Chapter 85: Abyssal Corruption [2]

Ser Hughway leaped back ten yards, landing heavily on the scorched earth as cold sweat trickled down his weathered cheeks.

His heart pounded against his ribs with a heavy, suffocating dread as he watched the horrifying scene unfold before him.

This was the second time in his long, battle-scarred life that he was witnessing such a nightmare.

A century ago, when the Apocalypse descended upon humanity, the Abyss tore open countless planar rifts across the four continents, drowning the world in despair.

Abyssal mana radiation flooded the earth like an unholy plague, infecting every living creature.

Only those with extraordinary consciousness and unyielding willpower were able to resist the corruptive infection, awakening their Mana Cores to ascend as Superhumans.

Wild beasts and humans lacking the mental fortitude to anchor their souls succumbed immediately, their bodies mutating into grotesque, flesh-hungry Abominations.

Yet, awakening as a Superhuman did not grant absolute immunity.

Whether one was a Sword Expert or a Spirit Mage, every Superhuman remained fundamentally infected by the Abyss.

Their sanity, focus, and iron will served as their sole spiritual anchors, holding the dormant Abyssal corruption at bay.

However, if a Superhuman’s mind broke—if overwhelming emotion, despair, or terror overrode their soul—their spiritual anchors would shatter.

In that fatal window, the dormant infection within their mana core would awaken, initiating an irreversible biological corruption.

If they failed to suppress their emotions immediately, their human form would dissolve, mutating them into an Abomination aligned with their class tier.

That was the tragedy unfolding before Hughway’s eyes.

The assassin’s true body had been cleaved in half, forcing his consciousness into his duplicate.

Stripped of his secondary life, cornered, and crippled, his mind had completely surrendered to the primal terror of death.

The fear was so absolute that it destroyed his sanity, triggering a rapid, irreversible Abyssal mutation.

SCREEEEEECH!!

The assassin’s chilling scream shattered the night, vibrating through the trees with deafening intensity as pitch-black, viscous Abyssal mana erupted from every pore of his skin.

CRACK! SNAP! THWACK!

The assassin’s severed legs did not bleed anymore; instead, thick, dark-purple tendrils shot out from the stumps, stitching bone and muscle back together in seconds.

His spine flexed violently, expanding at a sickening speed as his skeletal structure creaked and enlarged.

His skin ruptured, shedding bloody flakes as coarse, dark-grey fur sprouted across his transforming flesh.

His muscles swelled to monstrous proportions, his back hunching over as his jaw elongated into a vicious, predatory snout lined with rows of jagged, razor-sharp fangs.

In less than ten seconds, the human assassin had expanded to over twenty times his original size, transforming into a massive, nine-foot-tall 3rd-Tier Lycan Abomination!

A 1st-Tier Abomination was equivalent to a Sword or Mana Apprentice.

A 2nd-Tier Abomination matched a Sword Runner or Mana Master. But a 3rd-Tier Abomination was the horrifying equivalent of a Sword Sage or First-Layer Mage!

With its terrifying birth, the ambient mana of the central grove shifted violently, elevating the Jeju Forest into a B-Level Danger Zone in an instant.

The corruption completely wiped away the assassin’s Duplication talent, replacing it with the wild, primordial traits of an Abyssal beast.

Crimson, glowing eyes fixed upon Ser Hughway with pure, unadulterated bloodlust.

ROAAAAAAAR!!

The Lycan Abomination slammed its massive, clawed fist into the dirt, causing a shockwave that tore up trees, and lunged directly at Hughway like a grey meteor!

BOOM!

The creature’s massive claw slashed downward with enough force to level a building.

Ser Hughway’s eyes narrowed into cold steel.

Though a 3rd-Tier Abomination was a walking catastrophe, Hughway was an Initial-stage Sword Master—a powerful titan of martial combat.

BZTT!

His A-Grade Talent: Valgaryian Armor flared to life, manifesting a translucent, shimmering suit of silver-runic plate mail over his body.

CLANG!!

The Lycan’s razor-sharp claws collided directly with the ethereal armor, erupting in a blinding shower of silver sparks.

The force of the blow pushed Hughway back three feet, his boots carving deep trenches into the earth, but the barrier held completely intact.

“Foul beast!” Hughway bellowed, stepping into the creature’s guard.

Swinging his longsword in a swift, ascending diagonal arc, Hughway channeled his dense silver mana into the edge.

CSHHH!

The blade bit deep through grey fur, muscle, and thick bone.

With a spray of black, corrosive blood, the Lycan’s left arm was cleanly severed at the shoulder, crashing heavily to the ground!

AWOOOOOOOO!!

The loss of its limb drove the Abomination into absolute madness.

Bypassing pain entirely, the Lycan thrashed violently, using its remaining claw, tail, and snapping jaws to tear the central grove apart in a desperate frenzy to crush the nimble knight beneath its sheer weight.

Dealing with a mindless 3rd-Tier Abomination was far more volatile than fighting a Sword Sage; its movements were unpredictable, ferocious, and fueled by infinite stamina.

Realizing that physical strikes alone were being absorbed by the creature’s monstrous mass, the Lycan tapped into its newly awakened Abyssal trait to slow its opponent down.

BZTT-BOOM!

The Lycan’s crimson eyes flared with blinding light, and two thick, high-density Abyssal laser beams shot directly from its pupils, scorching the air as they traveled straight for Hughway’s chest!

SWISH! SPARK!

Having sensed the subtle mana shift through the “Breath of All Things,” Hughway was already in motion.

He dodged the first beam with a razor-thin sidestep, allowing the heat to melt the stone behind him, and brought his longsword up to deflect the second beam off the flat of his blade, redirecting the scorching energy into the sky.

Hughway knew he had to end this immediately.

Left unchecked, Abyssal radiation from a 3rd-Tier beast would pollute the surrounding forest and draw more abominations to the area.

It was time to bring down the full force of his martial legacy.

Taking a deep, resonant breath, Hughway centered his footing and raised his longsword high with both hands, channeling every ounce of his refined Sword Master mana into his absolute, sacred technique.

The True Sword Art: Sky Splitting Sword Art.

“Sky Splitting Sword, First Form” Ser Hughway tightened his grip on his sword, his mana flaring up.

“Moutain Cleaver!”

Hughway brought his blade down in a massive, vertical execution stroke!

BANG!!

A seventy-foot wave of dense, concentrated silver blade force erupted from his longsword, plowing through the dirt and slamming directly into the charging Lycan.

The sheer weight of the Mountain Cleaver did not just cut the beast—it pinned its massive frame to the earth, shattering its hind legs and locking it in place as the ground caved in beneath it!

The Lycan thrashed, roaring in fury as it tried to force its way out of the crushing pressure, but Hughway was already in the air.

Leaping twenty feet into the night sky above the pinned Abomination, Hughway reversed his grip on his glowing longsword.

Spatial vibrations ripples around the steel as he activated the lethal second variation of his art.

“Sky Splitting Sword, Second Form” Ser Hughway’s eyes flickered, not hiding his killing intents

“Indomitable Space Cleaver!”

SWOOSH!!

Hughway descended like a falling star, executing a horizontal, space-severing sweep across the creature’s neck.

A razor-thin line of silvery light flashed through the air, cutting through Abyssal mana, grey fur, and reinforced spinal bone with absolute, frictionless precision.

CSHHH!

The roaring stopped instantly.

The colossal, wolf-like head of the 3rd-Tier Lycan slid off its neck, crashing heavily into the crater before dissolving into black, foul-smelling ash under the purifying light of Hughway’s silver mana.

The massive body collapsed sideways, thrashing once before going completely still as the Abyssal corruption burned itself out.

Ser Hughway landed lightly on his boots, his breath coming in steady, measured exhales as his Valgaryian Armor slowly faded back into his chest.

He flicked the residual black blood off his longsword, sheathed the weapon with a sharp click, and looked toward the distant horizon where Heaven’s Net Castle stood illuminated against the night sky.

“Rest in dust, monster,” Hughway murmured quietly, before leaping into the treeline to follow his Lord.

Ser Hughway leaped through the scorched canopy of the Jeju Forest, his longsword sheathed at his hip.

In his gauntleted grip, he carried two gruesome trophies: the severed, scarred head of the assassin’s original body, and a blackened, crystalline remnant of the 3rd-Tier Lycan Abomination’s skull, purified of its volatile rot.

His movements were swift, calculated, and silent as he accelerated toward the distant perimeter of Heaven’s Net Castle.

As the old knight’s figure vanished into the night air, the suffocating stillness of the central grove settled once more.

Far above the clearing, perched silently upon the highest bough of an ancient, half-charred ironwood tree, a humanoid silhouette stood completely motionless.

The figure possessed no detectable mana flow, no physical weight, and no atmospheric displacement.

Its presence was so unnervingly erased that even an Initial-stage Sword Master like Ser Hughway—capable of perceiving the subtle Breath of All Things across hundreds of meters—had passed within fifty paces without sensing a single ripple in the surrounding space.

From beneath the deep fold of a obsidian-woven cowl, a pair of brilliant, razor-sharp crimson eyes flared in the gloom.

The eyes watched the distant trail where Ser Hughway had vanished, tracking the veteran knight’s trajectory with eerie, absolute precision.

Suddenly, the crimson eyes squinted.

The pupils contracted into two razor-thin, reptilian slits, radiating a terrifying, ancient weight that made the ambient shadows around the tree branch coil and wriggle like dying serpents.

The watcher’s gaze slowly shifted away from the fleeing knight, tilting downward toward the exact spot on the scorched earth where Craig von Darkstar had stood moments before—where the Seventh Successor had effortlessly suppressed a Ranker’s bloodstream and commanded a 4th-Tier Dragon in the high tongue of the ancients.

A low, raspy whisper, smooth as liquid silk yet cold enough to freeze the blood in a mortal’s veins, bled into the quiet night wind:

“A multi-talented anomaly… surviving an Abyssal core collision while forcing an Ascension…”

The silhouette leaned forward slightly, the crimson glow of its eyes reflecting the dying embers below.

“…The Darkstar lineage has bred something truly grotesque this time.”

“Perhaps…..I was right!”

“That child really is the perfect tool to initiate the Cataclysm..”