Jera's reaction was not that of an Overlord. It was the raw, primal instinct of a terrified human.
He didn't analyze. He didn't calculate. He moved.
"GET BEHIND ME!" he roared, his real, human voice cracking. He shoved Seraphina behind his back, placing his own armored body between her and the emerging horror.
The thing that slithered from the darkness was not a monster. It was an abomination.
It had the basic, insectoid shape of a Shadow-Stalker, but it was grotesquely swollen, the size of a freight train. Its natural, obsidian-black armor was cracked open, and from the wounds, the thick, oily, black tendrils of the Bleed pulsed with a sickening, independent life. It was a Corrupted Queen.
It let out a shriek, a sound that was half-monster, half-tearing static.
Jera's System went berserk.
[WARNING! CRITICAL THREAT DETECTED!]
[CORRUPTION LEVEL: 55% AND RISING!]
[THIS ENTITY IS A FOCAL POINT FOR THE BLEED. ANTIMICROBIAL (SYSTEM) DEFENSES ARE FAILING!]
"It's... it's just like my vision," Seraphina whimpered from behind him. "It's not just a monster anymore. It's a... it's a hole. It's a piece of the Bleed wearing a monster."
Jera's mind raced. His panic was momentarily shoved aside by pure combat adrenaline.
Seal the hole. Kill the monster. Protect Seraphina.
He fell back on his most trusted, most powerful weapon. His S-Rank, L512 skill.
"Aetheric Pulse!" he yelled.
[Action: Aetheric Pulse. Mana Multiplier Roll: $\times 100$.]
A sphere of pure, white, holy mana—the same attack that had vaporized fifty A-Rank Stalkers—erupted from his body. It was a clean, beautiful, perfect wave of anti-monster energy.
The pulse hit the Corrupted Queen.
And the monster gurgled.
It was a wet, happy, slurping sound. The pure, S-Rank mana, his ultimate attack, did nothing. The black, oily tendrils lashed out, absorbing the Aether, feeding on it. The light of his shield sizzled and died against the creature's black hide.
"No," Jera whispered. His blood ran cold.
His System confirmed his worst fear.
[SYSTEM ERROR! ATTACK NULLIFIED! HOSTILE ENTITY IS FEEDING ON MANA OUTPUT!]
[WARNING: DO NOT USE MANA-BASED SKILLS!]
Jera's world, his entire power-set, collapsed.
His [Aetheric Shield] was useless.
His mana pulses were food.
And his [Unlimited Inventory]... he already knew. It was his kryptonite. It couldn't touch the Bleed.
All his god-like hacks were gone. He was disarmed.
The Corrupted Queen shrieked again, its hunger growing, and lunged.
Miles above them, on the dark, locked-down Chicago streets, Captain Elara Kane stood in a mobile command center.
"The mana-suppression field is useless!" an analyst yelled, his fingers flying. "I don't know what Walker's power source is, but it's not mana as we know it! The field isn't affecting him at all!"
"Captain!" another analyst shouted. "A new signature! A... a second one. It just appeared, right on top of Walker's position!"
Kane stared at the tactical map. A new, terrifying icon was pulsing. It was pure black, a void on her screen that was swallowing all sensor data. It was the same "Heresy" signature from the Blood Dungeon, but a thousand times stronger.
"It's... it's off the charts," the analyst whispered, his voice shaking. "S-Rank... SS-Rank... it's... I... I don't know what that is. It's the most powerful thing I've ever seen."
Elara Kane stared at the two icons, side-by-side. The B-Rank "Cain Walker," and the new, apocalyptic, black entity.
Her mind made the only logical, and completely wrong, connection.
"He's not alone," she said, her voice a low, horrified whisper. "He summoned it. That's his ally. That's the source of his power. The 'Bleed'..."
She grabbed her comm. Her voice was ice.
"All S-Rank teams, this is acting-Commander Kane. The target, Cain Walker, has revealed his true nature. He is not a rogue Hunter. He is an invader. He is actively summoning a Category-10, 'Bleed' entity. He is the cause of the global dimensional failure."
Her next order sealed Jera's fate.
"The quarantine is over. Our objective is no longer containment. It is extermination. Kill the new entity. Kill Cain Walker. Save our world."
Jera didn't know he had just been sentenced to death. He was too busy trying not to die.
The Corrupted Queen was fast. Its tendrils, dripping with corrosive oil, were lashing out. Jera grabbed Seraphina and leaped back, his physical agility the only thing saving them.
"Jera, your shield!" Seraphina screamed, as a tendril whipped past them, melting a concrete pillar into slag.
"It's useless!" Jera yelled, his voice raw with panic. "It eats mana! All I have... all I have is this!"
He had one weapon left. The one thing that wasn't magic.
His fists.
Pure, unadulterated, kinetic force.
He couldn't punch the monster. Its blood was acid. It might explode. He would be showered in the Bleed, and he couldn't store it, couldn't block it.
He couldn't punch it.
So he would punch the dungeon.
"Hold on!" he yelled at Seraphina, shoving her into a small, reinforced service alcove. "Cover your head!"
He leaped back into the center of the tunnel, facing the charging, shrieking abomination.
"You want to eat?!" he roared, his human, terrified voice breaking with rage. "EAT THIS!"
He ignored the monster and punched the ceiling.
[Action: Structural Demolition. Strength Multiplier Roll: $\times 800$.]
It was the most powerful, purely physical punch he had ever thrown.
The result was not an explosion. It was an earthquake.
The sound was the first thing to break. A sonic boom so loud, it shattered every piece of rebar in the tunnel.
Then, the entire Chicago Deep Tunnel network collapsed.
Jera had punched the main support arch. A million tons of concrete, of steel, of asphalt, and of the Chicago city street above... fell.
It was not a cave-in. It was an obliteration.
The Corrupted Queen, the hole in reality, was buried instantly under a mountain of physical, un-magical rubble.
Dust and debris filled the air, so thick it was like choking on solid rock.
Jera stood in the small alcove he had protected with his body, his [Aetheric Shield] flickering as it fought to block the physical debris, not the magic.
He was breathing heavily, his entire body screaming from the feedback of the punch. He had done it. He had... he had stopped it. He had buried the Bleed.
"Jera...?" Seraphina coughed, her small voice coming from behind him. "Are... are we alive?"
"We're alive," Jera panted, turning to her. He was covered in dust. He felt... exhausted. That was the first real fight of his life. A fight where his god-mode powers had failed. He felt... mortal.
And then, his comm buzzed. It was The Vault.
"Jera! JERA, GET OUT OF THERE!" The Vault's voice was a high-pitched, hysterical scream. "Kane... she... she thinks the Corruption is your ally! She thinks you're an invader! She just... she just gave the 'Exterminate' order! She's sending the S-Ranks in!"
Jera's heart stopped.
He looked at the mountain of rubble in front of him, where the Bleed was temporarily buried.
He looked at the tunnel behind him, his only escape route.
And from that tunnel, he saw them.
Three new, blindingly-bright mana signatures, moving at S-Rank speeds.
The Hunter Bureau's kill team.
He was trapped. Trapped in a collapsed tunnel, with a fragile civilian, between an un-killable monster... and an S-Rank hit squad that thought he was the devil.