Fifteen minutes, that was how long the meat grinder had been spinning.

The center of the ruins was completely unrecognizable. There were no pillars left standing and no walls left to break. The entire plaza had been reduced to a massive, pulverized crater of ash and shattered stone, completely saturated with the suffocating pressure of gold and purple mana.

Hajin stood near the edge of the crater, his chest heaving violently.

The golden mist was no longer pouring steadily from his mouth. It came out in ragged, uneven gasps, every breath sounding wet and strained.

he intricate golden mark that had started on the back of his hand was now fully etched all the way up to his shoulder, the lines glowing with a dangerous, unstable heat that felt like it was cooking him alive from the inside.

He had taken heavy damage.

His leather armor was completely shredded, his left eye swollen shut, a deep, jagged cut running down the side of his ribs where the monster’s polearm had caught him during a trade.

But the monster looked just as bad.

The creature was standing fifty feet away, leaning heavily on its pitch-black weapon. Its sleek, purple humanoid body was covered in massive dents and deep burning gashes where the blows had ripped through its flesh. Black blood dripped steadily from its chin, pooling into the ash beneath its feet.

It slowly straightened up, the jagged split across its visor curving into an exhausted but genuine smile.

"This is fun," the monster said, its voice echoing in Hajin’s head, carrying a strange sense of elation. "I have never met a human like you. I thought your entire species was as weak as those ones cowering in the rubble, but you... you are strong."

It pulled its polearm out of the ground, the aura around its body flaring back to life, though noticeably dimmer than before.

"Let us continue, human," it said, taking a slow step forward. "Until one of us can no longer stand."

Hajin heard the words, but he wasn’t really paying attention, his single open eye locked onto the system panel.

[Time Remaining: 04:12]

’Four minutes,’ he thought, his vision blurring slightly as a fresh wave of exhaustion crashed over him. ’I have been fighting with everything I have for fifteen straight minutes, yet it’s still moving.’

He clenched his fists, the chains wrapping around his forearm feeling ten times heavier than they had at the start of the fight.

’Is my power really not enough?’ he thought, a dark seed of doubt finally starting to take root in his mind. ’Even with the Goddess Resonance... even with my core burning itself out... I can’t end this thing.’

He wasn’t the only one feeling the despair.

In another world entirely, completely disconnected from the physical reality of the gate, the stream chat was unusually quiet.

For the first time since the broadcast started, the viewers weren’t spamming memes or demanding action. The viewer count had skyrocketed into the tens of thousands as the fight went on, but the comment feed had slowed to a crawl.

They had been watching him fight desperately for the last fifteen minutes, taking hits that made them wince through the screen, bleeding and breaking his own body just to stay in the ring.

[ CringeSlayer91 ] bro... this is actually hard to watch. He looks like he’s going to collapse.

[ NewViewer_02 ] why won’t it just die already?? He hit it with the chains like fifty times!

[ DarkBlade ] the boss is just too tanky. His output is insane but he’s running out of gas. look at his breathing.

[ ashley (mod) ] Hajin, please... you don’t have to win this. Just run away. Please just run.

He saw the comments scrolling past his peripheral vision, but he didn’t have the energy to respond.

He couldn’t run. If he turned his back on this thing, the Captain, Helen and the remaining knights would be slaughtered in seconds. If the beast broke out of the gate, the entire kingdom would be next.

He spat a mouthful of blood into the dirt, raising his fists to force the mana to flare around his arms one more time.

He had four minutes left.

He pushed off the ground, the ground cracking under his feet as he launched himself forward.

The monster met his charge instantly. They clashed again in the center of the crater, exchanging three rapid, earth-shattering blows that sent massive shockwaves rippling through the ruins. Gold and purple mana violently flared against each other, the sheer force threatening to tear Hajin’s arms completely out of their sockets.

He couldn’t win a war of attrition. He needed to end it right now.

He ducked under a sweeping horizontal strike from the monster’s polearm, the weapon clipping his shoulder, tearing another chunk of his armor away.

"Yes!" the monster roared, its voice echoing with pure, adrenaline-fueled excitement as it pulled its weapon back for a devastating downward smash. "Show me more, human!"

But Hajin didn’t strike back.

Instead of meeting the blow head-on, he completely dropped his guard, throwing his entire body to the side. 𝓯𝙧𝙚𝒆𝙬𝙚𝒃𝙣𝙤𝒗𝓮𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

The monster’s polearm slammed into the ground exactly where he had been standing a fraction of a second earlier, sending a geyser of pulverized stone into the air.

Before the beast could recover its balance, Hajin slipped directly behind it.

He threw both of his arms forward, the chains unspooling from his forearms like deadly metal serpents. The links rapidly wrapped around the monster’s chest, pinning its arms to its sides, locking it tightly in place.

The creature immediately let out a low growl, its aura flaring violently as it tried to break the binds.

"Drain," Hajin muttered, his voice barely a whisper.

The chains suddenly began to hum, glowing with an intense, blinding light. The dark purple mana radiating from the monster was violently pulled into the metal links, the chain acting like a massive sponge rapidly siphoning the beast’s corrupted energy.

But he didn’t stop there.

"Assimilation," he grit out.

The chains were draining the mana, but the Assimilation skill began forcing that raw, corrupted energy directly from the chains into his own body.

The pain was immediate, feeling like someone had injected liquid fire directly into his veins. The thick, corrupted mana of a gate boss was completely incompatible with human physiology, let alone a core that was already overheating from the Goddess Resonance.

His muscles spasmed violently, the veins in his neck bulging against his skin as the dark purple energy began to visibly mix with the golden mist pouring from his mouth.

The monster stopped struggling, violently twisting its head around, its split visor staring back at him in genuine shock.

"What are you doing?" the monster demanded, its voice echoing with a sudden trace of panic as it felt its massive reserves of mana being forcefully ripped away. "That energy will destroy you!"

Blood started to steadily drip from Hajin’s nose, his eye bloodshot as he tightened his grip on the chains.

"I am ending this fight," he choked out, his voice raw over the sound of the crackling mana. "One way or another."