rising like a curtain across the broken sky.
From within it, something enormous emerged.
A dragon. Vast and terrible, its scales glimmering with violet-black fire.
[Abyssal Dragon • Midir]
Still drained from his brutal slugfest with Manus, Lloyd was far from peak condition. After so many consecutive battles, both his Crimson and Cerulean Flasks were nearly empty.
And now, standing before him, was the most fearsome creature in the entire dungeon. A single hit from this beast could easily erase him.
One side stood at full strength—buffed, relentless, unstoppable.
The other was worn out and barely standing, a flickering flame in the storm.
By all logic, Lloyd didn't stand a chance.
But there was one small problem.
As the final boss, Midir's stats, aggression, and attack range were all maxed out. His sweeping, explosive laser attacks could annihilate anything in seconds—he was, in every sense, a perfect boss.
Except for one flaw.
His attacks were overly committed, and his patterns were fixed.
He didn't even have a single random feint.
Which meant...
"If you know the patterns," Lloyd murmured, smirking faintly, "he's actually easier to no-hit than most."
He delivered the final strike, the last sliver of Midir's health evaporating in a blaze of light. As the dragon's immense body collapsed before him, Lloyd let out a slow breath and shook his head.
The battle was over.
At least... theoretically.
With Midir's fall, the Abyss Chain Battle should have ended.
He had even received the system rewards.
But...
"Not playing by the rules, huh?"
The darkness churned again, and from its depths, the deepest will of the Abyss began to reveal itself. Mimicking the figure before it, it formed a vague, faceless humanoid shape.
[Avatar of the Abyss]
Yet after emerging, the dark figure showed no intent to fight. Instead, it slowly leaned back and dissolved into the surrounding void.
Moments later, the darkness itself began to writhe.
Fragments of humanity, reeking of despair, crawled out from every corner. Monsters tainted by the Abyss began to manifest—one after another.
Not only the twisted horrors of the Dark Souls world, but also those from Caelid and across the entire Lands Between, all creatures once consumed by the Abyss, now appeared together.
Or more precisely—by mimicking Lloyd, that thing had projected a timeline where both worlds were completely devoured by darkness.
And it didn't stop there. The projection wasn't limited to the dungeon. Outside, countless "rifts of reality" began to tear open, leaking writhing black sludge into the world beyond.
Before long, an entire dark world unfolded before Lloyd's eyes.
The Avatar did not remain in any single place. Instead, it dispersed its projection across countless regions—making it impossible for Lloyd to destroy it without cleansing the entire shadowed world first.
But that was impossible.
After so many consecutive battles, Lloyd was already running on fumes. His Crimson and Cerulean Flasks were nearly empty.
Though his talismans offered a slow regeneration, the encroaching corruption of the outer world meant time wasn't on his side. If this dragged on, something far worse could happen—or the creature itself might slip away entirely.
As for using his full strength—this space had already reached its limit. If Lloyd unleashed his true power now, the entire realm would collapse instantly.
A dead end.
At least, that's what the Abyssal Avatar believed.
But strangely, Lloyd's face showed no hint of worry. No frustration. Not even annoyance.
After a moment of silence, he turned toward the direction of that unseen gaze and spoke calmly.
"I'm waiting for my comrades. What about you?"
The Abyssal Avatar froze.
Comrades? What comrades? Hadn't it sealed every possible connection he could make to the outside world…?
BOOM!
A colossal skeleton crowned in gold rose behind Lloyd, gripping a shining golden sword.
[High Lord • Wolnir]
Then, fangs tore open the darkness, and a massive wolf burst through, a greatsword clenched in its jaws.
[Great Wolf • Sif]
Flames erupted as ash and cinders coalesced into figures—ashen warriors in pointed helms, greatswords blazing in their hands.
[Lord of Cinders • Farron Undead Legion]
A knight clad in silver-blue armor sliced through the veil with a single strike, stepping forward and raising a towering shield before Lloyd.
[Abysswalker • Artorias]
Ring, Half-Leaf, Scythe, Left Bow—the Four Kings appeared one after another.
[The Four Kings of New Londo]
With a single punch, the Path of Life and Death split open. A human sorcerer in white robes, holding a massive staff, strode out from the shattered void.
[Sorcerer of Oolacile • Manus]
And finally—
With a thunderous roar that shook the skies, a massive ancient dragon descended from above. Landing before Lloyd, it roared once more at the darkness ahead, then lowered its head toward him—inviting his hand.
[Heir of the Ancient Dragons • Midir]
Seeing all those beings he had once "defeated" and absorbed reappear beside him, the Abyssal Avatar froze completely.
Noticing the disbelief in its gaze, Lloyd turned toward it with a faint smile.
"What's wrong? You think you're the only one who can 'corrupt'?"
"Or do you really believe your 'erosion' is stronger than my 'pollution'?"
He patted Midir's massive head, and the dragon obediently lowered itself, allowing him to climb onto its back.
Seated atop the dragon, Lloyd glanced down at his gathered forces—the skeletal warriors and soul reapers summoned by Vornir among them—and gave a small nod.
"Alright, everyone."
"Let's turn this place…"
"…to ash!"
BOOM!