All I could think of was that it was extremely hot. The Lava King’s EX ranked flames were burning my mana. I had heard that there was nothing it couldn’t burn, but this was still too much.

Before it was too late, I howled, “Kuaaaaang!”

[You have used Frozen Roar! All enemies in the battlefield have frozen in place. All allies have temporarily become super-armored and have all abilities increased by 50%. Your chance of landing a critical hit has doubled when fighting enemies affected by Frozen Roar.]

[Frozen Roar’s effect has been suppressed! The enemy’s power has halved your skill’s power. You could not freeze your target completely!]

That didn’t matter. What was important was that I could now breathe. Really, I had received more damage from this guy’s heat than from any of his direct attacks! What an absurd monster!

Even as I gritted my teeth, I took in a deep breath and pointed my spear towards the roof of his mouth. He was gigantic, so even if I stabbed him with my strongest attack, it would only feel like a tiny thorn pricking him. Even if I could expand my aura to dozens of meters, it would dissipate in the process of breaking through his defense.

As such, I deactivated it to use Sky God’s Play.

[Kuaaaaaaaa!]

His scream was music to my ears. I opened his mouth forcefully and stood on his tongue. Then I pierced his head with my spear which had been elongated again by several yards.

“That was a feint, you retard!” I shouted gleefully.

[Kuaaaaa!]

I taunted him, “What kind of an idiot believes what his enemy says?”

[You tricked me, Hero!] he howled.

Although I was certain that I had pierced his brain, he surprisingly seemed fine. Apparently, a world’s enemy was a world’s enemy no matter how weak he was. His biological functions undoubtedly worked differently than other organisms. In that case, what did I need to do to kill him? Perhaps I would only find out by continuously beating him up.

I commanded, “Everyone, attack!”

“Duca!” Hecate shouted.

Duca responded, “I’m already on it, Hecate!”

As I ordered my party members, I inserted lightning elemental power into my spear in order to deal a fatal blow before the remaining two minute time passed.

“Let’s see exactly how many attacks you can withstand! Lightning Spear Storm!”

Peika warned, [Master, this power is too overwhelming! I feel like I’m being swallowed!]

I responded, “Hold on just a bit more, Peika! Uooooooo!”

The Lava King’s wanted to devour me, but I held my spear up desperately and drilled a hole on the roof of his mouth. His blood fell like a waterfall, drenching me and igniting. I formed a barrier of Enigma around myself using Peruta Circuit, but that wasn’t enough to completely block his attack.

“Kuaaaaaaaa! Die!” I screamed.

He screeched, [Pay the price for tricking this Lava King! Kuhaaaaaa!]

A scorching heat rose up from his belly. Was he trying to breathe out flames in this situation!? However, as the saying went, once one rode a tiger, it was hard to get off. Quitting now would be the worst thing I could do. I decided to trust in Overlord’s defensive power and activated Divine Speed, stabbing him desperately.

At that moment, dozens of bone spikes covered in black mana shot out from my body and attacked the roof of his mouth with me. Thorn Throne had been activated!

I could sense the Lava King’s surprise. [Kuuk, this is a dragon’s…!? Hmph, I’ll melt them all!]

A terrifying heat erased all traces of Frozen Roar and swept towards me. I shouted in a scream, “Ruyueeeeee!’

[I’ll try!]

Ruyue had been waiting all this time for this moment, and she exploded with her power! A thick barrier of ice was erected between the Lava King’s throat and me. Sharana then joined Ruyue and strengthened her ice. Despite the two elementals’ effort, the Lava King’s flames destroyed the ice barrier. Thankfully, his flames were slightly weakened since they swept over me. Shockingly, I still couldn’t nullify these flames. The EX rank was no joke!

[Critical Hit!]

“Kuaaaaaak!”

Even as the flames clashed with the Enigma mana surrounding my body, it dealt a great amount of fire damage to me. I struggled to prevent myself from screaming. Pure Black Desire not only increased my chances of dealing critical hits, but also receiving critical hits. It was great when I was the attacking, but it was excruciatingly painful when I was the one being attacked!

[Die! I’ll devour you and use you as my fuel!] the Lava King howled.

I retorted, “I want to say the same thing!”

The others had to attack the Lava King from the outside as it was extremely noisy and his body was rocking harshly. However, the boss was entirely focused on me and I was similarly entirely focused on him.

“Huaaaaaaap!”

I stabbed my spear into him frantically. Stabbing, pulling, stabbing, pulling. All the muscles in my body acted to repeat just these two moves. I ignored the screams of my muscles and continuously used Divine Speed.

Since my mana would fill up from Absolute Soul when I attacked him, I didn’t hesitate to use Divine Speed as much as I wanted. As a result, I had dealt a countless number of attacks in a short moment, and the Lava King became afflicted with several status effects.

[Overlord’s special effect has afflicted your enemy with forced sleep! Your enemy’s powerful resistance has transformed forced sleep into ‘heavy chaos’!]

[Overlord’s special effect has afflicted your enemy with massive hemorrhage! Your enemy’s powerful resistance has transformed massive hemorrhage into ‘hemorrhage’!]

[Overlord’s special effect has afflicted your enemy with frenzy! Your enemy’s powerful resistance has transformed frenzy into ‘rage’!]

The Lava King gasped, [You, that is the mana I can’t control! The mana on the opposite side of divine power!]

“You noticed too late, lizard! Haaaap!”

[Diehard has activated.]

Although Enigma was protecting my body, my health must have fallen to a dangerous level. I hadn’t even realized it because I was too focused on attacking him. If I didn’t have Diehard, I would have already died.

[Just whose protection are you under!? How can you wield those abilities!? He told me that you explorers couldn’t block my path!] the boss shrieked indignantly.

I laughed. “I want to hear more, but since you probably won’t tell, I’ll give up.”

Lightning Spear Storm also didn’t end unless I stopped it. The roof of his mouth was already ragged. Although his blood and flesh was dripping down on and igniting into powerful flames, I continued to attack him. Then, even Deathblood activated.

[Deathblood has activated, using 5% of your HP to inject contaminated blood into the enemy! The Lava King has fallen under the ‘blood contamination’ status effect! Its attack power and movement speed has decreased, and it is losing mana continuously! This effect cannot be dispelled unless the target dies! The enemy has tried to resist the status effect, but failed to do so!]

[Kuaaaaak!]

“Oh, this one worked!” I gleefully.

He raged, [Kuooooo! You used a curse! One that cannot be cleansed unless either one of us dies!]

I took out an Elixir Ludia gave me from my inventory. As the terrifying heat immediately began to melt the Elixir’s bottle, I hurriedly popped the cap and gulped it down. Then, I transferred all the power of Enigma in my body to the spear.

Raging flames immediately surged in and damaged me, but the Elixir’s power mitigated it slightly and prevented my health from going down. However, this would not last long.

Most importantly, I only had tens of seconds left on Overlord’s remaining time. When it ended, I would undoubtedly die. My spear shook slightly when the thought crossed my mind, but I quickly wiped the thought from my head. If I lost my composure now, it would really be over.

Next up was the crystal ball Licorice gave me and I broke it without any hesitation. A boundless, magic power flowed out and into the Chaotic Spear. As it continued to crackle with lightning, the Chaotic Spear released a bright red light which could be seen even in the midst of the Lava King’s flames.

At that moment, Devourer activated automatically. My health had gone below 10% even after consuming an Elixir. However, when I realized that I was at death’s door, I became even calmer.

It was simple. If I could kill the enemy, I would live. If I couldn’t, I would die. As such, there was only one thing I needed to do.

I yelled out, “This is my strongest attack! Sacrifice!”

If my health was below 10%, it would be impossible to activate Sacrifice. However, even if I didn’t attack, the dragon bone spikes that shot out from my body endlessly stabbed the Lava King. With Devourer’s power, my health was being maintained at a level above 10%.

Knowing my health wouldn’t fall below 10%, I used Sacrifice without a shred of hesitation, scraping all my mana into my spear.

The dragon cackled. [Kuhahaha! I’ll admit it, you are the first to have troubled me to this extent! But did you think you, a human, could defeat me, the Lava King!? Today will be the end of Earth! Despair, and die! Even in death, you will suffer! Kuhahaha!]

His belly heated up once again. He had infinite mana which led to infinite flames. No matter how much mana I stole from him with Absolute Soul, no matter how much mana he lost from blood contamination, his mana was infinite. He would be immortal unless his soul was annihilated!

He announced pompously, [I am an existence that no one can harm]

“Heroic… Strike!” I grunted the last part out.

Even if I knew that, I thrust my spear. I had never been so focused on an attack. With only the thought of killing him in my mind and my entire body’s strength in my spear, I stabbed my spear into him! A massive explosion broke out.

[Critical Hit!]

[GAHHHHHH!]

The moment my spear pierced his giant dragon head, it had exploded from being unable to withstand the converged mana.

Of course, along with his head exploding, I was released into the air. It was still scorching hot, but it was much more bearable compared to when I was in his body. Now, I could even see how the others were doing.

“Daddy!”

Ina immediately flew towards me with a wave of freezing energy. The flames that were still burning on my body fought Ina’s freezing energy, but were soon extinguished. It was then that I realized that Overlord had ended. I technically had a few seconds left, but I had even spent the power to maintain it in the previous attack.

Devourer also seemed to have stopped as I couldn’t feel my health going up. I suspected that my health was at 10%, which was where Sacrifice would have put me in. I really felt like I was dying. If I closed my eyes, I felt like I would never open them again.

Then…

The Lava King howled gleefully, [If this is your limit… It is my victory!]

I froze. I had confirmed that his head had exploded, but the giant flame flying towards me was undoubtedly real. Ina shot her freezing energy towards out of shock, but her mana seemed to have reached its limit too. I had also used every ounce of my strength.

In that case, Return would be the only…!

[You will not escape!] he snarled.

[Gaze has activated! Your movement speed has fallen drastically. You cannot open your inventory. Your health and mana recovery speed has decreased. When being gazed at by your enemy, you will not be able to use Return!]

“How is he alive when his head exploded!?” Duca shrieked.

Hecate frantically ordered, “Duca, stab your dagger in him before it’s too late! Moonlight Restraint!”

Hecate seemed to have done something as the headless Lava King twitched. Immediately afterwards, Duca flew up to him and stabbed her dagger into the Lava King’s flaming body. A blue light spread out from the dagger, and the Lava King’s movements stopped in the air. However, his flames were still just as vigorous as before. He shouted triumphantly, [Kuhahahaha, you think this is enough to stop me? The moment the Hero dies, your loss is guaranteed!]

The Gaze skill made me unable to do anything. If I had mana left, I could have used Divine Speed, but I had just used all of my mana. To think he still had such a cheaty skill! He’s just as crafty as me!

He laughed joyously. [So this is the end. Foolish! I had expected more from you all!]

“Found it! Agni’s offering, the Cosmic Fire of Agni!”

At that moment, I could hear Hwaya’s shout. Her eyes opened widely and between her clasped hands was a white flame exuding holiness. Immediately afterwards, the white flame in her hand flew up and seemingly burned something invisible.

It didn’t look like much had happened, but the effect was truly extreme. The Lava King suddenly made a heaven-piercing scream, [Bitch!]

“Don’t be rude, you damned lizard!” Hwaya shouted sharply and held her clasped hands up high. Her red hair fluttered in the air like a banner of silk, while her ruby-like eyes burned fiercely. When using her god’s power, she looked like a goddess of holy fire.

“Die!”

[Kuaaaaa!]

As a horrific scream rang throughout the entire volcanic region, the giant flame expanded and flew towards me. However, before it could get near me, Lotte, who had escaped Gaze’s effect, snatched me. The flame then continued to expand until it exploded.

Immediately afterwards, the most enjoyable notification fanfare I had ever heard rang out in my ears.

[Grand Raid success!]