Bam.

The gravity inside the cave increased tenfold in a single second.

Azrael felt a crushing weight slam directly onto his shoulders.

He was forced to drop Raven to the floor to catch his own balance.

The Demon King grunted, his legs cracking the solid stone beneath him as he fought the sudden gravitational pull.

He moved fifty meters backward in a single leap to escape the worst of the heavy field.

A sharp iron sword flew straight out of the dark, aiming directly for his chest.

Azrael raised his hand and caught the blade effortlessly.

But the moment his skin touched the metal, the weapon’s weight increased tenfold under the gravity field.

The extreme density tore through the flesh of his palms, ripping muscle and scraping bone.

"Huh?" Azrael grunted, tossing the useless weapon aside.

Before the sword even hit the ground, Arthur appeared right in front of him.

He closed the fifty-meter distance in a literal blink of an eye.

His fist landed a brutal punch directly into Azrael’s stomach.

The air rushed out of the boy’s lungs in a pained gasp.

Azrael took the hit, planting his feet firmly in the cracked stone and immediately retaliated, swinging his right arm in a wild arc.

He hammered Arthur’s head backward with incredible force.

Arthur stumbled, tasting blood in his mouth, but he did not fall.

The gravity reduced his speed, but it was still devastating.

He rolled his shoulders, absorbing the impact, and immediately returned the favor with a left hook.

Arthur concentrated his unique gravity magic into his own fist, making his hand gain as much physical mass as the spell would allow.

He landed the heavy blow flat against Azrael’s ruined face.

Swoosh.

The sheer impact launched Azrael backward through the air.

He hit the cavern wall hard, the stone cracking under his weight.

But Azrael just pushed himself off the wall and moved forward again, his aura flaring higher.

Arthur backed away, keeping his breathing steady.

He was no match for a king in a drawn-out brawl.

The mana leaking from the core was simply too much, and surviving hand-to-hand combat against a monster wearing a human vessel was practically impossible for a mortal.

He had to end this right now, or they would all die in the dark.

’I have to make it quick,’ Arthur thought, raising both of his hands.

[Event Horizon]

A dense blue energy started forming between Arthur’s open palms.

It condensed into a small, terrifying ball that immediately began pulling everything in the cavern toward its center.

Loose rocks, dirt, and even the ambient green light of the fungus were dragged into the miniature black hole.

Azrael felt the intense pull.

He raised his own scarred hand, his red mana gathering fast.

A sphere of destructive hellfire formed in his palm, pulling energy directly from the bleeding core in his chest.

"You think you can crush me with cheap tricks?" Azrael roared over the wind of the spell.

[Light Bender]

Arthur ignored the taunt.

His physical body started emitting overlapping mirages of himself.

The eerie green glow that filled the B-rank path was suddenly fractured, creating multiple, solid-looking copies of the student.

Every single mirage raised its hands, each holding its own swirling blue sphere of gravity.

"More tricks?" Azrael sneered, unable to see the visual illusions but feeling the sudden multiplication of magical signatures.

He dug his boots into the stone and drained even more mana from his stolen body, feeding the red sphere until it was the size of a boulder.

Arthur moved his hands together, forcing all the scattered mirages to collapse back into his original body.

He combined all their separate gravitational power into one single, massive blue ball right in front of his chest.

The dense energy is filled with a terrifying frequency.

But before Arthur could push the spell forward, Azrael had already released his destructive power.

The ball of red hellfire tore across the cavern.

It dragged violently along the floor, melting the rock into glass as it intended to explode directly against Arthur’s chest and turn the man to ash.

Arthur took a deep, steadying breath.

He poured every single drop of his remaining mana into his final skill.

[Centrifugal Orbit]

The red energy crashed directly into the blue gravity sphere.

But instead of overwriting the weaker mortal spell or exploding on impact, the two energies merged.

Arthur’s spell caught the hellfire in a relentless gravitational spin, absorbing the destructive red mana and making his own sphere grow twice as large.

"What?" Azrael gasped, his spiritual senses flaring in sudden confusion.

His power was actively being stolen to fuel the enemy’s attack.

In that crucial second, as the demon king was entirely distracted by his energy being drained, a shadow dropped from the ceiling.

Zephyr appeared directly behind Azrael. He ignored the searing pain in his slashed stomach and threw both of his arms around Azrael, locking the demon’s arms tightly against his sides in a brutal hold, while also draining the rest of his mana.

At the same time, Mia forced herself off the stone floor.

Blood was leaking from her nose and both of her eyes, but she threw her hands forward.

A crushing wave of telekinetic pressure slammed down onto Azrael’s shoulders, forcing his legs deep into the stone and holding him perfectly still.

The demon king roared, thrashing wildly against the combined restraint, but the human vessel was finally reaching its limit.

As Arthur prepared to hurl the merged sphere of energy to finish the job, Raven moved for the final piece of the plan.

The shadow boy teleported across the cavern, bringing one other person with him.

Sianna appeared right in front of the demon.

Her green eyes were burning with witch fire.

She did not hesitate and reached her hand forward, ignoring the blistering heat of the hellfire radiating from his skin.

She pressed her pale thumb directly against the center of his forehead, right above the ruined eyes.

[Sin Judgement]

The soul-reading spell activated with a flash of green light.

Azrael’s eyes suddenly went white.

The roaring world of the cave faded instantly, and his broken vision plunged into darkness.

Deep inside the Seventh Layer of the Abyss, Shane was still running desperately from the horde of burning demons.

The dark sky above him suddenly cracked open like fragile glass, spilling a green light over the road.

Before the flying beasts could reach him, the mortal soul simply vanished into the light, disappearing from the hellish realm.