Chapter 113: All for One
Screeches and broken laughter rattled the dwarves' nerves, but even without their Forgemaster, they didn't break. Twangs and muzzle flashes kept the air thick with steel while spiderlings hurled their bodies into the meat grinder. All the distraction Seo-jin needed.
Three hundred and sixty-four lesser broodlings now stood across the field like scattered vermin.
Lilid watched them with burning eyes, chest rising fast, gaze locked on the source—on him. The Broodfather.
He ignored the heat of her stare and prepared to send orders through the broodlink, until a system panel cut across his vision with a neat, almost mocking prompt.
[Assign Lesser Broodlings?]
[Confirm // Yes / No]
Vhar'Sith's roar tore over the battlefield, shaking dirt loose from roots. The beast lunged straight for the dwarf line, and Seo-jin moved to intercept, until a second roar stopped him.
"Hammer's Descent!"
Thragdur dropped like a meteor. Aura caved the air, shaping a titanic hammer that slammed into the serpent's raised arms.
Seo-jin shielded his face from the shockwave, the pressure in his chest easing at last.
"Took him long enough."
The dwarves answered with renewed fury, shouts rising, bolts and rounds hammering the snake in a storm of iron.
Seo-jin snapped back to the waiting panel and chose speed over caution.
[Yes]
The lesser broodlings were crawling in every direction, toward dwarves, toward the snake, toward corpses, anything that smelled like food. Without orders, they fed mindlessly.
"Come on!"
Another panel flickered open.
[Select Broodling to Command]
[Eligible Commanders:]
[Pain]
[Panic]
[Snare]
He hit Pain without hesitation.
[Commander: Pain]
[Troop Capacity: 50]
[Lesser Broodlings Available: 364]
[Assign Quantity?]
"Fifty."
[Assigning 50 Units]
[Confirm Assignment // Yes / No]
"Yes, dammit!"
Two things happened at once.
Pain froze mid-stride, fire dimming around him—and the nearest cluster of lesser broodlings to him burst into flame.
A system pulse followed, cold and clinical.
[System Notification]
[Class Achievement Unlocked // FIRST STEPS]
[Condition Met // Assign command units to a Broodling]
[Reward Granted // Title Unlocked]
[Processing…]
He barely registered it. His eyes were locked on horror.
Fifty lesser broodlings writhed, screaming as their skin blistered and split...bubbling, sloughing off, until the shrieks cut short.
Then they rose.
Taller. Thicker. Skin charred and cracked like cooling iron, flames leaking through every seam. Burning. Waiting. Hungry.
The new brood.
[Lesser Broodlings ×50 // Assigned to Pain]
[Commander Trait Detected // Scorchclaw Sentinel]
[Bloodline Refinement Applied to All Assigned Units]
Pain broke from his trance like a blade shearing loose from stone. His head snapped toward the burning figures. He didn't question what they were—he knew. He knew exactly what they were.
He lifted Surtur's Tooth high and let out a roar that split the battlefield.
"For the Broodfather!"
No shrill cry this time—just a furnace-deep bellow. Fifty flame-slick broodlings answered in kind, their fires flaring hard as they charged beside him toward the towering snake.
[Didn't see that coming.]
"Neither did I—but it's fucking perfect."
Seo-jin grinned and got back to work. The fight was still happening around him, after all.
He scanned until he found Panic standing again, drenched in blood, whole enough to move, his face locked in awe at Pain's new army. The broodling's eyes burned like he'd swallowed a live wire.
Seo-jin jabbed his panel.
[Lesser Broodlings ×50 // Assigned to Panic]
[Commander Trait Detected // Vivisector]
[Class Adjustment Applied to All Assigned Units]
Vhar'Sith was drowning in bodies now. Thragdur hammered it, dwarves swarmed its flanks, Lilid's spawn clung to its scales, and Pain's refined broodlings slammed into its hide like living firebrands. The beast's regeneration still pushed back the damage, but its movements grew sharper, wilder. Desperation leaked through every thrash.
Panic's army only worsened it.
No flames this time, no hardened plates or swollen frames. Instead, their claws doubled in length, and their speed spiked until they blurred. A writhing, laughing carpet of teeth climbed the snake's body, shredding anything they touched.
[Lesser Broodlings ×50 // Assigned to Snare]
[Commander Trait Detected // Gloom Stalker]
[Class Adjustment Applied to All Assigned Units]
What followed stopped even Thragdur mid-swing.
Seo-jin trembled, breath caught in his throat.
"I… didn't even think of that…"
Gunfire crashed back into the fight as if someone had rewound the opening volley. Bowstrings snapped, chambers clacked, and orders rang out. Snare's orders.
"Aim for the marks on its head! Fire!"
Snare's broodlings, each clutching stolen dwarven rifles or crossbows, unloaded into Vhar'Sith without hesitation. Some looted ammo from corpses; others dropped low and fired with the steady aim of trained marksmen.
[Increased cognitive performance. Once again, their growth is unexpected. I have been analyzing the trend and believe I have isolated the—]
'Not now!'
[-12SM]
[Black Pit // Activated]
[-30% Speed / Radius 4m / Duration 30sec]
[HP // 1300/1300]
[SM // 16/48]
His Soulmass was thinning, but he had enough to push. Watching [Black Pit] writhing dark under Vhar'Sith's coils, he stretched his hand toward the melee, his morbid curiosity fixed on Panic's swarm.
[-2SM]
[Hive Pulse // Activated]
[All Broodlings // +15% Attack Speed]
The effect hit like a spike. Screeches tore across the battlefield as every strike quickened. For the first time, real wounds began piling on the beast, scales splitting, flesh charring where Surtur's Tooth carved heat deep, muscle being exposed by Panic's precise carving.
Time to stop holding back.
He tightened his grip on Butcher's Wrath and turned his attention to the remaining corpses littering the ground, pushing more further into the Harvest.
"Lilid! Pull your spawn back! We need web support!"
She blinked at him, confused, her eyes narrowing.
"Our children's webs will not hold—"
"Shoot his fucking face! Move!"
She held for half a breath before relenting. Her spiderlings peeled away from the snake's base, skittering back through the haze of birthing black smoke to reposition.
"Thragdur! Pull your men back! Only ranged from here!"
Thragdur heard and answered with a roar, shifting formations as dwarves dragged wounded and reset firing lines.
Seo-jin pushed another command through the broodlink.
'Snare. Keep every dwarf alive. No exceptions.'
'Yes, Broodfather.'
Gunfire staggered for a moment as Snare's troop repositioned. Half formed a ring around the dwarves, weapons up. The rest sprinted to haul the injured clear.
'Hex. To me. Now.'
The blind broodling moved without pause. Head twitching, body low, he crawled across the torn earth like it was smooth stone. Seo-jin felt him approach before he saw him. A flash of system light—his shirt vanished. He tapped the secret switch in his pauldron, plates folding apart to expose the Twinback Growths.
"Get in."
He didn't need to check. The wet crunch against his spine told him Hex obeyed.
Through the link, he fired his next order, sent to both Pain and Panic in the same breath.
'This isn't about killing it. Use your troops. Minimize risk. Keep the bastard from casting. We drag this out. Everyone will feed you two support. Even me.'
He added the last part on purpose.
Two roars answered, raw, violent, shaking the last trees clinging to the battlefield.
The force of it hit him in the chest. Something cracked open in the link, sharp enough to make him blink and sweep the field again. His gaze snapped from Pain to Panic, then to the swarm...assigned, unassigned, even the newborn crawling from fresh corpses.
All of them were stronger.
"What the fuck is going on?"
[It's your new Title.]
Dodging a Lesser broodling flung past him like garbage, he ripped open his panel, flicked to his profile, and hit the newest line in the list.
[All for One]
[Effect // All Broodlings fighting alongside the Broodfather gain +10 to all stats for the duration of battle.]
[Restriction // Does not affect A-Rank or higher.]
"A whole rank…"
It wasn't theory, it was on full display. Panic's agility had been his only C-tier stat; now his whole sheet sat in C with speed deep into B. He tore around Vhar'Sith like a rabid wasp on a sugar rush.
Pain's strength spiked the same way, solid B. Every swing of Surtur's Tooth slammed into the serpent's armor like a cannon strike.
Seo-jin's mind snapped to focus, a sudden curiousity burning through him. Spotting a clean break in the assault, he pointed a mace and barked at Lilid.
"Send a group back there! At least forty!"
"Make up your mind!"
Her spiderlings surged, ripping across the field like thrown nets towards the battle. Seo-jin pushed another command through the broodlink...pieces fell into place. Now he'd be able to see what Snare could do.
He glanced at his UI to his updated Lesser broodling count. Over seven hundred bodies. A massive number, but quickly dropping.
A dark thrill crawled up his spine.
"If only I could assign them all."
Bloodlight burst off him in waves. He dropped low, Butcher's Wrath trembling in his grip. Time for him to join.
The ground cracked under his first step as he launched forward.
Through a wall of snapping jaws and burning claws, Vhar'Sith finally understood something was wrong. The bodies he'd been feeding from were gone. The souls stripped clean. His healing cut.
He clawed at his own face, trying to clear the swarm. Tail thrashing. Screeching.
"Vermin! Unworthy raccccesss! You dare—!"
"We do."
BOOM—CRUGCH!
Steel slammed scale, then steel, then blood ruptured.
Vhar'Sith reeled back, four eyes squeezing shut as all three sigils lit up in agony. Both hands flew to his face.
Seo-jin hit full speed, slamming a mace into a glowing rune and using the second to drive the first deeper, punching through scale and bone.
He hit the ground hard, checked the damage readout, and let a thin smirk pull at his cheek.
It really was the weak point.
[+379 Damage Dealt]
[Critical Hit]
[+456 Damage Dealt]
Thragdur didn't waste the opening. The dwarf launched himself skyward, aura flaring, another colossal hammer forming around both fists.
"Tempering Fist!"
The impact sounded like stone splitting under a mountain. A crater three times the Forgemaster's size dented into Vhar'Sith's chest, knocking the monster flat.
Dust, blood, and broken earth billowed outward as Thragdur's voice tore through the chaos.
"Grunt!"
Somewhere in the knot of dwarves and broodlings firing into the thrashing giant, the goggled scout barked back.
"Just over eight left!"
Seo-jin twisted toward him, face knotted with irritation.
"Eight what?!"
"Eight thousand."
Thragdur answered as he landed beside him. The dwarf's breath shook, eyes veined red, armor crushed and wet with blood. Seo-jin found himself almost respecting him. Letting the old bastard do the heavy lifting felt like cheating.
"You look tired. Wanna rest?"
Thragdur spat a clot of blood and laughed, slamming his fists together.
"Drom will tell Brundar of this battle. I will honor him with blood! Come, Broodfather! Let us carve a tale even the gods choke on!"
He charged. A bellowing tank of steel and rage, each step rattling loose soil.
Seo-jin didn't follow. Not visibly. But something inside him snapped awake, racing under his skin like a live wire. The dwarf's words hit deeper than they should have.
Something in him answered.
Across the field, Lilid watched him with growing fixation. She guided her spawn with clinical precision, until she noticed the spiderlings she'd sent in weren't dying under Vhar'Sith's claws.
They were dying under the Broodfather's sons.
The fiery one. The manic one. Cutting down anything small enough to reach while they tore into the boss.
"What is this?! Broodfather—explain—!"
Her voice broke. Her breath caught.
Because he stood revealed.
No shell. No human mask. The true Broodfather, demonic form bared to the battlefield, bloodlight crawling across him. The shape she remembered. The shape she craved more than her freedom. A demon with a shard.
Her legs hammered the ground in a sudden stutter of hunger and restraint. She opened her mouth to speak—then froze again.
The fight surged ahead. Even with dwarves, broodlings, and webs converging, they couldn't keep the pseudo A Rank pinned forever. Vhar'Sith heaved upward, scales shedding fire and blood.
Seo-jin stepped forward to join the clash, and a scream cut through everything.
Thragdur hit the ground near the boss, rolling instinctively. He rose to one knee, chest heaving.
One of his right arms was gone.