System Base. Nuke.

The acrid smell of urine mixed with sulfur and blood as Gustav looked down at himself in disgust.

The dark stain spread across his trousers, a humiliating reminder of fear he hadn't felt in centuries.

His hands trembled uncontrollably, eyes darting between his soiled clothing and the transformed figure before him.

"What the hell..." Gustav's voice cracked, the words barely escaping his throat as violent shivers wracked his muscular frame.

He tried to clench his fists, tried to summon the arrogant confidence that had carried him through countless battles, but his body refused to obey.

Gustav forced himself to look at Daemon, and what he saw made his blood freeze in his veins again.

The young man who had been on the verge of death mere moments ago was gone, replaced by something that made Gustav's demonic essence recoil in primal terror.

This presence, this overwhelming aura of absolute power.

He had felt it only once before, in the throne room of Lilith, strongest of the seventh circle Monarch's captains.

The memory hit him like a physical blow.

Lilith's crimson eyes boring into his soul, her voice like silk wrapped around razors, the way reality itself seemed to bend around her presence.

But this... this was different.

Where Lilith's power was seductive and calculated, this was raw, unfiltered, and utterly berserk.

Daemon's body had undergone a complete transformation.

Black smoke continued to rise from his form, coiling and writhing like living shadows.

His eyes had become twin voids that seemed to absorb light itself, and when he moved, the air around him distorted as if reality was struggling to accommodate his existence.

But Gustav could see something else. A flicker of consciousness trapped behind those dark orbs.

The real Daemon was still there, watching helplessly as something else controlled his body.

The system had taken complete control, and the human was nothing more than a passenger in his own flesh.

The thought should have been comforting, the idea that the human was suffering, trapped in his own body.

Instead, it filled Gustav with a cold dread that settled in his stomach like lead. It meant a worse fate for him.

Gustav reached down and grabbed a lance from the ground, his fingers slipping on the blood-slick wooden shaft.

The weapon felt pathetically inadequate in his hands, like bringing a butter knife to face a dragon. But he had to try something, had to maintain some semblance of control in this nightmare scenario.

"Why would you awaken a system when you can't even control it?" Gustav called out, his voice echoing off the ruined marketplace walls.

He tried to inject his usual mocking tone into the words, but they came out hollow and desperate. "It's abominable for a human to awaken a system of this caliber."

The response came not from Daemon, but from something else entirely.

The voice was Daemon's, but stripped of all warmth and humanity. It carried the weight of eons, the cold indifference of entropy itself.

"Quiet, mutt."

Two simple words, but they hit Gustav like a physical blow.

A wave of arctic cold washed over him, so intense that frost began to form on his exposed skin.

His grip on the lance nearly failed, his muscles seizing up as his body fought against the unnatural temperature.

"Why the hell am I even trying to fight this monstrosity?" Gustav muttered to himself, his breath coming out in visible puffs.

System users could typically read each other's energy signatures, could gauge threat levels and prepare accordingly. But Daemon's system was masking everything, creating a void where information should be.

The uncertainty was almost worse than the power itself.

Gustav had built his confidence on knowing his enemies, on understanding their capabilities and limitations.

Here, he was flying blind, and the knowledge terrified him more than he cared to admit.

"Look," Gustav said, forcing his voice to remain steady despite the fear clawing at his throat. "There must be a way to compromise here. We can go our separate ways, pretend this never happened."

The system-controlled Daemon tilted his head slightly, the movement eerily mechanical.

Then, with deliberate slowness, he raised one finger.

Gustav immediately backed away, his feet sliding on the blood-slick cobblestones.

Fifteen paces....twenty....thirty.

He couldn't seem to put enough distance between himself and the transformed figure.

His pulse hammered in his ears, and his heart felt like it was trying to escape his chest cavity.

"I haven't attacked yet," the system pointed out the obvious, its voice carrying an almost curious tone.

Gustav looked down and noticed that the ground around his feet was wet.

At first, he thought it was more blood from the carnage, but the liquid was clear and warm.

Sweat.

He was sweating so profusely that it was pooling on the stones beneath him.

A laugh escaped his lips, but it was a broken sound that died before it reached his cheeks.

The mirth felt foreign and wrong, like trying to smile while drowning.

He was going to die.

That much was becoming increasingly clear. But he wouldn't go out pathetically, wouldn't let himself be remembered as the demon who pissed himself and begged for mercy from a human.

Even if that human was currently possessed by something that made his demonic essence scream in terror.

"Fine," Gustav snarled, his golden eyes blazing with desperate fury. "If I'm going to die, I'll take you with me."

He launched himself forward, his powerful legs propelling him across the marketplace with inhuman speed.

The lance felt steady in his grip now, purpose lending strength to his trembling hands.

As he moved, he reached deep into his system, calling upon power he rarely needed to use.

System Peak. Level 29. Spiritual Energy. Dismantle

The command tore from his throat like a war cry, and the world responded with devastating force.

Blood. Not his own, but drawn from the countless corpses littering the marketplace rose up in a massive wave.

The crimson tide formed a complex net pattern, geometric shapes that pulsed with malevolent energy.

The blood net crashed down around Daemon with the force of a tsunami, the impact creating a thunderous boom that shattered windows in buildings that still stood.

Dust and debris filled the air, creating a choking cloud that obscured everything within a hundred-foot radius.

Gustav didn't wait to see the results.

He leaped high into the air, his demonic strength carrying him far above the destruction.

The lance in his hands glowed with residual system energy as he angled it downward, aiming for the center of the dust cloud where Daemon had been standing.

"Die, you bastard!" he roared, putting every ounce of his remaining power behind the throw.

The lance disappeared into the swirling debris, and Gustav allowed himself a moment of grim satisfaction.

Nothing could have survived that combination of attacks, not even whatever monstrosity had taken control of the human.

He was still savoring the thought when an armored hand closed around his throat.

The armor was black as midnight and radiated heat that immediately began burning through his skin.

The smell of sizzling flesh filled his nostrils as he screamed in agony, his hands clawing uselessly at the inexorable grip.

Daemon, or the thing wearing his facestared at him with those void-like eyes.

There was no emotion there, no satisfaction or anger.

Just the cold indifference of a natural disaster.

"How...." Gustav began, but the words were cut off as the armored hand tightened around his throat.

The system slammed him into the ground with enough force to create a crater in the cobblestones.

Gustav's vision exploded into stars, and he felt several ribs crack under the impact.

Blood filled his mouth, and his carefully maintained regeneration struggled to keep up with the damage.

Through the haze of pain, he heard Daemon's voice again, still carrying that terrible, inhuman tone.

System Base. Level 99. Negative Energy. Nuke.

Gustav's eyes widened in horror as he processed the words.

Level 99? System Base?

He had never seen a system user that had reached such heights, had never imagined meeting one.

The highest level he had ever encountered was Lilith who was a Level 60 Brawler.

But Level 99....

That was Monarch level.

The world began to change around them.

Color drained from everything. The ruined marketplace, the blood-soaked cobblestones, the smoke-filled sky.

Everything became a stark, brilliant white that hurt to look at directly.

Daemon raised his armored hand, and Gustav could see energy gathering around it.

Not the crude spiritual energy he was familiar with, but something far more fundamental.

This was the power to unmake things, to reduce matter to its component atoms and scatter them to the void.

Nuke.

The armored hand began to descend, and Gustav realized with crystal clarity that he was about to witness the end of everything he had ever known.

The power building in that fist wasn't just enough to kill him but to destroy hell itself.

Just inches from impact, Daemon suddenly lurched.

His void-like eyes flickered, and for a moment, Gustav saw something human peek through.

The real Daemon was fighting back, struggling against the system's control with everything he had left.

The internal battle lasted only a second, but it was enough.

The possessed figure collapsed backward, his armored form hitting the ground with a metallic clang that echoed through the white void.

Just as Gustav sighed, the near-impact of that system-powered punch created a shockwave that defied comprehension.

The wave of force expanded outward in all directions, moving faster than sound, faster than thought.

Gustav felt his body coming apart at the molecular level.

His skin, his muscles, his bones....everything that made him who he was dissolved into nothing.

The pain was indescribable, a sensation that existed beyond the normal scope of suffering.

The shockwave continued expanding, consuming everything in its path.

The marketplace, the surrounding village, the nearby mountains.

All of it was reduced to nothing in the span of a heartbeat.

The very air molecules were torn apart and scattered, creating a perfect sphere of absolute emptiness.

When the destruction finally ended, only two things remained. Daemon's unconscious body and.....

A shadow burned into the ground where Gustav had been standing.