Ding!

[You have died.]

The moment the [Oblivion Meteor] collided with the castle, Leon’s vision instantly went dark.

His body had been annihilated so completely that he did not even feel pain.

"Well," Leon muttered calmly into the darkness around him, "At least it didn’t hurt."

Much like the first time he died against the [Will of Nature], Leon now floated inside an endless void.

There was no ground. No sky. Nothing at all. Only darkness stretching infinitely around him.

And then—

BOOM!

The [Altar of Life] appeared once more before him.

The massive altar floated calmly in the void, glowing with faint blue light that illuminated the darkness surrounding Leon.

Ding!

[The power of the "Altar of Life" fuels you, granting you another chance at life.]

One after another, the souls Leon had killed during his first God-Rank assessment appeared around the altar again.

Some looked annoyed. Others amused. A few simply stared silently at him.

Leon scratched the back of his head awkwardly.

"I’m guessing you guys saw how I died too," he muttered.

Nobody answered, obviously. But strangely enough, Leon found it funny.

After a few moments, the souls slowly turned into particles of blue light and drifted toward the altar one after another before merging into it.

And once the final soul disappeared—

BOOOOOOM!

The altar exploded with light.

A massive wave of energy surged directly into Leon’s body, causing blue cracks to spread across his skin instantly.

The burning sensation returned once again. Power flowed endlessly through him while the altar reconstructed his destroyed body from nothing.

It was exactly the same process as before. Yet somehow, feeling it a second time still felt unreal.

And eventually... Leon lost consciousness inside the void.

Ding!

[The "Altar of Life" has revived you thanks to your "Life Vessel" title.]

[The "Altar of Life" will require 48 hours to recharge.]

...

Back inside the assessment ground, Leon’s body had been completely obliterated by the meteor.

There was barely anything left.

Chunks of flesh and blood had been flattened into the crater itself beneath the overwhelming pressure of the forbidden spell.

But slowly...

Crack! Crack! Crack!

Blue lines of glowing energy began appearing everywhere across the crater. Tens of thousands of them.

The glowing cracks linked every destroyed piece of Leon’s body together before slowly pulling them back into one place.

Bone reconstructed itself. Flesh regenerated. Organs reformed.

And after several seconds, Leon’s body had completely rebuilt itself from scratch.

Surprisingly, no defensive shockwave erupted this time when he revived.

Probably because there were no enemies left alive nearby.

Leon slowly opened his eyes. Then he took a deep breath and stood up from the middle of the crater while purple flames burned all around him.

The entire center of the city had been erased. Nothing remained except destruction. 𝗳𝗿𝐞𝕖𝘄𝗲𝕓𝗻𝚘𝚟𝕖𝐥.𝚌𝕠𝕞

"I think..." Leon muttered while looking around the crater, "...I won."

And right afterward, just to confirm what he said—

Ding!

[You have killed the "Forsaken King"]

[100% Drop Rate has triggered...]

Leon slowly looked around the massive crater created by the [Oblivion Meteor], purple flames still burning all around the destroyed land as waves of heat rose into the air and distorted everything in sight.

And just as he expected, there was absolutely nothing left of the [Forsaken Castle] anymore.

The gigantic structure that once towered over the entire [Forsaken City], radiating darkness and pressure strong enough to make players despair from simply looking at it, had been completely erased from existence.

The entire center of the city had turned into a wasteland.

Massive cracks spread through the ground like spiderwebs, the stone melted in certain places from the sheer impact of the meteor, and thick purple aura still drifted around the crater like smoke from an ancient disaster.

Even Leon himself felt slightly stunned looking at the aftermath.

"...Damn."

For a few seconds, he simply stood there in silence while the wind blew across the crater, carrying ash and dust everywhere.

Then his eyes finally landed on what remained of the [Forsaken King].

Or more accurately... what barely remained.

Much like Leon himself before his resurrection, the king’s body had been completely crushed apart by the meteor’s impact, torn into thousands upon thousands of pieces and flattened beyond recognition.

There wasn’t even enough left to identify most of the corpse anymore.

The only real part that somehow survived the impact was a small chunk of the king’s dark armor resting near the middle of the crater, cracked and burned black by the explosion.

Other than that, the [Forsaken King] had been completely annihilated.

The strongest monster in the entire assessment had died under the force of Leon’s forbidden spell.

Ding!

[All players still alive have completed the "God-Rank Assessment". You will receive your rewards shortly.]

"Heh."

Leon let out a small laugh after hearing the notification.

So it was finally over. The second God-Rank assessment.

A place where players had spent years struggling to survive, where many had died hopelessly.

A place ruled entirely by the [Forsaken King].

And Leon had completed it in less than two days.

Honestly, even Leon himself didn’t fully understand how things escalated this quickly.

He had entered the assessment expecting a somewhat difficult journey, yet after meeting Violet and the others, obtaining stronger equipment, growing stronger repeatedly, and abusing the ridiculous combination of his skills and blessings, everything spiraled out of control.

Every major threat in the entire city had died one after the other.

Leon honestly wanted to immediately check what items the [Forsaken Ghoul] and [Forsaken King] had dropped, especially after seeing how absurdly valuable the other bosses’ rewards were, but right as he was about to open his [Storage Space], he suddenly noticed something strange.

His legs were beginning to turn into particles.

"...Hm?"

Leon looked down as glowing fragments of light slowly drifted away from his body.

Then the effect rapidly spread upward. His waist. His chest. His arms.

Within only a few seconds, his entire body started dissolving into countless particles of light.

"I guess we’re getting teleported already."

Leon didn’t resist at all.

And just like that, standing in the middle of the massive crater left behind by the [Oblivion Meteor], Leon completely disappeared from the [Forsaken City].

Fwoosh!

A few seconds later, Leon suddenly felt the ground beneath his feet once more.

Ding!

[Welcome to the "Colosseum of Ascension"]