Helial looked terribly serious. His eyes glistened in white reflecting of the pure tongues of fire that slowly put out in front of him.

Helial gazed down at his palms. He turned his hands downwards. He shook his head no. Not enough.

“You sure you don’t wanna leave her? You’re damn weak. How will you survive without any equipment? Do you really think you’ll be able to take care of her when you clearly can’t even take care of yourself?” These words - Hades’ last words before abandoning him - boomed out inside his head. To Hades’ eyes, Helial had never been more than a weak damn burden. He had always been treated like a deadbeat. And despite his attempts to grow stronger, Helial was still feeling as if the millstone of weakness kept weighting his ankles down.

But how could he feel weak after gaining two overpowerful Legacies, the guidance of the most fearsome master in the universe, and the funds of Orma’s best Clan at his disposal?

Helial was terribly shocked by himself.

Weak?

With slow and seductive moves, the Queen of Spider stepped outside the pool of smoke caused by the blaze.

Helial wasted no time. He let go of the hilt of Curse of the Demon and pushed it aside. Then he stretched both hands outwards, his palms joined, and they slowly distanced them. The flames split up as his will commanded.

In that very moment, every fear that had dwelled Helial’s heart was left behind. Now there was only him and his outstanding Aura.

The boy turned towards Lumia and slowly nodded.

Lumia nodded back. They didn’t really words to communicate. The girl immediately reinforced the Titan’s Shield.

“The fuck are you doing?” cursed Snowflake. Just like the two Goblins, the cat believed that it was finally time for them to come into play. Helial though, instead of having the shield dissolved, just asked to strengthen it up.

“Let’s trust him,” Lumia whispered.

Snowflake was speechless. He knew perfectly well how strong Helial was, but that Boss was truly too dangerous. Before that monster, he himself felt somehow helpless. He had sensed the Queen of Spiders’ presence long before stumbling across her, after all. Despite the fact the her Race posed no threat to a Heavenly Star Tiger, the entire one Phase gap between them actually did. Also, she was no ordinary monster. She was a Boss whose Stats were exponentially amplified by the Dungeon special effect.

“Weak?” Helial murmured as his eyes got bloodshot.

Before him, the Queen of Spiders was looking perfectly fine. “Still on our feet after that blow?”

Helial activated Perception to examine the inflicted damage.

Skill Activated:

Perception

Queen of Spiders

Health: 100,234/180,234 HP

Level: 167

The attack had depleted a great amount of his Mental Energy, but the Queen of Spiders’ HP hadn’t even halved.

And yet Helial didn’t panic. There was no room for fear. His previous terror had been replaced by some strange self-confidence.

“Looks like I underestimated you, brat,” said the Queen of Spiders in a low, slightly irritated voice.

Bear in mind that at the very core of a melee-combat isn’t the sword, but the hand that wields it. Learn to fight in a small range. Be the King of what lies within your arm’s reach and you’ll be the Emperor of what lies within the reach of your weapon. Helial kept repeating these words to himself. It was something the Devil had told him one day during the training.

And now, in an act of unheard of arrogance, he had decided to fight bare-handed.

A strange smile hung on the Devil’s face. His blood was seething.

“Exactly,” the kid whispered to himself as he drew the straw to his lips.

Body of the Qilin guaranteed Helial a strength of over 3,500 kilograms per arm.

The Queen of Spiders might as well be fast, but could she be as strong as he was?

As he saw the boy approach her, the Boss stepped closer to the Titan’s Shield and threw a punch. Her eyebrows grew vertical. To her dismay, she realized she couldn’t pierce it. She opened no crack in the translucent shield. She unleashed a flurry of fists, but all in vain. Lumia’s Titan’s Shield really had reached a terrifying defensive potential. Even though she could not keep it activated for hours, it was still remarkable that she could even deal with such a resistant shield. Very few people under the Third Phase could boast to be able to destroy a shield like that one.

The Queen of Spiders lost her temper. Those squirts made tougher opponents than she thought. The Boss felt deeply ashamed to be unable to react as promptly as she wanted to.

The only thing for her left to do was face the boy. The Queen turned towards Helial. The boy’s slim figure, in clash with the power of the flames he mastered, lead her to concluded that he must be some unknown warrior who mastered fire. Since he had a terrifying fire control, he was unlikely to be an equally skilled melee-fighter as well.

However, the Queen of Spiders didn’t know how uncommon that flame was. That was Flame of the Qilin, directly descending from Origin of the Universe, namely Kirin’s Flame. It was universally renown that owning Flame of the Qilin implied that the user must also have such a resistant body as to control it.

The Queen of Spiders didn’t delay any longer. This time she wouldn’t attack Helial by relying on her incredible speed. She went a little more primitive and threw a palm frontally, employing all the eroding Mana that filled her Meridians.

Skill Activated:

Corrosive Palm

Helial paid no mind to that Skill’s corrosive properties. Someone else would have had to be extremely careful, but the case just didn’t apply. Helial engulfed his fist in Flame of the Qilin before striking a blow directed to her palm. Flame of the Qilin was one of the purest expressions of the Forces of Life. Its sheer power couldn’t be neutralized by some corrosive property.

Helial’s fist punch made the walls tremble and caused a blazing explosion in midair which was as vast as Body of the Qilin’s impact on his physical capabilities. Helial’s Strength had always exceeded the common standards, even if he always sorted out more Stat Points in Intelligence first.

The expression of the Queen of Spiders changed drastically. Her heart started pounding. Judging by the looks of that blow, the boy’s Physical Strength overtopped hers.

There was no turning back though. Both blows had been struck. The Boss could only grin her teeth and let more of her Mana rush inside her Corrosive Palm.

BOOM!

The Queen of Spiders lost 1200 HP!

The punch and the palm collided. Helial had employed no particular Skill and had only relied on his body’s brute force. However, it was the Queen of Spiders that was forced back. Helial stood still instead. He didn’t move an inch.

The Devil smiled, leisurely sitting under his umbrella. Weakness has little to do with body, capabilities, talent or random chances. Weakness lies…

“...inside my mind, I know,” Helial finished, borrowing those words the kid had told him countless times now. “You’ll be weak for as long as you wish to be. You’ll be weak for as long as you want to flee. When you’re ready to throw it all away, even to throw away your life, just to prove you’re not weak, then you’ll fulfil the requirement to join the ranks of the strong.”

Exactly. Are you strong enough now, or you still wanna flee? said the Devil as he uncovered his teeth. He was really having the time of his life. He already knew that the answer was.

“Flee?” Helial said with a sardonic expression on his face. Meanwhile, his Aura had grown fierier and was now seething wildly, rippling the space all around it. Two flares, a white one and a dark one, melted together inside Helial’s Aura as he walked towards the Queen of Spiders. She was backing off. “Yeah, you can flee. But I happened to realize that I’m not really the fleeing type. Despite how hard this life can be, running away is not an option. Not to me. I’ll never learn a Skill that would help me flee in case I’m in danger. Flee? That’s for the weak to choose. I’ll stand here instead.”

Suddenly, Helial’s Aura increased through the roof as the two flares, the white and the black one, rushed through his body and reflowed repeatedly inside his Meridians. Helial seemed to glisten metallically with each flow the flares completed through his body.

You can open a new Dao of Mana!

Effects:

All Stats increase by +50

Every Skill related to either Life or Destruction advances by 2 Levels.

Helial felt a jolt of power run through his body. He had never felt that strong. He clenched his fists as the new vigor flowed deep inside his veins.

Clap Clap Clap

A clapping that none but Helial could hear echoed out inside his Soul. “You’ve just created your personal Dao of Mana. Some people only manage to do that after reaching Immortality. Beware though. The fight is not over yet.”

Helial nodded in satisfaction and enjoyed the new power he felt to the fullest.

The Queen of Spiders narrowed her eyes and licked her lips. “You seem to have just grown even stronger.”

The change Helial had undergone couldn’t indeed escape the notice of such sharp senses.

“Fine. Let’s play this through then.”

Some strange symbols began to shine over the Queen’s body, glistening in shades of black and scarlet.