Chapter 64: Blood Den
The kits came in waves. Claws, fur, shrieks. All fodder. Seo-jin cut them down without thought. Soul Sense didn't even register them as green anymore. No experience, no progress. Not worth the blood on his claws.
Some of the adults had turned green as well.
Like the two hulking forward now.
Their split maws drooled steady streams, lines of spit painting stone. He could smell the shift, no hunger this time. Only fear.
"You finally noticed. Dumb animals took long enough."
He stepped forward. They stepped back.
"Don't be scared. I'll be quick."
He grinned...then charged.
---
Above, the Brood fought in the open den. Blood, fire, and gunpowder tangled with screeches. The three broodlings were shredded with cuts but still upright, their Feed knitting flesh as fast as it tore. Snare climbed in levels with every kill, his movements sharper, his mind calculating the flow.
The human wasn't faring the same.
Corruption gnawed her. Madness twisted her grin. She blew through magazines like water, more intent on tearing bodies apart than ending them clean.
A kit clamped onto her back, legs kicking, claws raking her spine down to bone. She threw herself back, smashing it into the ground. Rolling, two shots gutted it as another wave closed in.
Good thing the Brood was there.
A dagger slit one's throat, burning claws shredded a pack, Snare weaved between them with surgical precision.
"Stupid human! Stay close—like this!"
Panic jabbed his dagger into a kit's eye, twisting until the skull split.
"Cloooose."
Bang!
The shot whistled past his cheek, blowing the head off another.
"Stop running off, stupid hellbug!"
She rose, panting, skin flayed, eyes blazing. Her shots sang into the horde. If Seo-jin had seen her, he would've paused. She wasn't frothing like prey. She wasn't stumbling into mindless frenzy. She was lucid. Reckless, sure. Definitely enjoying herself too much. But this wasn't Madness, this was something else.
She grabbed a rabbit by the ears and swung it into another, snapping its spine. Blood sprayed her, but her grin never faltered. Body shredded, back raw, skin pale from blood loss, but she didn't notice. Battle drowned her.
Snare did though. The smell hit him hard. Not rabbit blood. Human. Her lifeforce bleeding away. He narrowed his eyes.
"Keep that up, you'll die."
Her laugh cracked, voice sharp.
"Fuck off, noob! I'm not that weak!"
He rolled his eyes, but respect stirred. Then yellow system light flashed.
A Potion. After chugging it down, she smashed the bottle across a kit's face, shards burying in its skull. Blood streamed from her hand, but she only laughed louder.
"Stop staring and kill! We've gotta hurry and join the boss!"
Her voice broke, warped, twisting with fever when she said it.
Pain couldn't help but join in.
"Praise Broodfather!"
He roared, his Charge tearing through a wall of kits in fire and smoke. Panic darted like a shadow, knife flashing, blood splattering.
And Lynn—
Pistol-whipping a rabbit until its skull collapsed, laughing while gore dripped from her chin.
At a glance, no one could tell the difference between demon and human anymore.
Sooner than expected, the last kits were cornered, the den thick with screams and fur. Snare froze mid-swipe, blood dripping from his claws. A sudden realization sinking in.
"Where're the adults?"
The words bled worry. His pulse hammered a warning through the Brood Link. He tore a kit's leg off in his teeth, spat bone, and barked the order.
"We finish this now! Panic—down the burrow. Support Broodfather. Move!"
Panic didn't hesitate. His grin split wide, and he bolted. Claws raked him as he plunged headfirst into the hole, but he only laughed, bleeding, screaming.
Snare grit his teeth.
'Maybe I should've sent Pain...'
No time.
"Big brother! Throw the human!"
"Huh?"
Lynn's eyes snapped wide. She barely had time to curse before Pain scooped her up by the waist. She was in his palm, weightless, and then flying.
Her scream erupted through the chaos—then cut off. She hit stone, hard, bounced, slammed into the wall. The crack echoed.
"Human?! Still alive?!"
Snare's shout knifed through her ringing ears.
"Fuuuuck!"
Groaning, Lynn rolled onto her knees. Blood streaked her cheek, her ribs screamed, but her hands still found her weapon. She snapped it up, braced against the wall, vision spinning.
"Stop wasting time! Get shooting!"
She felt robbed, thrown like a sack of meat, but she obeyed. The muzzle flared, deafening bursts ripping kits apart. Skulls cracked, fur ignited, bodies dropped twitching into the gore.
The brood pressed forward, but the air was heavier now. Something bigger was coming.
----
The tunnels reeked of shit and death. Panic tore through them, claws scraping stone, blood slick beneath him. Corpses littered the ground, rabbits split open, ribs cracked wide, a few skinned. Even his fractured mind could tell: there were more dead here than they'd faced above.
"So strong…"
His father's carnage hung heavy in the dark, and Panic's respect curdled into obsession.
"Fight with Father. Fight to death. Kill the rabbits. Eat their heads!"
Madness was all he knew. Violence was prayer. His body shook with hunger as he ran, trembling with a joy only slaughter could sate. From the moment of his birth, his first thought had been to rip. To see what was inside. Not curiosity. Instinct. Not play. Worship.
Now...he was close. He could feel it in the marrow of his crooked bones. He was about to fight alone alongside the pinnacle of slaughter, the Father of Death. The thought made his body ache. If he'd been made different, if he'd had the flesh for it, his cock would've been stone.
He scraped through a narrow turn, shrieking laughter down the walls, kicking bodies just to hear them break. Every claw stroke he couldn't bury into living meat, he drove into the dead, ripping until his hands shook with gore. Desecrating corpses kept the hunger quiet...but not for long.
Then he heard it.
The sounds of violence. His favorite song.
Raw and endless, shaking the air ahead. His grin split bloody. Father was there. The slaughter had begun.
----
A little earlier, just as Panic broke from the group, Seo-jin stood ringed in flesh and teeth, shirt torn to rags, skin split and leaking. Claws jutted from his human fingers, dripping blood.
"So. You're the smart one."
Six adult Elderwarren circled, all yellow in his vision. One bulked heavier than the rest—scarred hide, sharper posture. Not the Matriarch, but close. Likely her mate.
They hadn't lunged. They'd stalked him, herded him into the choke of the tunnels. He'd seen it waiting ahead through Soul Sense, but the ground left him no choice. He'd stepped into their kill box anyway.
There had been seven. One lay broken behind him. An even trade for blood spilled.
[-2SM]
[Fiendskin // Activated]
[+5% Physical Damage Resistance // 60 sec]
Skin blackened, veins knotting beneath it as the curse locked in. He grinned, chest thrumming with the weight of it. Finally forced to burn a skill. Let's see if they could drag another from him.
The mate barked, and the chamber detonated.
The pack blurred, bodies whipping into streaks of fur and fang, closing in from every angle. The mate held him in its stare as the others carved circles around him.
Seo-jin's smile only widened as his senses flared, blood roaring like war drums in his skull.
"Let's eat!"
The pack moved. Claws and teeth flashing in a single blur.
Bloodlight detonated. The cavern snapped alive with sparks and shrieks, stone gouged as bodies collided.
A flash of red: claws severed an arm at the elbow. Blood fanned across the wall. Another flash: a throat opened wide, head spinning away.
The blur closed again, walls rattling under the weight of their speed.
One beast slowed. Too slow. Its torso folded in half as claws split its spine, blood spraying like a burst wineskin before it hit the ground.
Another pounce. Another break in the haze. A jaw cracked sideways, teeth spilling loose as the skull caved in. The body twitched once, then was gone under the blur.
The mate barked, trying to rally, but its pack was breaking apart in the grinder. Screams overlapped with the shriek of claws scraping stone, the air so heavy with iron the cavern seemed to breathe blood.
A sudden lull. Only three left circling. One darted too close and paid for it, leg tearing free, spinning away, before its body slammed against the wall hard enough to paint the rocks. Another tried to leap high. A hand speared upward, claws ripping through belly and dragging entrails down in ropes.
The mate was now alone. Snarling. Desperate. Distracted.
Another blur joined the chaos.
Metal stabbed and ripped the mate's hamstring out in one violent move. Blood geysered, spraying his attacker from head to toe. Panic leapt, clinging to its ears, yanking it down into range.
The beast fell screaming—cut short as Seo-jin's claws punched through its chest. His broodling adding the final nail as his dagger drew across the Elderwarren's throat.
With a wet crunch, Seo-jin ripped the heart free, steam rising off the muscle, and sank his teeth in.
[+612 EXP // +2 SM]
[Feed // Activated]
The instant the mate died, the tunnel howled. Bloodlust poured through the stone, a pressure wave thick enough to choke on. Panic froze, then straightened, madness gone.
"Eat fast."
Panic obeyed, splitting the rabbit's face open with his teeth.
Brood Link surged, stacking atop his own Feed. Flesh knitted, bloodflow slowed, health rising tick by tick. He didn't need much, but that wave of killing intent crawling down the tunnels told him he would need every shred—
Too late.
He turned—and something larger than him blocked his view.
[!! WARNI—]
The panel shattered.
An impact hit, and his vision exploded.