Chapter 65: Birthing Rage
The surface trembled.
Pain and Snare froze mid-slash. Lynn lined up another shot, only a handful of kits left when the ground bucked hard beneath her.
"Whoa—should we—?!"
Her question died as the two broodlings bolted, vanishing down a tunnel before she could blink.
"Hey! Wait!"
She dropped from her perch after them, ignoring the stragglers still crawling, tearing into the hole just as the earth shuddered again. Whatever it was, the brood had smelled it first, and it was bad.
---
Below, the lesson came blunt. He'd gotten too confident. Seo-jin peeled himself out of stone, ribs grinding, breath clawing its way back into him.
[-140HP]
[Demonic Will // Stack 1]
[+6% Pain Reduction // +1.5% Health Regen]
[HP // 500/640]
[SM // 40/40]
No time to think. Just pain, blood, and the truth hammering his skull—this boss was too strong. Stay down here and he'd die.
Then the tunnel lit red.
"Broodfather!"
He braced, claws rising—only for the Matriarch's strike to veer. Panic had thrown himself onto the beast, snapping its rhythm.
"Black Pit!"
[-12SM]
[Black Pit // Activated]
[-30% Speed / Radius 4m / Duration 30sec]
Shadows spilled from his flesh, pooling thick and tar-like. The air dragged, the monster slowed, and for a heartbeat he saw what had nearly pulped him. He didn't stay to gawk.
"Run!"
He tore through the tunnels, AGI dragging his body to over 200mph. Panic was already falling behind, but distance didn't matter—four meters of shadow wasn't enough, and even slowed, the Matriarch came.
Heat crawled up his back. He twisted, arms crossing as the blades of Butcher's Wrath half-formed from his flesh.
Boom!
The impact rang bone, slung him through the dark, but he caught the roll, bounced back into a sprint before the dust hit the floor.
Arms humming, his link burned with warning. He saw the glow of broodling flames closing in, teeth gritted.
"Pain—charge now!"
The tunnel exploded in red. Pain rocketed forward, body a missile of fire and rage. The timing perfect, he struck head-on, detonating against the Matriarch's charge. The shockwave flung Seo-jin sideways, his feet scraping stone to hold ground, but Pain wasn't so lucky. The blast cannoned him back through the dark, ricocheting wild—almost flattening Snare as he ripped past.
Dodging his fiery brother, Snare skidded hard, claws gouging stone as Seo-jin blurred past him. The order hit his skull like a spike.
"Surface!"
The Broodfather's command ripped down the link, leaving no room for argument.
Seo-jin didn't slow at all, sprinting, lungs burning, bloodlight bouncing off the walls. If they didn't make it, didn't matter. The Brood could be replaced.
Then a stab came through the link. One of them caught. Hurt not his own. His chest clenched, but his pace didn't falter.
The bloodlust followed, thick, crushing, drowning the tunnel behind him. Whatever the unfortunate broodling had done hadn't slowed her long. His UI bled red. Black Pit still on cooldown. Fifteen seconds. Too long.
Luckily, kits burst from the dark, snapping at his heels. He didn't dodge, he butchered. A swing pulverized three, a slam crushed another.
[Feed // Activated]
[+4SM // -1min Cooldown Reduction]
Thanks to Butcher's Wrath, the cooldown ticked low enough. He spun, curse already spilling from his skin.
[-12SM]
[Black Pit // Activated]
The ground drowned in shadow, thick and sucking. Yellow eyes flared inside it, slowed but not stopped. He didn't waste it. He swung the mace up into the ceiling.
Crack—!
Rock shattered loose, an avalanche collapsing behind him. The tunnel choked with stone and dust.
He didn't cheer. He knew it wouldn't hold. The sound of digging already shrieked through the wall. But the light was ahead—and someone sprinting into it.
"Go back!"
Lynn slid to a stop, confusion on her face until the Matriarch's roar crushed the air. Her hesitation vanished. She bolted with him.
"Where are the others?!"
"They're coming! Just stay out of the way and shoot! It's about to get ugly!"
They burst onto the surface, shadows peeling off their skin as the den's air hit them. His eyes scanned, frantic, until he found what he needed.
A dying kit.
He leapt, boots and mace smashing it flat, its bones and spine crumpling beneath him.
[+1Sm // -15sec]
The blood pooled warm across his ankles. Dead ones didn't count. He needed the living to keep Feed flowing. He needed to stay full, or the Matriarch would peel him open.
Lynn spotted him crush another kit and assumed his intent. She raised her gun, sighted another, squeezed—
"Stop! I need them alive!"
Her finger froze.
"Over there. Rocks. Now!"
The burrow behind him trembled, stone dust sifting down, the earth swelling with pressure. A roar ripped through, raw and venomous, shaking the chamber.
[-1SM]
[Hellfire // Activated]
[+10% Damage]
[-2SM]
[Fiendskin // Activated]
[+5% Physical Defense]
He vaulted high, bloodlight streaking in his wake, and buried his mace in the wall. The steel bit deep. He swung on it, body suspended above the ground. He needed height. Distance.
The earth ruptured.
Stone and soil blew outward, spraying shards. The tunnel split wide as the Elderwarren Matriarch clawed its way into the open.
'Inspect.'
His eyes burned.
[Dungeon Boss]
[Elderwarren Matriarch // Enraged]
[Rank // C]
[Level // 39]
[HP // 12686/12800]
Nine feet of nightmare filled the chamber. Its frame was a warped echo of the smaller adults, a humanoid shape stretched too far, legs three times as thick as the arms, knotted with muscle built for nothing but speed and killing. Every step hammered the stone, claws grinding sparks.
Its skull rose broad and vicious, two twisted ram's horns coiling back like blackened iron between two long, scarred ears. But it was the thing below its head that locked Seo-jin's eye.
Its stomach sagged distended, swollen like a stretched membrane ready to burst. The skin glowed red and raw, pulsing with movement inside. Writhing bulges pressed from within, kits, dozens of them, alive and gestating. The scars lacing its belly spoke of thousands birthed before. Endless, mechanical breeding, each scar a tally carved in flesh.
And dragging behind it, glistening and wet, hung the ruin of its birthing canal. Loose. Torn. Bleeding a steady trail across the stone. Every shift of its steps smeared the cavern floor in a streak of gore and discharge.
It lifted its head, eyes burning yellow, and screamed. The sound was not an animal cry, but a command...a birthing of rage. The walls of the den seemed to answer, trembling with it.
The Matriarch had arrived.
The roar cracked the chamber like thunder, trying to shake thought loose from his skull. Seo-jin forced clarity, running scenarios, but the system had left him blind.
Inspect hadn't given him much. Nothing on its resistances. Nothing to tilt the odds.
'That's it?'
[User must surpass a dungeon boss to unlock full profile. Additional data available through prolonged combat.]
'Think I fucked myself here.'
[Recommendation: unfuck yourself.]
His grin split blood.
"Yeah…I'm trying."
[HP // 578/640]
[SM // 18/40]
Options thin. Savage Feed still cooling. Desecrate only one charge left. Survival meant smart brutality, no wasted motion.
He ripped a stone loose from the wall, spotted Lynn crouched behind rubble, then hurled it. The rock cracked loud against the ground beside her—just enough.
The Matriarch's eyes snapped. Fangs dripped as it lunged straight for her.
But Seo-jin was already moving.
[-2SM]
[Rend // Activated]
[+15% Bludgeoning / Piercing Damage]
Steel sprouted from his arms, maces swelling grotesque, blood-veined, heavy. He came down from above like a hammer, both weapons slamming into the monster's skull.
[145 Damage]
[142 Damage]
Stone shattered, blood sprayed. Disappointing. Too little.
'System—start calculating resistances!'
He struck again, again, a frenzy of bone-splitting arcs.
[148 Damage]
[143 Damage]
[Critical // 162 Damage]
[146 Damage]
The Matriarch howled, swiping. He tried to twist clear—too late. Claws raked his chest, one hook catching a rib and tearing it free.
[!! Critical !!]
[-230HP]
[Demonic Will // Stack 2]
[+12% Pain Reduction // +3% Health Regen]
Pain burned through, then dulled, nerves blunted by Demonic Will. Feed's slow trickle tugged broken bone back into place.
[Resistances calculated. Bludgeoning 35%, Piercing 10%.]
The dirt cloud split. The Matriarch reared, shrieked, and a compressed wave of air blasted from its throat. He barely saw it before it hit, slamming him into the cavern wall like a cannon shot.
[-180HP]
[HP // 168/640]
[SM // 13/40]
His brain rang, vision swimming. Gunfire cracked—Lynn, wasting ammo. Her rounds wouldn't pierce hide that thick.
He dragged his focus to the beast's health bar.
[Boss HP // 11452/12800]
Not enough damage. Not fast enough.
The boss lowered to charge again—then froze. A blur hit its back. Panic, dagger glowing, teeth bared. He stabbed once, and three distinct cracks tore the air simultaneously as steel sank again and again.
The Matriarch clawed back for him, but suddenly, Snare darted low, sliding between her legs. His teeth sank into the hamstring, tendon snapping like rope under strain.
Another roar thundered through the chamber as Pain arrived, fire bleeding from his hide, claws lit like molten brands. He carved across the swollen stomach, splitting it in a line of seared red.
The Brood had joined the slaughter.
Perfect time to test his new class skill.
[-2SM]
[Hive Pulse // Activated]
[All Broodlings // +15% Attack Speed]
The tempo shifted. Claws hammered like drumbeats, daggers struck in furious rhythm, jaws cracked bone in savage harmony. The Matriarch's shrieks drowned the chamber as blood painted stone.
"Lynn! Eyes!"
His weapons shifted, maces pulling thin, edges keening sharp.
[4th Weapon Effect // Activated]
[Bludgeoning / Piercing Damage → Slicing]
Speed over weight. Precision over brute.
[Minor Soul Stone // Consumed]
[+25SM]
[HP // 182/640]
[SM // 34/40]
"Snare! Feed!"
[-12SM]
[Black Pit // Activated]
Shadow swallowed the ground. The Matriarch slowed, thrashing as her bulk dragged through tar. Seo-jin dove in, blades singing, cutting through hide, biting deep. Pain slammed claws into her ribs. Panic drove his dagger again and again into her throat. Snare ripped into corpses on the edge, feeding, funneling health back through the link.
Bullets cracked against the boss's face, gouging eyes, breaking focus. For the first time, her massive frame staggered under the combined assault. Her health bled down, numbers falling, the weight of death tilting away from Seo-jin's shoulders.
For a heartbeat, he thought this fight was theirs.
Then the air changed.
Her aura exploded outward, a shockwave that tore the brood from her body and sent Lynn crashing into stone. Dust shook loose in sheets.
[WARNING // Phase Shift Detected]
Her skin darkened, hardening into plates. Claws stretched, razors scraping sparks from the floor. Her scream cracked stone, guttural and raw, as her stomach writhed like a sack of knives. Flesh split, and from the torn canal dragging behind her, kits poured free in a flood.
Hundreds. Screeching, blind, hungry.
The Matriarch had birthed her army.