Chapter 186: It's Time
Everyone's breath held, chests tight, the water around them suddenly feeling too still. No one spoke, but the same thought sat in all of them.
Eyes darted, trying to catch anything, even a flicker, but the bugs were packed too tight. All Snare could see was the churn of legs and chitin grinding over each other, the mass shifting in uneven waves. Realizing there was no clear sightline, he snapped his focus back and saw the ballistae had gone still.
'Keep shooting!'
They broke from the daze and resumed, bone frames kicking as bolts fired out, but most of them kept glancing back toward where Panic had disappeared, waiting for something.
The only one who didn't move was Synapse. Seeing him still, Snare's lip curled as his aura bled out.
'Synapse! Get shooting—!'
'He's still alive.'
'What?!'
Synapse didn't look away. His gaze stayed locked forward, unblinking, as he raised a claw and pointed.
'Look. They are still swarming. If he was dead, most would have broken off. He is still alive.'
The firing faltered again as everyone strained to see, bodies shifting, but the view didn't change. Just the same mass, packed tight, grinding in place.
Reaching down for another bolt, Widow stopped mid-motion. Something hit her through the broodlink, loud and sudden, flooding the space they all shared.
Every broodling began leaking bloodlight.
Widow's voice dropped, quiet but certain.
'He's gotten stronger...'
The constant churning outside cut off.
The hissing died. The dome stopped shaking. Silence spread through the water—
Until Panic's laughter tore through the quiet.
The mass of bugs split.
A clean line of bloodlight carved through it, then another, then more in rapid succession as the entire cluster came apart. Bodies separated in flashing cuts, chitin and flesh breaking into dozens of pieces.
There, standing whole and coated in aura, Panic laughed. Bloodlight stretched upward, brushing the ceiling of the Vent Cathedral, the pressure of it pressing against the dome. Having been with him the longest, and with his own class to feel it, Snare recognized the shift. Seeing it confirmed, his grip on the ballista loosened.
'His class advanced.'
Synapse finally tore his gaze away, his brows pulling tight as he looked at Snare.
'How can you tell?'
Snare shook his head once, a small smile forming as he set a bolt into place, the bone frame creaking under his hand.
'Everyone! The Broodfather is almost done! Support Panic! Fire until there's nothing left, then fire yourself! For the Broodfather!'
Outside, bolts launched again, punching through the thinning mass, striking bugs still pushing forward. Around Panic, the ones that remained hesitated, mandibles clacking as they shifted back, weighing what stood in front of them.
Panic didn't acknowledge them. He raised an arm, turning it slowly, eyes running along it as he smiled. New information settled into place. His body felt different, tighter, more responsive, every movement lining up clean.
The name of his advanced class sat like a fire in his mind.
Killcraft Artisan.
He tilted his head and locked onto the nearest bug. It flinched, its body pulling back as it tried to turn, but Panic was already there, standing on its back as his dagger drove to the hilt into its skull.
He pushed off the corpse, stepping on a fired bolt mid-flight. The impact shifted it, sending the projectile into another bug's side while launching him forward into a group.
His blades moved through them, cutting chitin, opening flesh, leaving lines of damage as he passed, but none of them dropped. Not yet.
He kept moving, cutting, placing strikes with intent, until even inside the dome the others slowed, their hands hesitating on the frames as they watched him work.
Losing all sense of himself, Fang ignored the shouts and hands pulling at him as he leaned into one of the slits, his eyes glowing while he watched Panic move.
'He's so relaxed...how?'
Min grabbed him by the skull and yanked him back, tossing him aside before stepping into his place. She shot him a look that didn't leave room for doubt.
'Worry about that later, but if you get in the way again, I'll skull fuck you to death! Understood?!'
Fang almost pushed back, the urge rising, but he let it go and stayed behind her. His gaze didn't settle, still searching through the shifting mass for any sign of Panic.
Outside the dome, the broodling kept moving, still cutting through bodies as he drifted along the edge of the swarm. Then Panic pulled back for a moment, turning to face the mass.
Like a conductor, his feet clicked together as he waved a hand.
The timing was perfect.
Every wounded bug seized at once. Their bodies tightened, wounds swelling before they all exploded.
The damage spread instantly. Bugs that hadn't been cut caught it anyway, their bodies fracturing from the proximity as the chain of blasts carried through the swarm.
The Vent Cathedral shook as the detonations rolled through it, blood expanding in clouds, blooming through the darkness.
Watching the spectacle, the brood had mixed reactions, but all of them felt it. Awe settled in with the drifting blood, pulling envy, jealousy, and admiration together as the water around them slowly calmed.
From outside, Panic's laughter climbed higher, the sound cutting through the muffled churn and carrying into the dome. It brought something new with it, slipping into both brood and human alike.
Fear.
'Pretty! More! Give me bodies! Give me flesh! I'll welcome the Broodfather, with an ocean of blood!'
His laughter cut off, replaced by a feral roar. It carried like the call of an apex predator, low and violent, pressing against their chests.
Raising his aura to its peak, Panic tensed, the bloodlight flaring around him as he lifted his weapons—then he stopped.
His smile vanished.
Brows tightening, Min watched him stall mid-motion. When he didn't move again, she turned to call out to Snare, only to lock in place as well. The sight in front of her had shocked her into silence.
Snare was bowing.
Every broodling was bowing.
All of them faced the glowing orb.
Min's pulse skipped a beat, her chest tightening as the pressure in the water increased—
'Fucking finally!'
A loud crack tore from the orb, sharp and deep, like steel snapping. A single fractured line ran through it, splitting the surface in two.
The pressure skyrocketed.
It slammed into her shoulders and chest, driving her to her knees. Min strained against it, muscles locking, unable to help Lynn and the others as they were forced low, bodies pressed into the ground.
The dome around them began to creak, bone grinding against bone as tendons stretched thin. The structure buckled, then gave, shattering apart into drifting motes of red light.
The wave of force rolled outward and struck the bugs, pinning them down as if the weight of the sea itself had dropped on them. Those still swimming were slammed into the silt, bodies going still. None moved. None tried.
Every eye that could turn stayed fixed on the cracked orb.
Movement. One side bulged outward, the surface warping as something pressed from within, a hand forcing against it like cloth stretched too thin.
Noise followed. Screams and low moans bled through the water, warped and distant, like something vast crying out beneath the sea. The sound pressed into the skull, dragging at thought.
None of the brood moved. All bowed deeper, while above them, unseen, Grimm body slipped through the water in short, eager bursts.
Finally, every broodling's aura vanished, the pressure in the water dropping off so fast it popped the humans eardrums.
Lifting his head slightly, Sin's voice was tight with fear, even as his eyes burned with devotion.
'So comes the Broodfather. Let his name bring death to the world.'
Bloodlight tore free from the orb, drowning the world in red.
Then something punched through it.
An arm ripped out first, flesh tearing as it forced its way through. It slammed down into the silt with a heavy crack, fingers digging in.
The orb split wider around it.
Muscle dragged against itself as he pulled, the rest of his body forcing forward inch by inch. The sound carried through the water, wet and grinding, as the surface stretched and tore while he wrenched himself free.
The water around him started to churn.
Heat bled off his body in waves, turning the space around him unstable. The current twisted, bubbles forming and bursting as if the sea itself couldn't hold him. The silt beneath his hand baked and shifted, cracking under the pressure as he dragged himself forward.
Another arm broke through, then his shoulders.
The orb collapsed further, unable to hold him, splitting apart as his torso tore free in a violent pull that sent a ripple through the entire cathedral.
Then the growths came.
They didn't emerge quietly.
They burst out of his back in a violent surge of flesh and scale, snapping free as two twelve foot long, draconian necks tore into the water beside him. Their jaws opened wide, and when they roared, the sound wasn't just heard—it forced itself into the body.
It pressed into bone.
It crawled through the skull.
For a moment, everyone who heard it wished for silence. For it to stop. For anything but that sound. Even death.
Then he stood.
Azakh-Tur pulled himself fully free of the ruined orb, rising to his full height, the water rolling off his body as it struggled to settle around him. He stood just over nine feet tall, his frame lean but packed tight with muscle that shifted under skin that looked more like layered blackened plates than flesh.
Veins pulsed under the surface, glowing red, feeding into the core set in his chest...a single point of light that burned steady, drawing the eye whether you wanted it to or not.
His face settled last.
Horns curved up from his skull, thick and ridged, framing a face that didn't breathe. Where a nose should have been, there was only the hollow structure of bone, two dark slits cut into the center of his skull-like features. His mouth stretched wide, filled with too many teeth, each one set tight as his jaw flexed.
His eyes burned.
Bloodlight locked into place as he looked out across the battlefield, steady and aware. Behind him, the twinback growths coiled and shifted, their scaled bodies winding through the water as their eyes tracked everything at once, jaws parting just enough to show rows of teeth slick with heat.
The water still hadn't settled.
It moved around him, pulled and pushed by something deeper than current, as if the space itself was adjusting to his presence.
Azakh-Tur took a single step forward, his foot pressing into the silt with a slow, deliberate weight.
The pressure vanished.
Released from the weight, the humans shot upward, dragging in rough breaths as their chests burned. The silt lifted in slow clouds around them, and only after he passed did each broodling rise, their bodies still low, their eyes fixed on their father's back.
It had been a tense wait, every second dragging, but all of them felt it now.
They were safe.
'You've grown.'
Swimming up to his father, eyes bloodshot, Panic closed the distance and bowed, his body held tight as the heat coming off him rolled across his skin.
'Nothing like you, Broodfather. You look...scary.'
'Hmm, do I?'
Looking up, Seo-jin met Grimm's gaze, the ghost drifting above him, tail flicking in quick, excited movements.
'You all look like you're having fun. Mind if I step in?'
Panic's face almost split from smiling so hard. His body began leaning forward with anticipation as he shook his head.
Without waiting for a response, and not needing one, Seo-jin drew in a deep breath, his chest expanding as the water pulled tight around him, the space compressing as he took in as much oxygen as he could.
[What about the humans?]
'They'll live.'
A roar tore from Seo-jin's throat, the sound driving forward in a solid wave that hit the swarm head-on. The bugs in front burst apart on impact, bodies collapsing into mist.
Next to him, blood pushed from Panic's eyes, ears, and mouth, but he didn't move or flinch, his gaze locked forward as he took it in.
Only Min had heard something like this before.
The sound pressed into her skull, rattling through her bones, and even as it tore through the battlefield, she couldn't stop the memory of the world event from surfacing...the same kind of force, the same kind of presence, shaking the world itself.
Now, watching Seo-jin step his first step into that arena of power, the demon wearing her old friend's skin, she felt it settle in her soul.
Bliss.
She had bet on black, and the return was right in front of her. She just wished Gregor was here to see it.
His voice fading, Seo-jin raised a brow as the water settled around him, the remains of the bugs thinning. In an instant he had killed over thirty, but when he checked his level, the experience gained barely moved the needle.
[+576 Damage Dealt]
[+32 Exp]
[+607 Damage Dealt]
[+27 Exp]
[Level // 24]
[Exp // 24172/27694]
[You've grown too strong for trash mobs.]
'Doesn't matter.'
He could feel it in the way the bugs held back, their bodies twitching but not advancing. They weren't thinking creatures, just instinct, and right now every one of them understood what stood in front of them. Prey didn't charge a predator.
Turning away, he scanned the group, his gaze settling on Min.
'We've run out of time. I'm speeding through the rest of the dungeon.'
'Huh—wait, what?!'
Before she could press him, Seo-jin moved. To her, it looked like the start of a step, then he was gone, the water barely shifting where he had been. A moment later he stood behind her, already in the center of the group.
She turned to speak, but the words died in her throat as one of the new growths snapped forward and swallowed Bile in a single bite. Her eyes widened as the second followed, both heads striking out in quick succession, taking in brood and humans alike.
She started to protest, but two burning eyes locked onto hers, and one of the growths lunged. The world cut to darkness and silence.
Now alone with the bugs and Grimm, Seo-jin looked to the twinback growths, reaching out to run a hand along one of their heads. The other turned, fixed on Grimm as he hovered there, then snapped forward and swallowed him whole, tail vanishing last in a loud slurp.
'Didn't know you could do that.'
He patted the first again, then system light spread over him, crawling across his body as bone and flesh shifted. In seconds, his form compressed into human shape, armor settling into place before another flash replaced it with his suit, the material pulling tight as it absorbed the pieces.
Like his chestpiece, two openings formed along his back, parting clean to allow the growths to move.
His eyes drifted to Gundant's corpse, and his stomach gave a low pull.
'I'll need some fuel.'
Ignoring the bugs, he swam toward the body, his movement steady as the creatures around him began to pull back. One by one, they retreated, their bodies dragging across the ground as they gave him space.
When he started eating, they broke completely. The swarm scattered, scrambling into the dark.
[Be quick. Pain doesn't have long.]
'I know.'
Tearing into the giant's stomach, Seo-jin drove both hands into the opening and ripped free the massive liver, heat from it warming the water as he began to devour it in large bites. He needed fuel, and he needed it fast, because once he moved again, he wouldn't stop.
He was going to clear the rest of the dungeon in one push, because the moment his evolution finished, he felt it.
Pain was dying. And he didn't have much time left.