Becoming the Dark Lord

The Captain’s roar shook the stone walls, and then he charged. His sword arced high, a blow meant to crush the Haven’s shield wall into splinters. The soldiers locked formation in front of Allison, shields braced for impact. But the strike never landed. The silence stretched just long enough for dread to take hold. When the shields lowered, every eye widened. Luke was standing at the very front, holding back the Captain’s blade with nothing but a single kukri.

“Well, idiots,” he said, voice dripping with sarcasm. “If your plan failed, then it’s time for mine.”

With a fluid motion, he released the clash. The Captain’s sword crashed into the ground, shaking the hall. In the same instant, Luke blurred to the side and countered with a slash of his kukri. The strike connected, driving the armored giant back a step. The Haven fighters froze, breath held, ready to surge in behind him. But before they could move, Luke vanished. A black blur streaked across the battlefield, and suddenly he was in the Captain’s face, blades already in motion.

The monster’s sword swept down in brutal arcs, each one powerful enough to shatter steel. Luke slipped past them by inches, twisting, diving, spinning. Sparks exploded with every clash, lighting the Haven’s tense faces like flashes of lightning. He didn’t stumble. He didn’t falter. If anything, the rhythm of his assault made one truth clear: it was the Captain who was struggling to keep up.

Luke’s pace quickened. His blades moved like lightning, each strike carving into the blackened armor, each hit rattling the hall with the sound of tearing steel. The pressure built until the Captain, not Luke, was the one forced backward.

“What… what level is this guy?” someone whispered, stunned.

No one answered. They just stared, paralyzed, watching the impossible unfold: a level 70 Captain being pushed back.

The Captain roared in fury, his voice carrying like a command. The motionless Wardens surrounding the hall lifted their spears and charged in formation, straight for Luke’s unguarded back.

“Behind you!” someone screamed.

Luke was already moving. He leapt high, spinning, and hurled both kukris in a crisscross arc. The sound was deafening. The blades buried themselves in two Wardens, dropping them dead before he even touched the ground. As his boots hit stone, the kukris snapped back into his hands as if the air itself pulled them home.

He didn’t miss a beat. The fight rolled on without pause. The Captain pressed forward, but Luke seemed everywhere at once, dodging, countering, carving through steel. Then something darker began to seep from his body, a shroud of smoke that thickened into form.

A silhouette stepped free of the haze. A distorted echo, a shadow-copy that mirrored his movements with only the faintest delay. But it wasn’t just an illusion, its strikes landed real. Wardens surged in waves, but each charge was butchered. Luke’s blade opened one, and the shadow finished another. He pressed the Captain while leaving a trail of corpses in his wake, dancing through the battlefield as though the slaughter were choreography.

Steel screamed against steel, sparks cascading, the echoes ringing like thunder.

“Help him! Reinforce the line!” Allison shouted, snapping the Haven out of their stupor.

“Reinforce… him?” Miranda shot back, half in awe, half disbelief. “He doesn’t look like he needs help.”

The battle had become a spectacle. Luke wasn’t just fighting the Captain, he was tearing through everything around him, and still he never faltered. The once-invincible foe was being driven back, its armor splintering piece by piece under the relentless assault.

He shifted his grip on the kukris, holding them like fangs. A vicious kick sent the Captain stumbling, followed by a spinning slash that carved chunks of black metal free. Shards of the armor scattered across the stone floor.

The tempo climbed higher. Luke gave no quarter. Every strike landed with surgical precision, every cut stripping more of the shadow-plated shell. The Captain’s blackened armor was no longer a fortress—it was a crumbling husk.

For a moment, Luke stepped back. The kukris quivered in his hands, their blades flaring white. He hurled one at the breastplate, the other at the helm. The impacts thundered like stormclaps. The Captain staggered, knees buckling as the massive body crashed down. A guttural sound gurgled from its throat. Black blood spilled from its mouth, dripping through the cracked metal. The helm shattered, revealing what lay beneath: brown, corroded skin stretched over rotting flesh, the skull beneath peeking through decay.

It was vulnerable. Luke raised his kukri, poised to deliver the killing blow.

“Finish it!” Haven soldiers roared. “Before it gets back up!”

But he stopped. The blade hung in the air. Then he stepped back.

“You’re insane! Kill it already!” voices shouted, equal parts fury and panic. The Captain stirred, forcing itself up with its sword.

“What the hell are you doing?!” Eugene bellowed, rage in his tone. “Are you out of your damn mind?!”

Luke gave no answer. He turned his back on all of them, walking slowly across the blood-soaked snow. Kneeling, he picked up one of his fallen kukris. The Captain staggered upright again, sword dragging as it rose.

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“Damn it!” Eugene roared.

He charged forward, grabbing half of his broken spear. Electricity coursed down the jagged shaft as he screamed, hurling it straight at the exposed skull. The bolt of light split the air. But before it could land, a kukri whirled through the air and struck it aside. The spear shattered, scattering sparks across the hall.

Silence slammed down like a weight.

Luke turned just enough for his gaze to fall on Eugene. His eyes were cold, merciless.

“Stay out of my fight.”

The hall froze. Even Eugene stumbled back a step.

***

Luke retrieved the second kukri from the floor. The other, still buried in the Captain’s chestplate, snapped free with a flick of his hand, drawn back into his grip by the weapon’s magnetic pull.

He glanced at the blade he had just picked up from the ground. Cracks spread along its edge, faint but growing. Every strike infused with mana fractured the metal further. If it weren’t a system-forged item, it would have shattered already. He couldn’t rely on this trick forever, not with weapons this fragile.

At least now I know. Once a kukri’s cracked, the magnetism fails.

Ahead, the Captain was rising again. The broken helm exposed a grotesque face, rotting flesh clinging to bone, fury burning in the hollow sockets. It gripped its sword, breath escaping in guttural growls. Luke sprinted. His cloak flared as he leapt, gliding for a heartbeat before crashing down with a double kick. The blow hammered the Captain’s chest, sending the massive form hurtling backward through one of the dining hall’s broken doors, skidding across the stone corridor beyond.

Luke followed without hesitation. The Captain staggered upright, heavy steps trembling with rage. Every movement radiated bloodlust. This wasn’t just combat anymore, it was personal. Ever since the day Luke had escaped alive, the creature had carried one single desire: to kill him.

And now, cut off in the corridors, it was a duel. Luke reached to his neck and tore off the pendant. Charlie burst forth, summoned straight from his soul.

“Artemis, improvise. Get Charlie to the X on the map. Only at this floor’s location,” he ordered, tossing the pendant to Charlie.

“Really? Just like that? I’m here to clean up your messes now? You bastard,” Artemis snapped, dripping sarcasm.

Luke ignored her, turning to Charlie instead. “I’m counting on you.”

Her eyes lit crimson, the helm’s enchantment activating as she clutched the pendant and dashed off, thrilled by his words.

“Don’t fall for that bastard’s tricks!” Artemis shouted after them, her voice trailing into the distance.

The Captain roared and came at him again. Luke dismissed one kukri into his inventory, the cracked one wouldn’t last. With the other, he blocked, deflected, retreated step by step.

From the hall behind, Evangeline appeared, breathless. “What the hell are you doing?!”

“Making an investment,” Luke replied, before sprinting deeper into the corridor, baiting the monster farther away.

The Captain thundered after him, metal boots pounding, wardens rushing to join the pursuit.

“Hold them off for me!” Luke shouted to Evangeline without even glancing back.

He switched to his bow mid-run, pulling an arrow free as his eyes flicked to his stamina bar.

[Stamina: 2039/2770]

He began pouring stamina into the shot.

“Two thousand in one go…” he muttered. “It’s going to drain me dry. But if I’m investing… I’ll do it like an aggressive investor.”

***

Charlie sprinted through the fortress halls, the pendant clattering against her breastplate.

“That guy is a bastard,” Artemis muttered. “Shows up out of nowhere and goes, ‘Hey Charlie, why don’t you run off alone into this fortress crawling with monsters, risk your life, and take the lovely Artemis with you just to solve my problems.’ Absolute bastard, you know that?”

Charlie ignored her, boots pounding on stone, the echoes of armored feet and clashing spears closing in from all directions. Wardens were converging fast. She triggered Spectral Charge, her speed spiking, Artemis barking directions as they tore through the twisting corridors.

“One’s right behind us!” Artemis shouted.

Charlie spun. A Warden lunged. She flung her spectral chain, yanked the creature toward her, and met it with a steel fist straight to the helm. The impact cracked bone and metal alike, slamming the monster against the wall. Without pause, she drew her blade, infused it with force, and, still propelled by the charge, rammed it into the thing’s skull.

[You have slain Midnight Warden: Lvl 40]

**Your class [Death Knight] has reached Level 36! (+3 Str, +3 End, +2 Agi, +2 Vit, +2 Int, +1 Per, +2 Free Points)**

**[You have reached Level 29! Skeleton (Rank F)] (+1 bonus point to all attributes, +1 free point)**

“Hell yeah, girl!” Artemis whooped.

Charlie dragged the corpse with her spectral chain, tossed it into a side room, and cleared the hall. Then she was running again.

“Girl power!” Artemis sang. “Seriously, we should ditch that idiot and form our own duo. You and me, looting chests, raiding pantries, living the dream…”

Charlie shook her head firmly.

“You’re way too loyal to him,” Artemis grumbled.

They burst into the marked chamber. Charlie dismissed the Orcslayer into her inventory, shoved aside the shelves, and revealed the wall behind them.

“All right, let’s see it,” Artemis urged.

Charlie clenched her steel fist, flooding it with stamina. She struck. The wall shuddered under the blow.

“Holy crap!,” Artemis said, half in awe.

Charlie hammered it again and again, cracks spiderwebbing outward.

“Oh look, a little hole!” Artemis teased.

But then came the heavy footsteps. The metallic rhythm of the Captain’s advance. Luke’s voice cut through the dust-filled air.

“I’m firing! Clear the way!”

Charlie leapt back. The arrow streaked through the room at impossible speed. It slammed into the fractured wall with a thunderous crack. Stone exploded outward, dust clouding the chamber as an enormous gap yawned open. The Captain lunged, sword raised high, aiming to cut Luke down. He slipped aside at the last instant. The blade split the stone floor. Luke spun, used the momentum, and drove into the monster with full force.

Both of them crashed through the shattered opening. But instead of landing in the fortress courtyard, they plummeted into a hidden shaft. A pit Luke and Charlie had carved out together.

“Two weeks chopping wood,” Luke’s voice echoed from the darkness below. “No way in hell I was wasting that work. Time to finish my damn plan.”