Chapter 112: Blood Feeds Blood
The snake village no longer existed, just churned earth and a towering monster that wiped out Lilid's spiderlings by breathing wrong. This wasn't a war anymore. It was a boss raid dropped straight on their heads.
And they were nowhere near ready for it.
"What is that?!"
Thragdur's roar cut through collapsing huts and screaming spawn.
"No idea! Was hoping you knew!"
The Forgemaster moved like a landslide, his aura hitting the ground hard enough to shake soil loose from roots.
"Grunt!"
Seo-jin thought it a curse. Instead a dwarf sprinted over, goggles strapped tight, rifle slung across his back. Before the scout could speak, Thragdur barked an order.
"Report!"
Grunt didn't blink.
"Reading marks it as pseudo A Rank! Health twelve-thousand two-hundred, mana five-sixty! Estimated damage output four to five hundred per strike! Need further combat for more analysis!"
"Back to formation!"
"Gladly!"
The dwarf named Grunt shot both demons a quick look, equal parts fear and insult, then bolted back to the line.
Thragdur raised four fists and slammed them together, steel hitting steel.
"Suppressive fire! Pin it down!"
He turned toward Seo-jin and Lilid, jaw set like bedrock.
"We've been walked into a trap. How in Drom's ball's are we—!"
A voice slid across the battlefield, hissing and wet, sharp enough to freeze dwarves mid-step. The giant serpent aimed all four eyes toward the leaders and spoke.
"Ssssince when did demonsss and dwarvesss pressss their facesss together? Yesss… demon. Your ssskin foolsss nothing."
"It speaks. Great."
Lilid didn't answer, her attention was locked on the beast's three sigils. But Seo-jin stepped forward, bloodlight rising like heat off a forge.
"Beastman—what happened to your tribe?! Why do you stand alone?!"
One massive claw lifted—a single hooked finger aimed right at his chest.
"You happened. And all of you will suffer for their passssing."
"He ate them."
Lilid appeared at Seo-jin's shoulder, eyes bright with cold interest.
"His soul is overfull. That body can't sustain it."
Before Seo-jin could reply, the snake laughed. Thick ropes of venom slung from its fangs and burned pits into the soil.
"I am Vhar'sith! Desssscendant of Ashi'r! And what won't lassst long is YOUR LIVESS!"
Its arms slammed forward. Power surged beneath the ground. A black circle burst outward like a shockwave, ripping grass and peeling earth. It spread too fast to dodge. Seo-jin stood in the middle before he could move.
[Curse // Hex Spiral // Afflicted]
[-25% AGI for 15sec]
Sand filled his joints. Weight dragged his limbs down. Worst possible timing—his sight filled with scale and motion.
"Fuck—!"
[-2SM]
[Fiendskin // Activated]
[+5% Physical Damage Defense for 60sec]
He dove aside, barely clearing a tail wider than a grown tree. It slammed into the ground—
The ground exploded.
Dust and debris hit like buckshot. Seo-jin crossed both blades and rode the impact back, boots carving trenches in the soil—
Then Pain dropped in from the right, white-hot greatsword raised overhead. The broodling roared, flames burst from his shoulders as he brought Surtur's Tooth down like execution.
Steel met scale. The impact rang like a struck anvil. Green armor dented under the force of Pain's swing.
Before Pain could reset his stance, the giant lashed out, only to choke on its own rage as a swarm of spiderlings crashed over its faces. Hundreds of legs scraped across scale and fang, blinding every face at once.
Boom!
Thragdur's fist slammed into the creature's hip, his gauntlet detonating against flesh.
[-1SM]
[Hellfire // Activated]
[+10% Physical Damage]
[-12SM]
[Black Pit // Activated]
[-30% Speed / Radius 4m / Duration 30sec]
Cold flame spread up Butcher's Wrath as Seo-jin slammed his curse into the dirt. A ring of black sludge spiraled outward, eating light as it expanded under the monster's body.
The moment the mire touched its scales, Vhar'Sith grinned, wide, and mocking, venom stringing between its fangs.
"How preccciousss. Little demon thinksss he can play with me."
Its aura roared to life. Poisonous green fog poured from its pores, lifting in a thick haze as every one of its eyes ignited.
He felt the curse snap onto him before the notification even hit.
[Curse // Vhar'Sith's Doommark // Afflicted]
[All Damage Received Increased by 15% for 12sec]
His bones rang with warning as Butcher's Wrath twisted in his grip. Blades bulging, hardening and shifting shape. At the same time, the sand in his joints finally cleared.
[Curse // Hex Spiral // Cleansed]
'Why is he locked on me?!'
[4th Weapon Effect // Activated]
[Slicing Damage Converted → Bludgeoning / Piercing]
[HP // 1300/1300]
[SM // 33/48]
Spiderlings burst under its dragging scales as Vhar'Sith tore forward. Dwarven gunfire peppered its sides, all ignored. The beast ripped entire clusters of Lilid's swarm off its body and kept charging.
Seo-jin dug his stance in. The brood shifted with him.
[-2SM]
[Hive Pulse // Activated]
[All Broodlings +15% Attack Speed for 10sec]
He braced. Butcher's Wrath bloomed into two brutal maces as he swung up to meet the central head.
[-2SM]
[Rend // Activated]
[+15% Bludgeoning Damage for 5sec]
Both maces crashed into the serpent's jaw.
[+122 Damage Dealt]
[+119 Damage Dealt]
The skull snapped upward. Panic slid under a sweeping tail, his body a smear of motion, burying his dagger with [Echo Strike], tak, tak, tak, before carving a glowing arc with [Organ Spill] that finally split a scale.
Pain hammered the opposite leg with [Charge], his whole body a fireball as he slammed in. The impact hit like a thrown grenade, jerking the monster's balance.
'What's the resistance?!'
[75% physical damage resistance.]
'Bag of dicks—that high?!'
[At least.]
[Rend // Deactivated]
He spat a curse and dragged his gaze across the battlefield as his weapons shrunk. Lilid lingered at the rear, doing jack-shit and watching. Thragdur braced in the thick of it with his dwarves, hammering the boss alongside Pain and Panic. Snare hovered near Hex, both standing back.
Bodies littered the ground. Dozens of dwarves crushed or torn apart. Hundreds of spiderlings flattened, split, or smeared into paste. With Soul Sight burning behind his eyes, he finally saw the pattern threading through the carnage. The truth hit hard enough to choke him.
"He's healing from the dead! He's pulling in their souls!"
[Curse // Vhar'Sith's Doommark // Cleansed]
Grunt's voice snapped across the chaos a heartbeat later, frantic and shrill through his goggles.
"Confirmed! His health is regenerating!"
Vhar'Sith's laughter shredded through the slaughter. Seo-jin felt the shift before he saw it. That pulse in the air. That tightening in his spine. Another curse.
A strong one.
He snapped a command through the link to retreat. Both broodlings moved the instant the order hit.
They still weren't fast enough.
Each sigil carved into that single, three-faced head flared like fresh brands.
The center face—two slate-grey eyes. Right face—purple. Left face—orange.
All three sets blazed as a tricolor beam ripped from them. A sweeping torrent that carved the world in front of it.
Seo-jin stood far enough back to avoid the blast, but he didn't need a system prompt to read the aftermath.
Grey light froze everything it touched—dwarves locked mid-swing, spiderlings stiff as dead wood. Even Pain seized up, muscle locked, flame guttering.
Purple light drove madness. Warriors staggered and lashed out at whatever moved, cutting down allies. Panic shrieked laughter, stabbing a dwarf corpse again and again like he had gone rabid.
Orange light left its victims sagging and wheezing, every strike flimsy, every step heavy—the sharp stink of Weaken spreading through the field.
The battlefield collapsed in seconds.
Then, Lilid finally moved.
Vhar'Sith's follow-through tore through the front ranks, flesh turned to pulp, bodies flung like scraps. Thragdur caught the brunt, crossing his arms just in time before the blast launched him like a catapult. His impact echoed through the treeline...trees cracking, canopy shuddering as he vanished into green shadow.
Pain braced for the next strike, helpless and wide open—until steel-thick webbing snapped across the battlefield.
Lines fired from every angle, slamming into Vhar'Sith's torso, arms, and neck, binding its coils mid-thrash. The creature jerked, snarled. Its movement locked.
Lilid's voice followed, sharp as fangs.
"It won't hold long! Hit the runes on its head! That's the ritual anchor!"
Seo-jin locked onto the three burning symbols. They pulsed like fresh wounds, each one swelling brighter as Vhar'Sith strained against the bindings. Webbing snapped like breaking metal, strands recoiling into the dirt.
But it was enough.
Paralysis cracked. Confusion faded. Weaken ebbed.
Pain roared first—then his white-hot blade came down like judgment on it's forehead. Panic scrambled up and clung to the beast's back, skittering across its crown, stabbing down again and again. Every strike into the sigils tore fresh screams from Vhar'Sith—screams that vibrated the air, splitting it like claws.
It was working. But it wasn't enough.
'Pain and Panic are barely C-Rank. With all these corpses feeding it, they can't outpace the heal. It's regenerating too fast.'
He almost sent a retreat order to pull back the dwarves, the spiderlings, but retreat meant losing the numbers. Losing the numbers meant death.
"Cover him again!"
Lilid shook her head.
"Those were our strongest webs. One only has enough for a single use!"
"Then save it! Use it when it'll fu—"
The last strands snapped—
Panic took the hit first.
"Snare!"
[-1SM]
[Brood Feast // Activated]
[+25% Health from next corpse consumed]
Seo-jin's shout cracked across the field as Vhar'Sith tore Panic off its crown and hurled him. The broodling hit a tree hard enough to fold the trunk, his body buckling like wet meat.
Snare and Hex dove onto the nearest dwarf corpse in the same breath, tearing in, chewing through armor and flesh with desperate efficiency. Their feeding barely registered over the sound of Panic's body breaking.
Seo-jin checked his panel, jaw tight.
[Broodling // Panic]
[HP // 13/260]
[Incision Points // 13]
Barely alive. More pulp than creature. But alive. Healing crawled down the Broodlink like warm rot.
[I have an idea. Use Corpse Harvest.]
'Are you stupid?! Why the fuck would I—'
[They're summons! You use souls to make them, but they shouldn't have one.]
He froze. The thought hit like a hammer—possible, dangerous.
He didn't have time to doubt it.
[Corpse Harvest // Activated]
[Sacrifice // D Rank]
[Summon +5 Lesser Broodling / F Rank]
A dwarf corpse buckled, the ribs swelling outward. Black smoke leaked from between the bones, snapping like something alive and desperate.
He moved to the next.
[Corpse Harvest // Activated]
[Sacrifice // E Rank]
[Summon +3 Lesser Broodling / F Rank]
Bodies jerked. Spiderlings. Dwarves. Anything dead in reach. Every corpse convulsed—twitching, tearing, vomiting black vapor.
The smoke hissed with teeth.
With shrieks.
With something crawling its way up through death itself.
One by one, they burst.
Tiny, malformed silhouettes spilled free, spined, gnashing, hungry before they even touched the dirt. Some stood. Some skittered. Some dragged themselves forward like aborted nightmares.
And the moment the first screech rang out, all four broodlings stopped mid-motion.
Pain's flames bowed low. Panic went still. Snare stood straighter, his grip tight on his staff. Even Hex turned a ear towards it, his heart pounding like drums.
Father's Brood was growing.