The monster thrashed violently, its feet tearing deep trenches into the ground as it desperately tried to throw him off.

It slammed its elbows backward, the impacts cracking against Hajin’s ribs, but he refused to let go. He dug his heels into the ground, leaning his entire body weight backward while the chains wrapped around the creature’s chest pulled tighter with every frantic movement it made.

"Let go of me!" the monster roared, the purple aura flaring in a wild, uncontrolled panic.

Hajin couldn’t even form the words to respond.

His vision was swimming, the edges of the world blurring into a nauseating smear of gold and dark purple light while the overwhelming surge of corrupted mana continued to forcefully flood his core.

The Assimilation skill was working flawlessly, dragging the beast’s raw energy through the chains and directly into his veins, but the sheer volume of it was completely staggering.

’How the fuck does it still have so much mana?’ he thought, his teeth grinding together as another wave of liquid fire burned its way down his throat. ’I have been draining it for ten straight seconds, and the output hasn’t dropped at all.’

He tightened his grip, blood now steadily leaking from both of his nostrils as the extreme dizziness threatened to make him pass out entirely.

Across the crater, nobody moved.

The Captain, Helen, the remaining knights were crouched behind the rubble, their weapons lowered as they watched the violent struggle in absolute, breathless silence.

The tension in the air was so thick it was almost suffocating, every single person holding their breath while they waited to see if the human clinging to the beast’s back could actually pull this off.

Far above them on the ridge, the demon girl had unconsciously taken a step closer to the cliff edge, her eyes locked entirely on the swirling vortex of corrupted and holy mana below.

Even the stream chat had completely frozen, tens of thousands of viewers staring at their screens without typing a single word, the collective anxiety of two entirely different worlds pinned on the desperate, bloody standoff in the center of the ruins.

The beast’s violent thrashing suddenly stopped.

Hajin tensed, bracing his feet against the ground, but the monster didn’t try to elbow him again. Instead, a low, rumbling chuckle vibrated from its chest, echoing directly into his mind.

"Playing dirty," the monster said, its voice laced with dark amusement. "Draining your opponent instead of crushing them. That is not the way of a warrior."

Before Hajin could even process the words, a sharp whistling sound ripped through the air behind him.

The polearm came rocketing across the ruins like a magnetic missile. The blunt end of the weapon slammed directly into the center of his back, the devastating impact shattering his concentration, sending him flying violently into the air.

The chains instantly unwrapped from the beast’s chest, freeing it in a pulse of dark purple light.

Hajin was still spiraling through the air, trying to orient himself, when the monster vanished from the ground. It reappeared directly above him in a blur, its fist pulled back with a terrifying amount of corrupted energy completely concentrated in its knuckles.

It drove the punch down with the force of a falling meteor. For the knights, for the viewers watching, it looked like an absolute execution.

The collision triggered a massive explosion of purple mana that detonated like a bomb, completely blinding everyone in the ruins. The sheer shockwave flattened the remaining rubble in a fifty-foot radius, kicking up a massive, suffocating cloud of dust.

"Hajin!" Helen screamed, her voice cracking as she tried to rush forward, only for the Captain to violently yank her back down behind the barrier.

The dust slowly started to clear, the heavy tension returning instantly as everyone stared into the center of the fresh crater.

The monster was standing over the impact zone, its fist buried deep into the ground, but Hajin wasn’t dead.

He was pinned beneath the creature’s fist, the chains completely wrapped over his crossed arms like a thick, glowing shield, catching the devastating strike inches from his chest.

He coughed, spitting a fresh line of blood down his chin. He had successfully blocked the execution, but his arms were trembling violently under the sheer weight of the pressure.

The pressure bearing down on his crossed arms was immense.

’I’m actually dying,’ he thought, his vision spotting with dark patches as he fought to keep the chains locked in place. ’If I hadn’t managed to pull those chains up in time... my entire upper body would have been turned to paste.’

Above him, the monster let out another booming laugh, though this one sounded far more strained than before.

"Incredible!" the creature said, its split visor staring down at him through the glowing barrier of holy mana. "Your reaction speed is absurd. To survive a direct strike like that... I truly misjudged you."

It leaned harder onto its fist, the aura flaring around its arm, but the pressure didn’t increase the way Hajin expected it to.

"However," it continued, its voice dropping into a dark, irritated rumble. "That strike required far more energy than I anticipated. Combine that with the massive amount of mana you stole from me... I am afraid I have hit my limit as well."

The purple mist surrounding the monster’s body began to thin out, the weight in the air finally starting to lift.

"This fight is no longer fun," it said coldly, pulling its fist back as the last remaining dregs of its corrupted mana violently converged into its knuckles. "It is just tedious. Die, human."

It wound up for another meteor punch, the dark energy screaming through the air as it drove its fist down one last time.

But Hajin didn’t brace for impact, instead, he forced every single drop of the corrupted mana he had just stolen, violently mixing it with the last remnants of the Goddess Resonance in his core, channeling it all directly into his right fist.

He roared, throwing his own punch upward to meet the monster’s strike head-on. Gold and purple collided in a catastrophic eruption of pure, unstable energy.

The resulting explosion was massive. The shockwave ripped through the crater like a hurricane, completely atomizing the ground beneath them, sending both of them violently rocketing in opposite directions.

Hajin was thrown through the air like a ragdoll, skipping across the ground three times before violently crashing into the base of the cliff wall.

He hit the ground hard, his body instantly giving out as he fell onto his hands and knees. 𝑓𝓇𝘦ℯ𝘸𝘦𝑏𝓃𝑜𝘷ℯ𝑙.𝑐𝑜𝓂

A massive, violent coughing fit seized his chest. He began violently throwing up mouthful after mouthful of dark, corrupted blood into the dirt.

His right arm hung completely limp at his side, the chains flickering weakly before shattering entirely.

He had used way too much power and taken way too much damage.

The system was flashing aggressively, but he couldn’t even focus enough to read the timer anymore. His entire body felt like it had been turned into powder then set on fire.

’This is bad,’ he thought, his head drooping forward as the extreme blood loss finally started to drag him toward unconsciousness. ’This is really, really not looking good.’