The air crackles, thick with the stench of ozone and something acrid, like burnt sugar. Aldus, a blur of obsidian and malevolence, dances just beyond the reach of my laser beams. Each pulse of energy, a searing lance of light, paints a fleeting path across the chamber, only to meet empty air. My teleportations, once a trump card, now feel like a predictable parlor trick. He anticipates every flicker, every shift, his eyes like polished jet, tracking my every move.

  The frustration coils in my core, a cold, hard knot. I'm a Dungeon Core, a force of raw, unbridled energy, yet I'm hampered by the phantom weight of human instincts. The ingrained flinch, the desperate urge to shield my vital organs – habits honed over a lifetime of fragile mortality – betray me now. I see Me’s smug face, a constant, irritating reminder of my failings. He's right, damn it.

  I watch Aldus, his movements a symphony of lethal grace. His sword, a wickedly curved thing of shadow and steel, sings a deadly lullaby as it slices through the air. Each parry, each near miss, chips away at my resolve. I’m a storm of raw power, but he's a surgeon, precise and merciless.

  Then, a flicker of clarity. A cold, calculating decision. I stop dodging. I stand my ground, a statue of defiance. Aldus's blade, a hungry serpent, plunges into my chest, the cold steel ripping through my form. A gasp, a wet, gurgling sound escapes my lips as the blade exits my back. It feels… Wrong. A violation. Yet, beneath the shock, a surge of manic glee bubbles up. I cough, the liquid that spills from my mouth a familiar, crimson hue. Blood. Or something close enough.

  My hand, fueled by a desperate, reckless energy, clamps down on Aldus's wrist, a vise of raw force. I channel all my accumulated power, the energy I've been hoarding, into a single, devastating pulse. The explosion is a grotesque ballet of shattered bone and torn flesh. Aldus screams, a raw, animal sound, his hand a mangled ruin. I laugh, a high, delirious sound that echoes through the forest. His face, contorted in pain and rage, is a mask of pure, unadulterated fury.

  He retaliates with brutal efficiency. His uninjured hand, a blur of motion, yanks the blade from my chest, then, with a sickening thud, severs my head from my body. There's no pain, just a sudden, disorienting disconnect. My soul, a luminous wisp, drifts free, and I see everything with a chilling clarity.

  The laughter, now a hollow echo, continues. I’m free. Free from the constraints of that fabricated body, free from the lingering echoes of human fear. Aldus, his face a mask of shocked disbelief, clutches his ruined hand. He's wounded, rattled. Now, the real fight begins.

  My gaze sweeps across the core room. I see the broken fragment of my Core, a shard of jade glowing with faint, inner light, lying amidst the rubble in the room Veris guards. It's larger than before, a stark reminder of my growth. I wonder, idly, what would happen if Colin, with his insatiable appetite for power, were to consume that piece as well before pushing the thought aside. Now is not the time for idle musings.

  Aldus stares at my floating soul, a flicker of uncertainty in his eyes. He expects fear, perhaps. He sees only a burning, incandescent rage. He will die. Not just once, but thrice. One death for each of my lost girls. I will rip his soul apart, reshape it, and force it into the most pathetic of forms, just to have the pleasure of extinguishing it again. And again.

  Shaking off gratifying thoughts, I begin spending points like there's no tomorrow. There might not be if I don't play this right. As I spend the accumulated efforts of my DP Farm, I also check the overview to have a look at how my family are faring.

  The portal pulsates with dark energy, still spewing monstrous demons. My Assassins, shockingly, are showing the strain. A sight as unsettling as it is unexpected. They are faltering, their movements sluggish, their strikes less precise. The demons, relentless, powerful, and endless, are pushing them to the brink.

  Marie stands resolute, surrounded by Dropper, Noir, Carrie, and Dee. Dum, his cursed arm putting him out of commission, has retreated to the mountain. His partner and the others, however, form a protective wall around the Space Mage, her brow furrowed in concentration as she struggles to seal the self-sustaining portal. The dungeon's mana, a torrent of self-sufficient energy, fuels its relentless operation.

  The battlefield is a swirling vortex of death. Demons and Assassins fall in droves, their numbers dwindling with each passing moment. I unleash my Goblins, dropping a tidal wave of green flesh into the heart of the demon horde. A desperate gamble. I pour more points into bolstering the Assassin ranks, hoping to buy precious seconds, minutes, anything, to eliminate Aldus. My void beam, a weapon of pure annihilation, will be the final stroke.

  I couldn't keep my eyes on them for long as King Aldus was still alive. Also, my new body was ready. This one stronger than any created before and almost wiping out my reserves.

  Abi 3.0 looks exactly the same as the previous two only much, much stronger. Overflowing with the same power I've been using during the fight. The power that makes up my lasers and void beams I'm now only realising are the Dungeon Points I use in creation.

  My flawless skin, a canvas of pure, unadulterated Dungeon Point energy, versus his mangled, demon-scarred flesh. I've entertained fleeting notions of reform, of offering a sliver of mercy, a chance at redemption. But here, amidst the carnage, such thoughts are a luxury I cannot afford. Aldus and his demonic horde are already dead.

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  They just don't it yet.

  Before I can channel the raw, surging power within me, Aldus launches himself forward, his sword a desperate, blurring arc aimed at my head. The metallic tang of blood and ozone fills the air. No more evasive teleportation. This time, I stand my ground, a phantom dancer, weaving through his clumsy strikes.

  I draw him in, closer and closer, his rage a tangible force fueling his increasingly erratic movements. He’s crossed the threshold of sanity, a cornered beast driven by blind desperation. Each missed strike, each frustrated snarl, fuels his fury, but simultaneously saps his strength, slowing his movements, making him predictable.

  The portal, a distant, shimmering gateway, flashes in my peripheral vision. The Assassins are still fighting with a ferocity born of desperation. A knot of anxiety tightens in my chest, a cold, gnawing fear. I cannot afford to lose more. Each fallen Assassin is a piece of myself, a fragment of my family gone. A risky idea crystallizes, a desperate gamble born of necessity.

  A scream, raw and primal, tears through my throat as I rend my soul, a brutal, agonizing division. The pain is a searing brand, a white-hot iron against my very essence. A 95/5 split, the larger portion remaining anchored in my new form, the smaller fragment surging into the one-armed duplicate. Aldus freezes, his eyes widen in confusion, his attack faltering. Two of me, identical in every way, both pulsing with the raw, untamed energy of Dungeon Points, both radiating a palpable aura of power. Both ready to kick some King ass!

  He chooses, lunging at the lesser me, the duplicate, the weaker Abi. Good. It doesn't matter which one he attacks. I’m prepared. I allow his sword to bite deep into my side, the steel tearing through my flesh, a calculated wound. The pain is sharp, but fleeting, a necessary sacrifice. Victory is within reach, a tangible presence in the air.

  The lesser me, Abi 2.0 wraps her arms around Aldus, a crushing embrace. He thrashes, his remaining hand flailing, his sword clattering to the ground. He’s trapped, ensnared in a vice-like grip. His struggles are futile, a desperate dance against the inevitable. The void, a swirling vortex of pure annihilation, erupts from my clone's form, tearing through Aldus and disintegrating him, atom by atom. Abi 2.0, too, is consumed, a sacrifice to the void's insatiable hunger.

  May she rest in peace.

  A flicker of fear, a momentary chill, washes over me. A worry that a fragment of my soul, a tiny, irreplaceable piece, might have been lost in the chaotic dissolution. But the feeling of wholeness returns, a strange, unsettling sensation. Watching myself die, smiling, then feeling complete, whole, and utterly myself. It’s profoundly, disturbingly weird, a cognitive dissonance that sends shivers down my non-existent spine.

  Now, only the aftermath remains. The silence is deafening, broken only by the crackle of residual energy and the distant cries of the wounded. The battlefield, a desolate landscape of death and destruction, stretches before me.

  And the lingering question, heavy and burdensome, echoes in my mind: how do I prevent such a war from happening again? How do I break the cycle of violence, the endless dance of death and destruction? The weight of the question settles upon me, a heavy mantle, a burden I must bear.

  The lesser me wrapped her arms around the Demon King. Pulling him in tight and squeezing him as hard as he could. With his arms pinned to his side beneath hers, King Aldus flailed and attacked however he could but his struggle was futile. All he could do was struggle as the void tore him and my other self to pieces. Disintegrating matter and putting an end to the one who instigated the war.

  I was a little worried I might have disintegrated a part of my soul during that last attack, but fortunately enough I felt complete again once Abi B had been vaporised. Which in itself is a weird experience. Watching yourself die while smiling cheerily, and then feeling whole afterwards, was just fucking weird. Really, really weird.

  I can't even ruminate on it because there's still more to do. There's that portal and all the demons, the triplets...

  I turn my attention back to the ruined forest. I don't have enough time to fully charge my void beam, but it's more than enough for what's needed. Activating Soul Guide, I scanned the area for any sign of the King's soul. Since my soul has returned to me, that means that King Aldus' soul hasn't been obliterated by the void, only his flesh.

  Hiden in the mist is a small, red cloud. Growing smaller by the second, I watch, a bitter satisfaction churning in my gut, as the soul is dragged down the spiraling vortex of reincarnation. A pathetic waste. This king deserves to be ground into dust, reborn as a maggot, then crushed again.

  My hand snaps out, a gesture that rips through the fabric of reality. I conjure a monster, a creature of uneducated savagery to match the soul. Its form is a dirty nightmare, a creature of gnashing teeth and sharp claws. With the raw power of Soul Guide, I seize the fading ember of Aldus' soul, forcing it, twisting it, into the fragile, green shell of a newborn goblin.

  The goblin's eyes snap open, wide and wild, pupils dilated with a primal terror. It thrashes, a puppet on broken strings, its limbs flailing uselessly. A guttural, incoherent babble erupts from its throat, the harsh sounds of its species. Normally, I wouldn't understand a single syllable. But this isn't a normal goblin. This is Aldus, or the demon, or both?, trapped, screaming his rage through the crude filter of a monstrous form.

  The words, a torrent of raw, unfiltered hatred, slam against my mind through the dungeon's psychic connection. He's reliving his death, the crushing blow, the white light, the last seconds of his life extinguishing. Fury boils within him, a tidal wave of self-loathing and impotent rage. He remembers my own resurrections, how I came from the void brand new. Then, a chilling realization dawns as he examines his new, pathetic form. He's a level 1 goblin, a squirming, insignificant speck, housing the soul of a king.

  A flicker of something like hope sparks within him – a twisted, delusional belief that this unique combination might hold some power. I crush that flicker with a single thought. He killed the triplets.

  "All you're going to know is pain," I whisper, my voice a low, venomous hiss.

  With a flick of my wrist, we teleport. The Goblin King is deposited into the damp, stone chamber where Veris and Dum reside. Veris, her face tight with worry, is sucking on Dum's wound, the cursed flesh almost gone. I ignore the shit out of that, my focus sharp and unwavering, and port back to the heart of the conflict after quickly delegating babysitting duty to the two Assassins.

  The forest is alive with anticipation. It's time. Time to end this, to close this fucking portal and protect the ones I love. The scent of blood and ozone fills my nostrils as I land. The fight is still far from over.