Devaxion, the King of the Umbrashnuls, watched as the creature he had been fighting grabbed its head and began thrashing around violently.

He felt the thing resisting with an impossibly strong will.

For an entire minute while he waited in blank white space he had been brought to after the Deny Destruction unique skill had saved, he had prepared and charged up the strongest psychic magic spell at his disposal.

It was the tier nine spell, identity dissolution. A powerful and nasty magic that erased the ego of the person it targeted.

Truthfully, Devaxion hated using this spell.

It was difficult to cast, and what it did was horrifying.

He had no issues with using his psychic magic to control people, either subtly or more forcefully, but identity dissolution just wiped the mine nearly clean. Most of the time, all that was left were basic instincts.

Regrettably he did not have much of a choice but to use everything at his disposal.

His opponent this time was powerful and unique entity unlike anything he had ever heard of.

The closest thing that he could compare it to were deadly specters that roamed some of the most inhospitable parts of the Darklands.

Yet, those types of monsters never displayed any sort of intelligence like the assassin the Draayer Empress had prepared for him. Though, it would not be much longer before the creature became mindless itself.

'I don't know how it used light magic with the skill being gone, but it won't be able to conjure anything ever again soon.' Devaxion thought while he focused on crushing his opponent's mind with his psychic magic.

Had he tried to do this before using Hand of Greed, it would have been wholly ineffective.

The entity had possessed a unique skill called Sound Mind which blocked all mental interference and tampering abilities.

Of course, Devaxion had chosen to take it, along with all of the other skills he had targeted for specific reasons.

Some were just powerful or useful, while others would heavily debilitate his adversary.

The light-based skills obviously had needed to go, even if he could not use them himself.

As for the others, they had already been of immense help. Without Deny Destruction, he would been killed. That was a sobering fact he could not refute

There was also Soul Burst which he had considered using to win this battle, but the detriments of doing so were too high.

Losing half of his stats for such a long period of time was simply unacceptable.

It was truly only a last resort type skill that should never be used unless death was the other alternative.

For nearly four minutes Devaxion continued to wage a mental war against Marcus.

During that time, the ghostly being managed to fire off a few more light magic spells, but they were incredibly sloppy and unrefined.

Whatever method the creature was using to cast the magic despite lacking two necessary skills to do so most have been very taxing, and nearly impossible while fighting against high level psychic magic.

Eventually, however, Devaxion found himself as the winner.

While the specter may have possessed a powerful unique skill to fight against mind affecting skills and magic, it had no regular resistance or items on it to deflect such things.

Devaxion himself had several charms and accessories on his person to defend against mental interference. As did most competent rulers in the world.

The Draayer Empress especially had prepared innumerable safeguards to protect her mind. Something Devaxion had quickly found out when trying to use his psychic magic on her during their first encounter. One which he had been forced to retreat from after being torn apart dozens of times.

Fortunately, he could not be killed just by having his body shredded into pieces.

There were few things out there that could truly put him down, with light being his people's greatest weakness.

Until today, he had never felt its sting so thoroughly. Light magic in the hands of a powerful foe had proven to be more deadly than he could have ever imagined.

'But it is over now. The other assassins are not as powerful. I will rejoin my generals and eliminate them as well.' Devaxion thought as he watched Marcus crumble to his knees.

There was a blank stare in his eyes that lacked any intelligence. The expected outcome after being subjected to mind dissolution.

With measured steps Devaxion approached to finish the poor creature off. It may have still been alive, but there was no longer a mind there.

"Perhaps I will gain a level or two from this."

Devaxion held his spear high and prepared to slice off the ghostly entity's head.

He doubted that would be enough to truly kill it, but it would be a start.

Yet, just before he swung, his instincts screamed at him to get away, she he hastily melded into the shadows and dashed backwards.

He was just in time too, as his foe's scythe had moved seemingly on its own and embed itself deeply into the ground where he had just been standing.

However, while it had always emitted the feeling of a powerful weapon, there was now something unmistakably ominous about the thing.

It was then that he remembered that it was clearly some sort of taboo weapon.

He was not sure about which type, but he believed that it was either soul bound or undead.

Both of which were dangerous but not to the degree that he was feeling.

To Devaxion, it was like the presence of a world ending monster had just appeared.

Making matters worse, his enemy picked himself back up, and the scythe flew into his outstretched hand.

When Devaxion looked into the thing's eyes, he shuddered.

What he saw now was not the intelligence of the man who he had fought before, but a horrific monster more dangerous than anything he had ever encountered before.

"WRRAHGUUUUOOIEEIRRRR!"

Before Devaxion could regain his bearing, hundreds of different shaped mouths suddenly appeared over the creature's body and each one let out a discordant wail.

It must have been some sort of powerful skill or racial ability as the noise shook Devaxion's very soul.

Had he been weaker, he might have been too stunned to respond to what happened next.

The body of a human man that the monster had mostly fought in reshaped itself and a giant sickle-like claw came sweeping towards him.

Soon he was facing down what looked like a giant mutated Spirit Eater.

Normally the monsters that preyed on spiritual being were not that large and had white coloration.

However, the one before Devaxion now was enormous and a striking purple color.

With dozens of claws it swung towards him, leaving large gashes in the ground where it struck.

He evaded each attack, and soon the creature was charging towards him with its mouth wide open.

It was obvious that it was trying to eat him, but he gave it something else to chew on.

Spinning his spear, Devaxion created a whirling storm of shadows that he launched down the things' wide-open gullet.

He watched as the shadows tore into the monster, shaving off large chunks of its form.

Except, that barely even slowed it down.

The thing was already reforming and still barreled towards him at impressive speed that was growing by the moment.

Eventually it grew closer to him and just as he was about to make his next move, an enormous burst of light shot out of its mouth.

His left side was badly burned by the attack, and he lost half of his arm before getting away.

He had not expected that, and he certainly did not expect what happened next.

The monster's form shifted again, this time into the hulking form of an ancient Lava Dragon.

Devaxion had heard tales of such a creature living within the magma sea of the Darklands. Now he was face to face with it.

With a single roar, it felt like it shook the very world, and blasts of flames, darkness, and lightning flew from its body in barrage that destroyed everything around it for several kilometers.

Putting everything he had into it, Devaxion charged his spear with power and cast the only tier nine shadow magic spell he knew.

It was very powerful, and all of the shadows nearby gathered around to strengthen his ultimate blow.

"Umbral Maelstrom."

His spear flew fast and true and slammed directly into the center of the gargantuan dragon's chest.

It went all the way through and out to the other side. Leaving a giant gaping hole in the beast.

But even that seemed to hardly faze the monsters, as while it rampaged with one destructive attack after the other, its body once again underwent a massive change.

This time it did not take on a form that Devaxion recognized at all.

A worm of epic proportions, several times larger than even the Lava Dragon appeared.

The collapsing chamber they were in was nowhere near large enough to accommodate its size, but that did not stop it.

Anything that stood in its way of expansion was either pushed out of the way or destroyed.

Nothing seemed to be able to stop it, and even when Devaxion unleashed one powerful attack after the other, the damage he dealt was healed almost instantly.

By the time it had achieved its full size, the thing's cylindrical body was over four kilometers in diameter, and its total length was too far away to tell exactly how long the creature was.

There was one thing that Devaxion felt when he looked at the monster. All-consuming dread.