Galaxy's First Ruler

Hummm!

The entire Dungeon hummed as if crossing the boundary of space-time. And an undulating Black Veil came ripping apart the fabric of Reality in the sky over the flattened mountain's peak.

All beings, irrespective of their strength, felt groggy and were on the verge of losing their consciousness. Their minds implored them to go into a deep sleep, and let the Black Veil hover over them like a blanket. And those who fell asleep vanished as if the Darkness had engulfed them. One could only see a trace of their existence on the enormous Veil covering the stars.

On the platform, Viscount Sugaar wasn't faring any better. The Crawler's eyes were droopy, and its shoulders were slumping down. Its mouth kept muttering incomprehensible murmurs to fight the grogginess. But even after using all the understanding of Laws it had, the murmurs failed to work against it.

The Lord of Storms and Thunder struggled to look up at the Black Veil. And one could notice the sheer shock it had gone through because of the incredibility of such a thing from the shudders into its entire body.

*

[…

Will of the Oldest One has accepted your request

Specify the Skills to sacrifice…

…]

Aldrich looked at the words, "Oldest One", and wondered if it was the True Name of that Being. He had already found out that most of these Will and such Beings were known as the Great Old Ones, but he didn't know the difference between them. The only that he was sure of was that this Oldest One had already eaten a Will of the Great Old One.

"3 Miles Shot, Devil's Whisper, Flood Rider."

Aldrich had already decided the Skills he wanted to sacrifice. The three Skills he had chosen spanned all the Ranks from Common to Baron.

3 Miles Shot was a Skill he had acquired in his first Dungeon as a reward of the Quest. At the Common Rank and the starting phase of Rare Rank, it was a Skill that could make any Dreamer's heart palpitate. But its cooldown and Mana consumption, combined with its limitation, was just not worth it at the level of Barons.

Devil's whisper was an even more justifiable sacrifice. The moment Aldrich had heard the Language of LAWS, he had made some connection to this Skill he had got from the Elite Crawler of Bellerophon's Dungeon. Aldrich believed that with his limited understanding of the Law of Devil, he could try to mimic the Skill's effect.

And the Flood Rider got chosen for only one thing. Aldrich didn't have a choice, and the Supreme Tamer's nature was too important for it to be sacrificed. Aldrich didn't want to take chances by not adding a Baron-ranked Skill, and the responsibility fell on the Flood Rider's shoulders.

[…

Sacrificing 3 Miles Shot, Devil's Whisper, and Flood Rider Skills…

…

Sacrifice accepted

Rewards:

1. All Penalties are lifted for the next 10 seconds.

…]

The sheer level of his underestimating the persistence of RECORD shocked Aldrich.

He didn't even want to think what could have happened if he hadn't sacrificed the Baron Skill. But with every such experience, he was figuring the RECORD little by little. He had come up with a theory that the RECORD was like a middle-man, giving access to some things on behalf of others. And it was the only reason that he hadn't sacrificed directly to RECORD. Aldrich hardly made guesses far off from the topic, but he could tell even the 10 seconds were too generous in the eyes of the RECORD.

10 seconds weren't enough, considering the time he would spend in the Dungeon. But they were plenty for the task in hand.

The Black Veil receded as if it wasn't there, to begin with. Those who had vanished were gone forever, and those who didn't come out of their half-sleep state were doomed to remain as so for the rest of their life. The chants of the twelve witches which had been buried under the Veil's presence came back, livening up the limestone platform.

1 second has passed for these things to happen.

ROARRRRRSSSSS!!!

Tud-Tudddd! C-r-Crackkk!!!

The Crawler, now freed from the unforgiving feeling of sleepiness, roared in rage and fear mixed within it. The entire Dungeon hissed along with it and the Viscount raised its arms as if holding the entire sky by his hands. All lightning from the covering of dense dark clouds around the mountain came rushing toward him. The lightning gathered in a massive ball and it felt like countless green thorny snakes were in it, rather than the thundering bolts.

But it wasn't the end.

HOUUUUU!!!

A storm came ripping apart the clouds and condensed into twelve extremely sharp rings around the lightning ball. The only thing that Aldrich could compare this sight to was the image of the planet Saturn. Aldrich saw the Katana, still stuck in the Crawler's stomach, and got to know that Sha hadn't lost all her rationality yet. He crouched down and put his hand over one of the shadowy blobs spread around him.

"Sha."

Aldrich spoke out and sent a command to the Shadow Homunculus. Despite getting no reply, the dark blobs got pulled towards the blob under Aldrich's hand and turned into a one-horned mask. Two red lines were running down from the eyeholes to the jawline on the black mask, and there was a red circle in the middle of its forehead. Aldrich could also see hundreds of flashy green lines like the branches of a tree on it.

It was the Devil's Oldest Change.

4 more seconds had passed for these things to happen.

The Crawler stared at Aldrich in disgust and its low voice echoed within the platform.

"Your existence is a nasty stain for all the Crawlers and the Blessed Ones. Let me purge this world of your ever-haunting presence…

… Annihilate - WORLD SCORCHING DUAL DEVASTATION!"

THUMMMMMM!!!

The entire Dungen quaked, and the mountain roared in pain as the ball of lightning expanded with the Crawler at its center. The razor-sharp rings of wind expanded along with it, trying to cover the entire platform. It didn't seem there was anything Aldrich could do to avoid getting hit by this Skill.

But at this moment, a fleeting thought came to his mind. A thought from seemingly countless years ago. He found himself quite familiar with this scene. There was a time during his first raid when he couldn't use any weapons because of their incompetence, and the Boss Buckey had a dagger stuck in its chest, like the Katana in Viscount Sugaar.

A smile came upon his devilish face as he finally remembered how much he liked to go with the ways of old school at such times.