The stone beneath Kenjiro's feet didn't just vibrate; it groaned, the crystalline structure of the mountain screaming under the atmospheric weight of the creature behind the veil. Kenjiro spat a thick, viscous glob of blood and wiped his mouth with the back of a scarred hand. He forced his spine straight, the vertebrae popping like dry kindling.
He raised the red mythic blade toward the sagging ceiling, the tip of the steel steady despite the tremors in his knees.
"To I, the Mortal King," he rasped, his voice cutting through the thrumming dark."I shall serve the world with every drop of marrow, every shred of skin. The debt is mine. The responsibility is mine."
His aura didn't just flare; it curdled. Three distinct layers of necrotic energy spiraled up his legs, wrapping around his torso like starving vipers.
[ SYSTEM STATUS: EVOLUTIONARY OVERRIDE ]
Necromantic Stage: Tier III – Sovereign Decay
* Stage 1: Bone-Wraith (Physical Hardening)
* Stage 2: Soul-Eater (Mana Siphon Active)
* Stage 3: Abyssal Monarch (Authority Manifestation)
[ SYSTEM INTERFACE: EMERGENCY PROTOCOL ]
Host Condition: Near-Death / Soul Attrition
Health: 2/100
Mana: 0/500 (DEPLETED)
Status: [Weaponry Locked] – Mythic Blade inaccessible due to Mana bankruptcy.
[ ALERT: SENSORY OVERLOAD IMMINENT ] ---
[ SKILL UNLOCKED: KING'S PULSE (RANK S) ]
* Description: Negotiate the terms of existence with the environment. Cancel out external pressure through sheer authority.
"I have months left," Kenjiro muttered, his thumb tracing the pommel of his sword. "But this mountain doesn't care about calendars."
He launched. He didn't fly with the grace of a bird; he propelled himself like a jagged shard of glass thrown by a storm. He tore through the murky air, the green and blue mana trailing behind him in a wake of scorched ozone.
As he neared the throat of the final tunnel, a sound hit him. It wasn't a roar. It was a beat.
THUMP.
The sound bypassed his ears and struck his heart directly. Kenjiro's mid-flight momentum died instantly. He doubled over in the air, his fingers clawing at his chest as if trying to reach through the ribs.
THUMP.
He crashed into the stone floor, sliding through the grit. He coughed, a spray of hot crimson painting the obsidian.
[ SYSTEM ALERT: CALAMITY PULSE DETECTED ]
* Origin: The Glacial Sepulcher's Heartbeat.
* Effect: Synchronized Cardiac Arrest. The Boss is forcing your heart to beat at its rhythm. If the rhythms match, your heart will explode.
Kenjiro gripped his chest, his eyes bulging. His heart felt like it was being squeezed by a giant's hand, the valves struggling to pump against a tide of lead.
"Whats... that?" he wheezed.
THUMP.
Another pulse. More blood sprayed from his mouth, decorating his tattered red hood.
Kenjiro's frown deepened. He didn't panic; he focused on the heat in his gut. His fingers moved in a blur—small, fluid gestures of an ancient mudra, almost invisible to the naked eye. He channeled the necrotic energy into his own circulatory system, hardening the walls of his heart with Abyssal mana.
"King's Pulse."
The next beat hit him, but it broke against his aura like a wave against a cliff. He stood up, the pressure no longer affecting his stride. He burst through the final tunnel.
The hall was a cathedral of violence. It was a war-field, three miles wide, with pillars the size of skyscrapers supporting a ceiling lost in the clouds. Kenjiro stood at the entrance, a tiny red speck against the grey obsidian.
Suddenly, a sound like a tectonic plate snapping echoed from above.
[ ALERT: MASSIVE KINETIC IMPACT IMMINENT ]
Kenjiro didn't have time to look up. A shockwave of air slammed into him, throwing him a hundred yards backward until he hit the far wall with a bone-shattering crunch.
Dust erupted in a white mushroom cloud, obscuring the center of the hall. As the grit settled, the silhouette emerged.
The Glacial Sepulcher—the Thousand Emperor Beast—stood forty feet tall. It had the chassis of a lion, but its skin was a mosaic of translucent, blue ice and hardened bone. Its tail was a jagged scorpion's lash, and its face was a frozen mask of a woman, beautiful and terrifying, with eyes that held the vacuum of space. She was the ancestor of the Arisaka line, cursed a millennium ago to guard the mountain.
"Little King," the beast spoke. Her voice was like wind through a frozen forest—polite, melodic, and utterly devoid of mercy. "You smell of Earth-dust and the Abyss. Why have you come to die in my house?"
Kenjiro pulled himself out of the wall, his left arm hanging limp. He didn't reach for his sword—his mana was too low, the system had locked the blade into his inventory to prevent a total soul-collapse.
"I'm not here to die," Kenjiro said, his voice flat. He walked forward, his bare fists clenched. "I'm here to complete the punishment. You are the final debt."
The beast tilted its massive, frozen head. "Bold. But the debt is paid in blood, not words."
The fight didn't begin with a roar. It began with a blur.
The Emperor Beast lunged. Kenjiro met her.
He didn't have his sword, so he used the only thing he had left: his body. He ducked under a claw that could have leveled a house, the wind of the strike tearing his hood away. He drove a fist into the beast's icy flank.
CRACK.
The ice didn't break; Kenjiro's knuckles did. He didn't flinch. He spun, delivering a roundhouse kick to the creature's joint.
For the next three hours, the hall became a meat-grinder. Kenjiro was beaten. He was slammed into the pillars until they shattered into gravel. He was raked by ice-spikes that opened canyons in his skin. His mana was gone, his vision was a red haze, and his ribs were a jigsaw puzzle of broken bone.
"Give up, child," the Beast whispered as she pinned him to the floor with a massive paw. "The world has forgotten the name Kurozawa. Let the ice take you."
Kenjiro spat blood into her frozen eye. "The world... doesn't need to remember the name," he rasped, his voice a jagged edge. "They just need to fear the return."
He heaved, his small frame trembling with a strength that shouldn't have existed. He threw the paw off him and stood.
[ SYSTEM: VITALITY AT 1% ]
[ WARNING: SOUL COLLAPSE IMMINENT ]
"I am the Mortal King," Kenjiro whispered.
His body exploded.
Not in flames, but in a pillar of pure, white-gold light that touched the ceiling. The three stages of his necromancy merged, turning his skin into a marble-like substance. His hair, long and tied with the silver band, whipped in a wind of his own making.
"In the name of the Void, I claim what was lost."
He began to chant, the words ancient and heavy:
"Through the gate of the dead, under the shadow of the sun, I call the ghost of the man I was. Break the chain. Bind the soul. Become the One."
Kenjiro lifted into the sky, suspended by a pillar of light. Next to him, a second soul appeared—Renji Kurozawa, the hero of the old world, bound in heavy, rusted chains of black iron.
Kenjiro reached out. The light from his hand touched the chains.
SNAP.
The iron exploded. The two souls—the child and the man—pressed their palms together. A golden light formed between them, so bright it erased the shadows in the hall. They merged, folding into one another like silk.
[ FINAL SYSTEM NOTIFICATION ] [ INTEGRATION RATIO: 100% ] [ SOUL-MERGE INITIATED ] Kenjiro's body didn't burn. It exploded.
Kenjiro floated, his eyes closed, his body lifeless for a heartbeat.
The Emperor Beast roared, sensing the change. She leaped into the air, her claws extended to tear the glowing shell apart.
BOOM.
An energy wave of pure authority exploded from Kenjiro, hitting the beast mid-air and throwing her three miles back into the far wall.
A shell of golden mana formed around Kenjiro. For a minute, the hall was silent. Then, the shell cracked.
[Rebirth]
Kenjiro emerged. He was taller, his features a perfect blend of the boy he was and the man he had been. He wore a three-star King's Tunic—obsidian silk stitched with gold thread that glowed like a dying star. His aura was no longer a flame; it was a steady, immovable weight.
He opened his eyes. They were solid gold.
A wave of energy rolled out from him, flattening the dust and the ruins. He looked at his hands, then at the beast struggling to stand.
"Time is not yet," Kenjiro whispered.
He clenched his fist, and the entire mountain shook. The Glacial Sepulcher wasn't just a tomb anymore. It was his throne room.
[ STATUS: ASCENDED ] [ NEW TITLE: THE TRUE MORTAL KING ]