BOOM!
The deafening, thunderous sound of a summoning pillar materializing rang out like an ancient bell.
But unlike the summoning pillars, this thunderous sound didn't come with a pulling feeling; no, it came with a suffocating pressure that silenced Veal's entire cradle.
Turning his head toward the east, Veal locked onto the source of the pressure.
His eyes trembled with trepidation as they penetrated 200 kilometers and landed on the thing that didn't belong to this cradle.
A creature equal to a noble demon.
A humanoid obsidian thing, spanning two hundred meters in height. Because of the distance, that's all he could make out.
'An invader?'
And as if sensing his gaze, the creature turned toward him. Veal's heart dropped. A cold feeling washed over him. He was marked, marked for death by the creature.
The next moment, the creature vanished, and when it reappeared, it was 5 kilometers closer to him. It vanished again the moment it reappeared.
His thoughts raced as he deduced possible countermeasures. A moment later, his eyes dimmed. There were no countermeasures; he could not face something like this.
But the next moment, his eyes shone as his inherited memory told him something. 'Yes, this is the cradle, and noble beings are not allowed,' he exclaimed internally.
He burned his vital blood. His tails whipped down, twisting into a drill
Whoosh!
His descent speed doubled. In no time, he reached a meter above the wreckage of his building, and right as he was about to touch the ground, his eyes flashed and his mist exploded from his body, forming a purple cloud that cushioned his fall.
His eyes darted a few meters left of him, to the terror-struck Alexandra. She knelt on her knees, hands gripping her head, shivering uncontrollably, with cold sweat dripping down her body.
His eyes then darted to his right, at Velra, who stood in a bleak daze. Her ears and tail drooped, and she stared in the direction of the creature, muttering repeatedly like a broken record.
'It's all over.' 'It's all over.'
He immediately coiled them within the protective embrace of his tails. Feeling his warmth, Alexandra snapped out of her trembling daze; her eyes gazed at him with hope, and she hugged his tail. Velra also snapped out of her broken state, but her eyes were still bleak, because she knew nothing could stop the horror that was about to descend.
Not her, not him… She also hugged his tails, seeking solace in the fact that she would die in the coiling embrace of the one she loved the most.
As for the other cowering demoness and demons, he didn't care enough to look at them, much less try to protect them.
Veal's mist vanished from below his feet, and he immediately stomped the ground.
Boom!
creating a slender hole ten meters deep. He hopped in legs first, landed, then stomped once more. Boom! deepening the hole. As he fell, he pulled his mates down with him.
While descending, the soil collapsed inwards above them, sealing the hole.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
He stomped, again and again.
Wanting to get as deep as he could, for only within the deepest depths of the earth shimmered the possibility of surviving the catastrophe that was about to descend on them.
The lower he descended, the faster and harder he stomped.
In just a few seconds, he had dug 2 kilometers deep. His mist and vital aura protected them from the compressing sand around them. Boom! Boom! Boom!
3 kilometers deep.
5 kilometers deep.
7 kilometers deep.
10 kilometers deep.
This was when it happened.
A soul-crushing dread bloomed from the depths of their existence, and their bodies froze, helplessly, like animals facing a monster they couldn't escape.
"It is coming," thought Veal while gritting his teeth and burning his vital blood with all his might, his will blazing with unbreakable determination. A determination so great that it overrode his body's primal instinct, he broke free from the paralysis and pulled Alexandra and Velra into his arms, covering them like a mother bird protecting her chicks from a raging storm.
Only these chicks would bleed for their shelter.
Veal opened his mouth wide and viciously sank his teeth deep into their flesh. Their blood spilled. He drank like a starving.
SPLAT! SPLAT!
He was losing vital blood at a fatal rate, and he needed to replenish it.
Suddenly, he paused as he heard a terrifying voice laced with vileness echo through the entire cradle.
"Snifff... snifff... Ohhh, the sweet scent of a pristine insect... hehehehehe…"
He tilted his head sideways; his expression twisted in pain. Hearing the voice was no different than insects crawling all over his soul.
Then,
Pash!
A sound like glass breaking rang out.
'It's here!' he and Alexandra thought simultaneously.
After which he felt an indescribable pressure descend on him, and his consciousness began fading.
he fought.
''Stay awake. Stay awake. STAAAY AWAKE!'' he roared repeatedly in his mind, but it was no use.
For the next moment, he, Alexandra, and Velra, who were also fighting to stay conscious, all fell into darkness.
'No!'
He roared one last time before his eyes were consumed by darkness.
.....
{Moments earlier.}
The Crab Sovereign, who had spent months struggling within the summoning tube due to his lack of abyssal aura, finally arrived at the world of the invader.
He floated mid-air. In his glorious true form: a 200-meter-tall, humanoid obsidian crab with ten claws on his sides, two legs, and a handsome face with two antennas atop his head.
His noble aura radiated outward, suppressing everything it touched, demanding his rightful respect. For in his mind, there was no need to hide. There was no need to fear. For he was Vadnuk. The one who conquered the world. The one who defied nature. The invincible.
And he didn't believe he would be any different in another world. His senses spanned out like a tsunami, scanning the bloody desert, the bloody forest, and the insects that cowered under his presence. He then gazed at the demonic soul grasped within one of his claws and scoffed.
"So, this is the filthy world that you crawled out of."