I Regressed With a 10,000x God-Tier Multiplier-Chapter 18: The True Damage Strike
The blinding flash of warm starlight faded. Lucifer opened his eyes. The suffocating, tearing pressure crushing his chest was completely gone. The horrific sensation of his soul fracturing inward abruptly stopped.
Sarah heavily collapsed onto Lucifer’s chest, completely unconscious. The bright, golden glow radiating from her hair entirely faded, leaving her looking like a frail, exhausted human girl.
Lucifer did not immediately move. He stared straight ahead, listening to the system interface loudly chiming inside his mind. The aggressive, massive red warning runes vanished, replaced by a calm, glowing blue text box.
┏━━━━━━━[ Resonance Complete ]━━━━━━━┓
│ Entity: Sarah (Star-Touched Oracle)
│ Action: Cast ’Star-Soul Transfer’
│
│ Effect: The Oracle has forcefully linked her dormant, celestial mana pool directly into the Host’s Warlord Core.
│
│ Mana: 30,000 / 30,000 [Fully Restored] 𝐟𝗿𝐞𝚎𝚠𝐞𝚋𝕟𝐨𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝕔𝕠𝚖
│
│ Buff Active: Starlight Infusion (+100% Damage to all linked Summons).
┗━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┛
Lucifer understood the sheer, terrifying magnitude of her sacrifice. Sarah was not a heavily armored warrior. She was a fragile support class. By transferring her entire dormant magical capacity directly into his empty core, she had subjected herself to extreme physical exhaustion.
She had effectively acted as a living battery to save his life.
He wrapped his left arm around her waist, carefully shifting her weight so he could stand.
Lucifer pushed himself up from the cold floor. Thirty thousand points of pure mana rushed directly through his veins.
He didn’t just feel restored; he felt overcharged. The starlight infused his physical body, making his bruised skin glow with a faint, celestial light.
"Elara!" Lucifer’s voice roared through the cavern, lacking any trace of his previous weakness. "Take her!"
The Fallen Valkyrie was locked in close-quarters combat with the surviving Elite Necromancer. Hearing the absolute, unyielding Warlord command return to Lucifer’s voice, she moved.
She parried a cursed green skull projectile with her silver spear, kicked the Necromancer backward, and launched herself back to Lucifer.
She landed heavily, taking the unconscious Oracle into her arms. Elara looked at Lucifer, noting the glowing starlight veins pulsing in his neck.
"Keep her safe," Lucifer ordered, stepping past them.
"Always," Elara vowed, carrying Sarah to the safety of the altar steps and raising her spear.
The Legendary Lich, Xylok the Undying, stopped chanting. Its empty eye sockets flared with incredibly bright, confused blue fire.
It stared directly at Lucifer, unable to process how the broken, bleeding human had suddenly completely recovered.
"What trickery is this?" Xylok hissed, raising its massive scythe again. "Your fragile mortal soul was shattering! You cannot contain the Great Integration!"
"I don’t contain it," Lucifer laughed coldly, unhooking the pulsing red Carnage Core from his heavy leather belt. "I overwrite it."
Xylok roared in fury. The Lich slammed the butt of its scythe into the stone.
"Bone Aegis!" Xylok chanted.
Massive walls of blackened, rotting bone erupted from the floor. They rapidly formed a thick, spiked dome around the Lich.
Dark purple runes glowed across the bone shields, projecting a barrier of absolute necrotic immunity. It was an ultimate defense spell, designed to completely nullify all incoming magical and physical damage.
The surviving Elite Necromancer flanked to the right, raising its skull-topped staff to fire a bolt of dark lightning at the Vanguard.
Lucifer didn’t even look at the Necromancer. "Elara."
Elara didn’t hesitate. She threw her silver spear. The weapon crossed the room in a blur of celestial light. It pinned the Elite Necromancer directly to the fleshy wall, instantly incinerating the monster into white ash. The spear returned to Elara’s hand immediately.
Lucifer turned his full attention to the bone dome.
"Vanguard!" Lucifer roared. The mana filled his lungs with raw, vibrating power. "Form a firing line. Center on the boss!"
The five thousand Cryo-Vanguards moved in perfect unison. They ignored the falling green snow. They dropped to one knee, leveling their heavy ice-rifles at Xylok’s barrier.
Because of Sarah’s sacrifice, every single Elven sniper glowed with a bright, warm golden aura. The Starlight Infusion coated their weapons, doubling their lethal output.
Lucifer gripped the Carnage Core. The artifact was heavily engorged. It had drank the blood of thousands of Deep Gnomes and twenty elite Cultists. It pulsed with a blinding, terrifying crimson light. It was fully charged.
"System," Lucifer commanded. "Activate the Carnage Core. True Damage Output."
[Ding!]
┏━━━━━━━[ Artifact Engaged ]━━━━━━━┓
│ Artifact: The Carnage Core (Mythic)
│ Action: Releasing stored kinetic death energy.
│ Effect: Next combined attack ignores all magical barriers, armor, and immunities.
│ Status: Applying True Damage Aura.
┗━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┛
Thick, blood-red tendrils whipped out from the Carnage Core. They shot across the room, physically linking to the five thousand Vanguard rifles. The icy blue barrels now glowed with a terrifying mixture of azure frost, golden starlight, and crimson death.
Inside the bone dome, Xylok laughed. "A mortal army cannot break an immortal shield!"
"Shatter him," Lucifer ordered.
"Fire!" the Elven Commander shouted.
Five thousand rifles discharged. The sound was not the usual crack of splitting ice. It was the deafening roar of a dying sun. A massive, unified beam of tri-colored energy lanced across the dark sanctum.
The beam struck Xylok’s Bone Aegis.
The necrotic immunity runes did not even flash. The True Damage property completely ignored the Lich’s defensive laws.
The thick bone walls instantly vaporized. They did not shatter. They simply ceased to exist, deleted by the overriding mythic code of the Warlord’s artifact.
The beam punched straight through the ruined barrier and struck the Legendary Lich directly in the chest.
Xylok screamed. It was a high, tearing shriek of pure, unfiltered agony. The absolute zero frost froze his skeletal frame. The crimson True Damage shattered his immortal bones. The golden starlight burned away his dark magic.
"No!" Xylok roared, dropping his scythe. He clawed at his chest, trying desperately to hold his crumbling ribcage together. "I am eternal! I am the shadow of the Abyss!"
"You are nothing," Lucifer said.
He activated the Zephyr’s Grace Emblem. Lucifer blurred across the room, entirely bypassing the searing energy beam. He materialized directly in front of the dissolving Lich.
Xylok’s blue fire core was exposed. It beat rapidly inside the shattered, frozen ribcage.
Lucifer pulled back his right fist. He funneled a massive surge of his remaining mana directly into his knuckles. His bare hand glowed like a miniature star.
He drove his fist directly into the Lich’s blue fire core.
"Die," Lucifer whispered.
The core shattered.
A massive shockwave of pure, unadulterated dark energy exploded outward. The sheer kinetic force blew Lucifer backward. He slid across the stone, his boots carving deep, smoking trenches into the floor to stop his momentum.
The Lich’s skeletal body collapsed into a pile of blackened, smoking dust. The towering scythe clattered to the ground, its dark magic fading instantly.
The room fell dead silent. The Vanguard snipers powered down their weapons.
Then, the Apex Multiplier engaged.
[Ding!]
┏━━━━━━━[ Combat Summary ]━━━━━━━┓
│ Raid Boss Defeated: Xylok the Undying (Legendary Lich).
│ Elite Enemies Defeated: Cult Necromancer x2.
│
│ Calculating Soul Energy extraction...
│ Divine Talent: ’Apex Multiplier’ triggered on Elite Boss Experience!
│ Multiplying absolute experience values 10,000x!
┗━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┛
A massive golden pillar of light crashed down directly through the subterranean ceiling. It struck Lucifer dead center. The sheer volume of experience was astronomical. Defeating a Legendary Boss in the first days of the Integration was a feat meant for an entire army of max-level heroes. Lucifer absorbed it all.
His level ticked upward with terrifying speed.
[Host has reached Level 21!]
[Host has reached Level 25!]
[Host has reached Level 28!]
[Host has reached Level 30!]
[Warning: Host has reached the Mortal Level Cap.]
[Further leveling requires a Class Ascension Ritual.]
Lucifer stood rigid. He felt the massive influx of power hit his core. The golden light forcefully expanded his mana veins, pushing against his skin. The interface flashed one final time.
[Status Update: Max Mana Capacity expanded to 45,000 Points.]
But as the golden light faded, the adrenaline abruptly crashed.
Lucifer stopped moving. The brutal toll of the last few hours finally registered. He had ascended to a Tier 2 Warlord, suffered severe poison damage, endured massive Soul-Link drain, engaged in temporal combat with a Goddess, and absorbed the astronomical experience of a Legendary Boss. His nineteen-year-old physical vessel was pushed far beyond its absolute breaking point.
His vision swam. The thirty thousand points of mana he had received from Sarah were completely burned away by the final strike and the sheer physical trauma of the level-up. The new 45,000 max capacity meant nothing right now. The tank was entirely empty.
┏━━━━━━━[ System Warning ]━━━━━━━┓
│ Current Mana: 0 / 45,000
│ Critical Failure: Extreme Physical Exhaustion.
│ Host is losing consciousness.
┗━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┛
Lucifer swayed on his feet. The heavy broadsword slipped from his grip, clattering against the stone floor. He looked back at the altar. Elara was already moving toward him, her silver wings flaring as she dashed across the room.
"Lucifer!" Elara shouted, her stoic celestial mask breaking completely.
He didn’t hear the rest of her words. His knees buckled. Lucifer collapsed forward, falling heavily toward the cold floor.
Total darkness consumed his mind instantly. The Warlord had won the battle, but his mortal body demanded its toll.
