Digitize: Rebirth of the Silver Death God
Chapter 153: Crooked's End

Unaware of the changes outside, Nero and Crooked were already engaged in another fierce bout, each fighting to speedily determine the outcome.

As Nero employed his Four Point Unity Steps, he moved at a hardly trackable speed to the average eye. Still, unlike others, Crooked, being a few notches slower than Nero in his current state remained at ease, the energies from the surrounding black dome augmenting both his senses and his stats to ensure an increase in his overall combat skills.

Suddenly, after a whooshing sound, Nero appeared at Crooked's left flank, sweeping his scythe towards him in a circular swing.

Crooked's eyes narrowed as they glanced at the site, observing as it turned into a ray of silvery lights that swept towards him at an even faster speed.

Unphased by the surprise attack, Crooked jumped and did a backflip over the scythe, leaving himself airborne as the scythe cut underneath him. Still, this was only the first step of the exchange as upon missing Crooked; the silvery light continued to move about spiraling around Crooked from all angles at even greater speeds.

"Outsider, even if fast, you're still bounded by your limits."

Crooked said as he made a spinning motion, repositioning himself while airborne before he aimed his staff towards the direction of the silver light, following its movements with great accuracy.

"Cursed Magic Ray!"

With his shout, the staff's tip shone before it fired a beam of black energy. This ray then split up into multiple different lights that traveled towards the silver light.

In this instance, these beam attacks forced the silver light to maneuver around, curving left and right as it narrowly avoided most of the black rays that crashed into the ground before creating an explosion.

Nevertheless, due to the beams' quantity and speed, one of them had still managed to hit the silver light, exploding the moment it made contact.

Following this blast, the previous attack had repelled the silvery light source a few meters before it reformed into the scythe's edge held by Nero, who had a slightly pale look on his face as he now had a wound on his left shoulder.

"Ouch! That bastard, what kind of beam attack does such a shitty maneuver?"

Nero cursed under his breath as he struggled the fight the pain in his left arm; his older self didn't seem to mind it as he spoke to him.

"Consider that as another lesson, I'm sure I've said it before, but you should never expect an attack to perform as you've imagined, there are multiple stages of mastery, and each level can take a skill to a brand-new state."

'Like hell you told me anything!' Nero cursed in his mind.

Adult Nero said nothing in reply; Nero didn't think it over for too long, he knew his older self's words were correct, and he was partly at fault to begin with for not expecting such a change.

Crooked looked at Nero, who remained silent with a smirk on his face as he twisted his staff, preparing to attack again as he mocked with his odd and spooky way of speaking, "Injured already, it looks like I'll need to be careful; I cannot send 'broken goods' to the master."

"We'll see who's broken soon enough!" Nero snapped back as his eyes shine with a baleful light. He firmly gripped his scythe handle once more and prepared to strike.

'Che! Though I say this I'm still in a pinch, my magic power is running low from all those skills; I have to finish him within my next few moves. Yet, the core of the problem lies not only with his experience, but that darn domain. If only I could get a chance to break it.'

Nero thought as his eyes glanced at the black field around them, but he soon gritted his teeth, knowing that Crooked wouldn't allow for it to be destroyed so easily.

'I'll have to try again to push everything in that attack and hope it kills him...'

As Nero made up his mind, his mood turned grim as if death had opened his eyes. His body glowed in reddish light as if prepared to unleash his ultimate technique.

Crooked looked at Nero with a tinge of seriousness, but as he glimpsed the black field around them, his eyes showed traces of relief as he mocked.

"Huhu... so foolish, in my Cursed Domain, my power grows greater with each passing breath, but for you, you will only continue to grow weaker. Prepare yourself, for it's time for you to be captured."

As he said those words, his eyes flashed in a cruel light as his body erupted with an even denser amount of magic power. He raised his staff as his body floated, preparing to unleash his next skill.

Nero had a flicker in his eyes as if he saw a perfect chance; he shouted in his mind, 'Now's the time, Blood Reaper's Dance!'

Instantly, Nero leaped from the ground towards Crooked, arriving before him within a few seconds as he pushed his Four Point Unity Steps to its limits. He then twisted his body with such force his figure vanished, leaving only his scythe's edge that transformed into a bright glow of spiraling red arcs that swept towards Crooked from all angles.

"What?" Crooked said in alarm, not expecting such a sudden boost in power from Nero, he could tell that his strength, which should have been waning, has increased by twenty percent, more than enough to give him a fatal blow.

"Damn outsider, even if strong, you're still outmatched!"

Crooked yelled as his eyes followed the bright lights with great focus; he reached his arm toward and clenched his fingers as if gripping the air as he invoked a skill.

"Cursed Seal..."

Immediately after his grim voice, a bright light shone before forming a cage around the arcs of red lights, which soon after halted, reforming into Nero, who stood still as if in a state of paralysis. A look of shock visible on his face as he found himself trapped by Crooked's technique.

'What... what kind of skill is this? It could actually pull me out of my Blood Reaper Dance!'

Nero inwardly said with a surprised expression, but that soon faded as he noticed that Crooked was preparing another technique, drawing a glowing mark in the sky as he pointed his staff towards him with a teasing smile on his face.

"You lose human, Cursed—"

Crooked was preparing to unleash his final technique to ensure Nero's successful capture, but before he could even finish, a change had occurred.

Bang! The field belonging to the Cursed Domain shook violently, stirring Crooked from his spell as he was forced to look behind him in alarm. There, he saw that the black walls had started to crumble to bits of pieces as a bright white light shone from through its cracks, illuminating all things.

"My Cursed Domain! How? Who could—?"

Crooked wanted to say, but sadly for him, he chose to distract himself at the worst possible time, especially in front of the worse kind of opponent.

"Break to pieces!"

Nero roared as the moment he felt the effects of Crooked's skill weakening, he pushed his body forward, shattering the Cursed Seal before using his Blood Reaper's Dance to follow up and attack Crooked's unguarded back.

In seconds, he had arrived upon him, sending an uncountable amount of slashed towards him, his figure vanishing, leaving only the image of numerous red arcs of lights that danced around before converting a few meters distance ahead of Crooked.

Once this happened, Nero's figure had appeared again with the scythe positioned over his shoulder; his back turned as he slanted his head to stare at Crooked with his cold red pupils.

Crooked, who had been distracted, looked at Nero with shock before he felt a wave of terror. His bony arms trembled as he looked down on his body, which soon started to break apart in segments.

Feeling death around the corner, Crooked lifted his head and laughed a somewhat dismal laugh before he stared at Nero again and spoke his last words.

"You... outsider, you're quite the lucky one, but, even if you had help today, no one can save you, nor your friends from the master's wrath. Huhuhu… it is already… too… late…"

Crooked's words echoed through the area as the black dome shattered, returning the scene to normal, his body as if connected with the domain, breaking apart similarly as his corpse fell to the ground in a gory manner.

Nero frowned as he recalled Crooked's words, but he said nothing in the end. He knew that the master of this dungeon wouldn't be simple, nor did he dream of being able to take it on by himself.

As such, he no longer paid attention to Crooked's words. Right now, he had more important things that were worthy of his attention.

"Nero!"

Elly's wonderous voice said as Nero could see her hurrying over from one side, Ivy was also noticed along with Mikan and Lily, who walked over.

'It looks like they're fine as expected, but as for the person who helped them... and even myself. I'm curious as to what her purpose is...'

Nero thought as his eyes shifted from Elly's approaching figure towards Red Rain, who stood in the distance. It was his first time meeting her, but he couldn't help but frown as he felt a weird feeling about her for some odd reason.

At this moment, he wanted to ask Adult Nero about it as he recalled his earlier words, but before that could happen, the notification for defeating Crooked had sounded in the minds of everyone within the Labyrinth of Horrors, and with it, came a brand-new change.