His voice was a low whisper.
“I vow to kill the Heaven’s Executioner.”
The system responded instantly, recognizing the gamble.
[Oath detected.]
[Warning: failure to fulfill your vow will result in death.]
[
[All skills will rise by one rank.]
[New skills have been granted.]
[Unbroken Step (B): Movement speed and reflexes heightened until vow is fulfilled.]
[Borrowed Eternity (B): Grants a one-time restoration of full Stamina.]
The exhaustion vanished. The pain in his chest from the mana overuse disappeared, for now. Shane felt lighter and faster.
Heaven’s Executioner sensed the anomaly falling from the sky.
The giant raised its massive hands. A wall of churning black fire erupted around it, rising up as if to swallow Shane whole before he could make contact.
Too bad, Shane thought, with a grim satisfaction.
My flame is hotter.
With his heart pounding a furious rhythm in his ears, his reflexes amplified by the [Unbroken Step], he plunged straight toward the black wall.
The [Unbreakable Oath] vibrated in response, its crimson fire flaring brighter as it ate the black flames.
He brought his sword down.
The wall of black fire split apart like a dark curtain as Shane’s blade carved a path through the skill. He burst through the other side, trailling wisps of black smoke.
Now there was nothing between him and the target.
Shane grinned, the flames reflecting in his eyes.
The last skill was broken, revealing the defenseless face of the Heaven’s Executioner right below his boots.
From up here, the damned thing almost looked cute.
As gravity took hold, Shane felt a dormant power wake up inside him. The [Predator of the Seraphim] trait activated, reacting to the divinity of the target.
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He tightened his grip on the hilt and drove the blade down.
There was barely any resistance. The [Unbreakable Oath], now wreathed in a [Fireball] that was an S-minus rank, plunged deep into the space between the boss’s red eyes. It sank to the hilt, burying itself in the monster’s face.
Using the momentum of his fall, he swung his legs forward and landed hard on the boss’s nose.
The impact caused the building-sized creature, already unbalanced by the recoil of its own wall of flame, to groan as its colossal body began to teeter.
For all its insane attack power in its skill, its actual health and physical defense were pathetic.
But it wasn’t over. He channeled more mana into the embedded sword and began to burn Heaven’s Executioner from the inside out, just in case it tried to regenerate using its minions’ health.
He knew this was going to cost him dearly, having already triggered [Mana Hypersensitivity] multiple times, but this was the only way.
But as the flames roared inside the stone skull, Shane frowned. There was no resistance. No influx of healing energy rushing to the boss to counter the damage.
He blinked, looking past the smoke behind him.
Did they really do it?
He scanned the street below, expecting to see the Paladins and Sacred Roses sacrificing themselves for their master.
But the street was empty of monsters.
They actually killed them all?
Hanging from the hilt of his sword, his boots planted firmly on the boss’s face, he rode the dying statue down toward the earth.
He couldn’t help but look back. They were small from this height, the size of ants against the ruined neighborhood. Luke, Josh, Henry, and the others. They were battered, exhausted, and bloody, but they were running toward him.
Shane stared at them, the wind whipping his hair across his face.
It was the first time something like this had happened since his friend died.
He watched them for a long moment, a strange tightness constricting his chest. It wasn’t quite joy, which he had expected to feel after killing the boss. It was a brutal, resonant feeling of... well, he didn’t know.
But it wasn’t bad.
He watched until his view was obscured by buildings and a rising cloud of dust.
With a crash that shook the entire city of Brooklyn, the Heaven’s Executioner finally hit the ground.
As the dust settled, the silence pressed down on the city.
Shit, almost forgot to [Blink.]
Shane watched the colossal body of the Heaven’s Executioner begin to disintegrate. The massive white robes and the marble skin burned away into motes of light, dissolving into the atmosphere until nothing remained but scars on the city streets.
That was easier than I expected.
Of course, his body disagreed, feeling like it was about to fall apart.
Honestly, he didn’t think he’d make it. He’d spent his time in this world grinding forward, a walking joke trying to claw his way up from the bottom just enough to survive.
He kept going because he had to. If he died, he’d never find the message his friend had left for him.
The thought tightened his chest. Would he even be able to die in peace, with so many unanswered questions left? He wouldn’t even be able to ask his friend in the afterlife.
Shane looked down at his blood-soaked hands. If he died, he wouldn’t be going to the same place. He knew thta with a grim certainty.
Still... Shane glanced back toward the direction of the hunters. Fighting together doesn’t feel half bad.
Even though his body was creaking like a machine that hadn’t been oiled in a long time. He couldn’t remember the last time he had walked this close to the edge.
Shane coughed up the last of the clotted blood in his lungs and pressed a hand to his side, trying to stop the bleeding from his wound. The puncture wound he half-absorbed from Henry had ripped during the fight and it was killing him, along with his shoulder.
Every hunter close enough had stopped moving, eyes fixed on him.
Dumb looks on every last one of them.
Then, one by one, they sagged to their knees or dropped their weapons. Cheers erupted from all around.
“Ahhh!”
“I’m alive! I’m alive!”
It wasn’t just the hunters. People who hadn’t evacuated in time were waving and shouting from the shattered windows. The people they had saved.
Shane blinked.
The reaction was… more intense than Shane had expected. Even in his past life, he’d never received a cheer like this for saving someone.
The people in this world really are something else. They almost died, and the first thing they want to do is say thank you?
“Captain!”
Just then, something like a bear slammed into him.