Answering the deafening call of the shield's ringing gong, two bestial crimson flames ignited in the shadow of the towering black knight.
Standing before him was the Fallen Terror—a grotesque abomination shrouded in a thick, poisonous green smoke.
The creature was a monstrous rat, towering at ten meters tall. Jagged claws gleamed like serrated blades under the harsh sunlight, while its yellowed, reeking fangs dripped with venom, ready to tear through flesh and steel alike. Its fur was black as midnight, matted with filth and battle-worn decay.
Its long tail lashed violently across the scorched earth, every swing sending tremors through the ground. The sheer weight and force of its presence felt like a disaster given form.
It wasn't hard to guess that the Fallen Terror's true strength didn't lie in its physical might alone, but in its dominion over lesser creatures—and its power to spread plague and decay like a walking apocalypse.
Yet Hassan was no ordinary warrior.
He stood before the towering beast without a shred of hesitation, unwavering in the face of rot and ruin. Then, he took a single, deliberate step forward.
The earth beneath him cracked under the sheer weight of that step, as if the land itself recognized the gravity of the moment.
But in the next moment, he jumped—no longer heavy as a mountain, but light as a feather.
Suspended in the air, Hassan shifted into a deadly stance, descending toward the rat like a black comet.
The Fallen Terror screeched in rage, sending a wave of poisonous mist surging upward to meet the dark knight. But the obsidian figure didn't slow down for even a heartbeat.
His form was humanlike, but not human. His anatomy rendered the plague useless against him.
That was why Klaus had chosen him to face the Abomination.
Still, the rat seemed to realize that as well—because in the next second, it spat a stream of acidic bile at him.
Hassan raised his shield and increased his weight. Heavy as a mountain, he plummeted faster, the air howling around him as he braced behind the dark barrier.
The acid hissed and sizzled on impact, corroding the surface of the shield. But he didn't falter.
With a thunderous crash, he slammed the shield down onto the rat's head, forcing the beast to reel backward, shrieking in agony.
The Firstborn of Destiny watched the filthy creature writhe and crawl on the ground, his voice cold and disdainful as he muttered:
"Stand up... Don't make me wait, inferior creature."
The Terror couldn't understand his words—yet somehow, it felt the weight of Hassan's pity, and that alone sent it into a frenzy.
With a furious screech, it raised its claws—now soaked in bubbling acid—and slashed down with savage force.
Hassan lifted his shield once more, his body growing impossibly dense as he increased his weight again, anchoring himself to the earth.
Unmoving. Unyielding.
Like a monolith of the underworld, he stood his ground, enduring the monster's blows as acidic claws scraped and shrieked against obsidian.
Seeing Hassan remain as indifferent and indomitable as ever, the vile beast felt a shiver crawl down its spine.
After all, this was no ordinary warrior—it was Hassan, Duke of the Underworld. A being whose very name carried the weight of ancient fear. His presence alone radiated the cold inevitability of death, his body an avatar of darkness, his soul steeped in lightless night.
Everyone fears the dark. But why? Hassan had often pondered this.
Only after watching countless enemies fall into despair before him did he reach a chilling conclusion:
They fear it because they see nothing.
And if nothing is seen—then nothing exists.
And nothingness is the birthplace of the unknown.
And the unknown... is the oldest fear of all.
That was why the great rat—this towering abomination cloaked in plague and poison—now cowered before him.
Hassan looked down at the beast with cold contempt and raised his hand, summoning the Sanctuary of Darkness.
A dome of blackness swallowed the battlefield, smothering the light. Within its depths, his wounds knit shut, his essence surged with renewed vigor, and his strength climbed higher—monstrous and unrelenting.
"I said..." his voice echoed like a funeral bell.
"Stand up, filthy creature. Do not waste my time."
The rat shrieked in rage, its bloodshot green eyes burning with murderous hatred. Its scream echoed across the wasteland, filled with venom and madness.
But Hassan remained still.
His greatsword burned with dark fire. His shield, chipped and scarred, was still unyielding.
He raised both—his stance steady, unshakable.
The Firstborn of Destiny was ready.
But the beast lacked Hassan's courage. It didn't possess his unwavering conviction, nor did its soul burn with honor and justice.
That was why the creature fled.
Yet, it wasn't that simple. Instead of facing Hassan head-on, the Fallen Terror commanded its spawn to swarm him—buying precious time for its own escape.
Hassan's crimson eyes flared with furious light. His shield and greatsword vanished instantly, replaced by his familiar staff—steady and lethal in his grasp.
Then he leaned forward, taking a battle-ready stance, and dashed forward with blinding speed, the ground cracking and shattering beneath his feet.
He ignored the pathetic spawn, striking them down only when absolutely necessary, his focus solely on the fleeing Terror.
His staff bent like a whip before crashing down onto the head of one spawn, splattering blood and brains across the earth. Using the corpse as a springboard, he leapt high into the air.
Hassan watched as the swarm of rats lunged toward him. He twisted his body mid-air, balancing with perfect control. His staff bent once again like a longbow, and dark arrows materialized between his obsidian fingers, firing rapidly at the Abominations.
Each arrow exploded on impact, spreading outward like obsidian flowers in full bloom, consuming everything within their reach.
The souls of the devoured beasts were drawn into Hassan's dark soul—recycled and distilled into pure soul energy.
Then he glanced coldly at the escaping Terror. Using the darkness, he formed a catapult on the ground and launched himself from the sky. The shadowy construct shot him across the swarm, straight toward the Fallen Terror.
The beast looked up, its vile eyes widening in dread. It did what any cornered animal would do — fight back with everything it had.
Hassan slashed downward just as the beast raised its claws to meet his staff.
Boom!
Shockwaves rippled out from the clash, but it wasn't Hassan who was pushed back — it was the rat. Despite its greater size and mass, which should have given it the advantage, the beast staggered under the force.
Because At the last moment, Hassan increased his weight, boosting his speed and velocity to maximize the damage of his strike.
Staring at the screaming creature whose claws were shattered and arm broken, he muttered coldly,
"Stand up, beast."
The rat shot him a dark, resentful glance and dashed toward him—only to be slammed back to the ground by Hassan's brutal kick.
Now its fangs were broken as well.
"Again... stand up."
Once again, Hassan waited for the beast to stand up, but by this point, it no longer had any desire to continue the fight. Its poison was ineffective against the dark knight. Its acid caused some damage, slowly corroding the dark armor of the Child of Destiny, but that was precisely the point—it was too slow, while Hassan's physical capabilities and skills far surpassed the creature's.
Not to mention, the rat's arm was broken. Its fangs and claws were shattered. Its skull throbbed from being struck by the massive shield, and a terrible wound gaped on its shoulder.
There was simply no way it could win. Though it was a corrupted Abomination, it was still the Fallen Terror—far more intelligent and cunning. And thus, it understood its dire situation perfectly.
There was only one way out of this. So it did what it knew best: cause as much harm as possible.
It struggled to stand—barely upright. Glancing down at the obsidian knight with pure resentment and spite, it let out a deafening roar. Then its body began to convulse, stomach and limbs swelling like balloons. Thick green veins twitched violently across its skin. Its eyes bulged as poisonous green smoke poured out, and then:
Boom!
Hassan tilted his head, watching the small explosion unfold. Had it chosen its own end? Or was it trying to take him down with it? It didn't make sense—the blast was too small.
Confusion flickered across Hassan's face, but within seconds his crimson eyes blazed with fierce intensity. As a seasoned general, he immediately recognized the rat's true intent.
This wasn't mere suicide. The creature had detonated a chemical explosion designed to poison the land and infect the people.
As the thick green clouds billowed and spread over the battlefield, Hassan sent a mental message to Klaus, who was holding back the swarms of Abominations.
"My lord… I think we have a problem."
On the other side of the battlefield, Klaus froze for a moment, his expression darkening as Hassan's message reached him.
He turned toward the east, eyes narrowing as he watched the green clouds spreading like a plague across the land. The glow in his amethyst eyes flared, sharp and dangerous, as he muttered a curse under his breath.
"Forget it. I'll take care of that. You focus on wiping out the rest of those rats."
He sent a mental message back, then vanished from his side of the battlefield, leaving his soldiers to face the swarm alone.
Reappearing high in the sky, Klaus gazed down at the spreading poison clouds with a cold, calculating stare. His fist clenched, wrapped in dark purple smoke, and the toxic miasma was pulled toward him like threads drawn to a core of gravity.
Klaus let Satan unravel into an amalgamation of darkness, reshaping itself into an ethereal cube of pale, shifting light.
"Pandora's Box... open."
He opened the box, and as the lid cracked open, the sky began to shift. The sickly green haze slowly faded, giving way to the familiar bright blue once more. All the noxious gases were drawn in—sucked into the yawning maw of Pandora's Box like a great breath of divine judgment.
Enchantment: Evil — The box contains malice, despair, and corruption.
That's what the description claimed. But for the longest time, Klaus hadn't understood how. How could a box contain those things?
Eventually, through long hours of trial and error, he found the answer. It was him.
He had to feed the box. He had to be the one to fill it.
And now?
He had sealed away so much vile corruption, so much toxicity and despair, that opening it would no longer be a mere act of recklessness—it would be catastrophic. He could bring about disaster with just a flick of his hand… but not yet.
Klaus needed all that corruption for his own goal—perhaps the most important one, if his theory was correct. So for now, it wasn't time. He wouldn't waste it on something as meaningless as a random disaster.
He sighed, releasing the form of Pandora's Box after it had swallowed all the toxic gases.
The amalgamation of darkness shifted around him, floating in the air before taking the shape of a crimson spear once again. Klaus glanced down at the battlefield.
The situation wasn't as good as it seemed. While the Abominations were weak in direct combat, that didn't mean they couldn't cause harm.
Dead or alive, those bastards could spread disease and plague. That was why more and more soldiers were being pulled back from the frontlines—they were already poisoned and too weakened to continue fighting.
What brought Klaus some measure of calm was Hemera. At least his brilliant phoenix was capable of healing the soldiers and purging the toxins from their bodies.
Lich's barriers had played a vital role too. If the toxic gas released by the Terror hadn't been contained within those walls, it would have spread across the land and ruined the crops.
For now, disaster had been avoided.