Becoming the Dark Lord

“If you keep going, that dam will collapse! It’ll flood the entire forest! It’ll unleash the crocodiles!” the orc captain shouted.

Luke grinned. “I know. That’s the point.”

A roar. Hatred. A charge.

“YOU DAMN HUMAN!” The Captain lunged. Luke blocked the spear mid-air, but a brutal punch slammed him backward. More Captains arrived. A massive spear flew straight toward Charlie. Luke caught it, but the impact threw him to the ground.

The Captains were closing in.

One of them swung a heavy axe at Charlie. Luke hurled a kukri into his back, then followed with the second, tearing across the orc’s shoulder. Another came with a larger weapon. Luke parried, but the force cracked his wrist. A third grabbed him in a crushing bear hug. He tried to turn into mist, but couldn’t. Trapped.

He headbutted the orc and broke its nose. The monster staggered back, reeling. Charlie was shoved hard by another Captain. A club. Impact. She fell.

But before she hit the ground, spectral chains snapped into place. She yanked the Captain toward her and landed a punch directly to his chin. Then, with a smooth motion, she pulled her sword from the inventory, spinning into a Whirlwind Strike. The orc’s head flew clean off.

[Princess Charlie has slain an Orc Captain: Lvl 20]

**[Princess Charlie has reached Level 11: Skeleton (Rank F)] (+1 bonus point to all attributes, +1 free point)**

“Keep going!!” Luke shouted.

Charlie rushed back to the dam.

Fist.

Fist.

Fist.

Each blow thundered through the logs. A thin stream of water trickled through the cracks.

“NO!” a Captain yelled, sprinting toward her.

Charlie landed another punch. Then another. More cracks. More water. She wound up for a third strike, but the Captain leapt onto her, grabbing her and pounding her with heavy fists.

“YOU WRETCHED THING!” he roared.

The dam groaned. It splintered. It creaked. Luke stood nearby, kukris in hand, eyes locked on the weakened dam. It was right on the brink. He hurled both blades—shimmering mid-flight as they duplicated—and the four kukris slammed into the fractured section Charlie had opened.

A sharp, splintering crack rang out. The dry snap of collapse.

“No…” the orc captains whispered, all at once, as the logs began to shift and strain like a crumbling tower.

Charlie spun, kicked the Captain off her, and lunged toward the dam. Her final punch landed with brutal force—and the structure gave way. The explosion tore through the air.

A heartbeat later, Luke was already sprinting. Charlie had returned to his soul. Behind him, orcs shouted and scrambled in every direction—but it was too late. The dam collapsed in full. A thunderous roar followed as a towering surge of water tore through the forest, sweeping away trees, mud, debris—everything.

Luke vaulted between branches, racing the flood. Then he looked back.

A wall of water surged through the canopy, devouring everything in its path. It hit him like a collapsing mountain. He was flung into the air, smashed against trunks, dragged beneath the surface. Branches clawed at his limbs, stones tore through his skin, the current spinning him end over end, churning him through wreckage and rot.

He tried to swim, but the force crushed every effort. With the last breath in his lungs, he triggered Basic Dark Dash, weaving through the water in jagged bursts until his hand caught a tree trunk. The current slammed him against it, threatening to rip him away. He drove both kukris into the bark and climbed—coughing, slipping, straining against the weight of the water and the roar in his ears. Every movement was a war, but he reached a high branch and pulled himself up, chest heaving.

Below him, the forest was gone—replaced by a river of chaos. But there was no time to breathe.

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“YOU BASTARD!” a guttural voice roared from behind, and then came the impact.

An orc captain slammed into Luke, and the two of them crashed back into the raging waters. The monster grabbed him, pulled him under, and began pounding Luke’s face with blind fury. Luke dismissed the kukris into his inventory to avoid losing them, then retaliated with sharp, direct punches of his own.

And then, both of them froze for a split second. Pure instinct.

Yellow eyes stared at them through the murky water.

Then more eyes.

Crocodiles. Massive. Silent. Starving.

A gaping maw appeared out of nowhere, lunging straight at them. Luke and the orc separated at the last second, but the creature’s force created a spinning current that hurled them into a vortex. Luke smashed into another tree and tried to steady himself, only to see another jaw racing toward him. He exhaled and let the water take him. The crocodile missed and slammed into the trunk instead.

Breaking the surface for air, Luke saw the forest being torn apart. Trees collapsed like toys. The crocodiles surged forward with the current, dragging everything in their path. Using Basic Dark Dash, he swam toward the bank, spotted a hill, and pushed toward it. He made it.

But then, something latched onto his leg.

“DAMNED HUMAN!”

The orc captain resurfaced, fury blazing in his eyes, gripping Luke with raw strength. Luke twisted and kicked with both feet, breaking free, then scrambled upright.

“You destroyed what we built!” the orc roared.

“And I’ll destroy all of it,” Luke snapped back. “Until there’s nothing left!”

The kukris appeared in his hands once more. The orc roared, his aura erupting in crimson light as he entered a berserker state. But before the fight could begin, a deafening roar tore through the air.

“ROOOOAAAAAR!”

Both turned toward the sound. And there it was. A colossal crocodile, even larger than the others, rising from the water like a titan. They locked eyes for just a moment, and then Luke bolted.

“Shit…” he muttered as more giant crocodiles emerged from the other side.

No choice.

He started climbing the steep hillside like a madman, digging his kukris into the soil, dragging himself upward with sheer arm strength. Behind him, the orc captain climbed too—just as furious, just as relentless. His claws sank into the dirt as he closed the gap with frightening ease.

“You’re dead!” the orc screamed, reaching for Luke’s leg.

Luke kicked down hard and kept going, heart pounding, mud slipping beneath his boots. But the crocodiles were climbing too. They scrambled up the slopes like monstrous, single-minded beasts, driven by instinct and hunger.

The orc captain pulled ahead with a powerful burst, leaping to the ridge above and skidding to a halt near a narrow, dark pit at the summit. His breath hitched.

“This place… no… not here…” he muttered, eyes locked on the abyss below.

Then he glanced back at the approaching crocodiles, panic overtaking the rage in his gaze.

“This is all your fault! We’re dead!”

Luke saw the eyes of the beasts closing in. He felt the ground trembling beneath him, and he knew—there was no more time.

The orc captain lunged to grab him, but Luke threw himself into the pit. The orc dove in after him, and both of them fell.

During the descent, the orc swung mid-air, but Luke vanished into black mist, reappearing behind him in freefall. He drove his kukri into the captain’s back, then grabbed the orc’s head and twisted it downward, steering the fall with brutal force.

They hit the bottom of the cavern with a thunderous crash. Luke rolled aside, gasping for breath.

Above him, a yellow eye peered through the narrow opening they’d fallen through. The crack was too tight for the crocodiles to fit. They were safe—for now.

Beside him, the orc captain lay broken. Tusks shattered. Blood spilling from his mouth. Luke stood, stepped forward, and pressed the kukri against his throat.

”You... you’re going to die with me,” the orc coughed, blood running down his chin. ”We fell into the Death Cavern. There’s no way out. Whatever lives down here... even we don’t dare face it.”

Luke narrowed his eyes. ”What’s in this place?”

The orc laughed. A dry, hopeless sound. ”Your death.”

Luke didn’t hesitate. The blade fell.

[You have slain Sahloknir, Orc Captain: Lvl 22]

[An item has been added to your inventory]

*Your class [Demonic Assassin] has reached Level 23! (Class Bonus Points Acquired)*

Luke collapsed to the ground, every limb aching from the fall. ”Shit… I almost died in my own plan.”

But it had worked. The dam was gone. The crocodiles were free. The orc army would be forced to deal with the chaos he left behind.

He looked up. There was no way to climb back out. The opening above was a sheer vertical shaft, and he was trapped at the bottom of what looked like a colossal cave.

”It’d be some real cosmic cruelty if this place really doesn’t have another exit...”

He pulled himself to his feet, eyes scanning the darkness. Pitch black. His Demonic Perception offered little—whatever space he had entered was too vast, too deep.

Reaching into his inventory, Luke retrieved Charlie’s Ring of Fire and slipped it onto his finger. With a snap, a small flame flickered to life, casting a wavering glow across the rocky ground before him.

And then he heard it—footsteps. Fast. Heavy. Not from something small. The sound was deep, resonant, massive.

He raised the ring and expanded the flame. The light stretched farther, pushing into the dark—and when it finally revealed what stood ahead, Luke’s eyes widened. He froze.

In that moment, with absolute certainty, he realized:

He was in very, very big trouble.