Formless Ascension: My Affinity Is Limitless

"Can he even hear me?" Uhtred muttered the words to himself, staring down at the mangled body of the Frost Daemon.

The alien looked as if he had gone completely vegetative from the visceral beatdown, his breathing nothing more than a shallow rattle.

"He’s still there," Zara said, her voice completely flat as she stared down beside him.

Uhtred looked more carefully, focusing his gaze. Beneath the swelling and the dark blue blood pooling around the daemon’s shattered face, he could see a faint trace of intelligence still lingering within his misaligned eyes.

A low chuckle escaped Uhtred’s throat. He was genuinely glad that his final dig back at the daemon had been heard so clearly. A cold, mocking grin broke across his face right in front of the dying alien, matching the exact arrogance the daemon had displayed just minutes prior.

All of a sudden, the intricate hieroglyphic patterns on the stone floor beneath the floating dungeon core began to glow.

Uhtred’s head snapped up, his eyes narrowing as he took in the sudden change.

The crumpled body of the Frost Daemon began to emit the exact same neon blue light, starting as a faint, shimmering outline around his grey skin. The light spread rapidly across his body, despite the physical distance between him and the edge of the magic circle several yards away.

The System was recalling the alien back to whichever world he had originally come from.

He had obviously failed the quest he had spoken of so proudly. Uhtred and Zara had completely broken him on their "fledgling world." Even without any explicit information, Uhtred could already tell that this guy was about to face severe penalties — the exact same penalties the Level 20 Terranid had chosen to turn tail and run from.

It seemed the skittish stone golem had been the smart one after all.

Uhtred took a half-step back, calmly watching the blue light expand to claim the body of the Frost Daemon. As he stood there looking down, staring directly into the alien’s face, the daemon’s misaligned eyes fixed onto him with an absolute, burning hatred. 𝐟𝗿𝐞𝚎𝚠𝐞𝚋𝕟𝐨𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝕔𝕠𝚖

It wasn’t just a glare of defeat, it was a look that carried a deep, silent promise of vengeance. A promise of revenge if they ever crossed paths in the multiverse again.

Initially, Uhtred had been perfectly content to just let the System whisk the broken daemon away. He had won the battle, and he was about to claim his rewards, titles, and the ultimate benefits of a flawless floor clear. That was more than enough for him.

But looking at that expression now... seeing the blatant promise in the daemon’s eyes that he was going to become a major problem for him somewhere down the line, Uhtred changed his mind in a fraction of a second.

He was not the type of person to let lingering problems fester and come back to bite him later.

Throughout his entire solo run from Floor 1 downward, none of the dungeon beasts he had slaughtered had provided a single cosmic essence core.

It seemed the creatures generated inside the dungeon operated under an entirely different set of rules compared to the native, integrated beasts roaming the surface of the planet.

The System clearly didn’t want ascenders on fledgling worlds like Earth to become completely dependent on safe, instanced dungeons for their cultivation grind.

The cores required to actually increase their levels and fuel their core evolution could only be sourced from the harsh wilderness outside. The dungeon creatures simply served to provide them with a diverse combat experience, and nothing more.

Because of that established rule, Uhtred hadn’t felt any real, practical need to execute the Frost Daemon in the first place. A dungeon boss shouldn’t have a core.

But as he stared at the daemon, he noticed another vital detail.

The neon blue light covering the alien’s body was pulsing rhythmically, but the actual process of returning him to his home world was incredibly slow compared to the instantaneous arrival from before.

It was almost as if the System was deliberately delaying the transfer, leaving the body vulnerable, practically giving Uhtred a window to do whatever he wanted to the defeated opponent before he was whisked away.

The moment Uhtred recognized that fact, the expression in his eyes shifted, and a dark, predatory smile broke across his face.

A clear, sudden wave of horror crossed the Frost Daemon’s dazed eyes. The hatred vanished, replaced by an incredulous, panicked disbelief as he realized Uhtred was about to do the unthinkable.

In one clean, seamless movement, completely ignoring the alien’s abject terror, Uhtred spread his left palm open and activated his metal magic.

His star-metal battleaxe lying a feet away hovered into the air and snapped directly into his grasp with a sharp metallic ring.

Without a single beat of hesitation, he brought the heavy blade down, cleanly beheading the Frost Daemon right there on the stone floor.

The bright neon blue light coating the daemon’s body vanished instantly.

The hieroglyphics on the ground beneath the hovering crystal cut off, the bright lines dimming back into absolute nothingness in a flash. Even the base geometric patterns began to fade away entirely, dissolving like fine flecks of dust into the air, as if their structural purpose had been served the moment the life left the alien’s flesh.

Uhtred watched the entire sequence unfold in silence. The moment he was certain the circle had completely collapsed, he dropped to one knee, driving his bare fist straight into the cracked chest of the dead daemon.

His fingers closed around something solid, and he pulled his hand back, dragging out a deep blue, intensely cold essence core.

He stood up, holding the cold blue core up to his face, staring at the swirling elemental energy inside it with a deeply curious gleam, then after a few seconds, he cleared his throat, slipping the frozen core into his garb before turning his head toward Zara.

"I will compensate you with something else for your help," Uhtred said plainly.

Zara gave a casual shrug, her expression entirely unbothered. She didn’t seem to care about the core at all, instead turning her head to scan the wide expanse of the chamber with her signature bored look.

The moment the Frost Daemon’s core was securely harvested, a massive, rapid string of glowing translucent notices erupted across Uhtred’s field of vision:

[Congratulations! You have cleared a regional dungeon!]

[Titles Gained]

Dungeon Trailblazer: 9th in world to clear a dungeon. (+100 Merits)

Frontier Conqueror: 1st in world to clear a regional dungeon. (+2500 Merits)

Scourge of the Many: 1st in world to solo kill 1,000 dungeon beasts. (+1000 Merits)

Otherworld Bane: 1st in world to kill an otherworlder. (+3000 Merits)

Total Merits earned: 8,081

[Notice!]

[Your proficiency in the metallic aspects of cosmic essence has increased]

[Basic Metal Magic (Level 3) → Basic Metal Magic (Level 4)]

[Your proficiency in the thermal aspects of cosmic essence has increased significantly]

[Basic Thermal Magic (Level 3) → Basic Thermal Magic (Level 6)]

[New Skill Developed: Basic Frost Magic (Level 2)]

"Damn..." Uhtred muttered under his breath, his eyes widening slightly as he scrolled through the massive influx of text.

The total sum of merits he accumulated from this dungeon clear was staggering, completely eclipsing everything he’d received since the integration began by a massive margin!