Jack’s notifications flooded with new updates as a large part of the cavern ceiling came crashing down. He checked his notifications frantically while he slashed upward his Star Sword +3 with one hand.

A crescent wave of condensed star magic and white hot hatred flew from the tip of his perfected blade. It split the falling cavern debris in half.

A burning pulse from his White Immolation Shield +3 combined with a force push from his Absolute Judgment +2 shoved tons of sliced and melted rock out of his way, the powerful skills sending the slag splashing wide and hard in all directions.

He would’ve made note of that immense show of power if he wasn’t so focused on finding that damn woman’s name in a defeated message. He kept looking and looking.

It wasn’t there.

He’d killed plenty of lesser aberrations and some imps still lurking about. The creatures had gotten caught in the wake of his best one-two strike. But he hadn’t brought down the mutt of Zarian Darkrun.

Jack’s already racing heart raced even faster.

The boiling blood in his veins boiled even hotter.

Everything burned for Jack. His body. His existence. His pride. Most importantly, his mythical class, the Level 88 Absolute Hater, burned the most.

Jack kept sensing Zarian’s existence, which remained unbound, unhurt, and unpunished.

That couldn’t stand.

Zarian must be bound. Zarian must be hurt. Zarian must be punished.

Nothing more mattered to Jack, and that was fine with him.

His hatred gave his life purpose, and his life was for the sake of his hatred. That cyclic loop might’ve seemed insane to people outside of his perspective. But it was focused, it was deliberate, and it gave him unbelievable amounts of power and luck.

Why else would he have a mythical class? Why else would his profile work wonderfully for him? It kept him alive to see his mission to the end.

He had five perfect alpha skills that played off each other. Star Bolt +3, Star Sword +3, White Immolation Shield +3, Absolute Judgment +2, and Absolute Purity +2.

The first two, bolt and sword, gave him options to fight from both afar and up close. Jack could attack from anywhere to bring down his absolute enemy and those who stood in his way.

His shield worked well against both physical, magical, spiritual, and mental attacks. It also increased Jack’s physicality as he accrued more damage and pain.

Then the last two were the skills that truly elevated him to another power tier.

The judgment skill not only allowed him to read others better, but it also suppressed them over time and made it so he could affect the world with magical force. The purity skill raised Jack’s power, increased his recovery, and made Jack stronger, as long as he remained pure.

Nothing was more pure than Jack’s hatred.

Jack also had nine helpful traits. Chief among them was his mythical trait, Chosen of the Ascended Heavens.

Not only did he have the heavens on his side, making him even more powerful, the mythical trait boosted his Wonder stat by an extreme amount. He pushed Wonder above all else, making his magic attacks hit hard while he remained more faithful, more lucky.

His traits also allowed him to turn his skills more lethal or turn them nonlethal. By making them nonlethal, he could lock down, bound, and seal away his targets with his magic. That worked well with his bolt, sword, immolation shield, or even judgment skill.

Because of all this, he was the perfect weapon to go up against Zarian Darkrun.

Many of the Good Gods backed him. Even a few Evil Gods had given their support along with the Grimrock Warlock.

Hell, twenty out of his eighty-eight levels came from two divine achievements out of the fourteen achievements he’d earned. That was further proof of his righteous stance as a mythical adventurer, the Absolute Hater.

His crazy mother had always been wrong about him.

There had never been demons inside of him.

There had never been a reason for her to ‘snap’ and press a clothing iron to his back with the heat dialed all the way up.

He still had the mark on his back. He hated how it was exposed to the world because of that mutt of a woman.

She’d ripped off his legendary gear while telling Jack she needed it to ‘feed Zarian’s growing dungeon.’ She had done it while laughing at him.

Nobody was going to laugh now. Jack had broken past a new ceiling in power. His hatred had grown to new heights, going beyond prior limits.

Focus, Jack thought. First, put down Zarian. Second, kill the rest. Third, find the dungeon and kill it. Then kill everyone else who Zarian tainted with his evil.

Jack’s hatred grew hotter. His purity raised his power. Everything about him became more refined.

Even the flames of his immolation shield flickered with a sharp grace that clothed his muscled form, making him look like a proper demigod. His face healed back to its usual sharp and austere edges. His teeth returned to being a full and straight set.

He was as immaculate and healthy as he was absolute and hateful.

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Someone approached him through the haze, smoke, and creeping darkness. It wasn’t Zarian, at least not in solid form.

Jack realized who it was with a sweep of his Absolute Judgment +2 and super high Wonder stat.

“You should’ve died with the other failures,” Jack said. “What good are you when you can’t do your job?”

“Was it you who called us in at the mall?” asked the big man standing across from Jack. The healer had somehow survived his own neck being snapped a year ago. Now he was bigger and more armored. “Did you do it? Did you call us in for bullshit reasons?”

“I’ll do your job for you, since you obviously can’t do much of anything right,” Jack said.

“You piece of shit.” The healer flicked his left arm to the side. Unfolding from his brace, a high-quality shield with heavy enchantments appeared.

The healer used nothing else but his shield, his big armored body, and his misguided anger as he charged at the Absolute Hater.

Pathetic.

Jack swung his sword and sent forth a vertical crescent wave. It was five times taller than the healer and carved a deep, melted line across the craggy floor.

The healer raised his shield at an angle and shuffle-stepped to the right. The vertical crescent glanced off his shield, but even that nearly knocked the healer off his feet.

He took a split second to regain his footing, which gave Jack plenty of time to stride around on the other side of the healer’s shield arm. A bolt powered up quickly in Jack’s left fist before he shoved it into the healer’s open side.

“Die,” Jack said.

There was a sudden premonition of danger and darkness, a threat of great magnitudes, that nearly affected Jack’s judgment. However, the Absolute Hater refused to hesitate or fear anything.

He blew up the healer’s torso. The attack broke the enchantments, melted the armor off the healer, and destroyed much of the cavern floor behind the man. Just one bolt from the Absolute Hater was so potent that even legendary items and enchantments couldn’t withstand him.

Jack was certain the healer was dead for sure.

Then Jack was proven wrong.

A smoking fist covered in an array of colors and an undeniable force swung through the smoke, which even Jack’s judgment found worrying.

The Absolute Hater tried to back away and counter with a sharp sword swing. He had his immolation shield dialed up, too, with it focused on covering his front.

He shouldn’t need the shield. He was faster than the healer. But something got in the way.

A single bar of darkness thrust up from a crack in the ground. It was a small and simple thing, barely much of a threat, until it struck behind Jack’s knee and tripped him.

Again, Zarian had gotten in Jack’s way. But this time, it was for the healer to land a punch to Jack’s gut.

The hit blew up, applying immense and surprising pain that got past the immolation shield.

Jack retched even though he had nothing left in his belly but bile and spit. His feet left the ground as the force of the healer’s death-defying punch sent the Absolute Hater flying backward like a ball out of a cannon.

Jack couldn’t grasp how this was possible, especially when he was in too much pain to think. Before he could regather his thoughts, he crashed through piles of rubble, some of it still melting, before he struck the wall. The impact knocked down more cavernous rubble from the walls and more pieces from the mountain above.

Dust and smoke billowed up, clouding vision, until Jack erupted out of the pile that had fallen on him. His judgment found the healer, and Jack was back on him like white on rice.

The smug look on the healer’s rapidly healing face only infuriated Jack further. With an angry roar, Jack slashed down with his sword powered up, raising its power and heat. But another magical intervention swept over the healer and made him disappear.

Only the wrinkled and darkened air remained, a signature of evil magic being involved, before Jack could slash down.

Yet again, the stupid healer avoided a proper death. Yet again, Zarian had somehow made a fool of Jack.

The Absolute Hater could barely take it anymore.

He used the momentum of his missed sword swing to roll through the air and thrust his legs downward. He pushed his immolation shield and judgment beneath his feet like heated jets.

He flew into the air. He blew past the darkened clouds of dust, smoke, and darkness. He found his target.

Zarian sat on a throne of darkness and cosmic flesh, and from that throne, Jack could almost recognize the freakish parasite skill Zarian had picked from last year. Underneath that was a tower of solidified darkness that held up the throne and acted as a floor for the others.

Jack couldn’t see any of them as people. They were all extensions of Zarian. But worst of all was Foodie, who sat on Zarian’s lap. She held onto him in a way that prized the Dark Lord above all else.

If Jack thought he’d reached a limit in his hatred before, what he felt now was nearly as blinding as it was all powerful.

The light, force, and heat he emitted as he delved deeper into his hatred came out as a battle scream for all to hear and feel. His hatred reached such heights that Jack felt drunk off it.

Even the apocalyptic darkness that Zarian wielded seemed to shy back, losing its fearsome coherence while forced to face the eruptive glow of Jack’s growing and all-consuming hatred.

If there was one thing that held Jack back, it would be Foodie.

Despite everything, Jack didn’t want to kill her or lock her up. She was like him. He just needed to teach her to be better by whatever means necessary.

That was the only reason he didn’t rain a barrage of Star Bolts +3 down upon them while using the nonlethal option. Once locked down, they could stay that way for countless years.

Instead, he shot forward with his sword.

Predictably, another person got in his way. It was the mutt again. But she didn’t look as cocky as before.

Somehow, she’d survived a one-two strike Jack had intended to kill. Despite that, Jack had a feeling that she, the mutt, wouldn’t escape death again once he got the better of her a second time.

Better yet, Jack noticed through his judgment that the others around Zarian felt concerned.

Jack couldn’t judge Zarian as easily as the others. His judgement skill was less effective against the man Jack existed to defeat, but Jack could still infer that the mutt – Naomi – was a weak spot.

Jack accepted Naomi’s retry against him. He prepared to slash her down with his sword.

She showed off her Aura Ignition again, but a far larger version than before. Far more wild. Far more powerful. Far more shocking.

The resulting shockwave had slowed Jack down and blew back the other servants of Zarian. The burning aura became a giant blue-green inferno with Naomi at the center, screaming and raging as the power buffed up her body.

But now she had no access to her skills. Jack’s wondrous judgment was certain of that. He could take advantage of that.

Jack jettisoned to the side and let her fly past him like an out-of-control missile.

He saw an opportunity to go after Zarian again, but it disappeared before Jack could act. A bunch of dancing spiders with wizard hats used evil magic to whisk Zarian and the others away from Jack’s direct reach.

They didn’t go far, however. Jack’s senses knew where to find Zarian no matter where he went. Hell, seeing Zarian run only emboldened the Absolute Hater.

There was one problem, though.

Naomi made a return flight at Jack’s back far faster than Jack had judged possible. She quickly grew as an inconvenience.

The Absolute Hater didn’t have a reliable flying ability. He could only launch himself in straight lines using his combined skills.

He barely got off enough thrust from immolation and judgment to dodge Naomi again as she went roaring past.

Jack turned toward Zarian’s new location in a hole in the far wall and gathered energy for a focused thrust, but once again, his wondrous senses and judgment warned him of Naomi. She was flying back at him for a third pass, and she arrived even faster than before.