The entire floor of the Lova Labyrinth was shaking violently.

For the weaker adventurers, staying on their feet was already a struggle.

"Just what is happening down there?!"

"Are those two really going to tear the whole labyrinth apart?!"

"H-hurry, run! The labyrinth is collapsing!"

The shouts swept through the group, and the entire adventurer line surged forward at several times its previous pace. A distance that would normally take more than half a day looked set to be cleared in a single hour at this speed.

"Adventurer, are you alright...?" At the rear of the column, the young elf, carrying the young man's large backpack, still gazed worriedly down toward the bottom of the stairs.

The young man had always looked utterly at ease, but this opponent was different from any before.

In recent years, human magic had developed rapidly, advancing far beyond the Mythological Era in ways too numerous to count. But the martial path had seen almost no change at all. In fact, with so many rare monsters and precious elixirs having vanished from the world, modern warriors might actually fall short of those from the Mythological Era when it came to physical cultivation.

And Oberon Holstein was the universally acknowledged strongest of that era.

That distinction still carried full weight today. It was enough to place Oberon at the pinnacle of warriors across both human and demon races. Even the notoriously fearsome Seven Sages of Destruction might not gain the upper hand in close-quarters combat even if they all came at once.

That was why the elf couldn't feel entirely at ease.

The battle below had long since surpassed anything that could be fathomed from up here.

...

At that same moment. Sixth floor of the Lova Labyrinth.

"Parry!"

The familiar force came surging in again. Banxia spun in midair without hesitation, using the momentum to shed the impact.

Seizing the gap while the opponent was mid-technique, he flipped around and drove a brutal kick squarely into Oberon's shoulder guard.

CRACK!

That shoulder armor, passed down since the Mythological Era and thousands of years old without a scratch, exploded into countless fractures from a single blow.

"Hah!" With no time to disperse the force, Oberon burned Battle Aura and took the kick head-on.

But Banxia's onslaught was far from over.

The instant Oberon couldn't execute a Parry, a boundless wave of slashes came pouring in from the front.

The three-minute agreement had long since expired. Banxia had resumed full output.

Clatter-crack—

The armor that had followed Oberon through a lifetime of warfare, the same armor that had come through the ancient crusade against the Eater of Life without a single dent, was now caving in, flaking apart, riddled with holes at a speed visible to the naked eye.

The slashes seemed to have no end. They pressed down on the greatest warrior in history until there was no room to strike back, nothing to do but grit teeth and endure.

After an unknown stretch of time, thick smoke and dust swallowed the entire field of vision. Only then did Banxia slowly lower his hands.

He had always been reserved. But when facing a genuine equal, he never held back.

Going all out was the greatest respect one could show a top-tier warrior.

"Strange..."

The dust gradually cleared. Banxia watched the figure slowly pulling itself from the rubble, a puzzled look on his face.

"You actually endured all that by burning Battle Aura. Does Assimilation allow for endless combustion?"

"...It does not." Oberon straightened with great effort, battered from head to toe, stubbornly refusing to go down. "Because of the monster's Assimilation, I can draw on the strength of every assimilated being. What burns is their power, not mine."

"It won't burn the monster's own lifespan, will it?" Banxia, who had nearly developed a full-blown lifespan-burning phobia after recent events, seized the moment to ask.

"...Why do you ask that?" Oberon was baffled, but answered anyway. "That coward doesn't have much lifespan left and would never dare let me burn it. It also has other ways to protect itself, so it's even less likely to stake everything on me."

"Then I can rest easy." Banxia breathed out, then settled back into a combat stance. "Do you still want to continue?"

"No." Oberon shook his head. "I've understood. It is impossible for me to defeat you."

Even with barely a whole patch of intact armor left anywhere on the body, Oberon still straightened that spine, standing tall in place, the same way as every time during life when a powerful enemy had been faced head-on.

"Taking that full sequence of slashes just now burned through every reserve the monster had built up over the years."

"Now even I am nothing more than an empty shell." Oberon slowly closed both eyes. A faint smile touched the lips, so faint it was almost invisible.

To trade blows with a top-tier warrior in life's final moments, and to know this man would help exact revenge, that was more than enough.

"I leave the rest to you."

"Alright."

Banxia gave a small nod, held a brief silence, then raised a hand and cast a ball of high-concentration flame toward Oberon's body.

There were far too many monsters with special abilities in this world. Oberon surely wouldn't have wanted to see the corpse toyed with after death.

The flames rose.

And that figure never fell.

Thinking back on what Oberon had done for the sake of a fair fight, a warrior's dignity carved into the bone, right down to the very end.

Banxia found himself wondering what kind of person Oberon had been in ordinary life.

"Damn. I forgot to ask what type of beastfolk was preferred..." Banxia paused mid-motion. "Wait, beastfolk didn't exist in that era yet. Never mind. Not worth thinking about."

His gaze shifted to the wide-open gate ahead. The main target was still inside, waiting.

...

The Eater of Life. A great monster out of the Mythological Era.

In terms of seniority, even the current Demon King was barely an unweaned brat by comparison. The Eater of Life was old in a way few things in this world could claim to be.

It had outlived everyone not because it was the strongest, but because it was careful.

And yet, at this moment, this creature that had lived for an untold number of tens of thousands of years genuinely felt fear.

That man had eliminated one of its most powerful trump cards with appalling ease.

Deep within the final boss chamber of the Lova Labyrinth, a colossal octopus-like tentacle creature thrashed restlessly, every arm slamming against the floor without purpose, cracking the stone flagstones to pieces inch by inch.

The loss of its strongest combatant had left it paralyzed with indecision.

In the corner, the ancient magical device capable of teleporting out of the labyrinth lay quietly where it always had.

It had never been used in tens of thousands of years, and not even the Eater of Life knew where it would send someone. If it ended up in human territory, a collective siege would be the only welcome waiting. So unless pushed to the absolute brink, it would never be activated.

The best option was still what had worked on Oberon: bring this man to heel with Assimilation.

The outside world believed the Eater of Life required prey to voluntarily offer up their souls before eternal life could be granted.

That was a lie it had spread itself.

Assimilation required no willing sacrifice. In practice, it was far closer to mind control. As long as a soul's strength fell short of its own, there was no breaking free from its dominion.

As the undisputed authority of the spiritual realm, it had always been utterly confident in this power.

From the Mythological Era to this very day, no warrior had ever resisted.

Until —

"Why... Could it be that you didn't even feel my Assimilation?!" It stared in terror at the man walking straight toward it. Tentacles snapped back in a frenzy, the entire body pressing backward.

"The mental fluctuations were so small, I thought you were just saying hello."

"..."

...

➤ Next: Lifespan Increases Once More

Chapter 88 - Lifespan Increases Once More

The man's slender hand came to rest gently atop the monster's head. The movement was tender.

A caress doesn't necessarily mean affection, though. It can also mean anticipation.

"How is this possible... You're a mere human, yet the weight of your soul is heavier than mine — and I have lived for over ten thousand years..." Sensing the information the magic fed back, the Eater of Life froze completely.

It wasn't that it didn't want to move. It was that staring blankly was the only thing it could still do.

A great monster that had survived since the mythological era, now as limp and helpless as a toddler.

"The teleportation item..." It strained to shift its gaze toward the ancient magic tool lying not far away.

Any other time, facing an enemy of this caliber, it would have activated that device and fled without a second thought.

But now, the magical backlash held it fast. It couldn't move a single tentacle.

Who could have ever imagined it, a pureblood human with a lifespan of barely a century, carrying a soul so profoundly heavy that the warriors who had once come to subjugate it existed on an entirely different plane by comparison.

"Rejuvenation."

At the young man's quiet murmur, mana the color of living green slowly pooled in his palm and poured like a stream into the body of the monster whose lifespan was nearly spent.

"Who... exactly are you?!"

The great monster's eyes went wide.

In an instant, it understood what kind of terrifying change was happening inside its own body.

This was a power that belonged to neither the human domain nor the demon race.

It inverted yin and yang. It scrambled the fundamental rules.

Its remaining lifespan had been a mere two thousand years. Now it had been forcibly rolled back by five hundred.

As a being that had survived since the mythological era, it knew better than anyone: one of this world's unshakeable foundational laws was that a fated lifespan could never be changed.

No matter how powerful a human, no matter how ancient a monster, lifespans had limits. Once pushed to the edge of collapse, not a fraction more could be added.

Yet this human had done it anyway.

"You... will be cursed," it rasped.

"You're the one growing younger, not me. You should be worrying about yourself." Banxia didn't lift his hand. He felt another century's worth of mana drain from within him.

He paused, then cast the magic again.

"No — impossible..."

If the lifespan had only been extended once, the Eater of Life could have steadied itself through sheer denial.

But this time, it felt it clearly: its lifespan was still going up.

With the most offhand of gestures, the man in front of it had effortlessly shattered the worldview it had maintained for over ten thousand years.

The gaze it turned on Banxia was the gaze one reserves for something unnameable.

This power couldn't belong to humanity. Couldn't belong to monsters. Couldn't belong to any living creature of this world.

"Could you be from beyond the world..." The Eater of Life's mind went immediately to summoning magic.

This world could never produce a being that violated its foundational laws. That left only one explanation,

Before it could finish the thought, the young man cast the magic a third time.

The Eater of Life's colossal body began to shrink. Visibly. At a pace the naked eye could follow.

"What are you babbling about?" Only after all three casts of Rejuvenation were done, roughly three hundred years' worth of mana burned through, did Banxia finally pull his hand back.

"Wonder if that'll actually work."

His estimate had put the safe limit at two uses. The Dragon-Slaying Hero had turned into an idiot on the third, after all.

But the target this time was a monster, so it didn't matter either way.

Even if it turned into an idiot, it wouldn't stop him from harvesting its time.

"Slash."

A single razor-sharp cut plundered the lifespan of the monster that had scraped out its existence since the mythological era.

[Ding-dong. Slain monster: Eater of Life. Total lifespan: 13,500 years. Remaining lifespan: 3,500 years. Now absorbed.]

[Held Monster Time: 7,300 years.]

"That thing really knew how to live long." Banxia stared at the total lifespan figure and couldn't help but mutter.

"I knew it didn't have much left, but I had no idea exactly how much," he said, shaking his head.

For a long-lived species that could survive over ten thousand years, "not much lifespan left" was meaningless without context. A few centuries? A few millennia? There was simply no way to tell.

Which meant he also had no way of knowing how much extra time he'd actually gained by spending Rejuvenation on it.

"Whatever. It probably worked — otherwise that thing wouldn't have broken down the way it did." He pushed the thought aside and turned his attention back to himself.

"Rejuvenation."

Another century of mana, gone.

Continuous expenditure like this was wearing even for someone as strong as Banxia. The millennium's worth of mana he'd started with was now down to roughly enough for one full cast of Wrath of Finality.

"Mmm... it does feel pretty good. Just no idea how effective it is." He murmured to himself, then opened the panel.

[Heaven Rewards Diligence; all efforts bear their fruit.]

[Current Skills: Return to Fundamentals (Chroma) lv.1, Sacred Spirit Affinity (Chroma) lv.1, Hundred-Forged Body (Chroma) lv.2, Blade Body (Chroma) lv.1, Realm of Clarity (Chroma) lv.2, Rejuvenation (Chroma) lv.1, Wrath of Finality lv.3, Mana Concealment lv.3, Magic to Show Fond Memories lv.3...]

[Current Remaining Time: 526 years.]

[Held Monster Time: 7,300 years (fusible)]

"It actually increased my lifespan by five hundred years in one shot?!"

Even Banxia, whose composure rarely cracked, let his eyes go slightly wide.

His original lifespan limit, at the most generous estimate, hadn't topped a century. Now it had jumped clean past five hundred.

In other words, what Rejuvenation added wasn't time patching old deficits. It was brand-new lifespan, conjured from nothing, for him to simply keep living with.

Chroma-tier skills. Every single one blew past anything an ordinary person could imagine.

Working backwards from Rejuvenation's cost: one hundred years of mana in exchange for five hundred years of lifespan. If every use held that same ratio, then the three casts he'd spent on the Eater of Life had conjured an extra fifteen hundred years of lifespan out of thin air for it.

Originally, it might only have lived to twelve thousand years.

He just didn't know whether every monster could hold up to three casts the way he had.

"Forbidden areas really are something." The young man broke into an easy, satisfied grin.

Three Human Forbidden Areas in, and he'd already struck it rich across the board, time, carnal pleasures, lifespan. The haul put months of drifting around the Southern Continent to shame.

"Now, where does this thing keep its treasury?" He looked around.

A monster that had lived for tens of thousands of years was bound to have good things stashed away.

He spotted it soon enough, something compass-like, lying on the ground not far away.

For the Eater of Life to have kept it this close to its own body, it was certainly no ordinary item.

Gurgle,

Just as Banxia picked up the compass and turned to scavenge the rest of the room, his stomach lodged a loud, indignant complaint.

"By any reasonable measure, this body of mine shouldn't be capable of this." He bent over, expression going stiff with discomfort.

Even if someone poured an entire bottle of poison down his throat right now, it probably wouldn't give him an upset stomach.

Which left only one answer.

This was a side effect of Rejuvenation.

Or rather, the warning from the nature spirits had finally arrived.

➤ Next: Roxy Is Still Practicing Magic