Kaiser of the New World

At the exact same time in a different section of the castle, Kai was running up a flight of stairs, closely followed behind by Remy, Umbra, Cecilia and Petunia. He still had all of his boosts active, not wanting to face the backlash just yet. Still, he knew that as soon as he disactivated them he would be in for a world of hurt.

But he couldn't help but grin when his mind was flooded by a wave of notifications.

You have slain Disharmonied Sword Saint Ezekial.

Level 32 reached.

Level 33 reached.

Level...

The levels kept going up, much like Kai on the stairs. He was a little confused about what a Disharmonied was, but he assumed that must have been what Ezekial had been transforming into.

It wasn't only levels that he got, he got a few other types of notifications too, but he didn't have the time to look at all of them.

Still, Kai was rather proud of himself. Leaving Esurient at the battlefield while invisible turned out to be an incredible choice. Turning the flying blade invisible and letting it hide until it got the oppurtnity to steal the kill really was a genius move.

However, the next moment, Kai tripped on the stairs and cried out in pain.

It was pure agony. It was like his soul had been caught by a giant and was being crushed by their hand. It was so overwhelmingly unbearable that he felt like he was about to black out.

Soul Link severed

Skill - Equilibrium - Lost

The backlash of using Soul Link had hit Kai like a truck. He couldn't even think straight, let alone move.

So this is what it meant that the user's soul would temporarily be weakened, it hurt Kai a shit ton. Plus, he also lost the skill he had stol... borrowed, another loss.

"My Lord!"

Panicking, Cecilia grabbed at Kai's back, trying to help him up so they could keep running up the stairs.

Kai softly pushed her hand away.

"I'm fine, just... keep going."

Groaning, he pushed himself up, but was nearly knocked down again after a furious roar shook the tower.

The Plague Harbinger was obviously not happy.

Even though he felt a little guilty about stealing it's kill, Kai also held a grudge against the blue haired swordsman. It wasn't just because he was attractive enough to be incredibly popular with the ladies but had ruined his potential by being pure evil, there was proper reasons too.

The main reason was because Kai knew that Ezekial would be the only person that could possibly hold off the beast, and he needed the beast to cause as much chaos and destruction as possible, not get stuck fighting a single person.

After all, Ezekial was the strongest in this city. Maybe not the strongest in the entire Subdimension like Castillian had once said, but they had the potential to be unrivaled in this area.

At least, that's what Kai had believed up until this very moment.

Suddenly, on the area of the tower just below them, a chunk of it was ripped away as a gargantuan tentacle swipes through it, ripping away the sturdy rocks with no problem.

Disoriented by the sudden noise, Kai glanced backwards and caught a glimpse of a massive gray tentacle, but it had already disappeared as soon as it had appeared.

Gobsmacked, Kai quickly turned his head to look out the window that was beside him and-

"Oh for fu-"

Remembering that there was a child in the group now, Kai held his tongue and refrained from saying his usual catchphrase, even though he really should have said it after seeing what was outside the tower.

The image of a woman with black hair tied in a braid rising of the city was what Kai saw. She was wearing a pitch black dress and her face was stained with black make up, but that wasn't what Kai was focused on.

No, he was focused on what she kept below the dress.

Extending from under Anastasia's dress was about a dozen tentacles, each one larger than the last. They swiped through buildings with little to no effort, able to cause widespread destruction with no problem.

One tentacle picked up a statue that had been standing outside the gate of the castle, its slimy body wrapped around and gripped it, easily lifting it as it quickly moved itself.

"You!" Anastasia shrieked as she looked down at a much smaller figure that was on the ground, one that was looking down at a disfigured white corpse.

"What have you done! You have ruined everything that I have worked for!"

Without hesitation, Anastasia threw the statue at the Plague Harbinger. It arrived at its target in a fraction of a second, a cloud of dust shrouding where it landed.

Suddenly, the cloud of dust was scattered as a roar came from its center. The dust was shot away as the body of the Plague Harbinger started to glow.

"What have I done? It is you that caused all this. Your pawns have fallen, your King has fallen, even your precious Knight has fallen. Tell me, so called Queen, what do you have left?"

Anastasia's expression darkened even more than it already had.

"My will."

A tentacle shot forward, aiming to crush the Plague Harbinger beneath it, but at the next moment something strange happened.

A singular, tiny rat rumped in front of the tentacle and...

Completetly stopped it.

Then, Anastasia shrieked in pain as the tip of her tentacle began to turn green, some type of poison already beginning to infiltrate her body.

Reacting quickly, she severed the end of it using another tentacle. The severed one was already beginning to regenerate, but by then it was already too late.

"Oh noble brother."

The glow around the Plague Harbibger intensified.

"You shall be the catalyst for our revolution, the cog that will spin the wheel of destruction."

Thousands of rats began streaming into what remained of the courtyard, their target being the Plague Harbinger as they all eagerly dashed towards them.

"Join me, Brothers and Sisters! For we will be the ones to burn this horrible city to the ground, the ones who exterminate all human life that infect the streets with their greed and lust!

We shall be the ones who kill anyone and anything that moves and be the ones who emerge from the rubble!

So come! Let us rejoice as we embrace a new age.

... An age of disease and new life."

All the rats climbed on top of the Plague Harbinger, completetly covering them with their bodies.

Then, something strange began to happen with all the rats.

Their bodies began to slowly dissolve and vanish, but the pile of rats didn't begin to shrink, in fact, it... grew?

Suddenly, another roar erupted from inside the pile and Kai couldn't help but gasp at the sight.

The Plague Harbinger was growing in size, its body fusing with all the rats that were climbing on top of it.

It reached the height of a lamppost, then a building, then a tower.

It only stopped growing when it reached the same height as the gargantuan Anastasia. All of the rats in close proximity had vanished, melded with the body of the beast. Only the rats that were still in the city were not part of it.

The Plague Harbinger's arms now throbbed with newfound power. It's tail looked less like a tail and more like a chain that a God would wield as a weapon. Its four remaining horns looked like they would have been able to pierce the heavens themselves.

Then...

The two titans clashed.

The entire castle shook as they exchanged blows. Anastasia's tentacles wrapped around the Plague Harbinger's arms, which they then yanked on to knock her off balance, managing to crush an entire section of the castle in the process.

Panicking, Kai quickly started running up the stairs again as he shouted:

"Hurry!"

Not needing to be told twice, the rest of the group started sprinting behind him. Petunia's grip on Umbra's fur tightened, not wanting to fall of, as did Remy's.

Cecilia was the one who was struggling the most in all this, so Kai held back a moment and grabbed the Queen at her waist, picking her up and carrying her over his shoulder before beginning to race up the stairs once more.

It did take her a second to settle, but she did not fight back.

His entire body ached, burning like he was being roasted in a furnace. He didn't have the time to look at his own soul, but he was sure that he wouldn't like what it looked like right now.

And he definitely would not like it after he deactivated all of his boosting skills.

The tower they were climbing kept shaking in the process, so Kai had to resort to using Flight to scale the steps instead of climbing it by foot incase he fell. Umbra was much lighter on her feet, meaning she had a much easier time following behind.

Soon, they reached the top of the tower, the ground flattening out as they arrived in a hallway.

Picking up the speed, Kai pushed himself towards the door in front of him. The quicker they got out of here, the quicker he could deactivate his skills. He wasn't sure how big of a difference shaving a few seconds off would have on the backlash, but less pain was always a good thing.

Unlike Ezekial, Kai was not keen to use Cecilia as a battering ram to break open the door, so at the last second he turned his back to it and used himself as the ram.

The door shattered into a pile of wooden shards and dust, meanwhile Kai looked around the bedroom.

And he wished he didn't.

There were various chains and whips hanging off the walls, other toys accompanying them, majority of which Kai couldn't even tell way they were.

Like, was that-

"Over there!"

Letting that train of thought derail, Kai where Cecilia's finger was pointing and saw another door.

"The teleporter is on the other side, it's like this tube-"

Hearing all he needed to hear, Kai flew over to the door, only this time he carefully opened the door incase he accidently damaged their way out of here.

It wouldn't have made a difference anyway.

As soon as he opened the door, Kai's face dropped.

"No... no, it can't be."

On the opposite side of the door, where their way out of this Subdimension should be...

Kai was greeted with a pile of glowing glass lying on the ground, completetly shattered and destroyed.