The shield pushed me off the floor, sending me barreling towards the other end of the room. I felt my back smashed into the wall behind me, creating a tiny crack in the wall with the shape of my body. My vision blurred momentarily, the collision was powerful enough to almost bring me out of consciousness.

Dropping back to the floor, I could barely manage a crawl before the knight’s shield came into view once more. I did not know how much damage the sudden charge had dealt to me, but I recognized I was close to death from the faded vision and the fact that I could barely breathe at this moment.

Yet, the stone remained in my hand.

Like how it acted previously, a tendril snapped out of the cracks of the stone, latching themselves onto me with a newfound passion. A surge of vitality reinvigorated my senses, allowing me to barely snake out of the incoming slam. The ground shook as I struggled to keep my balance.

What happened to the spearman? Did I kill it?

I swore I felt the tip of my spear completely piercing through its head before. But there wasn’t any kill confirmed by the system.

The knight didn’t give me the space to think as it began swinging its sword in my direction. It was a degree slower than the spear-wielding tomb guardian, so I never found much trouble in avoiding the sword. Circling around the room while dodging its attacks, I constantly looked around to locate the other one, but the spearman just simply… vanished. What happened to it?

The thick haze has thinned enough that my eyes could peer through to the other side of the room from my end. The room was thoroughly battered from the constant slamming of the knight’s shield on the walls, punching innumerable amount holes on every side of the room.

But the one that caught my attention was the torch on the right side of the door. It was now lit, but not with an orange flame; No, it was blaring with some kind of black flame. And guess what? It did the opposite of what fire was supposed to do; No, the flame didn’t provide vision and light around its spot; it sucked the light out of the room instead.

I see now… I have to kill the Tomb Guardians to light up these torches. Then… What? Is the boss going to spawn?

Killing the knight would’ve been a long and arduous process, with its sheer durability and armor. However, its back was now wide open, and with a shadow step, dealing damage to it wasn’t problematic in the slightest.

But man, it took a long, long while to take this guy down.

I didn’t know how tanky it was; It simply shrugged all my confirmed strikes off like nothing ever happened. The knight kept pursuing me with its shield, so I had to rely on the shadow step every time to get an opening to attack its back. The process had to be repeated more than a dozen times before the knight lost enough vitality to stop running as it finally knelt on the floor.

My last stab pierced its chest with a sharp, piercing note. The knight then dissipated, spreading a thick haze into the room as the darkness consumed its figure. The stone in my hand hummed once more while it began sucking out all the haze that was released.

Just like that, those tomb guardians vanished, as if they were never been here in the first place.

No kills from the system. Are they still alive?

Both torches were now lit with the same black fire, absorbing the light, causing the room to dim out as the fire grew in size and ferocity. Not only was the brightness consumed, but the sound and the stony damp smell were drained from the room, too.

Once the darkness took over the scene, the door shook, sliding to each side and revealing a pitch black darkness from within. I prepared myself to fight some type of boss that was hidden inside, but then…

Nothing came out.

The shaking stopped, and all traces of sounds went mute.

Just… Nothing.

The black flame roared even wilder, and out of the blackness that was contained within, I felt the presence of another speaking. The voice wasn’t audible to my ears, but my brain knew it was there, even if I couldn’t hear any of it.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

My heartbeat skyrocketed and the thumping in my chest grew erratic as the blackness flowed outside, covering the floor with a strange, tar-like substance. Both of my pupils dilated to the most extreme degree as they attempted to absorb as much light as they could, and yet, the scene that beheld me was just too dark for any light to exist in.

But oh, the smell… it was just… overwhelming.

I backtracked from the sheer intensity of whatever was coming out of the door.

“Who… wakes me… from my slumber?” A voice, coming from nowhere, yet everywhere at the same time, snaked its way into my head.

Was it even a voice? It sounded old and raspy. And yet, with every word uttered, I felt a thing caressing the insides of my skull. It wasn’t comfortable to the slightest, no; it was just in there, doing its thing outside of my will.

“What happened… here? Where is… everyone?” Confusion was discernible in his tone.

Despite my best efforts, I couldn’t articulate a single word. The sensations and pressure from his presence were paralyzing my muscles.

“That stone…” he resumed its speech. “I see… You are one of Its chosen, are you not? The Deity of shadows and death, Ezekiel. You smell just like him. Just… like me.”

Ezekiel. Again?

“Wait… you don’t have its affinity… And yet, you’re still alive even after holding that beacon?”, Its voice rose as it grew puzzled by my apparent compatibility with Ezekiel’s beacon. “What are you?”

Flashes of my memories played in my head. Wait, no, it wasn’t. It wasn’t playing in my head; it was being forcefully stimulated by him. By the one that lies behind the blackness.

“I see now. You have always been side by side with it. The death itself. That’s why the stone could transfer its energy to you. Otherwise, we wouldn’t be speaking at this moment.”

Each sentence it uttered made less sense than what it had said before.

Then, the blackness consumed the room with me in it. The black tar drenched the scene with its substance, and below my feet, I felt it climbing from underneath. There wasn’t anything that I could do, even if I tried to; my entire body was paralyzed from the neck down.

“You don’t know who I am?” it asked as if his identity was the most natural thing to be known. “I was one of light’s greatest Chosen. Then death consumed me, like all living beings in this universe. It turned me to darkness. It turned me into… this monstrosity.”

Silence filled my head as he paused.

“Yet somehow, the system made me into a tutorial boss. In here? How… ironic.”

I saw a glint of a person stepping outside from behind the door. In the heart of the darkness, an old, limping body made its existence visible for the first time; Skin and bones being the best descriptor of the figure that was ahead of me. He was ancient, there was barely any muscle in his body - no; there was barely anything at all.

[Lvl. ??? Light’s Chosen - Yael ]

From a glance, he appeared weak. But nobody will doubt that this thing will kill me with a simple look alone. How is he a dungeon boss? Nobody in this sector can beat him even if they are 100 levels above me.

“Do I terrify you, Zane?”, The voice played in my head again. “I wasn’t like this before. Eons ago, I was bright… and colorful, filled with his radiance.”

“Now, all that was within me is darkness. Just.. like you.“

“Uriel was my lord. He was my everything. Saved me and my kind from certain doom. Then… Ezekiel approached me. Demanded my servitude. I refused.” His speech pattern turned erratic, as if the memories of his past were cloudy and hard to be remembered. “I fought back, but nobody could resist a deity’s will. Not even a God is able to..”

The black tar beneath had risen to my waist. I felt my life slipping away in a method that I simply couldn’t explain; It wasn’t being drained or pulled away. No, my vitality was just… gone.

“It was commendable that you cleared the guardians alone. I can see why the system’s put so much favor into you.”

The ancient body shuffled closer. From this distance, I can finally make out his face, only to be horrified at what I saw.

He was… rotting. His colorless skin was riddled with holes and puss, revealing the musculature and the skeleton underneath. There were no eyes on his eye socket; in their place, a fleshy hole filled with maggots made that place their nest instead.

“You are terrified of me. I can feel it… From here.” He said, pointing at my heart. At this distance, I can see the insides of his open mouth, which made me wish I could just blind myself from the horror that I was staring into.

“I could consume you; Regain a new body. But I won’t. I refuse to become that thing’s puppet.” Yael spoke, anger flashing from the maggots in his eyes. “Heed my words, Zane Black. Deny it as much as you wanted to. In the end, you will become its plaything.”

By it, was he referring to Ezekiel or the system?

“Shadow and Death. They used to be apart.” Yael turned around, limping his way back into the room behind the door. “Then Ezekiel went greedy. That… thing wanted both, assuming that assimilation will strengthen it, making it stronger than the system. How foolish.”

His figure faded as the tar reached my neck. I could barely gasp for air now, and the same feeling when I gained the Coveted Shadow returned.

Death. It’s coming.

“What I did to you is how I died. Fascinating, isn’t it? To feel your life simply… disappear? This, Zane Black, is true death. The sheer lack of existence.”, Yael explained. His figure now was completely shrouded by the blackness beyond the walls.

My eyeballs were now smothered with the black tar, finally reaching the top of my head, suffocating me under its silent pressure. There were no feelings. There were no senses. Time appeared to have frozen still.

[You have gained a new skill. Death resistance - novice (1)]