There are few things which really scare me in this life. Fire? I laugh at it. Clowns? Hah, they are nothing to worry about. Lawyers? I- okay that’s a bad example. They’re terrifying in their own way. That thing though? That scares me.

The eyes blink twice, then vanish, giggling as they realize I caught them. How long has it been there? How long has it been beside me? How many times could I have died just now? Five. There are five known heroes here once again. Just what have those damn elves made this time?

A familiar whisper echoed a few centimeters from my ear through the thick helm, but I didn’t dare move. “Come on, old man. Show me something new. It’s been all swish, swish, boom! Where’s all the colors and the blood? You can’t seriously tell me this is all you got. You could have killed these chumps a dozen times by now if you wanted.”

Screw the adventurers. Screw the ancient artifacts. Screw the humans and dwarves. This comes first.

I barely heard the soft click of a bow string striking a wrist guard before I burst into action, pouncing the length of the room towards the three weakened heroes, before two arrows burst through my thighs, slicing open Dale’s sunken cheeks as each one flew by. This sadistic creep doesn’t even give a damn about these three, does it? Then again, what did I expect from one of their creations…

In the second it took to roll across the ground towards the three heroes, I had already regenerated the damage, but it seems each of these four adventurers knew very well what was going on, as every one of them had ducked for cover, shivering just as much as the little gnome.

“You could have taken my head off, Lala! Watch it!”

Only a cackle answered the distressed man, that simple sound soon dripping into physical form. A lithe dark elf sauntered from behind my throne, before flopping down on it with a sadistic grin. “Did you see that? The great monster king looked like a cat who just saw a cucumber!”

The elf wreathed in a dress of shadows rolled in laughter on my throne, acting like she had just made the greatest joke in the world before immediately shifting back into her smug, cat-like demeanor. “Still, I told you I could do it by myself. Did you listen? Nooooo, you wanted your fair shake. You still want it, oh great hero?”

The blushing paladin looked down at his dented armor, hesitating for just a second before shaking his head and backing out of the room, dragging the barely conscious Jem and Grimel behind him. “Just don’t take too long. Don’t forget that we need to keep him alive.”

This is it. This is why those stubborn old fools would risk every artifact and hero they have. A new Hero of Shadows has been made. What in the world were they thinking? They know how hard we had to fight to beat back the last one.

“I hope the old man is still doing well.” The soft purple wisps of mana drifting off my armor turned into a torrent, stretching to become a mage’s cloak.

I am stronger than I was back then, and this beast is doing nothing to halt my progress through every buff I have. Still just as confident as ever.

Her expression turned dark- well, darker. “I take it you mean father-“ she bit her tongue, nearly drawing blood. “No, old Archimedes. Don’t worry, he’s long gone. I couldn’t have him making another of me to mess up my plans.”

She suddenly perked up and spun to face me, those red eyes piercing further than those arrows ever could. “We have a new head developer, now. You should know him. He’s such a charmer~ He even told me to send you his regards. Said it was ‘a favor to pay back all his heroic friend had done for him.’”

I nearly choked “You put that MADMAN in charge of development? What happened to the plan to execute him? You couldn’t possibly think you can control that nutcase.” I finally finished setting up the final enchantment on my armor before opening a black portal beside me. From it, I pulled a chalice with a single eye permanently faceted into the inside of it. The little elder mind flayer eye spun to greet me like an old friend.

“Mmmm I do wonder. What ever could have happened? Well, I suppose you’ll never find out, will you?” The dark elf gave a cheshire grin, then melted into liquid shadow, as if her very existence there had been a lie. The sad thing is, she really could have simply never been there.

Those damn elves never could be happy until they’d made the ultimate killer, could they? “Let’s do this one last time, you abomination.”

A wave of purple mana flooded the chamber, the chalice slowly filling with a black ichor as the monster king’s eyes bled onto the shaking floor. A hundred hands and a hundred eyes peeked out from the deadly haze, claiming the area as his own. This was the power of the monster king, master of the Grand Labyrinth.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

“System, activate [Omega Protocol]. We’re going all out.” The room shifted, turning from the personalized home of the great Monster King to a simple boss room with a stone floor and an iron throne. At the cost of his title as the monster king, Behemoth would become a dungeon creature once more.

“Behold, the power I have created with my own two hands!” the floor swirled with debris as lightning shot from hand to hand, eye to eye, across the new terrain. Behemoth hated the lines the system came up with for these scenarios, but the power it gave in return was undeniable. A hurricane of power whipped through the room, chasing shadows out of existence until only one remained- a lone, stubborn stain on the old iron throne.

The bloody demon wasn’t laughing now. Those red eyes rose out of hiding, trailing behind them an annoyed elf in a simple black dress made of shadows which clung to her hips and chest. She had a dangerous beauty to her. The same beauty that could be found in a melanistic wolf seconds before it ripped out your throat.

One second she was sitting with her legs folded properly on a suddenly much smaller throne, and the next, she was drifting through the air like a leaf on the wind, floating between grasping hands, only to snap into a bolt of red lightning, popping a lone eye that got too close.

All these years, and yet, she’s still got it. No, I can’t think like that. It’s a different one now. The hero I knew has been dead for a long, long time. With a flick of the wrist, the chalice in my hands spilled its dark contents, but instead of falling, they rose into small black needles- two dimensional rifts in space which abruptly opened as the eyes of the deep one. Every one of them locked onto the elf dancing through the air with a look of intense concentration etched into its every pore. They swirled around her, pounding her magical defenses to attempt inflicting a timed instant death spell that particular elder mind flayer was rather well known for.

However, instead of despairing or seeking some way out, the girl laughed. It was a musical note that drudged up old heartaches and promised long summers that would never come. In the middle of this bloody battlefield, the hero of shadow was having fun. I could definitely understand it. It was nice to really cut loose now and then, to find out what you were really made of. I almost respected her for that. Almost.

A sudden thud echoed behind me. Despite the nearly omniocular vision I had, I failed to notice two individuals who were still in the room. The two little mice. The purple flood in the room had finally done its work in overloading the minds of those two innocents before it had even so much as touched that elf. I had to finish this quickly.

Moving to block any incoming attacks she might throw towards those two, I rushed the demon dancing like this whole thing was nothing but a complex rhythm game. As I approached, the air got colder, frost etching its fingerprints over my mana cloak and armor. The elf had been busy as she was seemingly dancing freely. Unseen spells crashed against my unflinching form, doing little more than shifting me slightly from my course into the driving blizzard of her cold aura.

The calculating woman took one glance at how I was approaching and gave a massive grin, revealing overly sharp teeth lining a shark-like face that looked like it smelled blood in the water. Time seemed to slow as she pointed one finger towards the two unconscious girls. For a brief second, I was back on the fields of blood as that elven demon pointed to my companions. I wasn’t fast enough then. I’d never been fast enough. Not until now.

In a flash of energy, I popped in front of that jet-black beam, only for it to stick to my chest like a string of taffy. I barely blinked before the girl shot down the dark link between us, curling herself as sensually as a snake against my body. Every horn I had shot out, only to be deflected by the uncaring shadows covering the woman.

Our gazes held for a moment, then two. Black and purple pulsed through the air. Lightning fought against a blizzard that even now made my skin hurt and joints scream. Horns and shadows fought for precious lifeblood in a new but all too familiar battle. Yet all I could see was the girl on my arm, back again, even after we promised to never meet again. She kissed my cheek, I held her close, and in that moment, we could only exchange the words I thought we left behind- “thank you for the dance.”

With small, warm hands, the ice witch smiled, and ripped my carefully crafted armor to pieces as easily as a drunken father crushes their child’s papier mache sculpture. My claws scrabbled at her face in a panic, pushing her away as I teleported again and again, leaving a mess of tangled mana streams in my wake, but she was everywhere.

Every step I took, she was there, smiling calmly. Step by panicked step, piece by bloody piece, I and my armor fell. It wasn’t until I was down to my greaves that I noticed that not only had she taken off every piece of my armor but had them all stacked and folded as they should be next to my throne. This was just a game to her. She was a cat, and I the mouse, once again.

A scythe of shadows slowly stretched from her hand, only to whip out faster than I could see. The eyes of the deep one were no more, and the elder lich’s eye closed once again. I dropped the chalice into a dark portal and gave a small, sad smile. The game was over.

One by one, she chopped away the horns I had taken so much pride in. In those last few moments, I cried. I clawed and bit and thrashed, but all for nothing. Snip, snip, snip went the blade, and one by one, the eyes and hands folded back into the rapidly decreasing mana. She didn’t even look like she enjoyed it. All I saw were the eyes of a woman taking away her child’s toys.

When there was nothing left, when I thought I could have nothing more shaved away, the grinning demon sighed, lashed my limbs down and slowly drew the scythe into my torso. Every time I so much as twitched, she would stop and wait until I stopped before continuing again, reaching the long way in to snap my spine and cut my resistance once and for all.

Through it all, a lone mouse watched in horrified confusion from the protection of a bag warded against mana fields as its owner and sole companion fell to despair.