CHAPTER 37: THE BATTLE AGAINST LIBRA

"Thane!" Seraphina cried.

Thane pretended to have stumbled down into the portal and was being drawn in.

"Warn them!" Thane cried as he vanished.

Her voice echoed even as the world beneath Thane’s feet dissolved. The dimensional tunnel pulled him in, and his body was swallowed by the swirling current of distorted light and darkness.

It was not like falling through the air. Thane felt his body twisted, stretched, and contracted, as though unseen hands were tugging at his soul. He clenched his teeth, praying aloud.

"Here goes nothing... Lord, You will be my strength!"

The vortex churned around him, and he was falling. Fragments of what was happening outside, half-formed voices, and broken shards of color flew past him like shattered glass. His Celestial TV flickered faintly within him, guiding his sense of balance until the spiraling chaos abruptly ended.

He could see the battles outside.

Fragments of Seraphina charging and shouting as she shot magic, presumably towards the Cyclops.

Thane glanced everywhere and saw a fist emerge, creating a slight tremor in the vortex.

"Stay alive, guys!" Thane could only hope Seraphina did her part.

The tunnel ended.

Thane stumbled forward into an alien place.

The pocket dimension was suffocating in its gloom. An endless, choking mist blanketed everything, thick enough that even his heightened perception was dimmed.

The ground beneath his boots shifted unnaturally, as if he were walking on something that was neither stone nor earth, but some distorted blend of both. The space itself gave Thane a feeling of being pressed closer. As if he himself was compressed.

"Is this the dimension? Why do I feel like a .Rar file?" Thane observed with his eyes.

It was like standing in a narrow corridor that stretched forever. Shadows moved where there should be none, and the silence was only broken by the faint, echoing pulse of a distant heartbeat.

Thane’s chest tightened as he felt an oppressive weight pressing down on him.

"Libra!"

The presence was unmistakable, emanating from a tear in the darkness ahead. The crack shimmered faintly, trembling as the dimension itself constricted. The air rippled. Something vast and malevolent was preparing to break through.

"He’s about to attack!" Thane realized his spirit energy was flaring.

Without hesitation, he reached into his inventory. The familiar weight of an orc-forged hand axe appeared in his grip.

These were the items he had stored from the Oroks and Orcs that he had been fighting. The number of orcs that Libra summoned also gave him quite a good haul of items.

But the moment Thane opened his [Storage], a strange quaking occurred and alarmed Libra.

"The dimension is collapsing?!" Libra was alarmed that he did not carry out his attack.

A portal had already opened in front of him, but he feared launching his attack.

But unknown to him, Thane had taken his items and began to hurl them.

SHUNK!

A stabbing sound pierced the fog, followed by a guttural, enraged cry.

The mist blew at his roar, and his figure was revealed.

Libra snarled, his form coalescing fully at last. He was massive, a skeletal angel with torn wings, holding the Scales of Judgment and whipping them desperately.

His form was marred and wounded. Burns scorched his face, cracks split his bones, and one wing hung limp, blackened by holy fire.

"Who... dares?!"

"You?! How did you enter this place?!" Libra roared as he harnessed dark energy on his scales. He saw the unarmed Thane rush at him.

KRRROOOOM!

The dimension shook again and alarmed Libra, causing him to spread the darkness to contain the cracks in the dimension.

STAB!

"Ahhh!"

The dimensions began to quake continuously, but this time, he could see the source of all the tremors!

A dimensional door was being summoned from a different space. It had its own rules and its own time!

The entire pocket dimension was already unstable since it was ’unsealed,’ and creating more openings was making it even more unstable!

He saw Thane summoning his items!

Thane dashed forward, retrieving and hurling the weapons he had. As he ran, he caught sight of a particular item close to Libra. A faint holy resonance that fought back the mist below the skeletal body of Libra.

"Seraphina’s arrow!" Thane saw it.

Its radiant power had not dispersed in this sealed dimension. Instead, it burned brightly, pure and undiluted.

"I must get to it...! But how?"

Thane didn’t care for the dimension. He kept retrieving the items even though it was fracturing the dimension even more!

"How do you have that magic?!" Libra was shocked.

"Because I wanted to binge-watch!" Thane mocked as he kept bringing out spears.

"Then die!" The enraged angel summoned his own mist.

The fallen angel’s shadow flared, its form beginning to take shape. Thane didn’t give him a moment. He retrieved weapon after weapon, his hands flickering with inventory light as he hurled them in rapid succession.

The familiar Stabby family daggers spun through the air, joined by the heavier cleavers he had looted from the Orok warband!

"Behold! The Choppy brothers

!"

Axes and daggers flew as the dimension trembled.

The jagged axes whose crude edges shrieked as they tore through the mist were met with the metallic hum of the swishing scale that Libra carried.

Metallic clangs resounded as each was deflected by Libra’s scales. But then the mist swirled at the command of Libra.

"This is still... my world!" Libra roared.

A dark magic spun as the Mist gathered around Thane.

Energy flared around him, and the entire pocket dimension shook as dark magic surged. Threads of power twisted together, forming a massive spell that locked Thane in place.

Thane’s body refused to move! His muscles tightened, his spirit energy sealed.

Hands of orcs and groundlings could be seen emerging from the mist and holding Thane in place!

"By your sins... You are judged! Face the horror of your own killing!" Libra commanded as the groundlings and oroks began to form from the mist.

Thane tried to break out, but the hands that manifested were too many, and he could not move.

Seeing as it was over, Thane glanced at Libra. Still looking for means to defeat him.

Libra saw the defiant eyes of Thane. An eye that never cowered even in the darkness of the Mist.

At such a moment, Libra had never met a human who could look at him like that, within the Mist. The world of darkness did not terrify this young boy.

The courage and resistance of Thane made Libra even more enraged.

"Die!" Libra shouted as a Goblin figure emerged in front of Thane.

It was the Goblin that the Groundling Dungeon Core summoned to attack Thane!

It stood before Thane and was about to swing its dagger.

And then—

BOOOOM!

A colossal fist shot from below, smashing straight into Libra’s lower body.